Of private talk and public print: General pre-trial publicity and juror decision-making

The term ‘general pre-trial publicity’ refers to trial-related information that is prominently in the news, and that affects jurors in wholly unrelated cases. Two experiments explored the impact of general pre-trial publicity on juror decision-making. In Experiment 1 mock jurors who earlier read a newspaper article about a defendant mistakenly identified and subsequently convicted of a crime he did not commit were less likely to convict the defendant in an unrelated case than were jurors who read instead about a series of heinous crimes or who had no pre-trial publicity. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect is somewhat stronger when the general pre-trial publicity concerns a case that closely resembles the one jurors must decide than when the two cases are dissimilar. These data are discussed in terms of the availability of relevant information in memory. People may evaluate the probability of a defendant's guilt by the ease with which similar or relevant examples come to mind.     

The effects of perceived parental rearing style on the development of Type A pattern

The aetiological antecedents of the Type A pattern have not been studied widely. In the present study the effects of parental rearing practices on the development of Type A pattern were evaluated. Perceived parental rearing style was assessed by the EMBU and Type A pattern by the JAS. Subjects were drawn from a random sample of residents (older than 21 years) of a Dutch community. Results suggested that a significant amount of variance of Type A behaviour can be accounted for by perceived parental characteristics, especially rejection and lack of emotional warmth. It is suggested that lack of emotional warmth and negative evaluation of children by their parents may lead to an internalized maladaptive cognitive set in the children which may be a developmental antecedent for eliciting the competitiveness, achievement striving, and sense of time urgency characteristic of Type A adults.     

Visual attention to own- versus other-race faces: Perspectives from learning mechanisms and task demands

Multiple factors have been proposed to contribute to the other-race effect in face recognition, including perceptual expertise and social-cognitive accounts. Here, we propose to understand the effect and its contributing factors from the perspectives of learning mechanisms that involve joint learning of visual attention strategies and internal representations for faces, which can be modulated by quality of contact with other-race individuals including emotional and motivational factors. Computational simulations of this process will enhance our understanding of interactions among factors and help resolve inconsistent results in the literature. In particular, since learning is driven by task demands, visual attention effects observed in different face-processing tasks, such as passive viewing or recognition, are likely to be task specific (although may be associated) and should be examined and compared separately. When examining visual attention strategies, the use of more data-driven and comprehensive eye movement measures, taking both spatial–temporal pattern and consistency of eye movements into account, can lead to novel discoveries in other-race face processing. The proposed framework and analysis methods may be applied to other tasks of real-life significance such as face emotion recognition, further enhancing our understanding of the relationship between learning and visual cognition.     

Self-image,perception of peers' risk acceptance and risky shift

Twelve four-person female groups of subjects displaying the typical underestimation of their peers' (relative to their own) risk acceptance were compared with twelve groups of subjects who (slightly) overestimated their peers' risk acceptance. Risk level was measured by responses to a set of hypothetical decision situations known to elicit risky shift on the basis of previous research. Risky shift following group discussion was not found to be different for the two types of groups, casting doubt on the widely suggested role of peer underestimation in risky shift. Nor was risky shift affected by whether or not group members stated their individual decisions publicly at the close of discussion. Larger group risky shifts were accompanied by higher self-ratings given by group members on a number of polarity scales. In discussing the findings, we outline an explanation of group-induced shifts in risk taking, emphasizing the motivational and informational inducements provided by group discussion whereby group members come to discard their prior positions in favor of more aspired ones.     

Sense modality switching and serial leaming

This investigation examined the effect of sense modality switching ofinformation at various positions of a serial learning task. Different numbers of flashes of light and different numbers of “blips” ofa pure tone were used as signalsin a four-position serial learning task. The design of the study involved a switch in sense modality at each one of the four possible positions in the series. Thus, it was possible to determine if the transmission of information through one sense modality makes it progressively more difficult or more time consuming to switch to another source of information transmitted through another modality. The results generally supported the contention that, as information is received through a particular modality, there is a build-up of the disruption involved in switching sense modality.     

CULTURAL ADAPTATIONS AND DIFFUSION FOR MANAGERIAL STRATEGIES AND RESPONSES IN HONG KONG

This paper addresses the issue of cultural adaptations and diffusion for managerial strategies in host societies to which work enterprises are not indigenous in terms of their capital and management or either. With illustrations drawn from a series of case-studies of work organisations in Hong Kong managed respectively by Chinese, British and Japanese capital, there was an appearance of support for the thesis of ‘cultural’ determinism and its implications for strategical adaptations in work organisations. The implication was drawn that the Oriental nexus of altruism, trust and subtlety could be rooted in the more laudible and perhaps global influence of Confucianism. Some subsequent issues are raised. First, the problem of cultural adaptation is not specific to multinationals or foreign firms visiting from outside but also applies where the management and their ethic background are not indigenous. The other issue is the extent of cultural adaptation within work organisations, as determined by the degree of affinity with a common mother culture. The paper suggests that a common denominating mother culture can serve a strategical starting point to bring about intra-organisational and organisation-society link and harmony.     

Children's Decisions About Substance Use: An Application and Extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action1

This research examines the applicability of Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) theory of reasoned action (TRA) to intentions to use cigarettes and alcohol among 5th- and 6th-grade students. It also addresses the question of unidimensionality of outcome beliefs and referent norms. Results suggest that the TRA model describes children's decision making well, although the ability of income and race to add to prediction, net of the effects of attitude and perceived norm, are contrary to the theory's prediction. In addition, we find support for multidimensional components of both attitude and norm for both behaviors.