Race and jury selection: psychological perspectives on the peremptory challenge debate

The legal system is a domain of potential relevance for psychologists, whether in the capacity of expert witness or citizen juror. In this article, the authors apply a psychological framework to legal debate surrounding the impact of race on the process of jury selection. More specifically, the authors consider race and the peremptory challenge, the procedure by which attorneys may remove prospective jurors without explanation. This debate is addressed from a psychological perspective by (a) examining traditional justifications for the practice of the peremptory challenge, (b) reviewing research regarding the influence of race on social judgment, (c) considering empirical investigations that examine directly race and peremptory challenge use, and (d) assessing current jury selection procedures intended to curtail racial discrimination. These analyses converge to suggest that the discretionary nature of the peremptory challenge renders it precisely the type of judgment most likely to be biased by race. The need for additional psychological investigation of race and jury selection is emphasized, and specific avenues for such research are identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

The relationship between human resource investments and organizational performance: a firm-level examination of equilibrium theory

It is commonly believed that human resource investments can yield positive performance-related outcomes for organizations. Utilizing the theory of organizational equilibrium (H. A. Simon, D. W. Smithburg, & V. A. Thompson, 1950; J. G. March & H. A. Simon, 1958), the authors proposed that organizational inducements in the form of competitive pay will lead to 2 firm-level performance outcomes--labor productivity and customer satisfaction--and that financially successful organizations would be more likely to provide these inducements to their employees. To test their hypotheses, the authors gathered employee-survey and objective performance data from a sample of 126 large publicly traded U.S. organizations over a period of 3 years. Results indicated that (a) firm-level financial performance (net income) predicted employees' shared perceptions of competitive pay, (b) shared pay perceptions predicted future labor productivity, and (c) the relationship between shared pay perceptions and customer satisfaction was fully mediated by employee morale.     

How actions create--not just reveal--preferences

The neo-classical economics view that behavior is driven by - and reflective of - hedonic utility is challenged by psychologists' demonstrations of cases in which actions do not merely reveal preferences but rather create them. In this view, preferences are frequently constructed in the moment and are susceptible to fleeting situational factors; problematically, individuals are insensitive to the impact of such factors on their behavior, misattributing utility caused by these irrelevant factors to stable underlying preferences. Consequently, subsequent behavior might reflect not hedonic utility but rather this erroneously imputed utility that lingers in memory. Here we review the roles of these streams of utility in shaping preferences, and discuss how neuroimaging offers unique possibilities for disentangling their independent contributions to behavior.     

Transdiagnostic assessment of anxiety symptoms using the Anxiety Disorder Diagnostic Questionnaire – weekly version

Background: Norton and Robinson [2010. Development and evaluation of the anxiety disorder diagnostic questionnaire. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 39(2), 137–149. doi:10.1080/16506070903140430] developed the Anxiety Disorder Diagnostic Questionnaire (ADDQ) as a transdiagnostic assessment of fear and anxiety to address problems in using diagnosis-specific measures as well as limitations with the extant transdiagnostic measures of anxiety. The present study validated a weekly version of the ADDQ, the Anxiety Disorder Diagnostic Questionnaire – Weekly (ADDQ-W) allowing session-by-session transdiagnostic assessment of anxiety.

Method: Data were a secondary analysis of 49 treatment-seeking outpatient adults from a previous clinical trial. The ADDQ-W was administered weekly over the course of 12-group therapy sessions.

Results: The ADDQ-W was a valid weekly measure and neither scores, F(2, 37)?=?2.70, p?=?.08, nor trajectories of change, F(2, 37)?=?0.31, p?=?.73, differed by primary diagnosis, though power was limited. Rate of ADDQ-W change was predictive of change in both primary diagnosis severity, t?=?2.40, p?=?.02, β?=?0.32, and overall severity, t?=?3.01, p?<?.01, β?=?0.36, at post-treatment.

Conclusions: This study has established initial support for the use of the brief, easily scored, ADDQ-W for repeated assessment over treatment using a diagnostically heterogeneous clinical sample of treatment-seeking individuals.     

The artful dodger: answering the wrong question the right way

What happens when speakers try to "dodge" a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question? In 4 studies, we show that listeners can fail to detect dodges when speakers answer similar-but objectively incorrect-questions (the "artful dodge"), a detection failure that goes hand-in-hand with a failure to rate dodgers more negatively. We propose that dodges go undetected because listeners' attention is not usually directed toward a goal of dodge detection (i.e., Is this person answering the question?) but rather toward a goal of social evaluation (i.e., Do I like this person?). Listeners were not blind to all dodge attempts, however. Dodge detection increased when listeners' attention was diverted from social goals toward determining the relevance of the speaker's answers (Study 1), when speakers answered a question egregiously dissimilar to the one asked (Study 2), and when listeners' attention was directed to the question asked by keeping it visible during speakers' answers (Study 4). We also examined the interpersonal consequences of dodge attempts: When listeners were guided to detect dodges, they rated speakers more negatively (Study 2), and listeners rated speakers who answered a similar question in a fluent manner more positively than speakers who answered the actual question but disfluently (Study 3). These results add to the literatures on both Gricean conversational norms and goal-directed attention. We discuss the practical implications of our findings in the contexts of interpersonal communication and public debates.     

Perceptual training strongly improves visual motion perception in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia patients exhibit perceptual and cognitive deficits, including in visual motion processing. Given that cognitive systems depend upon perceptual inputs, improving patients’ perceptual abilities may be an effective means of cognitive intervention. In healthy people, motion perception can be enhanced through perceptual learning, but it is unknown whether this perceptual plasticity remains in schizophrenia patients. The present study examined the degree to which patients’ performance on visual motion discrimination can be improved, using a perceptual learning procedure. While both schizophrenia patients and healthy controls showed decreased direction discrimination thresholds (improved performance) with training, the magnitude of the improvement was greater in patients (47% improvement) than in controls (21% improvement). Both groups also improved moderately but non-significantly on an untrained task—speed discrimination. The large perceptual training effect in patients on the trained task suggests that perceptual plasticity is robust in schizophrenia and can be applied to develop bottom-up behavioral interventions.     

When is the gift given? Organ donation,social representations,and an opportunity to register

The gift of life doctrine underpins Australia's approach to organ donation: in legislation, clinical practice, community awareness campaigns, and educational activities. In this paper, we present an approach that situates an understanding of organ donation within a social representation framework as a system of values, ideas, and practices. In cadaveric donation, the final giving‐of‐the‐gift can never be by the donor, leading us to ask where the potential donor's decision to give the gift really lies. We present research from three studies that explored the relationship between what was socially understood about organ donation and the registration of donation intent. Drawing from three socially and culturally diverse populations, we asked people working in a corporate city institution and those attending two football matches in the outer city area to complete a word‐association task and Likert‐scale belief questions about organ donation—followed by an opportunity to register immediately on the Australian Organ Donor Register. Driven by the interdependent themata of life/death and self/other, the gift of life doctrine is inextricably linked with the loss of life emerging as both positive and negative beliefs allowing their relationship to actual registration behaviour to be observed. Our findings suggest that in many instances, the potential donor's genuine desire to give the gift lies in the tension between positive and negative beliefs, manifesting as a consent registration when the positive beliefs about donation prevail and an immediate opportunity to register is available.     

Brand (in)fidelity: When Flirting with the Competition Strengthens Brand Relationships

We document the existence and consequences of brand flirting: a short‐lived experience in which a consumer engages with and/or indulges in the alluring qualities of a brand without committing to it. We propose that brand flirting is exciting, and that when consumers flirt with a brand other than their typically preferred brand in the same product category, they can transfer this excitement to their preferred brand—resulting in even greater love and desire for it. Consistent with this conceptual account, we demonstrate that this brand flirting effect is mediated by excitement. Moreover, the brand flirting effect is most likely to emerge under conditions that facilitate arousal transfer: when consumers are highly committed to their preferred brand, and when the brand with which consumers flirt is similar to their preferred brand.     

Evidence of improved fluid management in patients receiving haemodialysis following a self-affirmation theory-based intervention: A randomised controlled trial

Objective: Haemodialysis patients are at risk of serious health complications; yet, treatment non-adherence remains high. Warnings about health risks associated with non-adherence may trigger defensive reactions. We studied whether an intervention based on self-affirmation theory reduced resistance to health-risk information and improved fluid treatment adherence.

Design: In a cluster randomised controlled trial, 91 patients either self-affirmed or completed a matched control task before reading about the health-risks associated with inadequate fluid control.

Outcome measures: Patients’ perceptions of the health-risk information, intention and self-efficacy to control fluid were assessed immediately after presentation of health-risk information. Interdialytic weight gain (IDWG), excess fluid removed during haemodialysis, is a clinical measure of fluid treatment adherence. IDWG data were collected up to 12 months post-intervention.

Results: Self-affirmed patients had significantly reduced IDWG levels over 12 months. However, contrary to predictions derived from self-affirmation theory, self-affirmed participants and controls did not differ in their evaluation of the health-risk information, intention to control fluid or self-efficacy.

Conclusion: A low-cost, high-reach health intervention based on self-affirmation theory was shown to reduce IDWG over a 12-month period, but the mechanism by which this apparent behaviour change occurred is uncertain. Further work is still required to identify mediators of the observed effects.