The effect of authority and social influence on eyewitness suggestibility and person recognition

This study investigated the influence of an authority figure on eyewitness identification. Participants watched a staged crime and then were administered a photo lineup by either an authority (policeman) or non-authority figure (civilian). Participants in the authority condition were more likely to choose a lineup member than those in the non-authority condition. There was no effect of authority, however, on the accuracy of the identification decisions. The lack of a deleterious effect suggests that the presence of a police officer during identification procedures does not create an unduly suggestive situation or have undesirable effects on eyewitness identification decisions. Although witnesses' choosing behaviors did not increase the rate of identification errors, the effect of the administrator's authority on choosing was reduced when unbiased instructions (vs. biased instructions) were presented to the witnesses. Thus, support was found for the use of neutral instructions during eyewitness identification procedures.     

Canadian public service employee satisfaction and its main drivers

Using the results of the 2005 Public Service Employee Survey (PSES), this paper identifies which factors have the greatest effect on employee satisfaction in the Canadian public service. Several hypotheses are tested against the backdrop of existing literature. In general, public servant satisfaction is affected by belief in opportunities for promotion, fair classification, adherence to client service standards, life balance, recognition by immediate supervisors, team relationships with colleagues, how well information is shared and, finally, belief in the abilities of senior management. Some interesting elaborations of these basic findings emerge when other variables are controlled. The discussion considers how the public service can be seen as a more desirable career choice.     

Two sides of the same coin: can campaigns generate support for both human rights and retributive violence?

ABSTRACT

Do framing strategies that are effective at encouraging pro-social behavior, such as participation in human rights campaigns, also mobilize support for violence within the same subjects? We use an experimental research design to examine individuals’ reactions to personal, humanizing narratives about past victimization. Participants are randomly assigned to one of eight treatment groups, which variously highlighted the humanity of the subject, the intensity of the past violence, and/or an evocative photograph of the subject that underscores her loss and vulnerability. We expect narratives that emphasize the subject’s humanity will encourage the audience to see the subject as innocent and as a victim, but also to feel angry about her experience. As a result, individuals will be more likely to defend the subject’s human rights, and to condone her use of retributive violence. We find that humanizing narratives lead respondents to simultaneously support a human rights appeal on the subject’s behalf and her use of retributive violence. Perceiving the subject in the narrative as innocent or as a victim mediates these effects, but anger often does not.     

Socioenvironmental Risk and Adjustment in Latino Youth: The Mediating Effects of Family Processes and Social Competence

The direct and mediated effects of socioenvironmental risk on internalizing and externalizing problems among Latino youth aged 10–14 were examined using prospective analyses. Participants in this study were 464 Latino mother and child dyads surveyed as part of the Welfare, Children & Families: A Three City Study. It was hypothesized that socioenvironmental risk (i.e., maternal psychological distress, maternal parenting stress, neighborhood disadvantage, and perceived financial strain) would influence later adolescent adjustment by interrupting important family processes and interfering with opportunities for adolescents to develop appropriate social competence. Using path analyses, the mediational model was compared across high and low acculturation groups. With two exceptions, the models for the high and low acculturation groups were equivalent. Results supported a mediated effect between early socioenvironmental risk and later adjustment problems for the low acculturation group through family routines and adolescent social competence. Among families high in acculturation, socioenvironmental risk effects were partially mediated through family routines and adolescent social competence. Finally, a path from gender to maternal monitoring was present in the low acculturation group model but not the high acculturation group model. Assistant professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas. Her major research interests are risk and resiliency processes in minority youth. Assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests are the effects of microenvironmental factors in the externalizing and internalizing behaviors of European American and Latino youth. Assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests are risk and protective factors in children and adolescents at-risk because of parental substance abuse.     

Queer Black Feminism: The Pleasure Principle

In this critical personal narrative Harris explores some of the gaps between conceptions of feminist thought and feminist practice. Harris focuses on an analysis of race, class, and desire divisions within feminist sexual politics. She suggests a queer black feminist theory and practice that calls into question naturalized identities and communities, and therefore what feminism and feminist practices might entail.     

Impact of Defense-Only and Opposing Eyewitness Experts on Juror Judgments

Previous research shows that expert testimony on eyewitness memory influences mock-juror judgments. We examined the extent to which opposing expert testimony mitigates the impact of defense-only expert testimony. Participants (N = 497) viewed a video-taped trial involving an eyewitness identification and individually rendered verdicts and evaluated the evidence and the experts. We manipulated the Foils (unbiased vs. biased) and Instructions (unbiased vs. biased) of the lineup and Expert Testimony (no expert vs. defense-only expert vs. opposing experts). Expert testimony did not significantly influence juror judgments, but the opposing expert testimony diminished the credibility of the defense expert in the eyes of the jurors. Results point to the need for further research on conditions that qualify the impact of expert testimony.     

Making the Invisible Visible: Disability Inclusive Development in Solomon Islands

International and national level disability inclusive discourse, policy and strategy typically render invisible the institutional structures, political economies and socio-cultural power relations that constitute the lived experience of disability. The lack of robust information on disability extends these theoretical blind spots to the absence of disability in official statistics, political dialogue and social policy. Empirically grounded, inclusive research that recognises disability as embedded in globalised political economies and culturally specific power relations is required to address the theoretical, statistical and programmatic invisibility of disability. Such research will provide a solid knowledge base on which to build effective inclusive interventions.     

Interrogating ‘invisibilization’ and ‘instrumentalization’: women and current citizenship trends in Canada

This paper examines current citizenship discourses and practices in Canada, focusing on the implications not only of marketization, but also of growing securitization vis-à-vis citizenship, and the gendered ramifications of such developments. The repercussions of marketization and securitization and their interrelations, for women in general, as well as racialized and immigrant women in particular, are outlined and assessed. In this way, we see how women are at the receiving end of highly contradictory processes in that they are both ‘invisibilized’, in other words, rendered invisible, by the Canadian state, but are also are increasingly ‘instrumentalized’, in other words, used in strategic ways. Yet, women also challenge these trends and tactics, thereby interrogating these processes that serve to limit the terms and scope of citizenship in Canada.