The Justice Sensitivity Inventory: Factorial Validity, Location in the Personality Facet Space, Demographic Pattern, and Normative Data

This article investigates the psychometric properties of a self-report inventory for measuring individual differences in four components of justice sensitivity (JS): victim sensitivity, observer sensitivity, beneficiary sensitivity, and perpetrator sensitivity. A representative sample (N = 2510) was employed to (a) estimate the reliability of a newly developed perpetrator sensitivity scale, (b) test the factorial validity of this scale together with three previously developed scales (victim, observer, and beneficiary sensitivity), (c) estimate correlations between JS and demographic variables (gender, age, education, employment status, marital status, and residency in East versus West Germany), and (d) provide normative data for the computation of standard scores. A demographically heterogeneous convenience sample (N = 327) was used to locate the JS dimensions in the personality space of narrow facet factors. Results from confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated the factorial validity of the JS scales. Regression analyses with JS scales as criteria and personality facet scales as predictors suggested that JS cannot be reduced to combinations of personality facets. Demographic effects were small, explaining a maximum of 1.4% of JS variance. Women and East Germans were found to be more justice sensitive than men and West Germans, respectively. Victim sensitivity decreased with age; perpetrator sensitivity decreased with education. Taken together, our results corroborate the validity of the JS Inventory and contribute to a better psychological understanding of JS.     

Exploring the Structure of Positive and Negative Justice Judgments

The study challenges the commonly assumed symmetry between justice judgments that refer to the distribution of positive and negative outcomes. Based on equity and multiprinciple approaches, and particularly on the theory of framing choices, we propose a conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamics of relations between positive and negative justice judgments. According to this framework, negative judgments are more generalized (simple) and more emphatic than are positive judgments. Data analysis was based on responses of 240 German adults to 39 justice judgment items that were subjected to a Similarity Space Analysis (SSA). The analysis corroborated the hypothesis when the type of resource to be distributed was held constant. Thus, the findings may reflect the primacy and high emotional intensity of negative experiences. They also suggest that, without specification of the distributed resource, this facet of justice judgments (sign of outcome distribution) is devoid of content.     

The death of Kaspar Hauser (17 Dec 1833)--assassination, suicide or self-inflicted injury?

The death of Kaspar Hauser is described taking present medicolegal and criminological knowledge into account, the main question being whether the injury was self-inflicted, homicidal or suicidal. In spite of a critical retrospective analysis this question cannot be answered with sufficient certainty even from our modern perspective. It seems unlikely that the stab to the chest was inflicted exclusively for the purpose of self-damage, but both a suicidal stab and a homicidal act (assassination) cannot be definitely ruled out.     

Sensitivity to befallen injustice and reactions to a real-life disadvantage

The study investigates the construct validity of a self-report questionnaire for dispositional sensitivity to befallen injustice (SBI; Schmitt, Neumann, and Montada, 1995). The items of this questionnaire are combinations of four indicators of SBI (frequency of perceived injustice, intensity of anger, intrusiveness/perseverance of thoughts about the event, punitivity) with 18 types of unfair situations (e.g., performing better than others without getting any appreciation or reward). At Occasion 1, SBI, trait anger, anger in, anger out, anger control, self-assertiveness, and attitudes toward equality were measured. At Occasion 2, the subjects (57 advanced psychology students) took part in a lottery for distributing scarce teaching resources among students. The lottery led to objective advantages for some students and to objective disadvantages for others. Four reactions to the event were measured at Occasion 3: judgment of the lottery as injust, anger about the lottery, experiencing the lottery as demotivating, and approval of activities against the lottery. These reactions were regressed on the variables measured at Occasion 1. SBI was the only significant predictor of the justice judgment and the approval of activities. Anger about the lottery depended only on objective disadvantage/advantage. Experiencing the lottery as demotivating depended negatively on anger control and positively on the intrusiveness/perseverance of thoughts about the event, a subscale of the SBI inventory.     

Cause of death in heroin users with low blood morphine concentration

The blood morphine concentrations in cases of heroin-associated fatalities can vary considerably. Currently, a free-morphine concentration of > or = 100 ng/ml in blood is generally considered as potentially fatal. Moreover, it is a common observation that fatal cases of heroin-intoxication with blood morphine concentrations lower than 100 ng/ml occur. This poses the question of how the fatal cases with low blood morphine concentrations can be explained. In the study described here, 62 cases of morphine only intoxications were examined. The fatal cases were divided into two groups according to the free morphine concentrations measured in the blood of the heart (group I: free morphine concentration < 100 ng/ml, n = 21 cases; group II: free morphine concentration > or = 100 ng/ml, n = 41 cases). The two groups were compared as to circumstances of death, as well as to autopsy findings and histopathologic alterations. Overall, infections of the respiratory tract occurred significantly more often in group I (lower morphine concentrations) than in group II. In a second step, the group I cases were analyzed individually to get detailed information on the cause of death. In 19 of the 21 cases the authors could find a plausible explanation for death in combination with low free morphine concentrations in the blood.     

The design of international trade agreements: Introducing a new dataset

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have been proliferating for the last twenty years. A large literature has studied various aspects of this phenomenon. Until recently, however, many large-N studies have paid only scant attention to variation across PTAs in terms of content and design. Our contribution to this literature is a new dataset on the design of trade agreements that is the most comprehensive in terms of both variables coded and agreements covered. We illustrate the dataset’s usefulness in re-visiting the questions if and to what extent PTAs impact trade flows. The analysis shows that on average PTAs increase trade flows, but that this effect is largely driven by deep agreements. In addition, we provide evidence that provisions that tackle behind-the-border regulation matter for trade flows. The dataset’s contribution is not limited to the PTA literature, however. Broader debates on topics such as institutional design and the legalization of international relations will also benefit from the novel data.     

The value of skull-photo superimpositions in identifying corpses found in domestic settings

The identification of decomposed corpses found in domestic settings is frequently problematic because comparative material for methods such as forensic odontostomatology, comparative X-ray analysis, or DNA analysis, is not available. In the case presented here, a photograph from an old, expired passport could be used to successfully identify a "domestic setting" corpse in a skull-photo superimposition. In an additional DNA analysis, 13 STR-loci could be amplified from tissue samples taken from the corpse. DNA comparison with the presumed brother of the deceased yielded a probability of 97.09% for siblingship. Y-STR-analysis was, therefore, performed. The results showed that all of the systems for the presumed brother and the corpse conformed, with the exception of the DYS390 locus, in which allele 21 was found for the corpse and allele 22 for the brother. Despite the rapid development of other identification procedures, skull-photo superimpositions remain an important means of identification. Last not least this is due to the increasing ubiquity of personal photo documents in the age of digital photography. The validity of the results from a DNA analysis in an identification process depends largely on the authenticity of the samples available for comparison and the degree to which the DNA from the corpse is preserved. In the case presented by the authors, positive identification of the corpse solely on the basis of the DNA analysis would not have been possible. Numerous constellations can be imagined for decomposed corpses found in domestic settings for which skull-photo superimpositions may be the only possible option for identifying the corpse.     

Criteria for the classification as a "domestic-setting corpse"--a literature search and review to define the term

In German medical and media circles (daily routine, specialist literature, press, novels), the term "domestic-setting corpse" is frequently used, but the term is only vaguely defined. The authors thus decided to perform an in-depth study of the literature, including historic textbooks and all German- and English-language medicolegal journals, going as far back as their first issues, in an attempt to more clearly define the term. Inclusion criteria used in the search were a post-mortem interval of at least 24 hours prior to discovery and discovery of the corpse in a domestic setting. In the literature, 37 cases that complied with the above-mentioned inclusion criteria were found. These cases frequently described "advanced decomposition", often "unclear cause of death" and "problems in identification". These characteristics can thus be considered as being additional pointers in the definition. However, we suggest that the two general defining characteristics of a "domestic-setting corpse" are a post-mortem interval of more than 24 hours before discovery and the discovery of the corpse in a domestic setting.