Response selection strategies and realism of confidence judgments

Two studies were conducted to examine how response selection strategy is related to confidence ratings and to performance on general knowledge questions. In both studies subjects were asked to answer 80 general knowledge questions and to rate their confidence in the correctness of the answer selected. A pilot study, in which subjects thought aloud while answering general knowledge questions, was carried out to identify different response selection strategies. In the first study, 40 subjects were asked to indicate which of four strategies (immediate recognition, inference, intuition, or guessing) they used for selecting an answer. In Study 2, think aloud reports from 20 subjects were coded into the same four strategies. The distribution of strategies differed between the studies, but there were very similar relations among strategy, confidence, and correctness of answer in the two studies. Response selection strategy was related to correctness of answer when confidence was partialed out. More specifically, immediate recognition was associated with higher proportion correct than with the other strategies. It was also found that ratings of how difficult the knowledge questions were to fellow students of the subjects were on a much more realistic level than the confidence ratings were. It is concluded that people could improve their confidence judgments by taking into account (a) how difficult a question is to other people, and (b) the response selection strategy used for answering the question.     

Actor-observer differences in realism in confidence and frequency judgments

Taking a social psychological approach to metacognitive judgments, this study analyzed the difference in realism (validity) in confidence and frequency judgments (i.e., estimates of overall accuracy) between one's own and another person's answers to general knowledge questions. Experiment 1 showed that when judging their own answers, compared with another's answers, the participants exhibited higher overconfidence, better ability to discriminate correct from incorrect answers, lower accuracy, and lower confidence. However, the overconfidence effect could be attributable to the lowest level of confidence. Furthermore, when heeding additional information about another's answers the participants showed higher confidence and better discrimination ability. The overconfidence effect of Experiment 1 was not found in Experiment 2. However, the results of Experiment 2 were consistent with Experiment 1 in terms of discrimination ability, confidence, and accuracy. Finally, in both experiments the participants gave lower frequency judgments of their own overall accuracy compared with their frequency judgments of another person's overall accuracy.     

The Cost of Detecting Deception: Judging Veracity Makes Eyewitnesses Remember a Suspect Less Accurately but With More Certainty

The current study extends previous research demonstrating the detrimental effects of divided attention during encoding on eyewitness memory. Previous data indicate that judging the veracity of a suspect causes witnesses to scrutinize him or her carefully and requires relatively high cognitive effort. We therefore hypothesized that performing this task while simultaneously observing the suspect should impair witnesses' memory for his or her appearance and message while ironically inflating their certainty and other testimony‐relevant judgments. Our results supported these predictions. Moreover, inducing witnesses to be suspicious about the suspect's truthfulness (Experiment 1) and motivating them to judge veracity as accurately as possible (Experiment 2) amplified the memory impairment effect and further increased several testimony‐relevant ratings. Additionally, compared with witnesses who incorrectly identified the suspect in a line‐up, those who made a correct decision expressed greater certainty about their line‐up accuracy and also provided higher ratings on some other testimony‐relevant measures. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Feasibility,Appropriateness, Meaningfulness,and Effectiveness of Parenting and Family Support Programs Delivered in the Criminal Justice System: A Systematic Review

Children whose parents are involved in the criminal justice system (CJS) are at increased risk of developing social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties and are more likely than their peers to become involved in the CJS themselves. Parenting behaviour and parent-child relationships have the potential to affect children’s outcomes with positive parenting practices having the potential to moderate some of the negative outcomes associated with parental involvement in the CJS. However, many parents in the CJS may lack appropriate role models to support the development of positive parenting beliefs and practices. Parenting programs offer an opportunity for parents to enhance their parenting knowledge and behaviours and improve relationships with children. Quantitative and qualitative evidence pertaining to the implementation and effectiveness of parenting programs delivered in the CJS was included. Five databases were searched and a total of 1145 articles were identified of which 29 met the review inclusion criteria. Overall, programs were found to significantly improve parenting attitudes; however, evidence of wider effects is limited. Additionally, the findings indicate that parenting programs can be meaningful for parents. Despite this, a number of challenges for implementation were found including the transient nature of the prison population and a lack of parent-child contact. Based on these findings, recommendations for the future development and delivery of programs are discussed.     

A cross-modal weapon focus effect: The influence of a weapon's presence on memory for auditory information

To examine whether a weapon's presence impairs witnesses' memory for auditory information (as it impairs memory for visual information), we conducted two experiments in which undergraduates watched one version of a videotape depicting a male target who held either a weapon or a neutral object and conversed with a female character. The semantic content of his remarks was either easy or difficult to comprehend. The weapon's presence did not affect voice identification accuracy or memory for the target's vocal characteristics (e.g., pitch, loudness, speech rate) but did worsen memory for semantic content in the Difficult Comprehension condition. Our results can be explained by multiple resource models of attention, which propose separate resource “pools” for different sensory modalities.     

Creativity,Schizotypicality, and Mystical Experience: An Empirical Study

This study examined the commonalities and the differences between creativity and the schizophrenia spectrum. The variables measured were creativity, schizotypy, absorption, mystical experiences, spatial ability, balance, positive and negative presence, and neuroticism. Three community groups were recruited: 31 artists, 10 people with schizophrenia, and 31 comparisons matched for gender and age with the artists. A larger student group, consisting of 102 students, was also recruited to examine the correlations among the same variables within a larger, more normative, group. The largest commonality between the artist and the schizophrenic groups was the propensity to mystical experiences. The greatest differences between them were that the artists were higher in creativity, had better spatial ability, had better balance, had more positive states of presence, and were lower in neuroticism. In the student group, creativity was positively correlated with positive schizotypy, impulsive nonconformity, spatial ability, positive presence, absorption, and mystical experiences, although in the student group, the relation between creativity and mystical experiences was completely mediated by absorption.     

Co‐Witness Confidence,Conformity, and Eyewitness Memory: An Examination of Normative and Informational Social Influences

We explored conformity and co‐witness confidence in eyewitness memory. Confederates provided misleading information and confidence ratings during a cued recall test, and participants publicly provided answers to this test in turn. Participants performed memory tests with a confederate, then completed individual memory tests. Results indicated that confederates who answered questions prior to participants impacted their public and private memory reports for accurate information but only impacted public reports for misleading information. Participants' confidence in their performance in the presence of a confederate mirrored the confederate's confidence levels, suggesting a confidence conformity effect. Results are explained in terms of differential effects of informational and normative influence for accuracy and confidence in co‐witness memory reports. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Going Home Again: Transitioning Youth to Families After Group Care Placement

This paper presents results from the transitioning youth to families intervention, which aimed to promote family care for youth served in group care programs in the child welfare system. The intervention was conducted in two counties in a Mid-Atlantic state. The effort encompassed administrative case review and family involvement meetings. We assessed the effect of the intervention in promoting placement in family settings within 12 months. We also explored other effects of the intervention identified by participants. Using propensity score matching with administrative data to compare one-year placement settings for the intervention counties and non-intervention counties, a higher rate of family reunification was identified for youth in the treatment counties. To provide a richer contextual understanding of the effects of the intervention, thematic analysis of open-ended comments from youth and caregiver participants was conducted. These resulting themes provided further understanding of the value of the intervention especially in the areas of planning for the transition, improving youth insight about placement options, and the importance of family involvement. Participants also made recommendations for how to enhance the intervention and promote the transition of youth from group care to family settings. Overall, the effect of the intervention in transitioning youth to family settings was nominal; however unanticipated benefits of engaging youth and family in the transition process were noted. From this evaluation, we provide suggestions for future research and the development of effort to transition youth from group care settings.