Unnoticed,Untapped, and Underappreciated: Clients' Perceptions of their Public Defenders

The challenge of providing high-quality public defense services continues to be a concern at federal, state, and local levels. Some scholars have alluded to a potential solution in client-centered representation, but research in this area is sparse at best. Such a lack of understanding leaves in its place speculation, particularly as to the potential importance of client perceptions in shaping broader system legitimacy. To fill this gap and create an empirical platform for future research, an exploratory pilot study was launched with the Hamilton County, Ohio Public Defender's Office, which used mixed methodologies to assess client attitudes toward public defenders as a potential resource for aiding the improvement of indigent representation. Findings from this pilot study suggest that there are five factors a public defense attorney should address that may prove to be very important in obtaining client satisfaction and cooperation: engaging the client for input, listening to the client, examining the prosecutor's evidence, focusing on the client's case during meetings, and informing the client of potential consequences. Implications for practice and future research are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: An Empirical Study of a Participatory Action Research Project

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs; also known as a “rape kits”) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying perpetrators, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan after that city discovered approximately 11,000 untested sexual assault kits in a police department storage facility. We conducted a root cause analysis to examine individual, organizational, community, and societal factors that contributed to the development of the rape kit backlog in Detroit. Based on those findings, we implemented and evaluated structural changes to increase staffing, promote kit testing, and retrain police and prosecutors so that cases could be reopened for investigation and prosecution. As we conducted this work, we also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system. Participating in this project changed stakeholders’ attitudes about the utility of research to address community problems, the usefulness of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and the impact of trauma on survivors. The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and police investigations, and new state legislation mandating SAK forensic DNA testing.     

The Greta Thunberg Effect: Familiarity with Greta Thunberg predicts intentions to engage in climate activism in the United States

Despite Greta Thunberg's popularity, research has yet to investigate her impact on the public's willingness to take collective action on climate change. Using cross-sectional data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (N = 1,303), we investigate the “Greta Thunberg Effect,” or whether exposure to Greta Thunberg predicts collective efficacy and intentions to engage in collective action. We find that those who are more familiar with Greta Thunberg have higher intentions of taking collective actions to reduce global warming and that stronger collective efficacy beliefs mediate this relationship. This association between familiarity with Greta Thunberg, collective efficacy beliefs, and collective action intentions is present even after accounting for respondents’ overall support for climate activism. Moderated mediation models testing age and political ideology as moderators of the “Greta Thunberg Effect” indicate that although the indirect effect of familiarity with Greta Thunberg via collective efficacy is present across all age-groups, and across the political spectrum, it may be stronger among those who identify as more liberal (than conservative). Our findings suggest that young public figures like Greta Thunberg may motivate collective action across the U.S. public, but their effect may be stronger among those with a shared political ideology. Implications for future research and for broadening climate activists’ appeals across the political spectrum are discussed.     

Predictors to Happiness in Primary Students: Positive Relationships or Academic Achievement

This study aimed to examine the role of positive relationships and academic achievement in predicting student well-being, i.e. subjective happiness. This study employed a longitudinal design with two waves of data collection on a sample of 786 primary school students in Hong Kong. Students completed questionnaires on parent-child relationship, teacher-student relationship, peer relationship, academic achievement, and happiness at the beginning and end of the school year. Path analysis was used for data analysis. The results indicated that Time 1 parent-child relationship and peer relationship were associated with Time 2 academic achievement, after controlling for Time 1 academic achievement. However, only Time 1 parent-child relationship was predictive of Time 2 happiness. Time 2 academic achievement was a mediator between Time 1 parent-child relationship and peer relationship and Time 2 happiness. Furthermore, girls reported higher levels of academic achievement when they perceived better peer relationship than did boys, and girls were happier when they had higher levels of academic achievement than were boys. The results suggested the need to put in place strategies to enhance parent-child relationship, peer relationship, and a harmonious classroom.

     

The typology of parricide and the role of mental illness: Data-driven approach

Parricide is a rare type of homicide in which mental illness is often an important factor. The aims of this study were (a) to describe the characteristics of parricide offenders with a focus on mental illness and clinical care and (b) to examine Heide's widely used typology of parricide through a data-driven approach. We analyzed all homicides in England and Wales between 1997 and 2014. Parricide offenders in our sample were most often male, unmarried, and unemployed, with a third of offenders diagnosed with schizophrenia; 28% had been in contact with mental health services before the offense. The latent class analysis resulted in three types of parricide offenders: middle-aged with affective disorder, previously abused, and seriously mentally Ill, which confirmed, to an extent, Heide's typology. Health and social care services should actively engage with carers of people with mental illness and support to those caring for older relatives and victims of abuse.     

The Importance of Construct Validity in Consumer Research

Vosgerau, Scopelliti, and Huh (2020) question the construct validity of the most commonly used measures of self‐control and argue that many studies that claim to be examining self‐control may in fact be examining something else. In this comment, we generalize this argument and propose that this criticism could be leveraged against many other areas of consumer research. Indeed, many studies fail to properly establish the construct validity of their measures. Consequently, they may not be examining the construct they purport to be studying, which can lead to unreliable and conflicting findings.     

Accommodating an Uninvited Guest: Perspectives of Researchers in Switzerland on ‘Honorary’ Authorship

Science and Engineering Ethics - The aim of this paper is to analyze the attitudes and reactions of researchers towards an authorship claim made by a researcher in a position of authority who has...     

The perception of preschool social dominance

Children's and teachers' perception of social dominance was examined using a behavioral criterion for determining accuracy of verbal judgments. Video records of agonistic interactions were obtained during approximately 60 hours of free-play at two preschool centers. Analyses of social conflict episodes ending in submission revealed linear dominance structures for both groups. Dominance perception was assessed in two ways. Both teachers and children were asked to rank-order a subgroup of children according to dominance. They were also asked to select the more dominant children in a number of predetermined pairs. Results indicated that teachers could accurately judge dyadic dominance relations, and that accuracy among children varied as a function of their status within the group hierarchy. Findings have implications for social dominance assessment methodology, and for the issue of consensual versus ecological validity in developmental studies of social perception.     

Thought-shape fusion in anorexia nervosa: an experimental investigation

Cognitive biases and cognitive distortions have been implicated as important factors in the development and maintenance of many disorders. The concept of thought-shape fusion (TSF) in eating disorders was developed by Shafran, Teachman, Kerry, and Rachman (British Journal of Clinical Psychology 38 (1999) 167) as a variant of thought-action fusion, described by Shafran, Thordarson and Rachman (Journal of Anxiety Disorders 10 (1996) 379). TSF occurs when thinking about eating certain types of food increases a person's estimate of their shape and/or weight, elicits a perception of moral wrongdoing, and/or makes the person feel fat. Shafran et al. (1999) examined both the psychometric and experimental properties of TSF in an undergraduate sample. This paper reports an extension of this work to a clinical group (N=20) of patients with anorexia nervosa. After completing a set of relevant questionnaires, participants were asked to think about a food which they considered extremely fattening. They were then asked to write out the sentence, "I am eating--.", inserting the name of the fattening food in the blank. After being asked to rate their anxiety, guilt, feelings about their weight, morality, etc., participants were given the opportunity to neutralize their statement in any way they chose. The majority of the participants neutralized in ways consistent with the findings of Shafran et al. (1999). The results are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural formulations of eating disorders, and of the influence of cognitive biases and cognitive distortions on the processing of information relevant to food, weight and shape in anorexia nervosa.