Historisches Erinnern und Gedenken im Übergang vom 20. zum 21. Jahrhundert

With data from a 1990–1992 panel survey determinants and political consequences of attitudes towards the abortion law in Germany are investigated. Compared to other issues, the topic is found not to be personally very salient to the average respondent. If it is perceived as highly important, however, such attitudes can be well accounted for, and have significant effects on voting intentions. General value orientations emerge as most important determinants, and the strongest impact on partisan preferences is found among women in the former GDR.     

Heuristics in causal reasoning and their influence on eyewitness testimony

Abstract

In two experiments the effect of knowledge of the seriousness of an event's outcome on the estimated strength of its causes was studied. In experiment 1 participants (n=87) were shown a video of a homeless man being evicted from a police station by a police officer, during which the evictee fell. One group of participants were told that the homeless man subsequently died; the other group was told that he was uninjured. Participants who thought the homeless man had died more often blamed the policeman for the man's fall. Estimations of the force of the push were not directly related to the outcome of the event, but rather to the attribution of blame, with those who blamed the officer giving higher estimates of the force of the push. In experiment 2, before watching a revised version of the video, the participants (n=88) were assigned to one of four groups. Groups A and B were told that the homeless man had died; groups C and D were told that he had survived. In an effort to counter interference of blame attribution, groups A and C were told that the officer was to blame for the man's fall, and groups B and D that the officer was not to blame. The manipulation of guilt was not successful, but this time a significant relation between event outcome and push force was found, with those who thought the homeless man had died giving higher estimates of the force of the push than those who thought that the man had survived. As in experiment 1, those who thought the homeless man had died more often blamed the policeman and those who blamed the policeman again gave higher estimates of the force of the push. It appears then that the more tragic the outcome of a violent incident, the more blame witnesses tend to attribute to the perpetrator, and the more they tend to overestimate the amount of violence involved.     

The violent reconvictions of sexual offenders

The violent reconvictions of a sample of sexual offenders discharged from prison between 1992 and 1996 (who had not been reconvicted of a sexual offence) were examined. The hypothesis was that a proportion of these violent reconvictions would have a sexual motivation. The sample consisted of 104 adult male sexual offenders for whom detailed information regarding their violent reconviction was available. The sample was categorized according to the motivation of the violent reconviction. It was found that a proportion of the violent reconvictions were sexually motivated (12%) and that some of these had resulted from an original charge for a sexual offence. Significant differences were found between the sexual motivation and violent motivation group on the number of criminal history and victim characteristic variables. It was concluded that, in the case of sexual offenders, violent convictions might mask the true motivation of the offence.     

Reassessing findings from the Fast Track study: problems of method and analysis

Objectives

A 2010 article by the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group considers an important social and public policy problem: can early psychosocial intervention prevent delinquency? The article examines the effects of the Fast Track preventive intervention on youth arrests and self-reported delinquent behavior through age 19. The article reports that the intervention reduced court-recorded juvenile arrest activity as well as a range of other disparate effects.

Methods

This comment assesses the methodology employed in the article.

Results

The original article suffers from a range of methodological problems. First and foremost, the article includes a large number of statistical tests and highlights only a subset that are statistically significant. As this article demonstrates, these findings likely involve “false discoveries” or chance findings. Uncertainty about the study’s findings is increased still further by problems of randomization, the treatment of site, the handling of missing data, and the inclusion of a collider as a covariate in key analyses. A proper assessment of the study’s meaning and implications has been impeded by inaccuracies in how the study’s methodology has been described over time.

Conclusions

The original article offers chance findings, suffers from methodological errors and builds on a flawed study design. As a result, it is impossible to conclude that “that a comprehensive preventive intervention can prevent juvenile arrest rates”. What the intervention would accomplish were it implemented in a new community is unknown.     

Reviews and notes

Liberal legality and class struggle: A review essay * My thanks to Steve Fisher and Mary Harnish for their constructive comments on this essay.

Political Opposition in Poland, 1954–1977 by Peter Raina, Poets’ and Painters’ Press, 146 Bridge Arch, Sutton Walk, London Sel 8XU, 1978, 584 pages.

Dialectical Phenomenology: Marx's Method. By Roslyn Wallach Bologh. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. Pp. xiii + 287.

Fox vs Brown: Academic Freedom and the State     

Reviews and notes

Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post‐Industrial Socialism by Andre Gorz, Boston: South End Press, 1982, $7.50, 152 pp.

Robert Lekachman. Greed Is Not Enough. (New York: Pantheon, 1982).

Debunking is not Enough

Frank Ackerman, Reaganomics: Rhetoric vs. Reality. (Boston: South End, 1982).

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. The New Class War. (New York: Pantheon, 1982).

Power and the Intellectuals

Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims (New York, Oxford University Press, 1981)

Regis Debray, Teachers, Writers, Celebrities (London, New Left Books, 1981)

Alvin Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and The Rise of the New Class (New York, Seabury Press, 1979 (Note — Oxford University Press has picked up the imprint and published this work in paperback in 1982)

Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982).

Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan, The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why, and Where of Employment Decline (London and New York: Methuen, 1982).