Sensitizing Potential Jurors to Variations in Eyewitness Evidence Quality Using Counterfactual Thinking

Jurors often have difficulty evaluating eyewitness testimony. Counterfactual thinking is a type of mental simulation that informs causal inference. Encouraging jurors to think counterfactually about eyewitness factors may sensitize them to these factors' causal influence on eyewitness identification and testimony accuracy, improving their overall judgments (such as verdicts). One hundred twenty‐one undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to read a scenario containing either high‐quality or low‐quality eyewitness evidence and to evaluate eyewitness factors adopting either their default or a counterfactual mindset via a question‐order manipulation. Logistic regressions and analyses of variance revealed that a counterfactual mindset lowered perceptions of eyewitness accuracy and guilty verdicts (compared with the default mindset) when the evidence was poor; a counterfactual mindset, however, did not increase perceptions of accuracy and guilty verdicts when evidence was strong. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying these effects and identify several potential avenues for future research.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Marital Processes Linking Gender Role Attitudes and Marital Satisfaction Among Mexican‐Origin Couples: Application of an Actor–Partner Interdependence Mediation Model

Informed by dyadic approaches and culturally informed, ecological perspectives of marriage, we applied an actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) in a sample of 120 Mexican‐origin couples to examine (a) the associations linking Mexican immigrant husbands’ and wives’ gender role attitudes to marital satisfaction directly and indirectly through marital processes (i.e., warmth and negativity) and (b) whether the associations between spouses’ gender role attitudes and marital processes were moderated by wives’ employment. Although previous research has identified spouses’ gender role attitudes as potential predictors of spouses’ marital satisfaction, no study has examined these links in a dyadic model that elucidates how gender role attitudes may operate through processes to shape marital satisfaction and conditions under which associations may differ. We found that when spouses reported less sex‐typed attitudes, their partners reported feeling more connected to them and more satisfied with the marriage, regardless of whether wives were employed. Our results suggest that marital satisfaction was highest for those Mexican‐origin couples in which marital partners were less sex‐typed in their attitudes about marital roles to the extent that partners’ attitudinal role flexibility promoted spouses’ feelings of warmth and connection to their partner.     

The Role of Positive Psychology,Cultural, and Family Factors in Latina/o College Students' Vocational Outcome Expectations

Latina/o college students (N = 120) provided their perceptions of positive psychology, cultural, family, and vocational outcome expectations. Presence of meaning in life, hope, Anglo orientation, and Mexican orientation were significant predictors of subjective happiness. Implications for counselors are provided.     

Estimating Between-Person and Within-Person Subscore Reliability with Profile Analysis

Subscores are of increasing interest in educational and psychological testing due to their diagnostic function for evaluating examinees' strengths and weaknesses within particular domains of knowledge. Previous studies about the utility of subscores have mostly focused on the overall reliability of individual subscores and ignored the fact that subscores should be distinct and have added value over the total score. This study introduces a profile reliability approach that partitions the overall subscore reliability into within-person and between-person subscore reliability. The estimation of between-person reliability and within-person reliability coefficients is demonstrated using subscores from number-correct scoring, unidimensional and multidimensional item response theory scoring, and augmented scoring approaches via a simulation study and a real data study. The effects of various testing conditions, such as subtest length, correlations among subscores, and the number of subtests, are examined. Results indicate that there is a substantial trade-off between within-person and between-person reliability of subscores. Profile reliability coefficients can be useful in determining the extent to which subscores provide distinct and reliable information under various testing conditions.     

Changing Values: Attitudes about Intimate Partner Violence in Immigrants and Natives in Five Western Countries

This article explores attitudes about Intimate Partner Violence Against Women (IPVAW) amongt immigrant (first and second generation) and native populations in five post-industrial societies (Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and USA). Using the sixth wave of World Values Survey, we conclude that there are significant differences, after controlling for demographic factors, between all three sub-populations in attitudes about IPVAW, with first generation immigrants more supportive of IPVAW than either natives or second generation immigrants. We also show that, for the three sub-populations, interactions of attitudes regarding interpersonal violence, gender equality and sexual tolerance are good predictors of attitudes about IPVAW.     

An Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Affective Control Scale in an Undergraduate Sample

A considerable amount of clinical research interest has recently developed regarding emotion dysregulation and psychopathology. Many have suggested that distinct affective management deficits may characterize anxiety and mood pathology. Despite increased research attention, efforts to validate and sufficiently investigate the psychometric properties of many self-report measures of affect regulation have been lacking. The current study examined the response behavior of 1566 undergraduate participants who completed the Affective Control Scale (ACS). The ACS assesses fear of intense emotion, and it is frequently used in empirical research. The present investigation examined the structural qualities of the measure using exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques. Findings suggest the original four rationally-derived subscales do not adequately fit the observed response patterns. Rather, results indicated that a five-factor solution that included a subscale measuring emotion mismanagement better represented response behavior. Additional normative data and bivariate correlations with other measures of emotion regulation and affect are presented.     

Siblings of Military Servicemembers: A Qualitative Exploration of Individual and Family Systems Reactions

How does having a sibling in the military affect young adults? Despite increasing attention to the challenges faced by spouses and children of servicemembers, the siblings of servicemembers have been largely ignored. This qualitative investigation uses unstructured narratives to explore siblings' perceptions of changes in their lives and changes in the family of origin associated with having a family member enlist in the United States military. Thematic analyses revealed an acute period of conflict followed by reorganization, awareness of the parents' distress, changes in the emotional climate of the family, shifts in family roles, admiration for the military sibling, and increased meaning and purpose for the family following the servicemember's enlistment. Computer-assisted text analyses revealed both positive and negative emotional content associated with the siblings' military service. For professional psychologists who come into contact with siblings of servicemembers, it is important to recognize that military enlistment can have ripple effects and complicate other common individual and family stresses. More generally, it is important to provide siblings and the family of origin with information about what to expect during and after the servicemember's enlistment, especially since these families may lack support and contact from others going through similar transitions.     

Association Between Independent Reports of Maternal Parenting Stress and Children’s Internalizing Symptomatology

Although considerable research has investigated parenting stress and children’s externalizing behavior problems, comparatively less has considered parenting stress in relation to children’s internalizing difficulties. Even less research on parenting stress has incorporated children’s report of their internalizing symptoms or the potential mediating role of children’s attributional style. The current study hypothesized that children’s independent reports of internalizing symptoms would be associated with mothers’ reports of parenting stress through children’s attributional style. A community sample of 92 mother–child dyads participated. Results suggest maternal parenting stress from both child and parent sources were significantly associated with children’s anxious and depressive symptoms. Parenting stress was associated with children’s internalizing symptoms partially mediated by children’s maladaptive attributional style, primarily negative attributions for positive outcomes. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions to tease apart specific areas of parenting stress that may be most pertinent as well as to explore other cognitive mechanisms in children that may relate to parenting stress and children’s adjustment.     

Psychometric properties of the mobility inventory for agoraphobia: convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity

Aims of this study were (a) to summarize the psychometric literature on the Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia (MIA), (b) to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the MIA's Avoidance Alone and Avoidance Accompanied rating scales relative to clinical severity ratings of anxiety disorders from the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS), and (c) to establish a cutoff score indicative of interviewers’ diagnosis of agoraphobia for the Avoidance Alone scale. A meta-analytic synthesis of 10 published studies yielded positive evidence for internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity of the scales. Participants in the present study were 129 people with a diagnosis of panic disorder. Internal consistency was excellent for this sample, α = .95 for AAC and .96 for AAL. When the MIA scales were correlated with interviewer ratings, evidence for convergent and discriminant validity for AAL was strong (convergent r with agoraphobia severity ratings = .63 vs. discriminant rs of .10–.29 for other anxiety disorders) and more modest but still positive for AAC (.54 vs. .01–.37). Receiver operating curve analysis indicated that the optimal operating point for AAL as an indicator of ADIS agoraphobia diagnosis was 1.61, which yielded sensitivity of .87 and specificity of .73.     

Path analytic examination of a cognitive model of PTSD

Ehlers and Clark (2000) developed a cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom maintenance which implicated the role of posttraumatic cognitions and aspects of the trauma memory in maintaining symptoms via an increased sense of current threat. The aim of the current study was to empirically test a variant of this model using path analysis. Participants in the current study were 514 undergraduates at a midwestern university who reported experiencing at least one traumatic event. Path analyses examined various models of the possible relationships between one’s posttraumatic cognitions and the centrality of the traumatic event to the sense of self (considered an aspect of memory integration) in predicting current level of PTSD symptoms. Results indicate that both event centrality and posttraumatic cognitions are unique and independent predictors of current symptom level. Overall, the results of this study support aspects of Ehlers and Clark’s cognitive model of PTSD; cognitive appraisals of the self and centrality of the event were highly related to levels of distress. However, the current study suggests that overly integrated trauma memories may lead to greater distress and not poorly integrated ones as suggested by Ehlers and Clark.