Social Influence in Eyewitness Recall: A Meta-Analytic Review of Lineup Instruction Effects

Past research has considered the impact of biased police lineup instructions upon eyewitness lineup performance. Biased instructions either suggest to the eyewitness that the perpetrator is in the lineup or otherwise discourage a no choice response. A meta-analysis of 18 studies was employed to review the hypothesis that biased instructions lead to greater willingness to choose and less accurate lineup identifications than do unbiased instructions. The role of moderating variables in the instruction procedure was also considered. In support of the hypothesis, a significantly higher level of choosing followed biased instructions. Lineup type moderated performance accuracy, however. For target-absent lineups the increased level of choosing following biased instructions resulted in reduced identification accuracy. Biased instructions within a target-present lineup generated a higher level of confidence, but had minimal impact on accuracy. Implications for police practice are discussed.     

Institutions and social movements: the case of comparable worth

Employing evidence from the history of the comparable worth movement, I argue that (1) the State-citizen shaping process is one in which States shape citizens and movements and citizens and movements shape States; (2) States are not always successful in shaping movements because movemnts require a certain level of both stakes and consciousness on the part of potential members; (3) States are more effective at influencing whether a movement will win than they are at actually producing social movements; and (4) the costs and benefits associated with the various institutional channels impact heavily upon a movement, particularly upon its organization and its alliances. These theoretical propositions provide clues as to why the comparable worth movement has been able to persist at the state and local level despite Federal opposition.     

What We Know Now: The Evanston Illinois Field Lineups

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit secured 100 eyewitness identification reports from Evanston, Illinois, one of three cities of the Illinois Pilot Program. The files provide empirical evidence regarding three methodological aspects of the Program’s comparison of non-blind simultaneous to double-blind sequential lineups. (1) A-priori differences existed between lineup conditions. For example, the simultaneous non-blind lineup condition was more likely to involve witnesses who had already identified the suspect in a previous lineup or who knew the offender (non-stranger identifications), and this condition also entailed shorter delays between event and lineup. (2) Verbatim eyewitness comments were recorded more often in double-blind sequential than in non-blind simultaneous lineup reports (83% vs. 39%). (3) Effective lineup structure was used equally in the two lineup conditions.     

Biopsychosocial Factors that Perpetuate Chronic Pain, Impairment, and Disability

The biopsychosocial model provides the most heuristic account of the complex multifaceted nature of chronic pain and its associated impairment and disability. Although chronic pain, impairment, and disability are related, these are three separate constructs. In order to understand how these three constructs are interrelated, the development of pain from the acute to the chronic stage is discussed. Psychosocial factors as barriers to recovery are emphasized, including those that commonly manifest among patients receiving disability compensation. This is complemented by a review of psychometric instruments used to assess these psychosocial factors in chronic pain. Finally, the major delineation in levels of care for chronic pain is highlighted, emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach that is consistent with pain as a biopsychosocial phenomenon.     

“I've always suffered from sirens'’: The cinema vamp and Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood

The most important source for Robin Vote, the heroine of Djuna Barnes’ modernist novel, Nightwood (1936), is the vamp, whose heyday in the middle teens was also the period of Barnes’ highest productivity as a newspaper journalist. The vamp, as full‐grown femme fatale and “wild child,” appeared first in her early feature articles, later in short plays, stories, and poems. These and her stylish pen and ink sketches of vamps established her reputation as a “specialist.” She was one of the first to note that “vamping” was a habit of mind as well as a mode of fashion. Barnes’ interest in both manifestations of the vamp craze powered her conception of Robin Vote, a vamp malgré lui.     

A Marx for the Managerial Revolution: Habermas on Law and Democracy

The early work of Jïrgen Habermas stressed the corrosive effects of the state and the market on the socio-cultural life-world. There could be no administrative creation of meaning. His more recent work argues that the system can redeem itself without sacrificing the emancipatory interests of humanity. However, this shift does not represent an abandonment of the revolutionary project of critical theory. On the contrary, the communicative model of proceduralist law-making is designed to promote the revolutionary transformation of Western civilization under the auspices of managerial and administrative elites. The radical ideal of cosmopolitan democracy becomes an essential ingredient in the effective management of a complex socio-economic system operating on a global scale. The demos in Habermas's vision of radical democracy is not the people of any particular nation but humanity at large. As a consequence, the proceduralist model of law-making provides the philosophical justification for a bizarre social experiment which aims to dissociate Western nation-states from their core ethno-cultural identities.