Lineup Administrators' Expectations: Their Impact on Eyewitness Confidence

This research focuses on how lineup a administrators influence eyewitnesses' postidentification confidence. What happens to witness confidence when a witness makes an identification that confirms the lineup administrator's expectations; what happens when this expectation is not confirmed? In Experiment 1, participant interviewers (n = 52) administered target-absent photo lineups to participant witnesses (n = 52). The interviewers did not view the simulated crime, but were told the thief's position in the lineup. In every instance this information was false (we used a target-absent lineup). A one-way ANOVA revealed that eyewitness identification confidence was malleable as a function of interviewers' beliefs about the thief's identity. In Experiment 2, participant jurors (n = 80) viewed 40 testimonies of Experiment 1 witnesses (2 participants viewed each testimony). Participant jurors judged all participant witnesses as equally credible despite their varying levels of postidentification confidence.

     

When is the Truth not the Truth? Truth Telling and Libel by Implication

Implied libel cases involve defamatory news stories composed entirely of factual, truthful material. Because they lack the false statements typically required for a successful libel suit, these cases present unique challenges regarding determination of falsity. This article examines how appellate judges articulate and apply conceptions of truth in libel- by-implication cases. It concludes that there exists no common understanding of truth and that judges and courts that favor the correspondence theory of truth tend to favor the media, while those that adopt the coherence theory of truth do not. This disagreement over the fundamental understanding of what constitutes truth leads to confusion and lack of clarity for journalists and judges. The article concludes that the actual malice standard apply in all implied libel cases.     

Comparing Sexual-Minority and Heterosexual Young Women’s Friends and Parents as Sources of Support for Sexual Issues

The present study provides a comparative analysis of sexual-minority and heterosexual emerging adult women’s experiences seeking support for sexual issues from parents and friends. Participants included 229 college women (88 sexual-minority women; 141 heterosexual women), ranging from 18 to 25 years of age, who provided written responses to an inquiry about a time they went to friends and parents for support for a issue related to their sexuality. Responses indicated that the majority of participants had sought support from either a parent or a friend and that mothers and female friends were more likely involved than fathers or male friends, respectively. Sexual issues that participants reported discussing with parents and friends were inductively grouped into five categories: dating and romantic relationships, sexual behavior, sexual health, identity negotiation, and discrimination and violence. Issues that were discussed differed based on sexual orientation identity and the source of support (parent or friend); they did not differ by age. Participants generally perceived parents and friends’ responses as helpful, though sexual-minority participants perceived both parents and friends’ responses as less helpful than did heterosexual participants. Overall, results suggest both similarities and differences between sexual-minority and heterosexual young women’s experiences seeking support for sexual issues from parents and friends.     

Does Mother Know Best? Adolescent and Mother Reports of Impulsivity and Subsequent Delinquency

Although impulsivity is one of the strongest psychological predictors of crime, it is unclear how well impulsivity, measured at a specific moment in adolescence, predicts criminal behavior months or years into the future. The present study investigated how far into the future self-reports and parents’ reports of a youth’s impulsivity predicted whether he engaged in illegal behavior, whether one reporter’s assessment was more predictive than the other’s, and whether there is value in obtaining multiple reports. Data were obtained from a 6-year longitudinal study of adjudicated juvenile offenders (n = 701 mother-son dyads). Youth (m = 15.93 years old; sd = 1.14) and their mothers independently reported on adolescents’ impulsivity at the initial assessment. We examined the prospective correlation of these measures with illegal behavior, assessed by official records of arrests and youths’ self-reports of offending across the 72-month study period. Youths’ and mothers’ reports of the adolescents’ impulsivity were weakly, but significantly, correlated with one another. Furthermore, mothers’ ratings of their sons’ impulsivity predicted arrest up to 6 years into the future, whereas youths’ reports did not significantly predict arrest beyond 30 months. With respect to youths’ self-reports of offending, mothers’ ratings of impulsivity again predicted farther into the future (as late as 6 years later) than did youths’ self-reports of impulsivity, which were not predictive beyond 4 years. However, across the first 4 years, youths’ self-reports of impulsivity explained more variance in self-reported offending than did mothers’ ratings. The results underscore the endurance of the predictive utility of an assessment of impulsivity and the importance (and accuracy) of parents’ reports of developmental constructs, even when their children are adolescents.     

Managing incidental findings in human subjects research: analysis and recommendations.

No consensus yet exists on how to handle incidental findings (IFs) in human subjects research. Yet empirical studies document IFs in a wide range of research studies, where IFs are findings beyond the aims of the study that are of potential health or reproductive importance to the individual research participant. This paper reports recommendations of a two-year project group funded by NIH to study how to manage IFs in genetic and genomic research, as well as imaging research. We conclude that researchers have an obligation to address the possibility of discovering IFs in their protocol and communications with the IRB, and in their consent forms and communications with research participants. Researchers should establish a pathway for handling IFs and communicate that to the IRB and research participants. We recommend a pathway and categorize IFs into those that must be disclosed to research participants, those that may be disclosed, and those that should not be disclosed.