The cognitive interview: Much more than simply “try again”

Abstract

In the legal context, the elicitation of complete and accurate statements from witnesses and victims is essential. The Cognitive Interview (CI) was devised to improve eyewitnesses' memory by using mnemonic strategies which ask witnesses to think about what happened and encourage them to make as many retrieval attempts as possible. However, no known study has experimentally examined whether (or not) the CI superiority effect is something more than merely asking a witness to retrieve information four times. The aim of this study was to compare the recall obtained by means of the CI - in which mnemonics are used - to that obtained as a result of asking subjects to make a multiple free recall task - without using mnemonics - in a single interview session. It was expected that significant differences would still exist. Results confirmed this hypothesis.     

Adult-perpetrated animal abuse: development of a proclivity scale

There is a clear discrepancy in the reporting of animal cruelty complaints, prosecutions, and convictions suggesting that any prevalence figures of abuse are significant under-representations. Therefore, it can be inferred that there is a large number of animal abusers who are unapprehended. Currently there is no validated tool that assesses the proclivity or propensity to engage in animal abuse amongst members of the general public. Such a tool would enable researchers to study individuals who may think like animal abusers or may be unapprehended offenders themselves. This paper presents the newly developed Animal Abuse Proclivity Scale (AAPS) and some preliminary findings. The results from our two studies show that: (1) the psychometric properties of the AAPS indicate that the scale is a highly reliable measure; (2) the AAPS relates to measures assessing offence-supportive attitudes and reflects the gender differences seen in the literature; and (3) the AAPS demonstrates cross-national validity. These findings support that the AAPS, similar to other offending proclivity measures, is a tool that can be used to examine the factors most related to animal abuse propensity. We discuss how the AAPS can contribute to future developments in theory and practice in the field.     

Cognitive bias in line-up identifications: The impact of administrator knowledge

Prior knowledge of the likely or expected outcome of a forensic investigation has been shown to produce biases in the results obtained, reducing objectivity. The wide prevalence of such cognitive biases in many judgments has long been recognised by social psychologists, but its importance is only now gaining appreciation within forensic science communities. It is therefore timely to draw attention to the power of cognitive biases found in a study of the influence of administrator expectations on photographic identifications. Data are presented to show that when a line-up administrator knows the identity and position of a target within a line-up choice, in which the ‘witness’ is ignorant of the actual target, that target is more than twice as likely to be selected compared with when the administrator is kept ‘blind’. These findings, taken together with related studies, support the recommendation that all forensic analyses are made ‘double-blind’—a method that has proven to be effective in reducing such effects within the social sciences.     

Collection of Delinquent Fines: An Adaptive Randomized Trial to Assess the Effectiveness of Alternative Text Messages

The collection of delinquent fines is a vast and ongoing public administration challenge. In the United Kingdom, unpaid fines amount to more than 500 million pounds. Managing noncompliant accounts and dispatching bailiffs to collect fines in person is costly. This paper reports the results of a large randomized controlled trial, led by the UK Cabinet Office's Behavioural Insights Team, which was designed to test the effectiveness of mobile phone text messaging as an alternative method of inducing people to pay their outstanding fines. An adaptive trial design was used, first to test the effectiveness of text messaging against no treatment and then to test the relative effectiveness of alternative messages. Text messages, which are relatively inexpensive, are found to significantly increase average payment of delinquent fines. We found text messages to be especially effective when they address the recipient by name.     

Envisioning Public Child Welfare Agencies as Learning Organizations: Applying Beer's Viable System Model to Title IV-E Program Evaluation

The idea of a learning organization emerges from organizational cybernetics and results in agency staff having the means to use their skills and expertise to meet the needs of the organization's clients. Relevant to Title IV-E training programs, such organizational processes would maximize the use of knowledge and skills the graduates bring back to the agency. This article uses focus group data to explore how Title IV-E graduates perceive the potentialities of their agency as a learning organization. This analysis results in recommendations to improve organizational performance without impinging on existing agency resource constraints.     

Examining the Relationship Between Parenting,Risk-Taking,and Delinquency in Japan: Context and Empirical Applicability

In criminology, the relationship between risk-taking and delinquency is well established. Although research on the relationship between risk-taking and delinquency is extensive, it is primarily limited to Western contexts. Particularly for Japan, little is known about the relationship between risk-taking and delinquency, as existing empirical studies in English are scarce. The present study examines the relationship between risk-taking and delinquency in the Japanese context. In briefly reviewing the literature on risk-taking in Japan, parenting was an important influence on levels of youths' risk-taking and delinquency. The findings primarily support the mediating role of high risk-taking between parenting and delinquency. Although high risk-taking explained why low maternal attachment and monitoring was related to delinquency, it was unable to explain the relationship completely.     

Pathway to terrorist behaviors: The role of childhood experiences,personality traits,and ideological motivations in a sample of Iraqi prisoners

Radicalization to terrorism is a multifaceted process with no single theory or approach to explain it. Although research has focused on understanding the process, there is still a dearth of studies that examine an empirically driven pathway to terrorism behavior. This study examines a cross-sectional sample of incarcerated men convicted of terrorism in Iraq (N = 160). A questionnaire-guided interview included adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), conduct disorder (CD), antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), religious and political ideology, views about causes of terrorism, and the severity of terrorist acts. Path analysis was employed to examine the relationships between these factors and to identify the model with the best fit. After adjusting for age, employment, and location, results indicated that ACEs positively impacted CD, ASPD, religious guidance, and terrorism attitudes. ASPD positively affected political commitment and terrorism attitudes, but inversely affected current religious commitment. Political commitment inversely influenced terrorism attitudes. Religious commitment positively influenced the prioritization of religion in life, which subsequently impacted terrorism attitudes and behavior severity. Additionally, attitudes toward terrorism directly affected the severity of terrorism behavior. All paths in the final model were statistically significant at p < 0.05. Although these findings may be limited in generalizability due to the unique sample, results support the complex and interdependent nature of childhood and adult experiences on the development of both terrorism attitudes and the severity of terrorism behavior.