Public Eyewitness Confidence Ratings Can Differ from Those Held Privately

Despite much research on eyewitness confidence, we know very little about whether confidence ratings given in public might differ from those held privately. This study tested a prediction derived from self-presentation theory that eyewitnesses will give lower confidence ratings in public when there is a possibility of their account being contradicted by other witnesses as compared to when they report their confidence in private. In groups of 3 or 4 people, 96 participants watched a videotape of a simulated robbery and then answered 16 forced-choice questions about details from the videotape. In half of the experimental sessions, the participants shared their answers and confidence ratings aloud with the other participants (public condition), and in the other half, the answers and ratings were not shared (private). As predicted, confidence ratings were significantly lower in the public condition than in the private condition, but the privacy manipulation had no effect on response accuracy. These results are consistent with a self-presentation explanation, and they highlight the need to examine public confidence ratings more thoroughly.     

Assessing callous-unemotional traits in adolescent offenders: validation of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits

The presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits designates an important subgroup of antisocial youth. To improve upon existing measures, the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) was developed to provide an efficient, reliable, and valid assessment of CU traits in samples of youth. The current study tests the factor structure and correlates of the ICU scale in a sample (n=248) of juvenile offenders (188 boys, 60 girls) between the ages of 12 and 20 (M=15.47, SD=1.37). Confirmatory factor analyses are consistent with the presence of three independent factors (i.e., Uncaring, Callousness, and Unemotional) that relate to a higher-order callous-unemotional dimension. Also, CU traits overall showed associations with aggression, delinquency, and both psychophysiological and self-report indices of emotional reactivity. There were some important differences across the three facets of the ICU in their associations with these key external criteria.     

Helping Friends or Influencing Foes: Electoral and Policy Effects of Campaign Finance Contributions

Campaign finance contributions may influence policy by affecting elections or influencing the choices of politicians once in office. To study the trade‐offs between these two paths to influence, we use a game in which contributions may affect electoral outcomes and signal policy‐relevant information to politicians. In the model, a campaign donor and two politicians each possess private information correlated with a policy‐relevant state of the world. The donor may allocate his or her budget to either an ally candidate who has relatively similar preferences or a moderate candidate whose preferences are relatively divergent from the donor's preferred policy. Contributions that increase the likelihood of the moderate being elected can signal good news about the donor's preferred policy and influence the moderate's policy choice. However, when the electoral effect of contributions is too small to demand sufficiently high costs to deter imitation by groups with negative information, this informational effect breaks down.     

Nondermatomal Somatosensory Deficits (NDSDs) and Pain: State-of-the-Art Review

Nondermatomal somatosensory deficits (NDSDs) are large sensory deficits not conforming to dermatomal/root territories, and no structural pathology accounts for them. They can be very mild or very dense, highly variable, or extremely fixed over time and may be very disabling. It is now accepted by mainstream pain science that they are the product of a central neurophysiological phenomenon. We demonstrated in this paper through literature review and through multiple clinical cases that NDSDs (a) have a psychobiological substrate at the level of the central nervous system, (b) are very frequently associated with chronic pain and/or psychotraumatic experiences, (c) occur very frequently in the context of conversion disorder, but (d) can also occur in the absence of conversion disorders, (e) can be superimposed on structural neurological deficits, and (f) respond positively, or at least in part, to sodium amobarbital (commonly referred to as the “truth serum”).     

How do Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimization Affect Fear and Coping among Students? An Application of General Strain Theory

School bullying victimization represents an important type of strain (or stressful event) experienced by individuals because it usually occurs frequently, over a long period of time, and is an intentional violation against another person. The current study utilizes the 2009 School Crime Supplement (SCS) of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to assess the effect of bullying victimization on avoidance behaviors and carrying weapons to school. This study also examines how bullying victimization affects fear and whether this emotion mediates the relationship between victimization and outcomes. As expected, traditional bullying and cyberbullying increase the likelihood of fear. In addition, traditional bullying and cyberbullying victimization increase the likelihood of avoidance behaviors and bringing a weapon to school. Contrary to expectations, fear did not mediate the relationship between bullying and coping behaviors.     

Do Harsher Prison Conditions Reduce Recidivism? A Discontinuity-based Approach

We estimate the causal effect of prison conditions on recidivismrates by exploiting a discontinuity in the assignment of federalprisoners to security levels. Inmates housed in higher securitylevels are no less likely to recidivate than those housed inminimum security; if anything, our estimates suggest that harsherprison conditions lead to more post-release crime. Though smallsample sizes limit the precision of our estimates, we arguethat our findings may have important implications for prisonpolicy, and that our methodology is likely to be applicablebeyond the particular context we study.     

Welfare Implications of Costly Litigation under Strict Liability

This article examines a model of strict liability with costlylitigation and presents conditions under which (1) potentialinjurers take optimal precautions, (2) increasing the cost oflitigation enhances precaution and social welfare, (3) the optimallevel of liability exceeds the compensatory level, and (4) increasingthe rate of settlement enhances social welfare. The resultshave implications for controversies surrounding fee shifting,optimal damage awards (e.g., punitive damages), and the socialdesirability of settlement. The most striking implication isthat fee shifting in favor of prevailing plaintiffs is sociallydesirable in low-transaction-cost settings.