Changing the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: An Empirical Study of a Participatory Action Research Project

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs; also known as a “rape kits”) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying perpetrators, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan after that city discovered approximately 11,000 untested sexual assault kits in a police department storage facility. We conducted a root cause analysis to examine individual, organizational, community, and societal factors that contributed to the development of the rape kit backlog in Detroit. Based on those findings, we implemented and evaluated structural changes to increase staffing, promote kit testing, and retrain police and prosecutors so that cases could be reopened for investigation and prosecution. As we conducted this work, we also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system. Participating in this project changed stakeholders’ attitudes about the utility of research to address community problems, the usefulness of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and the impact of trauma on survivors. The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and police investigations, and new state legislation mandating SAK forensic DNA testing.     

A simultaneous test of the relationship between identified psychosocial risk factors and recurrent events in coronary artery disease patients

Psychosocial factors are increasingly recognized as risk indicators for coronary artery disease (CAD) prognosis and they are likely interrelated. The objective of this study is to simultaneously test the relationship between key psychosocial constructs as independent factor scores and recurrent events in CAD patients. There were 1268 CAD outpatients of 97 cardiologists surveyed at two points. Recurrent events or hospitalization in the intervening nine months were reported. Factor analysis of items from the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, the ENRICHD Social Support Inventory, and Hostile Attitudes Scale was performed to generate orthogonal factor scores. With adjustment for prognostic variables, logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between these factor scores and recurrent events. Factor analysis resulted in a six-factor solution: hostility, stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, support, and resilience. Logistic regression revealed that functional status and anxiety, with a trend for depressive symptoms, were related to experiencing a recurrent event. In this simultaneous test of psychosocial constructs hypothesized to relate to cardiac prognosis, anxiety may be a particularly hazardous psychosocial factor. While replication is warranted, efforts to investigate the potential benefits of screening and to investigate treatments are needed.     

Consumer Responses to the Timing of Product Breakdowns in the Presence of Manufacturers' Warranties

Two experiments explored how timing of product failure in relation to warranty coverage influences consumers' affective reactions to product breakdowns. Subjects read scenarios describing a product needing repairs and the warranty coverage on the product. The timing of product failure and the presence and/or absence of warranty coverage influenced consumers' affective reactions to product breakdown. Affective reactions were much more negative when the consumer just missed the warranty as compared to conditions where the product breakdown was within warranty coverage or some time after warranty expiration. Timing also influenced expectancies, such that just missing warranty coverage led to more pessimistic predictions for future product performance. Purchase intentions are also reduced by just missing the warranty. The results also support our hypothesis that consumers' affective reactions mediate the effect of product failure timing on their repeat purchase intentions.     

Bad attitude

Bad Attitude: The Processed World Anthology, edited by Chris Carlsson with Mark Leger, London/New York: Verso, 1990, 286 pages, £11.95     

The Establishment of Core Competencies for Canadian Genetic Counsellors: Validation of Practice Based Competencies

Numerous groups of health professionals have undertaken the task of defining core competencies for their profession. The goal of establishing core competencies is to have a defined standard for such professional needs as practice guidelines, training curricula, certification, continuing competency and re-entry to practice. In 2006, the Canadian Association of Genetic Counsellors (CAGC) recognized the need for uniform practice standards for the profession in Canada, given the rapid progress of genetic knowledge and technologies, the expanding practice of genetic counsellors and the increasing demand for services. We report here the process by which the CAGC Practice Based Competencies were developed and then validated via two survey cycles, the first within the CAGC membership, and the second with feedback from external stakeholders. These competencies were formally approved in 2012 and describe the integrated skills, attitudes and judgment that genetic counsellors in Canada require in order to perform the services and duties that fall within the practice of the profession responsibly, safely, effectively and ethically.     

Forgiven But Not Forgotten: Covert Uncertainty in Overt Responses and the Paradox of Defection‐Despite‐Trust

Despite the widespread belief that trust is a critical determinant of loyalty, empirical and anecdotal evidence calls into question the real‐world robustness of the trust–loyalty link. An important reason for the fuzzy nature of the trust–loyalty link may be the fuzzy nature of trust itself. That is, stated trust judgments embody both a magnitude dimension (i.e., the position along a favorable‐unfavorable continuum) and an uncertainty dimension (i.e., the lack of conviction with which the judgment is held). We investigated this possibility using data pertaining to consumers’ reactions to a service failure and the provider's success in responding to their complaints. We found that the interplay between dissatisfaction with the complaint handling and past experience simultaneously influences trust magnitude and trust uncertainty. However, these two dimensions of trust are shaped by different underlying processes. Finally, uncertainty dampens the impact of stated trust on loyalty.     

Winning Charisma and Losing the Presidential Election1

This study focuses on voters' perceptions of presidential candidates' charismatic leadership. Competing hypotheses draw from performance-cue and decision-making literatures. Results from the panel data indicate that voters' perceptions of the winning candidate remain stable, while their perceptions of the losing candidate's charisma are enhanced after the election.     

The Moderating Effect of Prior Experience in Consumers' Use of User-Image Based Versus Utilitarian Cues in Brand Attitude

In this paper, we address the question of whether prior experience with a product moderates the extent to which the use of user-image based cues and utilitarian cues are predictive of brand attitude. Specifically, high experience consumers were expected to focus more on utilitarian cues and low experience consumers to focus on user-image based cues. Results of two studies generally support these predictions.     

An Examination of Moderators of the Effects of Customers' Evaluation of Employee Courtesy on Attitude Toward the Service Firm1

Employee courtesy is recognized as an important dimension of customer service. This paper presents and tests a model suggesting that employee courtesy affects attitudes toward a service firm. Employee courtesy, the physical environment, and locus of causality are three important elements of a service experience that might affect attitude toward a service firm. The paper reports results of two experiments that found there was an interaction effect between employee courtesy and the physical environment on attitude toward the service firm. That is, the effect of employee courtesy on attitudes is more positive when the environment is evaluated favorably than when it is evaluated unfavorably. However, there were no interaction effects of locus of causality and courtesy on attitude toward the service firm. In the second study, there was a main effect from locus of causality on attitude toward the firm in that experiment. That is, participants with an internal locus of causality had a more favorable attitude toward the service firm than did participants with an external locus of causality.     

The Science of Emotional Intelligence

ABSTRACT— This article provides an overview of current research on emotional intelligence. Although it has been defined in many ways, we focus on the four-branch model by Mayer and Salovey (1997) , which characterizes emotional intelligence as a set of four related abilities: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions. The theory provides a useful framework for studying individual differences in abilities related to processing emotional information. Despite measurement obstacles, the evidence in favor of emotional intelligence is accumulating. Emotional intelligence predicts success in important domains, among them personal and work relationships.