What Did the Janitor Do? Suggestive Interviewing and the Accuracy of Children's Accounts

Examined the influence of suggestive interviews on 5- to 6-year-old children's reports and recollections of an adult's behavior. Children (29 girls, 27 boys) witnessed a confederate, acting as a janitor, either clean or play with toys. An hour later they were interviewed in succession by the janitor's boss, by an experimenter, and by their own parent. Parents interviewed their child again 1 week later. The boss and experimenter interviewed the child in one of three ways: neutral (nonleading), incriminating (suggesting the janitor was bad and playing on the job), or exculpating (suggesting the janitor was good and doing his job of cleaning). When these interviews were neutral, children consistently gave accurate accounts of the janitor's behavior. When these interviews were suggestive, children's accounts shifted strongly in the direction of suggestion as the interviews progressed. By the end of the suggestive interviews, children's accounts uniformly corresponded to the interviewers' suggestions, even when the suggestions were inconsistent with what actually happened. These effects of suggestion persisted during the two nonleading parent interviews.     

Reviews

Beyond Apartheid: Human Resources for a New South Africa. James Currey Ltd., Islington, London, David Philip Publisher (Pty) Ltd., Claremont (South Africa), and Heinemann Educational Books Inc., Portsmouth (USA), 1991. x plus 132pp. including tables, notes and appendices. £7,95. Paperback.

Occasional Papers on the Irish in South Africa by Donald H. Akenson. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 1991.96pp.

The Organisation of African Unity: An Analysis of its Role by Gino J. Naldi. Mansell: London and New York, 1989. ix plus 228pp. including appendices. £40,00.

Place, Migration and Development in the Third World. An Alternative View by Lawrence A. Brown. Routledge, London and New York, 1991. xx plus 252pp. including figures, tables, appendices, notes, references and index. Hardback.

Urban and Regional Change in Southern Africa edited by David Drakakis‐Smith. Routledge (London), 1992. xviii plus 227 pp. including figures, tables, notes, bibliography and index.

The Making of the Colonial Order: White Supremacy and Black Resistance in the Eastern Cape, 1770–1865 by Clifton C. Crais. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1992. 284pp. R60,00. Paperback.

Bounds of Possibility by B. Pityana, M. Ramphele, M. Mpumlwana and L Wilson. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. R35,50. Paperback.

All, Here, and Now: Black Politics in the 1980s by Tom Lodge, Bill Nasson, Steven Mufson, Khehla Shubane and Nokwanda Sithole. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. x plus 414 pp. including figures, appendices, bibliography and index. R44,95. Paperback.

Spirit of Africa: The Healing Ministry of Archbishop Milingo of Zambia by Gerrie ter Haar. Hurst & Company, London, 1992. x plus 286 pp. including map illustrations, notes, bibliography and index. £9,95. Paperback.

Striking Back: A History of COSATU by Jeremy Baskin. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1991. xv plus 488pp. R32.95.

Economic Development That Lasts: Labour‐intensive Irrigation Projects in Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania by Bertin Martens. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1989. xvii plus 191pp. including maps, figures, tables, appendices and bibliography. Swiss francs 27,50. Paperback.

South African Review 6: From “Red Friday” to CODESA edited by Glenn Moss and Ingrid Obery. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1992. xxi plus 508pp. including figures, tables and notes. Paperback.

Black Youth in Crisis: Facing the Future edited for CASE by David Everatt and Elinor Sisulu. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1992. xii plus 89pp. including figures, tables and notes.     

Book reviews

Graham E. Fuller, The Center of the Universe. The Geopolitics of Iran, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991, xv + 301pp., $35.00 hardback, $18.50 paperback.

Tim McDaniel, Autocracy, Modernization and Revolution in Russia and Iran, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991, x + 235pp., $29.95.

Steven G. Marks, Road to Power: the Trans‐Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia, 1850–1917, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991, xxiii + 235pp., $31.95.

Cyril E. Black, Louis Dupree, Elizabeth Endicott‐West, Daniel C. Matuszewski, Eden Naby and Arthur N. Waldron, The Modernization of Inner Asia, Sharpe, Armonk, 1991, xviii + 405 pp., $49.95.

Audrey L. Altstadt, The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity Under Russian Rule. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1992, xxiv + 331 pp., $18.95

G. A. Khidoiatov, Moia rodnaia istoriia. Oqituwchi, Tashkent, 1990, 304 pp. + colour plates.

Robert L. Canfield (ed.), Turko‐Persia in Historical Perspective. A School of American Research Book. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, xiv + 256 pp., $54.00.     

Book reviews

Electronic Contracting, Publishing, and EDI Law Michael S Baum and Henry H Perritt, Jr Wiley Law Publications 1991. ISBN Q 471 53135 9

The Law of Electronic Commerce: EDI, Fax and E‐Mail Technology, Proof and Liability Benjamin Wright Little, Brown and Company 1991. ISBN Q 316 95632 5 $95

Crime and the Computer Martin Wasik Oxford University Press 1991. ISBN 0 19 825621 3 £35

Broadcasting: the New Law Nicholas Reville Butterworths ISBN 0 406 001375 £16

Regulating the Media Thomas Gibbons Sweet and Maxwell ISBN 0 421 37450 0 £27.50

Legal Protection of Computer Software Ranald Robertson Longman 1991. ISBN 0 851 21684 6 £35

The Computerised Lawyer: a Guide to the Use of Computers in the Legal Profession Philip Leith Springer‐Verlag 1991.

Winning with Computers: Trial Practice in the 21st Century John C Tredennick Jr, Editor ABA Section on Law Practice Management 1991. ISBN 0 89707 658 3 $90

The Age of Information Stephen Saxby Macmillan 1990. ISBN 0 333 54832 9 £25

Computer Security: Hackers Penetrate DOD Computer Systems: Testimony before the Subcommittee on Government Information and Regulation, Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate (A General Accounting Office Report) James Brock, Jr 1991. GAO/T‐IMTEC‐92–5

Computer Contracts Morgan and Stedman (4th Edition) Longman Commercial Series 1991. ISBN 0–85121–6854 £60     

The quiet revolution in the scientific study of international politics and foreign policy

The application of quantitative international political and foreign policy research to real decision-making and forecasting problems has been quietly progressing over the past ten years. However, this quest for relevance has not been targeted at the highest policy-making levels; rather the applications have occurred at the middle- and low-level policy support and analysis levels. Specifically, applied analysts have profiled crisis management problem areas, developed a computer-based early warning and monitoring system, developed and applied several Bayesian forecasting techniques, and developed a computer-based crisis management decision aid which have all been used to solve specific analytical problems within the U.S. Department of Defense. Nearly all of the applied research is interdisciplinary. All is problem-oriented, and a great deal is computer-based. In all likelihood the number of applications will increase as the complexity of international and foreign affairs increases. The national security decision- and policy-making analytical process will thus become more pluralized and, because of the computer-based nature of much of the research, more accelerated and concentrated. Thusfar the impact can be said to be positive; the future will enlarge or shrink the role of applied quantitative analysis in response to how beneficial such analyses actually are to real national security problems.     

Book review

Andrew Linklater and the New Rhetoric in International Relations

Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 263 pp.     

Reinventing the Market? Competition and Regulatory Change in Broadcasting

The reforms instituted by the Broadcasting Act 1990 led to a period of turbulence and upheaval within broadcasting with results that were at best unintended and, at worst, seriously undermined the ideal of public service broadcasting. A Hayekian economic perspective would suggest that the reforms failed because they did not go far enough in the direction of full ÔmarketizationÕ. The paper develops an alternative perspective, based on an adaptation of systems theory within the context of law and economics. This approach offers a broader methodological foundation for the understanding of Ôeconomic lawÕ and a different normative perspective on the broadcasting reforms. It is suggested that the difficulty with these reforms was not their failure to go further in the direction of the market, but rather their lack of clarity in articulating a clear alternative to the market as the basis for the organization of television production.     

Low self-control, rational choice, and student test cheating

Using scenario-based survey data from a sample of 330 university students, this study examined the effects of low self-control, rational choice variables, and control measures on intentions to cheat on a college exam. A moderate bivariate association was observed between low self-control and cheating intentions. However, a series of multivariate regression equations showed that low selfcontrol did not have a significant effect on intentions to cheat once the influence of other variables, especially anticipated shame, were controlled. Furthermore, findings supported the rational choice framework in explaining student decisions to cheat. Implications regarding these findings are discussed.     

Democratization in turmoil? Elections in Hong Kong

The first SAR Chief Executive, Tung Chee‐hwa, in his speech at the SAR Establishment Ceremony, said: ‘Democracy is the hallmark of a new era for Hong Kong. The SAR Government will resolutely move forward to a more democratic form of government in accordance with the provisions in the Basic Law’. Butler, Penniman and Ranney, however, cautioned that ‘the critical difference between democratic and nondemocratic regimes is to be found in whether or not they hold elections, and if they do, what kind’. Indeed, electoral changes made to the 1998 LegCo elections are found to be anti‐democratic and retrogressive, as well as unnecessary. The authors conclude that electoral systems matter because they are one of the central mechanisms in modern democracies to give substance and content to democratic governance. If electoral systems are designed in such a manner that they obstruct the exercise of popular sovereignty, ride rough‐shod over the principle of political equality, undermine the extent of representation, complicate relationships of accountability as well as delimit opportunities for participation, then such systems should have little place in genuine democratic reform. To bring Hong Kong's democratization forward, a hard look at the electoral system, which should be more informed by the principles and practices of democracy will be mandatory.     

Cost disease versus Leviathan explanations of rising government cost: An empirical investigation

In this paper we reexamine the apparently conflicting empirics of Borcherding et al. (1977) versus those of Barry and Lowery (1984). The latter, designed to test the cost disease versus bureau voting power hypotheses on US Citibase annual data between 1947 to 1979, was retested for the longer period available through 1989. Second, and more importantly, we isolate and test for the presence of a second channel for the exercise of bureaucratic power. That channel is the bureau's ability to use its information advantage to capture a portion of newly generated government rents through higher personal benefits (such as higher salaries). Such an analysis (following West, 1991) requires first that those factors generating new rents for government actually result in successful bureaucratic rent-seeking in the form of higher compensation levels. In addition, the analysis requires that these “artificial” increases in bureaucratic wages show up as significant determinants of the higher cost of providing government services. Incorporating a constructed Kau/Rubin variable into the Barry and Lowery database is then shown to improve the predictive power of both the cost disease and bureaucratic power hypotheses for US annual data between 1948 and 1989.