Forgoing Debriefing in Deceptive Research: Is It Ever Ethical?

The use of deception in research is generally permitted so long as participants are debriefed at the conclusion of their participation. Several authoritative research ethics guidelines allow investigators to omit debriefing under certain circumstances, however. Here we examine various justifications for forgoing debriefing in deceptive research, including concerns about subject pool contamination, the risk that revealing the deception will be harmful or distressing to participants, and issues of practicability. We conclude that, contrary to current practice, omitting debriefing is ethically acceptable only when debriefing is impracticable, the deception is innocuous, and no reasonable person would object to involvement in the research.     

Learning (not) to talk about race: when older children underperform in social categorization

The present research identifies an anomaly in sociocognitive development, whereby younger children (8 and 9 years) outperform their older counterparts (10 and 11 years) in a basic categorization task in which the acknowledgment of racial difference facilitates performance. Though older children exhibit superior performance on a race-neutral version of the task, their tendency to avoid acknowledging race hinders objective success when race is a relevant category. That these findings emerge in late childhood, in a pattern counter to the normal developmental trajectory of increased cognitive expertise in categorization, suggests that this anomaly indicates the onset of a critical transition in human social development.     

Reducing White Juror Bias: The Role of Race Salience and Racial Attitudes1

Both Black and White jurors exhibit a racial bias by being more likely to find defendants of a different race guilty than defendants who are of the same race. Sommers & Ellsworth (2000, 2001 ) found that salient racial issues in a trial reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. We examined if race salience could reduce White juror racial bias, even for individuals who reported high levels of racism. Making race salient reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. Jurors' racist beliefs were only associated with the verdict when the defendant's race was not made salient. This finding suggests that the effects of individual prejudice toward a Black defendant can be reduced by making the defendant's race salient.     

ARGUMENTUM AD FEMINAM

The last issue of this journal published an exchange between Marilyn Friedman and me that had taken place at a lively session of the American Philosophical Association in December, 1990. Friedman's paper “‘They Lived Happily Ever After’: Sommers on Women and Marriage” was a barbed critique of my views on the family. My rejoinder, “Do These Feminist Like Women?” pointed out that Friedman's orthodox brand of feminism was not sensitive to the values and aspirations of most American women. That issue of the Journal of Social Philosophy also published a third paper of Friedman's “Does Sommers Like Women?” twice as long again as my rejoinder. This second critique went further into earlier writings of mine raising new issues, and criticizing me in rather unpleasant ad feminam ways. If an uncharacteristic asperity colors my response, it is because I do not find myself able to deal coolly and impersonally with the accusation that I intentionally misrepresent some of the feminist philosophers I criticize.     

Prediction of fine motor skills of children having language and speech disorders

Relationships between the fine motor skills and linguistic abilities of 37 developmentally delayed children, ages 5 to 9 yr., were studied using a battery of expressive and receptive language tests, a measure of fine motor performance, a dichotic listening test, and individual intelligence tests. While IQs and MAs were not related to fine motor skills, both expressive and receptive language test scores showed moderate to moderately high correlations, the highest single relationship being the Test for the Auditory Comprehension of Language. In concert with CAs, a dichotic right-ear test score, the Auditory Comprehension Test, predicted fine motor-skill indices substantially; R = .80. Strong relationships appear between linguistic and fine motor skills in an age group not previously investigated and at higher levels than reported in studies of infants and very young children. Dichotic results were abnormal in a majority of the children.     

A critical review of a recent decade of stuttering research

The purpose of the present investigation was to catalogue and evaluate portions of the literature on stuttering from 1967 to 1977. Of particular interest was the identification of the research literature. Of 287 articles located and evaluated, 181 were research reports. These reports were categorized according to topics, subject selection, subjects' characteristics, type of research designs and use of randomization, reliability, and statistical methods. Unhappily, many of the faults identified in reviews ten to twenty years earlier tended to persist, and many of the deficiencies recently cited by authorities in the field were found to characterize this literature.     

Exploring the Enigmatic Link between Religion and Anti‐Black Attitudes

This review explores social psychological perspectives on the complex relationship between religion and anti‐Black prejudice in the United States. We examine the different ways in which religiosity has been conceptualized by behavioral scientists. We consider the methodological limitations of previous research, as well as how the advent of priming research introduces new empirical questions regarding religiosity and anti‐Black prejudice, such as whether activation of different religious conceptions (e.g., God versus religion) or priming via different types of stimuli (e.g., words versus images) produces different outcomes. Finally, we discuss the lack of diverse samples in the present literature and highlight the need for additional research with Black American respondents. Conclusions consider the real world implications of links between religion and anti‐Blackness for both White individuals (e.g., intergroup relations) and Black individuals (e.g., psychological functioning).     

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).     

Framing matters: contextual influences on interracial interaction outcomes

Previous studies indicate that interracial interactions frequently have negative outcomes but have typically focused on social contexts. The current studies examined the effect of manipulating interaction context. In Study 1, Black and White participants worked together with instructions that created either a social focus or a task focus. With a task focus, interracial pairs were more consistently synchronized, Black participants showed less executive function depletion, and White participants generally showed reduced implicit bias. Follow-up studies suggested that prejudice concerns help explain these findings: White participants reported fewer concerns about appearing prejudiced when they imagined an interracial interaction with a task focus rather than a social focus (Study 2a), and Black participants reported less vigilance against prejudice in an imagined interracial interaction with a task focus rather than a social focus (Study 2b). Taken together, these studies illustrate the importance of interaction context for the experiences of both Blacks and Whites.