Explaining Jury Verdicts: Is Leniency Bias for Real?

Laboratory research suggests juries that begin deliberation with a strong majority (i.e., 2/3 or more) usually end up choosing the verdict favored by this majority, whereas those without a strong majority generally acquit or hang. We tested the robustness of these findings in the field by examining trial and deliberation correlates of jury verdicts using data from 79 criminal jury trials held in Indiana. As expected, several trial characteristics and the first-vote preference distribution were related to jury verdicts. However, there was no evidence of leniency bias—75% of those juries without a 2/3 majority on the first deliberation vote ended up convicting. Contributions of the study, limitations, and alternative explanations for the observed severity bias are discussed.     

Competing schools or stylistic variation in careers guidance interviewing

We know very little about how careers officers conduct careers guidance interviews. Research was carried out to discover how careers officers view interviewing, the factors that lead them to vary their interview style, and how they modify their approach with experience. There was little evidence that officers vary their style by using radically opposed models in different circumstances. Instead, variations in approach are best regarded as different combinations of ideas and techniques. Careers officers adapted their interview styles largely in response to the perceived needs of clients. Initial training course attended appeared to have a limited but enduring effect on interview style, but there was also evidence that with experience careers officers develop more confidence, coherence and flexibility. Careers officers judged their interviews to be most effective when they were able to establish a rapport with the client, to spend time drawing up a contract, to challenge clients in a sensitive way, and to structure the interview appropriately.     

The effects of explicit timing and feedback on compositional response rate in elementary school children

The effects of several variables on compositional response rate were investigated in three classrooms. After establishing baseline composition rates in each of the three classrooms, an experimental phase was introduced that consisted of: explicit timing of the children's composition period with a stopwatch, immediate feedback on the number of words each child produced, public posting of the greatest number of words written by each child to date, and instructions to try to exceed their highest score. In the second-grade classroom, these conditions were introduced, removed, and re-introduced. In two fifth-grade classrooms, these conditions were introduced according to a multiple baseline, across classes. In all cases, introduction of the experimental conditions led to a doubling of rate of words written by students and an increase in subjective quality ratings of compositions made by independent judges.     

The Power of Persuasion: Lessons in Personal Selling from the White House

Those Presidents who historians agree have been most successful have been able to sell themselves and their programs to many different constituencies. They have recognized that effective leadership requires many of the same skills as effective personal selling. The experiences of those who have worked in the Oval Office underscore some of the simple but often forgotten lessons of personal selling, and this article catalogs some of the most important of these.     

A model for outpatient care

Chaplains have seriously discussed outpatient care for a number of years. This article describes a model of thorough and intentional outpatient care that is practiced in conjunction with an inpatient care to cancer populations. Rationales, values, institutional dynamics, and clinical care are discussed. Although the focus is on outpatient care where slightly more than 50% of personnel resources are invested, the care also occurs in the context of both inpatient care and follow-up care after discharge to home. A general model of spiritual and religious care and more specific models pertinent to hematopoietic stem cell transplant populations and general oncology populations are described. The models attend times of distress and times of "ordinary" and celebratory experiences, attend care of patient, caregiver, and staff.     

Is guidance an applied science?: The role of theory in the careers guidance interview

Some of the findings of a study investigating careers officers' use of theoretical models in the careers guidance interview are discussed. Data were collected through visits to institutions offering Diploma in Careers Guidance courses, a large-scale questionnaire survey of careers officers, and semi-structured interviews and group discussions. There was evidence that in initial training, theory is used to support, rather than determine, the development of skills. Results also suggested that practising careers officers are familiar with a fairly wide range of theories, although in their interviewing they tend to apply broad principles of theory, rather than specific elements. Careers officers who trained some time ago were less familiar with theories than were those who trained more recently, and there was no support for the hypothesis that long service leads to a greater recognition of the relevance of theories generally. Familiarity with guidance and counselling theories appears to be more influential than knowledge of career theories on the way careers officers think about interviewing. Overall, the findings cast doubt on the view that careers guidance is an applied science.     

Problems of maltreated runaway youth

Research has shown that physical and sexual maltreatment precipitate runaway behavior in adolescents. However, there have been few large-scale examinations of the family, school, and personal problems of maltreated adolescents. In the present paper, an 85-item Client Information Record was completed on 2,019 runaways by shelter staff from eight southeastern states. There were significant differences in the problems reported by physically abused and sexually abused runaways when compared to their nonabused runaway peers. Runaways who were both physically and sexually maltreated were significantly more vulnerable and much worse off than those who only experienced either physical or sexual abuse. Implications for the treatment of maltreated runaways are discussed.     

Ethnic identity and acculturation in Hispanic early adolescents: mediated relationships to academic grades, prosocial behaviors, and externalizing symptoms

This study examined acculturative stress and self-esteem as mediators of the association of ethnic identity and acculturation with psychosocial outcomes. The study sample consisted of 347 Hispanic adolescents in a "new" immigrant-receiving community in the Midwest. The authors expected acculturation to influence psychosocial adjustment through acculturative stress and ethnic identity to influence psychosocial adjustment through self-esteem. Results indicated that relationships of ethnic identity to academic grades and to externalizing symptoms were mediated by self-esteem and that both U.S. and Hispanic acculturation orientations were directly associated with prosocial behavior. The relationships of U.S. cultural orientation to academic grades and to behavior problems were mediated through acculturative stress and self-esteem. Implications of these findings for the study of Hispanics in more monocultural receiving communities are discussed.     

Knowledge,Cognitive Achievement,and Environmental Luck

This article defends the view that knowledge is type‐identical to cognitive achievement. I argue, pace Duncan Pritchard, that not only knowledge, but also cognitive achievement is incompatible with environmental luck. I show that the performance of cognitive abilities in environmental luck cases does not distinguish them from non‐abilities per se. For this reason, although the cognitive abilities of the subject are exercised in environmental luck cases, they are not manifested in any relevant sense. I conclude by showing that this explanation is not ad hoc as it can be generalized to apply to causal features besides cognitive abilities.