The global economic crisis and domestic political agendas

There is an ongoing debate within the economic voting literature about whether the economy's salience systematically fluctuates over time or is constant. The recent global economic slowdown provides leverage to test the proposition that voters give greater weight to economic performance when it is weak. Data on voters' issue priorities from 2000 to 2011 shows that voters were more likely to consider the economy an important issue during periods of bad or volatile economic performance. A weak economy also focuses voter attention on corruption and crime while reducing attention to social policy and foreign affairs. Crime rates, terrorist attacks, globalization, and the level of development also affect the economy's place on the electoral agenda. Thus one impact of the recent financial downturn was a shift toward economic voting in countries where it was deepest.     

The importance of self-beliefs on relational aggression of college students

This study examined the interrelationships among mattering to friends, self-esteem, spirituality, and perpetration of relational aggression in friendships among 457 college students. While the three self-belief variables were positively related to each other, only spirituality and mattering to friends discriminated between men and women. Women reported higher spirituality and mattering to friends, and men reported slightly higher self-esteem. Perpetration of relational aggression was negatively related to mattering to friends and self-esteem and was not related to spirituality. Findings are discussed in light of Erikson's theory of adolescent development and Gilligan's theory of interpersonal relationships.     

Using sketch drawing to induce inconsistency in liars

Purpose. Consistency as a cue to detecting deception was tested in two experiments using sketch drawing and verbal reports in repeated interviews. Liars were expected to be less consistent than truth‐tellers. Methods. In Expt 1, 80 undergraduate students reported truthfully or deceptively about an alleged lunch date – they sketched the layout of the restaurant and then answered spatial questions about objects in the restaurant. Ratings were given for the consistency between sketches and verbal reports. In Expt 2, 34 undergraduate students reported truthfully or deceptively about completing a series of unrelated tasks – they answered spatial questions about objects in a room and then sketched the layout of the room. Proportions were calculated for the consistency between verbal reports and sketches. Results. Expt 1. Liars were rated as less consistent than truth‐tellers. Up to 80% of truth‐tellers and 70% of liars could be correctly classified. Expt 2. Liars were less consistent than truth‐tellers on consistency proportions. Up to 100% of truth‐tellers and 77% of liars could be correctly classified. Conclusions. Using sketches to induce inconsistency may be a reliable, resource efficient way to help investigators detect deception.     

Causation in negligence: from anti-jurisprudence to principle--individual responsibility as the cornerstone for the attribution of liability

Causation is one of the most esoteric and poorly defined legal principles. The common law standards of the "but for" test and common sense are, in reality, code for unconstrained judicial choice. This leads to a high degree of unpredictability in negligence cases. Changes to the causation standard following the torts reforms have done nothing to inject principle into this area of law: the concept of "appropriateness" is no more illuminating than common sense. Despite this, the trend of recent High Court decisions offers some prospect of clarifying the test for causation. Key themes to emerge are an increased emphasis on individual responsibility and the associated concept of coherency with other legal standards. This article examines the doctrinal reasons underpinning the increasingly important role of these ideals and suggests how they can be accommodated into the test for causation to inject greater coherence and predictability into this area of law.     

The Direction of Deception: Neuro-Linguistic Programming as a Lie Detection Tool

There is a myth in popular psychology, often echoed in police literature, but as yet untested, that specific eye movements pertain to lying and truth telling. According to this line of thought, eye movements to the sender??s right indicate lying, as the sender??s eyes are drawn to the side of his/her brain where their fabrication is being created. We have put this hypothesis, derived from ??Neuro-Linguistic Programming?? to the test in two experiments. In Experiment 1, a total of 204 participants (all air passengers) were interviewed at an international airport about their forthcoming trip. All participants answered one question truthfully and one question deceptively. Some participants answered a third question truthfully, whereas others answered the same question deceptively. No conclusive evidence was found for a relationship between specific eye movements and deception. In Experiment 2, a total of 31 participants discussed their real occupation in one interview and a pretend occupation in another interview. Only three of the 31 participants revealed the eye movement pattern predicted by NLP. Reasons for the existence of the myth that liars display specific eye movements are discussed.     

The impact of juveniles' ages and levels of psychosocial maturity on judges' opinions about adjudicative competence

This study investigated whether defendants' ages and levels of psychosocial maturity would affect judges' ratings of juveniles' adjudicative competence in juvenile and criminal court. Three hundred forty two judges reviewed a forensic psychological report about a hypothetical defendant; only the defendant's age (12-17) and maturity level (mature, immature) varied across reports. Results revealed a main effect of age, with older juveniles generally deemed more competent, and a main effect of maturity, with mature juveniles generally deemed more competent. No interaction was found. Results suggest that age and maturity play major roles in judicial determinations of juvenile competency.