Perceptions and Predictors of Children's Credibility of a Unique Event and an Instance of a Repeated Event

Perceptions of children's credibility were studied in two experiments wherein participants watched a videotape of a 4- to 5- or a 6- to 7-year old child report details of a play session that had been experienced once (single-event) or was the last in a series of four similar play sessions (repeat-event). The child's report was classified as high or low accurate. In Experiments 1 and 2, reports of repeat-event children were judged to be less believable on several measures. In Experiment 1, younger children were viewed as less credible than older children. In both experiments, neither undergraduates nor community members correctly discriminated between high- and low-accurate reports. Content analysis in Study 3 revealed the relationship between age and event frequency and children's credibility ratings was mediated by the internal consistency of children's reports. Recent research on children's reports of instances of repeated events has identified several challenges facing children who report repeated abuse. These data bring to light another potential difficulty for these children.     

群体性事件的刑法立场与处置对策

在中国社会转型过程中,群体性事件呈现多发、频发态势,极大地冲击了政府管理的基本秩序,同时对于经济发展的整体环境也造成了多维的负面影响,群体性事件的妥善处置已经成为法学理论所面临的新课题。从当下转型期群体性事件的基本发展趋势与特点来看,群体性事件的处置立场应当是在保护具有合理诉求的民众利益的同时,积极体现与发挥"刑罚刚性",有力惩治群体性事件中的恶性犯罪行为。此外,我们还应当反思与完善现有的经济政策、分配制度与法律保障措施,重塑政府公信力,进而催生一个和谐稳定的法治环境,以从根本上消弭群体性事件所隐含的社会风险。     

Too central to fail? Terror networks and leadership decapitation

ABSTRACT

Leadership decapitation, as a means of hindering the operations and hastening the demise of terrorist organizations, has been the subject of a growing body of research. However, these studies have not examined how an organization’s position in a broader network impacts its ability to weather decapitation. We argue that highly networked organizations possess characteristics that make decapitation less effective. To test this argument, we combine data on leadership decapitation with network data on terrorist organizations and find that well-networked organizations are resilience to leadership decapitation. Our study has implications for our understanding of how terrorist organizations respond to counterterrorism efforts.     

Interviewing Former 1- and 2-Year Olds About Medical Emergencies 5 Years Later

Five years earlier, 1- and 2-year-old children who had been injured seriously enough to require hospital ER treatment had been recruited from the ER. For this study, as many of these children as could be found participated. The majority of former 1-year olds recalled nothing about these highly stressful events, whereas most former 2-year olds recalled a great deal. For those former 1-year olds who did recall the target events, quality of recall was problematic. In particular, they made considerable source confusions or intrusions into their accounts of details from other related events, producing an account that amalgamated various events into one recollection. Forensic implications are discussed.