Further evidence of a robust point-of-view bias in videotaped confessions

Four experiments were conducted to test possible limits on the previously demonstrated point-of-view bias in videotaped confessions. Study 1 showed that deliberation did not eliminate the bias. Study 2 showed that forewarning did not eliminate the bias. Study 3 showed that directing greater attention to the content of the confession did not eliminate the bias. Study 4 showed that using a lengthier, case-based confession also did not eliminate the bias. Taken together, this research clearly indicates that the legal system needs to be concerned with the potential for bias that exists in videotaped confessions. This research was supported by funds from the Ohio Board of Regents and the National Science Foundation (BNS-8911067 and SBR-9514966). We thank Kevin Apple, Kim Dudley, Kelly Kinnison, Melanie LaForce, Matthew Leafgren, Richelle Newvahner, Laurie Olsen, John Ray, Alicia Santuzzi, Jason Secondi, and Katie Strieker for their contributions to various aspects of the research. With the exception of Lassiter, order of authorship is alphabetical.     

Oral Examination Anxiety in Physicians, Narcissism, and Object Relations

By applying object relations theory, both examiners and candidates can increase understanding of examination anxiety in oral certification in order to enhance the fairness and validity of the examinations. Unconscious images of self and others which examiners and candidates may project onto each other can affect the examination. The examiner must observe himself, the candidate, and the other examiner, lest a transference affecting the examination's progress occur, and to avoid an enactment, which may interfere with the examination. This observing should appropriately support the candidate in functioning at an optimal level of competence. Unconscious processes may prejudice the examiner's attitude towards a candidate, thus jeopardizing the examination's fairness and validity. The candidate's anxiety, based on projections onto the examiners, may interfere with his/her optimal functioning and affect the outcome. If a candidate's anticipatory anxiety is excessive, he/she needs to decide if it needs to be managed on a symptomatic or psychotherapeutic basis. Candidate and examiner both need to monitor their feelings during the examination in order to optimise the examination's fairness and validity. All these issues may also be considered in the relationship between psychiatric educators and trainees.     

Learning as a function of coordination bias: building upon pre-practice behaviours

Instructions and demonstrations were manipulated to make pre-practice behaviours explicit and inform participants how to build-upon these to perform a novel bi-manual movement. In Experiment 1, participants who could perform only in- and anti-phase movements were studied, whereas in Experiment 2, individuals who could perform additional movements were tested. Zanone and Kelso (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 23 (1997) 1454) predicted differential learning progressions as a result of initial ability. Instruction promoting gradual adaptation of an existing skill would be more likely to benefit participants in Experiment 2. Irrespective of initial ability, participants did not benefit from instruction. Instructions that built-upon the in-phase pattern were particularly detrimental to acquisition, as compared to withholding instruction and providing only feedback. Instructional effects were related to decreased within-trial variability early in practice due to avoidance of certain movements and a complement bias to another undesirable one. It was suggested that trying to implement instructions, especially for the participants in Experiment 2, caused individuals to exert control over processes better controlled by lower, less cognitive levels of the motor system.     

The multidimensional structure of perfectionism in clinically distressed and college student samples

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate 2 multidimensional measures of perfectionism (R. O. Frost, P. Marten, C. Lahart, & R. Rosenblate, 1990; P. L. Hewitt & G. L. Flett, 1991). On a first-order level, support was found for Hewitt and Flett's (1991) original 3-factor conceptualization of perfectionism, although only for an empirically derived 15-item subset. Support was also obtained for 5 of the 6 dimensions proposed by R. O. Frost et al. (1990), but the model only displayed good fit when a refined scale containing 22 of the original 35 items was used. A second-order analysis found evidence for 2 higher-order factors of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. Perfectionism dimensions correlated in expected directions with personality domains, symptom distress, and academic achievement. The brief measures of perfectionism also retained the construct-related validity displayed by the full-item versions.     

Predicting intergroup bias: the interactive effects of implicit theory and social identity

This research sought to integrate the implicit theory approach and the social identity approach to understanding biases in intergroup judgment. The authors hypothesized that a belief in fixed human character would be associated with negative bias and prejudice against a maligned group regardless of the perceiver's social identity. By contrast, a belief in malleable human character would allow the perceiver's social identity to guide intergroup perception, such that a common ingroup identity that includes the maligned group would be associated with less negative bias and prejudice against the maligned group than would an exclusive identity. To test these hypotheses, a correlational study was conducted in the context of the Hong Kong 1997 political transition to examine Hong Kong Chinese's perceptions of Chinese Mainlanders, and an experimental study was conducted in the United States to examine Asian Americans' perception of African Americans. Results from both studies supported the authors' predictions.     

Recollection deficits in dysphoric mood: an effect of schematic models and executive mode?

Depression and dysphoric mood states are often accompanied by quantitative or qualitative shifts in performance across a range of retention tasks. This study focuses on the recollection of both autobiographical events and word lists in dysphoric states. Recollection occurs when people are aware of some contextual detail allied to the encoding experience. This study establishes the presence of a recollection deficit in dysphoria in two distinct paradigms. In both autobiographical recall and in recognition memory, recollection in a dysphoric group was at lower levels than recollection in matched controls. The study examines the hypothesis that the extent of recollection is influenced by two factors: (1) the degree of differentiation of schematic mental models; and (2) the executive mode that predominates when memory tasks are carried out, with the latter assumed to be altered by rumination. The relationship between responses based on recollection and alternative mnemonic responses could be predicted by measures of these two factors. The results are discussed in terms of the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems model (Teasdale & Barnard, 1993) and the perspective it offers on the relationship between meaning systems and executive functions (Barnard, 1999).     

Inhibiting prepared and ongoing responses: Is there more than one kind of stopping?

Inhibiting movements has been investigated widely using the countermanding (stop signal) paradigm. Although it has been assumed that response inhibition, as measured by the countermanding task, generalizes to all forms of stopping, this has never been tested. In the present study, stopping performance in the countermanding paradigm was compared with stopping performance in a new paradigm in which a continuous-tracking task was used. Although stimulus presentations were matched across paradigms, the two tasks differed in the type of stopping required. In the countermanding paradigm, response inhibition latency was measured prior to response execution-this is, it was inferred from the successful withholding of a go response. In the new paradigm, response inhibition was carried out after response execution-that is, it was measured as the time to begin stopping a continuous tracking response. Results indicated that stopping latencies between the two paradigms were highly correlated, providing strong evidence that stopping an unexecuted response engages the same mechanisms as stopping an ongoing response.     

Life insurance, living benefits, and physician-assisted death

One of the most significant concerns about the legalization of physician-assisted death in the United States relates to the possibility that a chronically or terminally ill person would choose to end her or his life for financial reasons. Because we believe that the life insurance industry is uniquely poised to help minimize any such incentive, we submit that it has a moral obligation to do so. In particular, we propose that the industry encourage greater flexibility in the payout of policy benefits in the event an insured should be diagnosed with a terminal illness or suffer from intractable pain.     

Psychological dimensions associated with suicidal ideation and attempts in the National Comorbidity Survey

Three important psychological dimensions in the suicide literature (neuroticism, self-criticism, and hopelessness) were examined in relation to suicidal ideation and attempts in the U.S. National Comorbidity Survey (Kessler et al., 1994; n = 5,877), after first controlling for the effects of previously identified sociodemographic and psychiatric variables related to suicidality in this nationally representative sample (Kessler, Borges, & Walters, 1999). Analyses were conducted separately for lifetime, current (12-month), and past history of suicidal ideation and attempts. Brief indices of self-criticism and hopelessness were robustly associated with suicide attempts across all three time frames. The results support the value of examining psychological individual differences over sociodemographic and psychiatric diagnoses alone in the comprehensive assessment of factors associated with suicidality in the general population.     

Predicting anxious response to a social challenge: the predictive utility of the social interaction anxiety scale and the social phobia scale in a college population

Trait anxiety is believed to be a hierarchical construct composed of several lower-order factors (Adv. Behav. Res. Therapy, 15 (1993) 147; J. Anxiety Disorders, 9 (1995) 163). Assessment devices such as the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, the Social Phobia Scale (SIAS and SPS; Behav. Res. Therapy, 36 (4) (1998) 455), and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI; Behav. Res. Therapy, 24 (1986) 1) are good measures of the presumably separate lower-order factors. This study compared the effectiveness of the SIAS, SPS, ASI-physical scale and STAI-T (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press (1970)) as predictors of anxious response to a social challenge (asking an aloof confederate out on a date). Consistent with the hierarchical model of anxiety, the measures of trait anxiety were moderately correlated with each other and each was a significant predictor of anxious response. The specific measures of trait social anxiety were slightly better predictors of anxious response to the social challenge than was either the ASI-physical scale or the STAI-T. The results provide evidence of the predictive validity of these social trait measures and some support for their specificity in the prediction of anxious response to a social challenge.