Imitative Behavior as a Function of Success-Failure and Racial-Socioeconomic Factors1

This study examined whether success-failure experiences, race, and social class are related to the likelihood that young children will engage in imitative behavior. Black subjects imitated significantly more than white subjects on a pre-experimental measure of imitation. Analysis of a difference score between pre- and post-experimental measures of imitation indicated that prior success was associated with less imitation than failure or a neutral condition. In addition, a white model was imitated significantly more than a black model in both the failure and the success conditions, with little difference between models in the neutral condition. No significant difference was found between the nondeprived and deprived groups. The results were discussed in terms of an outer-directedness hypothesis.     

Racialized Religion and Judicial Injustice: How Whiteness and Biblicist Christianity Intersect to Promote a Preference for (Unjust) Punishment

America's judicial system is both exceptionally punitive and demonstrably unjust toward racial minorities. While these dual realities are structured into America's institutions, we propose they are also partially sustained by the intersection of ideologies that are both racialized and sacralized. Using multiple waves of the General Social Surveys and a unique measure that asks Americans to choose between two forms of judicial injustice (wrongful conviction or erroneous acquittal), we examine how white racial identity intersects with biblical literalism to bolster America's bent toward unjust punitiveness. In the main effects, Americans who affirm biblical literalism are more likely to show a preference for convicting the innocent, as are whites compared to Black Americans. Examining interaction effects, however, we find whiteness moderates the influence of biblical literalism such that only white biblical literalists (as opposed to non‐white biblical literalists or white non‐biblical literalists) are more likely to prefer wrongful conviction. Indeed, in our full model, being a white biblical literalist is the strongest predictor of preferring wrongful conviction. We theorize that preference for wrongful conviction over erroneous acquittal stems, at least in part, from the combination of sacralized authoritarianism and perceived racial threat.     

Counterfactual Logic and the Necessity of Mathematics

Journal of Philosophical Logic - This paper is concerned with counterfactual logic and its implications for the modal status of mathematical claims. It is most directly a response to an ambitious...     

Keyboard dynamics discrepancies between baseline and deceptive eyewitness narratives

Information manipulation and cognitive load imposition make the production of deceptive narratives difficult. But little is known about the production of deception, and how its mechanisms may help distinguish truthful from deceitful narratives. This study focuses on the measurement of keystroke dynamics while typing truthful and deceptive eyewitness testimonies after a baseline assessment. While typing their narrative, some participants would undergo an auditory cognitive load. Results show that liars typed their story slower, and in less time than the truthful participants when compared to their respective baselines. The imposition of the auditory cognitive load showed adverse results, enhancing the amount of keystrokes and the time necessary to type the narrative. Classification shows better results for deceptive narrative when no auditory cognitive load is imposed. These results are discussed in terms of expanding current models to include the cognition of linguistic production and writing strategies.     

Bridging cognition and personality in education: the role of style in performance and development

In an attempt to illuminate the interrelatedness of noncognitive and cognitive domains—or, more pointedly, of affection, conation, and cognition—emphasis is placed on variables that not only operate across these domains but are also potentially integrative. Prominent among such variables are personal styles, particularly cognitive styles. The properties and problems of cognitive styles are examined, with special emphasis on field independence versus field sensitivity and on two stylistic dimensions of attentional scanning. The role of cognitive styles as both competence variables and performance variables is addressed, along with the difficulty of disentangling style from ability because of reciprocal determinism in their development. The educational implications of cognitive styles are explored, especially as they bear on the problem of the match between student characteristics and educational experiences and on the value-laden nature of style-based pedagogical decisions.