The Rigor of Research Design and “Forensic” Publications in Neuropsychological Research

Seven neuropsychology journals that publish on topics relevant to clinical neuropsychology were examined for their experimental rigor according to the standards of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) in their Clinical Practice Guidelines. By using a keyword approach on topics relevant to forensic neuropsychology, all articles that reported empirical findings from 2003 through 2008 were identified. Each study was rated by AAN classification criteria that ranged from a level I classification (prospective, most rigorous, and independent) to level IV (least rigorous). The typical forensic neuropsychological study averaged a class III ranking. Few studies were based on large sample sizes or utilized a reported masking or blind technique with regards to subject selection and how diagnostic criteria were met and/or data analyzed. While the authors for the average study reported a university affiliation, few reported explicit Institutional Review Board statements. Considerable variability across these seven journals with regards to conflict of interest (COI) disclosure policies was observed and only a few studies reported explicit statements about funding or COI issues. These observations suggest that neuropsychological research on forensic topics currently has many limitations and that future research needs to address these issues.     

构建人文社会科学学术期刊质量评价体系研究

人文社会科学学术期刊的质量在一定程度上可以反映出一个国家的人文社会科学研究水平。当前,我国人文社会科学学术期刊种类众多,但其评价主体、评价客体、评价标准以及评价方式均不统一,同一期刊在不同评价体系中排名不一致,造成读者对期刊的选择缺乏依据,人才评价机构和科研管理部门在进行科研成果评价时也无所适从。由此,统一评价主体,规范评价客体,科学筛选评价指标并赋予合理的权重,采取可操作的评价方式对人文社会科学学术期刊进行评价,具有现实的意义。     

社会科学证据在美国的发展及其启示

我国的民事、行政法庭中已经出现了社会研究报告这种全新的证据形式,它实际上是社会科学证据的典型代表。社会科学证据已经在美国经历了超过百年的发展历史,最早可以追溯到上世纪初出现的"布兰代斯辩论摘要"。在经历了司法实践多年的考验之后,社会科学证据终于从上世纪70年代之后在美国获得了长足发展。如今,社会科学证据在美国的法庭中已得到了广泛的应用。我国可以学习美国的经验,将社会科学证据放在科学证据的框架之下进行研究和应用,这将成为我国证据法学理论的一个重要突破。基于当前的司法证明实践,应当对社会科学证据的证据属性、证据形式、公证问题、审查认定规则等重点问题加强研究。     

Comparing law reviews for their amenability to articles addressing mental health issues

Continuing emphasis has been given to the importance of social scientists bringing empirical research to the attention of legal decision makers. Law reviews have been identified as a particularly useful means for accomplishing this dissemination. The following study is an attempt to determine whether particular law reviews are more amenable to publishing articles on one aspect of the law where considerable social science research has been conducted, namely, mental health law. A LEXIS search for articles addressing mental health issues and published over a 3-year period by 49 national, generalscope law reviews was conducted. These journals showed a general willingness to publish mentalhealth-related articles. This willingness was present in almost all journals, even if somewhat limited. However, a specialized journal focusing on health issues appeared considerably more amenable to these articles than the other journals. For the most part, the other journals were relatively similar in their willingness to publish mental-health-related articles, although across the range of journals the differences in this willingness became pronounced. Based on the results of this study, a strategy is suggested for social scientists wishing to publish their research in law reviews.     

“Bending” Evidence for a Cause: Scholar‐Advocacy Bias in Family Law

There are a number of salient public policy issues in the family law field that have invoked impassioned policy debates on a recurrent basis. In the absence of a body of research to address these critical concerns, advocates under the guise of social science scholarship have exacerbated the confusion and controversy by construing the scant available research evidence to justify their own ends, without regard to the relevance, quality, utility, and limitations of the studies. This is one of two articles on this problem that we have named “scholar‐advocacy bias.” In this article, we discuss the difference between truth in social science and truth in law. We identify common ways in which social science researchers and reviewers of research—wittingly or unwittingly—can become advocates for ideological positions and social policies at the expense of being balanced reporters of research evidence as illustrated by recent debates about overnight parenting of infants and toddlers. We also consider how adherence to established scientific principles and methods prevents the misuse of research in this way.     

Start-ups among university employees: the influence of legitimacy,human capital and social capital

Using a sample of 7,260 university employees, we investigate how legitimacy, social and human capital influence the employees’ start-up propensity. We find that scientific legitimacy, as measured by the number of recently published peer reviewed scientific articles, and conference papers accepted had no significant effect. Scientific legitimacy measured as publications in non-peer review journals even had a negative effect. Popular legitimacy showed mixed results. Measured as number of articles in popular science publications showed positive correlations and other public media appearances had a non significant effect on start-up propensity. Individuals who are older and have higher level of human capital, measured as level of education are less likely to start firms. We also found that, people with more social capital, such as contact with external product development teams are more likely to start new firms. Taken together, the findings suggest that activities spanning the university-business divide increase the start-up propensity, while within university activities had no, or negative effects on the propensity. Consequently, universities interested in encouraging their employees to start firms should focus their attention on creating spanning activities rather than improving conditions for within university tenure.     

Using psychology to control law

Legal decision makers often fail to make use of relevant psychological research. In two areas, deceptive advertising and criminal sentencing, legal decision makershave welcomed social science research. In each, the research provided has been substantially flawed. Using a commercial that several courts evaluated for deception, I illustrate how the typical study that purports to measure deception produces results that are unnecessarily ambibuous. Then, based on research that looks closely at public responses to criminal cases, I show that the frequently cited survey measures of public preference reflect sentencing preferences for unrepresentative stereotypic criminal offenders. The weaknesses demonstated in these examples suggest that psychologists can present legal decision makers with a more accurate picture of human perceptions and preferences. If researchers present legal decision makers with informative research when the relevance of research is acknowledged, legal decision makers are likely to become more receptive and more knowledgeable when a new question warrants the application of social science evidence.An earlier version of this paper was delivered as the presidential address for Division 41, the American Psychology—Law Society, at the 1988 American Psychological Association meetings in Atlanta, Georgia.     

Nanoscience and technology publications and patents: a review of social science studies and search strategies

We undertake a comprehensive review of more than 120 social science studies on nanotechnology, 90% of which are based on the analyses of the nanotechnology publications and patents. We discussed four intellectual debates formed by these studies, namely whether nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field, whether nanoscience and nanotechnology are closely interlinked, whether nanotechnology development is path dependent and who is winning the global nanorace. We also conduct a comparative analysis of bibliometric search strategies used in the literature to harvest the publications and patents, including lexical queries, evolutionary lexical queries, citation analysis, and the use of core journal sets to identify nanotechnology articles. Because most of the compared strategies, except the one using 10 core journals in the field, share a core set of keywords and thus harvest a common batch of publications, they produce very similar ranking tables of the top subject areas and journals and the most prolific countries and institutions. Moreover, the core journal strategy does not provide a robust delineation of an emerging field such as nanotechnology due to the fact that nanotechnology related articles are published in a wide range of journals. Also, the different criteria for selecting the core journals will affect the analytical results dramatically.     

转企改制浪潮下的学报及学报编辑——以重庆市高校学报改革为主线

学术性报刊主要由高等院校或科研院所主办,主要刊登自然科学及社会科学研究领域的最新成果,以繁荣学术,推动创新为宗旨。对高校而言,学术性报刊主要是学报、校报和高校主办的学术性期刊。它们的受众面窄,目前走向市场较为困难,但改制的进程事实上不可逆转。在国家新闻出版总署没有明确学术性期刊的体制、机制及转制对象、时间之前,我们应当积极地进行资源整合,为下一步改制作准备。改制对我们高校学报编辑提出了新的挑战,带来了前所未有的发展机遇。我国高校学报在经过30余年的发展之后,迎来了一个新的战略机遇期。在改革浪潮之下,我们应当从思想观念、体制机制和能力素质方面积极应对。     

Social science in Supreme Court criminal cases and briefs

This article describes citations of social science research evidence in 200 criminal cases decided by the Supreme Court and in the briefs filed by the parties and amici curiae in these cases. It also examines the uses of social science authorities in samples of Supreme Court exclusionary rule and jury decisionmaking cases, and accompanying briefs. The correspondence between the social science references cited in the decisions and the briefs is used as one measure of the brief-writers' contributions to the Court's use of social science materials, and related contributions of the brief-writers are explored, as well. The justices appeared to locate the majority of social science references cited in their opinions without assistance from the briefs, and thus also presumably attempted to evaluate the research evidence on their own. Individuals and organizations with scientific expertise rarely filed amicus briefs in these cases, which may help explain why the Court so frequently was without assistance in locating or examining research evidence. It is suggested that the appellate judiciary's informed use of social science materials would be promoted if more social scientists, and their professional organizations, participated as amici curiae in cases presenting social fact issues within their competence.     

From unilateral liberalization to regional free trade agreements: a Latin America perspective

This paper provides an overview of changes in Latin American trade regime. The inward-looking import substitution industrialization (ISI) approach to development was replaced in the 1990s by an outward-looking strategy. The protectionist policies of the ISI strategy generated an anti-export bias, but unilateral trade liberalization (UTL) reduced this bias considerably. An issue discussed is why the pro-ISI consensus of the 1960s was replaced by the pro-export consensus of the 1990s? There has been a surprising proliferation of (bilateral) free trade agreements (FTAs) during the 1990s. In the paper it is argued that UTL and FTAs are complementary strategies. Latin America has comparative advantages in natural resources. A new debate over the development strategy has emerged. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are seen as crucial to a country’s growth in the twenty-first century. So, how can Latin American countries incorporate such technologies into their economies. Is it possible to make the leap from producing natural resources to producing ICT? In today’s globalized world, it is essential for Latin American countries to increase its exports. This paper reviews actions on different fronts; some that should be carried at the domestic level, and also, measures at the external level which require that the developed countries provide better market access to Latin American exports.     

A comparison of Chinese and the U.S. police cadets’ occupational attitudes

While police attitudes and behaviors have been the subject of a large number of studies conducted since the 1960s, very few studies had assessed Chinese police officers’ work-related attitudes and compared them with those of the U.S. police cadets. Using survey data collected from 263 Chinese and American police cadets, the research empirically tested whether Chinese and American police cadet attitudes differed across four attitudinal dimensions: aggressive patrol, order maintenance, legal restrictions, and distrust of citizens. Bivariate and multivariate results showed that Chinese cadets displayed occupational outlooks that distinguished them from their American counterparts. Chinese cadets supported aggressive patrol and were more distrustful of citizens than their American counterparts. American cadets were more favorable of order maintenance activities and more accepting of legal restrictions compared with Chinese cadets. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

The Commonality Between Economics and Law

The development of law and economics is a success story in the expansion of economics into other social sciences since the 1960s. The success has been attributed to the fact that economics offers a powerful set of analytical tools with a forceful theory of human behavior. But if this is the only reason, then the move of economics into other social sciences such as political science and sociology should have been equally successful. This, however, has not been true, and the discrepancy calls for an explanation. The commonalities between economics and law in both subject matter and analytical approach provide a more convincing explanation; some of the difficulties faced by the legal economists can also be explained by an appreciation of the commonalites between economics and law.     

Driving While Black

Abstract

The phenomenon of “driving while black” has ignited a heated debate: Do the police use race to target drivers? Most research on the topic compares the number of police stops and searches for a racial group to that group's distribution in the population. This approach ignores sociological theories of law, the driver's social status, the combined influence of race and sex, and whether the driver carries drugs in the car. In addition, the police are aware of being observed. To address these limitations, we surveyed undergraduates (N = 1,192) at one of the most diverse universities in the nation about their experiences with the police and their personal criminal behavior. Drawing on Black's (1976) theory of law, we examine whether a driver's race, sex, and social status influence police behavior (stop, exit, frisk, search, ticket/arrest). We also examine which drivers are most likely to have drugs in the car. The results suggest that a driver's race, sex, and social status all shape police behavior: African American men and Hispanic men experience more social control than white men; all men experience more social control than women; and low status drivers experience more social control than high status drivers. But despite the police focus on minority males, white males were the most likely to report carrying drugs in the car.     

A BETTER BEGINNING: FAMILY LAW IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL

The American Bar Association's Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar's Standards Review Committee has focused law schools' efforts to modify their curriculum with an appeal to focus on outcomes and assessments. A cornerstone of the outcomes and assessments discussion is skills training. The committee's call for more skills training has prompted family law faculty to consider innovative methods to bring that training into substantive courses or to bring the substantive curriculum into a skills course. This essay discusses how law faculty are incorporating family law doctrines into first‐year legal research and writing courses.     

North American transnational youth gangs: Breaking the chain of violence

Youth gangs are nothing new. They appeared in New York City and Philadelphia at the end of the American Revolution. Their numbers and violence correspond to peak levels of immigration and population shifts that occurred in the early 1800s, 1920s, 1960s, and late 1990s. Entrenched in American culture, gangs are romanticized in movies while rap artists copy their dress and jargon. However, because of their growing membership and globalization, gangs have become a public security threat that must be addressed.     

Criminal justice programs in higher education: Course and curriculum orientations

The growth of criminal justice education programs at institutions of higher learning has been largely a phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s. This rapid growth has resulted in a variety of program types in terms of both subject area and content orientation. Programs appear to be moving toward a total-system approach with both a social science and professional emphasis. The type of program developed by educational institutions has implications for instructor selection, practitioner relationships, and organizational location within the institution of higher learning.     

Government Growth and Professionalism in U.S. State Legislatures

This article analyzes the professionalization of American state legislatures since the 1960s and expands on previous studies by considering the strategic incentives of members. Fiorina and Noll's (1978a, 1978b) theory that reelection‐minded legislators serve as “ombudsmen to the bureaucracy” on behalf of their constituents suggests that legislatures have professionalized in response to growth in public spending in order to strengthen members' abilities to handle increased facilitation duties. I used longitudinal analysis and instrumental variables regression to test this hypothesis and disentangle causal directionality, since professional legislators may have the means and incentive to spend more than their citizen counterparts. Both methods revealed empirical support for the Fiorina and Noll hypothesis that spending increases caused legislators to become more professional.