Expert evidence by psychologists: Sometimes problematic and often premature

This article provides a critical review of two major types of expert evidence: (a) clinical assessments, and (b) generalizations drawn from psychological research. Strong arguments both for and against both types of testimony have been offered by legal experts and psychologists. These arguments are evaluated and the conclusion is drawn that there are two fundamental problems for psychologists in the role of expert. First, the types of assessments clinicians are asked to make (e.g., concerning the accused's mental state at the time of committing the offense) may exceed the capacity of the discipline; such assessments are problematic. Second, the research foundation that psychologists employ in court does not always apply to the court situation in the way experts imply; the application of laboratory research findings to real world contexts is sometimes premature. The article concludes with an admonition that psychologists should adopt a more conservative response to requests to provide expert evidence.     

Negative internal causal attributions of a specific offense and forgiveness

Causal attributions are important social‐cognitive predictors of forgiveness. This article presents the Transgression Attribution Questionnaire (TAQ), a measure of one's negative internal causal attributions of a specific offense. In 4 studies, scores on the TAQ showed initial evidence of estimated internal consistency, temporal stability, and construct validity. Negative internal attributions for the cause of a transgression predicted lower levels of empathy and forgiveness. Furthermore, scores on the TAQ predicted forgiveness over and above the hurtfulness of the offense, relationship commitment, and a general measure of internal causal attributions in relationships. The current research bridges research on internal causal attributions and forgiveness. Implications for the social‐cognitive study of forgiveness and the measurement of causal attributions are discussed.     

Changes in verb meaning and the sentence context effect in children's PA learning

Two experiments are reported in which sentence context facilitation of paired associate learning was examined. The major purpose was to determine whether semantic changes in the verb connecting a pair of nouns affects the facilitation due to the verb connective. It was found that trial to trial changes in the connective had no effect, and facilitation was as great as when the verb remained the same on each trial. These results were interpreted in terms of imaginal coding in multitrial experiments.