Authoritarianism,Anger, and Hostile Attribution Bias: A Test of Affect Displacement

Past research has supported the hypothesis that the relationship between harsh childhood punishment and adult political attitudes is due to the displacement of negative emotions that arise onto punitive public policies, e.g., support for the death penalty (Milburn, Conrad, Sala, & Carberry, 1995). Cognitions associated with childhood punishment may also impact adult political attitudes, yet their effects have not yet been examined, despite research that shows that punitive childhood experiences increase the tendency to attribute hostility to others. Thus, we investigated whether the tendency to make hostile attributions about others' behavior influences a person's authoritarianism, controlling for their parents' political orientation. Respondents completed an online survey concerning their childhood punishment experiences, their parents' political orientation, their trait anger, their level of hostile attribution bias (HAB), and their authoritarianism. Multiple regression analyses and structural equation modeling (SEM) found that higher childhood punishment has a significant direct effect on higher levels of authoritarianism, even after controlling for parents' political orientation, and that trait anger and HAB appear to mediate the effects of childhood punishment experiences on authoritarianism,. These results support the process of affect displacement as an important influence on adult punitiveness and political orientation.     

Doping: Just Do It?

This paper provides a new philosophical argument against the lifting of the ban on doping in sports. It makes several assumptions for the sake of argument, one of which is, ironically, the moral justification of the lifting of the ban on sports doping. It is, then, a reductio ad absurdum against the claim that said ban should be lifted. Following this is a preliminary discussion concerning how doping athletes ought to be punished given that there ought to be a ban on doping due to the implausibility of the position to lift said ban. Considerations from responsibility and punishment theories are brought to bear in order to discern which punishments are most fitting for those athletes caught doping in designated clean sports competitions.     

Children's Graffiti: Visual Communication from a Developmental Perspective

The graffiti of children, an unobtrusive measure collected in Puerto Rican natural settings, revealed the children's views about the world. Results show that these graffiti reflect a wide variety of content related to the child's immediate life experiences such as concerns with their self-identity, interpersonal relations, cultural understandings, sexuality, and religious and political beliefs.     

Evaluation of stimulus control over a communication response as an intervention for stereotypical responding

Stereotypical behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement often does not result in harm but may be undesirable in some situations. In the current investigation, participants were 2 individuals who engaged in nonharmful stereotypical responses shown in an analogue functional analysis to be insensitive to social contingencies. After bringing these responses under stimulus control using differential punishment, both participants learned a mand to terminate punishment for stereotypy. We also assessed whether the mand could be brought under stimulus control.     

对医疗事故罪法定刑的理性思考

医疗事故罪的法定刑为“三年以下有期徒刑或者拘役”,而其他业务过失犯罪的法定最高刑可达十五年。较之后者,医疗事故罪的法定刑明显偏低。显然,现行刑法对医疗事故罪采取了减轻处罚的刑事政策。减轻处罚的立法政策,在理论上缺乏充分的立法依据,在实践中难收刑罚一般预防和特殊预防的功能。     

Bystanders' reactions towards co‐punishment events in the Taiwanese military: Examining the moderating effects of organizational norms

The present study examined bystanders' justice perceptions about co‐punishment events. In a sample of 169 logistic officers in the Taiwanese military, responsibility attributions (i.e. liability attributed to co‐punished persons) had a negative relationship with perceived harshness, and a positive relationship with perceived procedural justice. In addition, the effects of responsibility attributions on procedural justice were weaker if the person perceived stronger rather than weaker organizational norms of co‐punishment.     

Does perpetrator punishment satisfy victims' feelings of revenge?

Criminal victimization often provokes strong feelings of revenge. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether legal punishment of the perpetrator reduces victims' feelings of revenge. A cross‐sectional study of 174 crime victims revealed that punishment severity does not predict feelings of revenge at a time several years after the trial. A longitudinal study of 31 crime victims revealed that, for the time interval from a few weeks before the trial to a few weeks after the trial, punishment severity significantly predicts a decrease in feelings of revenge; nevertheless intraindividual and interindividual stability of these feelings was high. Taken together, results of the two studies suggest that perpetrator punishment only partially, and moreover only transitorily, satisfies victims' feelings of revenge. Therefore, satisfaction of victims' feelings of revenge cannot be taken as empirical justification for tightening of sentencing norms. Aggr. Behav. 30:62–70, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.