Remaining in a situationally aggressive relationship: The role of relationship self‐efficacy

Relationship self‐efficacy (RSE) is the belief that one can resolve relationship conflicts, and it may lead victims of situational violence to remain in their relationships because they expect to minimize subsequent violence. Indeed, a longitudinal study of two samples of college students demonstrated that RSE moderates the effects of victimization on relationship dissolution; intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization was positively associated with dissolution among intimates low in RSE but was unassociated with dissolution among intimates high in RSE. Interestingly, although RSE was negatively associated with dissolution among victims, it was associated with experiencing less subsequent IPV in one sample. Ultimately, whether victims' RSE is adaptive may depend on the extent to which any minimization of conflicts eliminates violence.     

What Would Jesus Buy: American Consumption of Religious and Spiritual Material Goods

This article examines an important and understudied part of the sociological study of religion: consumption of religious materials. We use data from the Baylor Religion Survey and present an initial look at which Americans read the Left Behind series, viewed The Passion of the Christ , or purchased religious paraphernalia such as "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets. Drawing on cultural consumption and religious capital research we explore class, demographic, and religious influences on consumption patterns. We find some support for each of these perspectives, which suggests that religious consumption is not a subset of cultural consumption nor of religious practice but is some combination of both.     

Enhancing Juror Competence in a Complex Trial

This study examined the effects of providing substantive, case-related, judicial instructions before presentation of evidence and permitting jurors to take notes, on verdicts and cognitive performance in a complex civil trial. Jurors made compensatory awards when the evidence either strongly or modestly favored the plaintiffs. One hundred and twenty jury-eligible participants saw a videotape of a cognitively dense trial involving multiple plaintiffs. Notetakers, while showing superior cognitive performance over non-notetakers, were more effective decision makers when pre-instructed and facing less ambiguous evidence. Results indicated that notetaking when jurors are pre-instructed enhanced recall of probative evidence and resulted in fewer non-probabitive intrusions, which facilitated decision making on legally appropriate grounds. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.