Bonding in a High-Risk and a General Sample of Children:Comparison of Measures of Attachment and Their Relationship to Smoking and Drinking

Bonding in parent, peer, and school domains were compared in a general sample of children and a sample of children of methadone-treated parents. Bivariate comparisons revealed that children of methadone-treated parents had lower SES, and were significantly more likely to smoke cigarettes but not more likely to drink alcohol. Several measures of attachment were significantly different between the two samples across parent, peer, and school domains. Multivariate analyses indicated that the children of methadone-treated parents were more likely to smoke, even after accounting for the effects of demographic and attachment variables. For drinking, sample membership was not found to be significant. Attachment to school decreased the odds of both smoking and drinking in both samples. Peer attachment had no effect on the odds of smoking initiation; however,loyalty to best friend did predict increased odds of drinking initiation.     

Compensating Plaintiffs and Punishing Defendants: Is Bifurcation Necessary?

Critics of the civil jury have proposed several procedural reforms to address the concern that damage awards are capricious and unpredictable. One such reform is the bifurcation or separation of various phases of a trial that involves multiple claims for damages. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damages phases of a civil tort trial. We manipulated the wealth of the defendant and the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct (both sets of evidence theoretically related to punitive but not to compensatory damages) across three cases in a jury analog study. We wondered whether jurors would misuse the punitive damages evidence in fixing compensatory damages and whether bifurcation would effectively undo this practice. Our findings indicated that mock jurors did not improperly consider punitive damages evidence in their decisions about compensation. Moreover, bifurcation had the unexpected effect of augmenting punitive damage awards. These findings raise questions about the merits of bifurcation in cases that involve multiple claims for damages.     

Conduct and its Consequences: Attempts at Debiasing Jury Judgments

Jurors in negligence cases are supposed to judge a defendant by the reasonableness of his or her conduct and not by the consequences of that conduct. But several studies have shown that a cognitive heuristic known as hindsight bias can skew post hoc judgments of some prior behavior. Thus, jurors who must evaluate the actions of a defendant may be influenced inappropriately by the consequences of those actions. A complementary problem arises when jurors must evaluate the injuries incurred by the plaintiff. Here, jurors' knowledge about the defendant's allegedly negligent conduct can proactively influence their assessment of the plaintiff's injuries and determination of damages. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of two procedural techniques intended to reduce or eliminate the impact of hindsight bias in negligence cases—multiple admonitions from a judge about the proper use of evidence—and bifurcation (actually withholding irrelevant evidence from jurors). We presented a re-enacted automobile negligence trial to 355 jury-eligible adults drawn from the community, varied the evidence and instructions that they heard, and measured liability judgments and damage awards from individual jurors both before and after deliberating, and from juries. Results showed that admonitions were generally ineffective in guiding jurors to the proper use of evidence but that bifurcation was relatively more effective. Deliberations had no curative effect on jurors' misapplication of evidence.     

Book reviews

E. Glyn Lewis, Multilingualistn in the Soviet Union: aspects of language policy and its implementation. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1971. xx+332pp. Dfl 62.

L. G. Churchward, The Soviet Intelligentsia. An essay on the social structure and roles of Soviet intellectuals during the 196os. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. xiii + 204 pp. £3.25.

Galia Golan, Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia. The Dubcek Era 1968–1969. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1973. Vii + 327 pp. £5.80. $18.50.

Otto Ul?, The Judge in a Communist State. A View from Within. Athens, Ohio: Ohio UP, 1972. xiv + 307 pp. $8.75.

Robert M. Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Soviet‐American relations and the struggle for power in the Kremlin, June‐November 1961. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1973. xvi + 509 pp. $17.50. £7.90.

Edward Taborsky, Communist Penetration of the Third World. New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1973. iii + 500 pp. $12.50.

Philip R. Pryde, Conservation in the Soviet Union. London: Cambridge UP, 1972. xv + 301 pp. £5.00.

Marshall I. Goldman, The Spoils of Progress: Environmental Pollution in the Soviet Union. Cambridge, Mass, and London: The M.I.T. Press, 1972. xi + 372 pp. $7.95. £3.60.

Robert H. McNeal, Bride of the Revolution. Krupskaya and Lenin. London: Victor Gollancz, 1973. 326 pp. £3.60.

George Katkov et al. (eds.), Russia Enters the Twentieth Century 1894–1917. London: Methuen, 1973. 352 pp. £1.50 (paperback).

Paul Craig Roberts and M. Stephenson, Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation and Crisis. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1973. 127 pp. $5.50.

W. H. Parker, The Russians: How They Live and Work. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973. 179 pp. £2.50.

Wright Miller, Who are the Russians? A History of the Russian People. London: Faber & Faber, 1973. 240 pp. £3.95.