Individual and Group Decisions in Response to a Mock Trial: A Methodological Note1

An audiovisual slide-show presentation of a murder trial was used to examine the effects of group deliberations on juror's responses. Sex of defense attorney and race of defendant were systematically varied in the mock trial. Verdicts were assessed immediately following the trial presentation (before group deliberations) and immediately following group deliberations. Neither sex nor race significantly affected distributions of individual juror's predeliberation verdicts. Following group deliberations, however, an effect of attorney's sex emerged in both jury (group) verdicts and in individual, postdeliberation verdicts. Jurors in the male defense attorney conditions were more likely to vote not guilty following deliberations than were jurors in the female defense attorney conditions. This effect is discussed in terms of group shift.     

Tacit coordination in monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins and virtual twins: Effects and implications of genetic relatedness

Game theorists have long been interested in why some partners are more successful at achieving mutual goals than others. The present study was conducted to determine if tacit coordination (non-negotiated consensus) varies as a function of genetic relatedness between social partners. The sample included 7–13-year-old monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs (n = 53), dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs (n = 85) and virtual twin (VT) pairs (n = 42; same-age unrelated siblings). Co-twin agreement on questions completed under individual and coordination conditions was compared across the three groups. MZ twins showed significantly greater overall agreement than DZ twins and VTs, using multiple criteria. The implications of these findings are considered with reference to behavioral-genetic and evolutionary theories of behavior.     

Applying a Randomized Interdependent Group Contingency Component to Classwide Peer Tutoring for Multiplication Fact Fluency

Researchers have documented the positive effects of classwide peer tutoring on academic performance, engagement, and other social behaviors of students with and without disabilities. Commonly, in classwide peer tutoring, students are paired and the class is divided in half. Points are awarded for tutoring behavior and academic responding during the tutoring session. At the end of the session, the half of the class with the most points earns a reward. In the current study, a fifth-grade teacher implemented classwide peer tutoring for multiplication facts. Instead of the traditional reinforcement system, a randomized classwide interdependent group contingency was implemented. Applying a multiple-probe design across problem sets, students demonstrated increased multiplication fact fluency across three problem sets. Discussion focuses on applied implications for contingency management when implementing classwide peer tutoring programs.     

Licensure of Internationally Educated Nurses Seeking Professional Careers in the Province of Alberta in Canada

While the regulation of nursing practice through licensure ensures that nurses meet minimum standards for safe competent and ethical care, it also inhibits integration of immigrant internationally educated nurses (IENs) into the Canadian professional labour market. With projections of significant nurse workforce shortages by 2010, there is impetus to enhance the numbers of licensed professional nurses through multiple strategies. The licensure processes and accompanying tensions in the Canadian context are described. As professional nurse licensure in Canada is a provincial responsibility, the situation in the Province of Alberta is used as an example. Suggestions for policy development and research include needs for better data and for gender-based analysis to address barriers to IEN licensure. The ability to practice in one’s chosen profession can be a major factor in integration of immigrants into Canadian society and thus a powerful factor in attraction and retention of highly skilled immigrants.     

Jung, Evans-Wentz and various other gurus

How did Jung become deeply concerned with Asian religions and particularly with the Tibetan Buddhism of a Welshman from Trenton, New Jersey? Could that man be considered one of Jung's gurus? This essay begins six years after Jung, at twenty, was admitted to the medical school of Basel University and became a member of the Zofingiaverein, a student society. The next year he gave the first of a series of lectures on the interpretation of Christ as the model of the ‘god-man’, like the Apostle Paul, Confucius, Zoroaster and the Buddha, who was ‘drummed into the Hindu boy’. (Jung's Zofingia Lectures were discovered only after his death, in 1961, and were published in English in 1983). The present essay discusses Jung's early Buddhist interest as displayed in The Psychology of the Unconscious (finally, in a revision, entitled Symbols of Transformation), in Psychological Types and later in his foreword of the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching. Jung was influenced by the gurus Richard Wilhelm and his son Hellmut, the scholar J. W. Hauer (with whom he later broke off relations because of Hauer's Nazi politics), the indologist Heinrich Zimmer, and the Zen master D. T. Suzuki. Walter Yeeling Wentz was born in Trenton in 1878 and brought up in his family's theosophist faith. The Wentzes moved to San Diego in 1900, and Walter added his mother's Celtic surname, Evans, to the German Wentz. He was educated at Stanford University and travelled in Europe, studying Celtic folklore, and widely in the Near East, Tibet, India, and Oxford – studying religions everywhere and editing Tibetan books. He lived his last decades in San Diego and conducted a correspondence with Jung, while living in a cheap hotel, or in an ashram.     

Delusions and delusional reasoning

In 2 studies, delusional participants assigned higher probabilities to narratives of actual delusions than participants with no history of delusions; previously delusional participants did not differ significantly from delusional participants or participants with no history of delusions. In Study 2, the authors found that this reasoning bias was specific to delusions and did not generalize to "neutral" text. Familiarity with the content of the delusion narratives played a mediating role in the estimation of their probability, but delusional status also had a significant, independent effect. These findings are consistent with the Bayesian model of delusion formation proposed by D. R. Hemsley and P. A. Garety (1986), and with R. P. Bentall, P. Kinderman, and S. Kaney's (1994) concept of "emotional saliency." A productive area of future research might be to further determine the elements of "emotional saliency" and their impact on the individual steps of the Bayesian model.     

A possible function of the preference for hind nipples in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

Prairie vole pups (Microtus ochrogaster) in laboratory cages prefer hind nipples. In this research, the author observed 8 litters of prairie voles in a seminatural environment to confirm the preference for hind nipples and to determine if young on hind nipples were groomed more frequently or dislodged less frequently than were young on other nipples. Prairie vole pups in seminatural environments preferred hind nipples; this preference was illustrated by the progressive use of more anterior nipples only as litter size increased and by the reluctance of pups to voluntarily release their hold on hind nipples. Maternal grooming of young did not vary with suckling location. Prairie vole young on hind nipples, however, were dislodged less frequently than were young on other nipples. Less frequent dislodgment from hind nipples during maternal movements may play a role in the preference for hind nipples in prairie voles.     

Can the criminal law ever be therapeutic?

This paper addresses the question of whether criminal law, especially in its sentencing and penological aspects, can be adjusted in its workings to incorporate the perspective of therapeutic jurisprudence. A conceptual framework developed by Wexler, Winick, and their colleagues is employed to provide a basis for reflection on the operation and impact of sentencing processes. Of considerable importance in this exercise is a mounting volume of evidence concerning the outcomes of work with adjudicated offenders, which illustrates the potential of psycho-educational, behavioral-cognitive skills-training, and therapeutic programs for reduction of recidivism. Such intervention programs are currently offered within the limits set by, but are not intrinsic components of, judicial decisions. The psycho-legal implications of these findings are discussed and some possibilities surveyed for tentative exploration of actively therapeutic departures within crimino-legal decision-making.     

Developmental Trends in False Memory Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Comparison of DRM and Memory Conformity Paradigms

Little is known about the reliability of eyewitness memory among adolescents as most memory research has focused primarily on adults and young children. A number of studies recently have emerged outlining conditions where memory suggestibility increases from early childhood to adulthood. These developmental reversals are found in semantic association tasks such as the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm and have not yet been thoroughly investigated among adolescents. In the current study, we examined DRM performance among 11–21 year olds (N = 245). Extending the work comparing children and adults, false memory on the DRM task increased with age. False memory on the DRM task was not associated with false memory on a memory conformity task. The different memory processes involved with the tasks and the implications for legal psychology are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.