Measuring public perceptions of sex offenders: reimagining the Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale

The Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale is an 18-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward sex offenders. Its original factor structure has been questioned by a number of previous studies, and so this paper sought to reimagine the scale as an outcome measure, as opposed to a scale of attitudes. A face validity analysis produced a provisional three-factor structure underlying the CATSO: ‘punitiveness,’ ‘stereotype endorsement,’ and ‘risk perception.’ A sample of 400 British members of the public completed a modified version of the CATSO, the Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders scale, the General Punitiveness Scale, and the Rational-Experiential Inventory. A three-factor structure of a 22-item modified CATSO was supported using half of the sample, with factors being labeled ‘sentencing and management,’ ‘stereotype endorsement,’ and ‘risk perception.’ Confirmatory factor analysis on data from the other half of the sample endorsed the three-factor structure; however, two items were removed in order to improve ratings of model fit. This new 20-item ‘Perceptions of Sex Offenders scale’ has practical utility beyond the measurement of attitudes, and suggestions for its future use are provided.     

Gender effects in eyewitness accounts of a violent crime

Abstract

This research examined two aspects of gender effects in eyewitness accounts: whether there are gender differences in memory for a violent crime and how gender of perpetrator/victim affect witnesses' evaluations of perpetrator/victim behavior. Eighty male and 84 female university students saw a film showing a simulated manslaughter with either a male or female perpetrator stabbing a male or female victim. A female advantage was found in overall memory of the crime, and both a male perpetrator and a male victim were assigned more culpability than their female counterparts. It is suggested that females may have more elaborated categories for person information than males, which should facilitate female accuracy in person memory. Alternatively, the present findings may reflect a more general female advantage in episodic memory performance. Stereotype assimilation is suggested to account for the differential evaluations of a male and female perpetrator/victim.     

Politicians in Television

ABSTRACT

Television viewers, journalists and social influence analysts often use the term “television character” or “media-savvy person” when referring to people (also to politicians) who draw the viewers' attention and interest (Reeves, Naas, 2000). The purpose of the research presented herein is to answer two questions: (1) what are the differences in social perception of five main personality dimensions (“the Big Five”: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience [intellect]) of media-savvy politicians and those considered to belong to the non-media-savvy type; and (2) how traits attributed to media-savvy and media-un-savvy politicians remain connected with the viewers' political self-identification. A hundred journalism students, using an adjective list for “the Big Five” diagnosis (five dimensions of personality), were to identify their political beliefs as right wing, mixed, or left wing and to describe a politician they considered to be the most media-savvy and the least media-savvy person. Results indicate that media-avvy politicians are perceived to be more extrovert (dynamic), more open to experience, and more conscientious than their media-un-savvy counterparts; participants' (viewers') political beliefs reflect the importance of openness and conciliation in perception of media-savvy and non-media-savvy politicians.     

Predicting Peril or the Peril of Prediction? Assessing the Risk of CBRN Terrorism

Since the mid-1990s, academic and policy communities have debated the risk posed by terrorist use of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Three major schools of thought in the debate have emerged: the optimists, the pessimists, and the pragmatists. Although these three schools of thought draw on the same limited universe of data on CBRN terrorism, they arrive at strikingly different conclusions. Given the highly subjective process of CBRN terrorism risk assessment, this article analyzes the influence of mental shortcuts (called heuristics) and the systemic errors they create (called biases) on the risk assessment process. This article identifies and provides illustrative examples of a range of heuristics and biases that lead to the underestimation of risks, the overestimation of risks and, most importantly, those that degrade the quality of the debate about the level of risk. While these types of biases are commonly seen as affecting the public's perception of risk, such biases can also be found in risk assessments by experts. The article concludes with recommendations for improving the CBRN risk assessment process.     

Perceptions and Reality: Ten Things We Should Know About Attitudes to Immigration in the UK

Immigration is one of the most frequently covered issues in opinion surveys—but the volume and type of questions asked has actually obscured many of the key facts about our attitudes. This article summarises a year‐long project to draw together as much of the published polling as possible in one place, in as neutral a way as possible. The overall picture is one of genuine concern about immigration among a large proportion of the population—but more nuance on specific aspects, and a number of important gaps between perceptions and reality. Also highlighted are the increasingly polarised views on immigration between generations and different class and education groupings. The lower level of concern among younger generations and the growing graduate class suggests that immigration may be less of a concern in the future—but that the electoral weight of the more concerned older generations means that restrictive rhetoric and policy on immigration will be a key feature of the 2015 general election.     

犯罪主体的认知差异及其实证研究

实证研究发现,人们对犯罪严重性及其惩罚的排序较为一致,支持了犯罪学领域中的共识模式。但受调查者的个体特征(年龄、性别、民族、宗教)显著影响他们对犯罪严重性及其惩罚的认知,具体表现在评分均值的差异。从个体的主体性角度看,后现代法学批判了意志自由和理性主体,强调人的实践性和有限理性。舒茨的主体间性理论和哈耶克的知识分散论表明,自我的意义确立过程和对他人经验的理解是两种完全不同的经验图式和解释图式,诠释了不同主体之间的认知差异。     

Do referendum results change norm perceptions and personal opinions?

Referendums are often seen as a means to legitimize the outcome as the new norm and increase acceptance of the outcome. Do referendums actually have these effects? More precisely, do voters recognize the referendum result as the new norm? And do voters go as far as to change their own minds in accord with the referendum result? We explore these questions using a panel survey that we conducted in Ireland before and after the abortion referendum that was held on May 25, 2018. We find that, after the referendum, voters updated their norm perceptions in the direction of the referendum result. However, we find inconsistent evidence that the referendum convinced voters to change their personal opinions about abortion. The findings provide insights on the power and the limit of referendums in increasing policy agreement among voters.     

空间美学的理论生成与合法性建构

美学作为一门系统研究主体“感性之学”的学科形态,其获得自身的场域伦理和知识体系是一项重要的现代性事件,从维柯的“诗性思维”理论到鲍姆嘉通对美学学科的界定,都体现出主体感性能力对美学合法性存在价值的承担。与此同时,主体对“空间”的诗性审美能力是先验存在的,并成为主体感性能力的重要组成部分。所以,美学、感性和空间三者便相互融合,生发出崭新的“空间美学”话语。在前现代时期,主体对空间审美的朴素认知构成空间美学的理论萌芽;现代美学的“感性革命”清晰地凸显出主体与空间之间的诗性伦理,比如海德格尔的“空间栖居”和梅洛 庞蒂的“视知觉空间”便进一步延展空间美学的理论脉络;现代文学的空间审美实践和话语流变再次推动空间美学的场域自律,并最终形成既关注主体生存,又充满文化批判的现代美学形态。空间美学将持续给未来美学的发展提供有益的知识学资源和价值承担。     

Equity,relative deprivation,and the value consensus paradox

This paper addresses the question of why respondents, when asked to specify an income they would be willing to accept as just, settle for an amount that, in most case, does not deviate strongly from what they actually receive. The phenomenon is illustrated by data from West Germany. It is argued that relative deprivation theory must be extended to incorporate processes of social hierarchy perception because inasmuch as this perception is contorted it creates illusory justice evaluations. Empirical evidence of misperceiving social distributions is given by social grading studies based on large German samples. The structural causes of the distributional misperceptions are discussed, one of these causes being the value consensus paradox, i.e., the paradox that, in a stratified society, value consensus will produce different social perceptions.     

Political Communication and Disagreement Among Citizens in Japan and the United States

Patterns of interdependence among and between citizens add an additional level of complexity to a comparative analysis of democratic politics. In this article we examine communication and disagreement among citizens in Japan and the United States. We argue that a majoritarian bias in political communication operates in both settings, but it tends to perpetuate a system of one-party dominance in Japanese politics. Comparative studies of democratic citizenship have focused generally on the variation across national contexts in the political beliefs and values held by individuals. Our argument is that citizenship and the alternative cultures of democratic politics have less to do with the idiosyncratic beliefs and values that individuals carry with them and more to do with the contextually embedded nature of political communication. We address these issues using two community-based studies, one conducted in South Bend, Indiana, in 1984 and the other in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, in 1997.