Turning a blind eye to double blind line‐ups

Although psychologists have urged police officers to use double blind line‐up procedures during their investigations, police officers state that these would be difficult to administer and most have been reluctant to implement this change. Four studies examine whether lay people's judgements about the guilt of a suspect vary according to whether a brief written summary of a case described the identification procedure as double blind or non‐double blind. The effects were all small (and almost all non‐significant). Most people do not treat double blind line‐ups differently from non‐double blind line‐ups when assessing the guilt of a defendant. Either police investigators should stop using this biased method or police investigators and others in the judicial system (e.g. jurors, judges) should be informed of this bias when evaluating results from any line‐up. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Informal Proofs and Mathematical Rigour

The aim of this paper is to provide epistemic reasons for investigating the notions of informal rigour and informal provability. I argue that the standard view of mathematical proof and rigour yields an implausible account of mathematical knowledge, and falls short of explaining the success of mathematical practice. I conclude that careful consideration of mathematical practice urges us to pursue a theory of informal provability.     

Sleeping problems and health behaviors as mediators between organizational justice and health.

The aim of this longitudinal cohort study was to investigate whether sleeping problems and health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, and sedentary lifestyle) mediate the association between organizational justice and employee health. Health indicators were minor psychiatric morbidity, as assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (U. Werneke, D. P. Goldberg, I. Yalcin, & B. T. Ustun, 2000), and poor self-rated health status. The results of logistic regression analysis of data for 416 male and 3,357 female hospital employees working during the 1998-2000 period in 10 Finnish hospitals suggest that sleeping problems are one of the underlying factors causing the adverse health effects of low organizational justice at work. No support for a mediating role of health behaviors between low organizational justice and health problems was obtained.     

Belief’s minimal rationality

Philosophical Studies - Many of our beliefs behave irrationally: this is hardly news to anyone. Although beliefs’ irrational tendencies need to be taken into account, this paper argues that...