Children’s eyewitness memory: A comparison of two interviewing strategies as realized by forensic professionals

A critical issue for developmental psychology is how to obtain accurate and complete eyewitness memory reports from preschoolers without offering suggestions that might result in false allegations. We examined effects of two interviewing strategies (police/verbal interviews and clinician/prop-assisted interviews) on young children’s reports about a medical examination. A total of 58 4-year-olds participated in the study, which conformed to a 2 (Interview Type) × 2 (Number of Interviews) factorial design. Analyses revealed that interviewers spent less time off topic and asked more free recall questions in the police/verbal interviews than in the clinician/prop-assisted interviews. Compared with police/verbal interviews, clinician/prop-assisted interviews resulted in significantly more correct rejections and commission errors in children’s memory reports. However, on a final free recall test, error rates were comparable across conditions. Higher child verbal intelligence predicted memory accuracy in police/verbal interviews, and greater parental attachment anxiety predicted children being asked a higher number of misleading questions. The study provides new insights into interview techniques that promote preschoolers’ accurate eyewitness reports.     

Peer influence on event reports among adolescents and young adults

When two or more people witness an event together, the event report from one person can influence others’ reports. In the current study we examined the role of age and motivational factors on peer influence regarding event reports in adolescents and young adults. Participants (N=249) watched a short video of a robbery then answered questions with no co-witness information or with information believed to be from a co-witness. Public and private response conditions were included to explore motivations for peer influence. Co-witness information influenced participants’ responses, although the effect was equally strong in the private and the public co-witness conditions. Peer influence on event reports was steady across a large age range (11- to 25-year-olds).     

The Appreciation of Humor in Captioned Cartoons

Humor appreciation for captioned cartoons was studied as a function of cartoon category and eight predictor variables: complexity, difficulty, fit, depth, visual humor, artwork, vulgarity, and originality. Preference and funniness proved to be virtually identical as criterion variables and were combined as appreciation for further analysis. A nonmetric factor analysis of appreciation ratings yielded four dimensions: (a) Sexual, (b) Incongruity, (c) Social Issues, and (d) Marriage-Family. Sexual and Marriage-Family were the most appreciated categories, Social Issues the least appreciated. Fit and originality were the only predictor variables with significant relationships to appreciation independent of the category effect. Cartoons judged to have the most originality and the best fit between drawing and caption were most appreciated. The results suggest that the kinds of cognitive processes involved in cartoon-humor appreciation are very similar to those involved in environmental preference.     

True Overconfidence in Interval Estimates: Evidence Based on a New Measure of Miscalibration

Overconfidence is often regarded as one of the most prevalent judgment biases. Several studies show that overconfidence can lead to suboptimal decisions of investors, managers, or politicians. Recent research, however, questions whether overconfidence should be regarded as a bias and shows that standard “overconfidence” findings can easily be explained by different degrees of knowledge of agents plus a random error in predictions. We contribute to the current literature and ongoing research by extensively analyzing interval estimates for knowledge questions, for real financial time series, and for artificially generated charts. We thereby suggest a new method to measure overconfidence in interval estimates, which is based on the implied probability mass behind a stated prediction interval. We document overconfidence patterns, which are difficult to reconcile with rationality of agents and which cannot be explained by differences in knowledge as differences in knowledge do not exist in our task. Furthermore, we show that overconfidence measures are reliable in the sense that there exist stable individual differences in the degree of overconfidence in interval estimates, thereby testing an important assumption of behavioral economics and behavioral finance models: stable individual differences in the degree of overconfidence across people. We do this in a “field experiment,” for different levels of expertise of subjects (students on the one hand and professional traders and investment bankers on the other hand), over time, by using different miscalibration metrics, and for tasks that avoid common weaknesses such as a non‐representative selection of trick questions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Community as Outsider Witness: Utilising Community Members in the Reconstitution of Problem-Saturated Identities

This study explored community members' ability to enlist discourses affirming of psychiatric patients' quest for generative identities. The participants were members of the public who attended an exhibition of psychiatric patients' artwork (n = 7, age range 18–55). A Foucauldian discourse analysis was used to analyse the research interviews. Results revealed that the majority of community members used dominant cultural discourses to speak about psychiatric patient-artists. These discourses conferred a problem-saturated identity on to psychiatric patients. We conclude that community members can be recruited as outsider witnesses to support psychiatric patients' search for generative identities, provided community members resist discourses that produce problem-saturated identity conclusions.     

Legal and Social Issues Surrounding Closed-Circuit Television Testimony of Child Victims and Witnesses

Summary

Prosecution of crimes involving child victims and witnesses is particularly difficult because of the age of the children involved. Facing the alleged offender in court and the experience itself of testifying in an open court with dozens of onlookers are acutely difficult. The effect on children may be traumatic, with the potential to produce substantial psychological and emotional harm. Various court procedures have been implemented in the United States in an effort to minimize these effects. Court procedures can include erecting screens to shield the child victim or witness, presenting videotaped testimony, or testifying via one-way or two-way closed-circuit television. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) testimony, which is especially controversial, involves both legal issues surrounding the constitutionality of such testimony and social issues regarding the effectiveness of closed-circuit television testimony. Substantial variation across states in provisions for closed-circuit television testimony for child witnesses is problematic. Consideration is given to how social science research directly influenced the Supreme Court's decision in Maryland v. Craig(1990), and the current state of research regarding use of CCTV and court outcomes. Some research suggests a pro-defense bias when CCTV is used.     

Perceptions of Juvenile Offenders Who Were Abused as Children

Should a history of child abuse be taken into consideration when a juvenile offender is punished? Although some research shows that child abuse is used as a mitigating factor for juvenile offenders (i.e., elicits less punitive sentences), surveys of juvenile court officials reveal that it is considered an aggravating factor. Specifically, in controlled mock jury studies in which child abuse is experimentally manipulated, child abuse elicits less punitive sentences. In contrast, child abuse elicits more punitive sentences in a nonexperimentally controlled environment—the juvenile justice system. This article provides a comprehensive literature review to explain these conflicting bodies of research by considering factors that naturally covary with childhood abuse: chaotic family environment, mental health problems, behavioral problems, and school problems.     

Beliefs about memory among psychology students and their professors in psychodynamic clinical and experimental study programs

IntroductionResearch has shown that lay people, and even psychologists, may have distorted knowledge about memory functioning. May different study programs in psychology influence their ideas?Objective(s)The study was aimed at evaluating psychology students’ and psychology professors’ knowledge about memory and factors potentially affecting the accuracy of episodic memory reports in clinical and legal contexts.MethodA questionnaire was administered to introductory and advanced students of psychology enrolled at different curricula – experimental psychology and clinical psychology with a psychoanalytical orientation – and to professors teaching the courses in the same curricula.ResultsResults showed that advanced students and professors in experimental psychology have higher general knowledge of factors influencing memory performance than their peers, including memory issues of particular relevance to clinical psychology; no difference between the curricula was found for the introductory students.ConclusionThe results are discussed in terms of the risks that the lack of knowledge on memory functioning of the psychologists with a psychodynamic orientation may have in producing wrong reports in forensic contexts.     

专家-熟手-新手型教师教学策略与成就目标、人格特征的关系研究

该研究对不同类型教师的教学策略、成就目标和人格特征的关系进行了探讨,结果表明,新手型教师的教学策略与成绩目标存在显著的负相关,其中成绩——回避目标是其教学策略的有效预测变量,而熟手型教师和专家型教师则与任务目标存在显著的正相关：精神质是新手型教师教学策略的有效预测变量,内外向是熟手型教师教学策略的有效预测变量,而专家型教师的神经质对其教学策略存在着重要的影响。