Does Post-identification Feedback Affect Evaluations of Eyewitness Testimony and Identification Procedures?

Two experiments were conducted to test whether post-identification feedback affects evaluations of eyewitnesses. In Experiment 1 (N = 156), evaluators viewed eyewitness testimony. They evaluated witnesses who received confirming post-identification feedback as more accurate and more confident, among other judgments, compared with witnesses who received disconfirming post-identification feedback or no feedback. This pattern persisted regardless of whether the witness’s confidence statement was included in the testimony. In Experiment 2 (N = 161), witness evaluators viewed the actual identification procedure in which feedback was delivered. Instructions to disregard the feedback were manipulated. Again, witnesses who received confirming feedback were assessed more positively. This pattern occurred even when witness evaluators received instructions to disregard the feedback. These experiments are the first to confirm researchers’ assumptions that feedback effects on witnesses translate to changes in judgments of those witnesses.     

Facing Your Criminal Record: Expungement and the Collateral Problem of Wrongfully Represented Self

While substantial sociolegal research has analyzed the deleterious effects of criminal records on life outcomes, little has examined the records themselves, or their relationship to the people they represent. In this article I take a novel tact, treating criminal records as the material, textual documentations of an individual's past. I then observe expungement seekers—people who encounter their own records—to understand their reactions. From this data, I use inductive theories of symbolic interactionism to theorize another collateral effect of the criminal record: it represents people in ways that depersonalize their social identities, and prevents them from communicating corrective self‐understandings to the governing bodies that author the records. I conclude with my main theoretical contribution: “having a criminal record,” literally, means having a textual proxy that the state has authored on its own terms, without input from the people whom it permanently represents, and while concealing from those people the apparatus behind authorship. As a consequence, the criminal records system serves as a barrier to reciprocal communication between ex‐arrestees and a legal system that represents them in ways that they may want to contest. This “wrongful representation” is a collateral effect of having a criminal record that impedes the ability of ex‐arrestees to manage or repair their relationship with the state that has punished them.     

The Iraq treaty, 1930

India's relations with the Gulf countries started to flourish in the 1990s after India succeeded in de-hyphenating Pakistan from its policy toward the Gulf. Though Pakistan remained a factor as it continued to raise Kashmir and internal situation in India at multilateral forums such as OIC to evoke anti-India sentiments, it did not remain an underlying factor in as was the case during the Cold War era. In the contemporary dynamics, when India-Gulf relations are progressing toward strategic partnerships, Pakistan has re-emerged as a factor but its nature has changed. As highlighted in the joint statements issued during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visits to the Gulf countries since May 2014, India can now put pressure on Pakistan by highlighting its policy of sponsoring terrorism. This was evident when the Arab Gulf countries condemned the Pathankot (January 2016) and Uri (September 2016) terrorist attacks. India's relations with the Arab Gulf and other Middle Eastern countries are independent of their engagements with Pakistan and India-Pakistan tension, but New Delhi has stepped up efforts to raise the issue of cross-border terrorism and use of religion to incite terror activities against India during its engagements with these countries. It underlines the growing convergence between India and Arab Gulf countries over regional issues and the ability of India to isolate Pakistan over issues related to terrorism.     

Sars And Regime Legitimacy In China

The Truth about the Chinese Republic. By H. G. Woodhead. London: Hurst and Blackett. 15s.

Peking to Lhasa: The Narrative of Journeys in the Chinese Empire made by the late Brigadier‐General George Pereira. Compiled by Sir Francis Younghusband. Constable. 18s. net.

In the Heart of Asia. By Lieut.‐Colonel P. T. Etherton. London: Constable and Co. 9 × 6½>. 305 pp. 16s.

Thro’ the Gates of Memory: From the Bosphorus to Baghdad. By Betty Cunliffe Owen. Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. 21s.

Four Centuries of Modern Iraq. By Stephen Helmsley Longrigg. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 21s.

Adventures in Turkey and Russia. By E. H. Keeling. John Murray, 1924. 10s. 6d.

Freie Wege Vergleichender Erdkunden. Von R. Oldenbourg, Munich and Berlin.     

What does “Political” Mean to You?

How do regular people define the term “political”? This original study gives Americans and Canadians an opportunity to express their interpretations of the concept. It identifies a great deal of inter-personal variation in terms of how many and what kinds of topics people perceive as the stuff of politics. And this variation comes in predictable patterns: the findings reveal correlations between socio-political attributes (such as gender, nationality and ideology) and the boundaries people draw around the political domain. The study also provides insight into the ways people distinguish the political from the non-political in their minds. And importantly, individuals’ interpretations of the term “politics” relate systematically to other measures of self-reported political behavior including political interest and frequency of political discussion. These results can be used to refine survey analysis and to broaden knowledge of day-to-day citizen politics.