The Impact of Political Debate on Government Trust: Reminding the Public What the Federal Government Does

Americans' confidence in government is low by historical standards. We fielded a national telephone survey to examine influences on government confidence and whether public discontent was affected by altering the salience of specific government operations. We used a question order experiment where we alternated between first asking a general question about confidence in government and first asking about confidence in specific government operations. We found that posing the specific policy questions first elevated general confidence more than the reverse. The largest and most noticeable effects were observed for Republicans and those most knowledgeable and attentive to politics. Findings of context effects and the partisan subgroup differences are consistent with existing theories on public opinion change as well as with previous question order experiments. But, evidence that the cognitive elite was especially influenced by question order challenges previous theories that presumed that its sophistication made it immune to influence. We suggest that education and political knowledge expand rather than contract the opportunities for priming.     

The Link Between Voting and Life Satisfaction in Latin America

What is the relationship between voting and individual life satisfaction in Latin America? While studies of Western Europe suggest that voters are happier than nonvoters, this relationship has not been explored in the younger democracies of the developing world, including those of Latin America. Using multilevel regression models to examine individual‐level survey data, this study shows a positive correlation between voting and happiness in the region, noting, however, that the relationship is attenuated in those countries that have enforced compulsory voting. We then explore the causal direction of this relationship: while the existing literature points to voting as a possible determinant of individual happiness, it is also possible that happier individuals are more likely to vote. Three different strategies are used to disentangle this relationship. On balance, the evidence suggests that individual happiness is more likely to be a cause rather than an effect of voting in Latin America.     

Comparing inmate perceptions of two residential substance abuse treatment programs

Drug and alcohol abuse by criminal offenders remains at an all time high. Residential substance abuse and treatment (RSAT) programs were developed to address the drug and alcohol treatment needs of inmates in prisons. Typically, such programs range in length from 6 to 12 months, have an Alcoholics Anonymous and/or Narcotics Anonymous component, and occur in a therapeutic community environment. Some programs also include a cognitive self-change component. Inmate participation in their programming is crucial to the success of a therapeutic community treatment environment, yet there is little research on the perceptions of RSAT inmates regarding their programming. In this research, the authors describe, compare, and contrast the perceptions of inmate clients of two RSAT programs in a rural mountain state.     

Supplemental Joint Brainstorming: Navigating Past the Perils of Traditional Bargaining

Though decision makers in many domains use bargaining as their primary approach to negotiation, it has limited efficacy in multi-issue, nonquantifiable transactions. Nevertheless, many negotiators use back-and-forth bargaining rather than other approaches. The author explicates reasons for this choice and describes supplemental joint brainstorming, an innovative strategy to supplement the institutionally-entrenched bargaining approach to negotiation with interest-based negotiation.     

Diagnostic values of polysomnography in forensic medicine

A man accused of a first-degree murder of a two-year-old girl claimed that he had not been conscious during the time of the alleged murder. The possibility that he may have committed the crime while "sleepwalking" was raised. The forensic psychiatrist looked to the sleep disorders facility to conduct polysomnographic investigation of the accused in order to investigate the possibility that he had a parasomnia. Overnight sleep recordings with video surveillance carried out for two consecutive nights showed no evidence of parasomnia. On the basis of the full assessment, the final report of the forensic psychiatrist did not support a legal defense of non-insane automatism and "sleepwalking" was withdrawn as a possible defense by the lawyer of the accused.