Jury decision making and the Story Model: How do deliberation style and evidence order influence the story that juries create?

This study investigated the utility of the Story Model for decision making at the jury level by examining the influence of evidence order and deliberation style on story consistency and guilt. Participants were shown a video-taped trial stimulus and then provided case perceptions including a guilt judgment and a narrative about what occurred during the incident. Participants then deliberated for approximately thirty minutes using either an evidence-driven or verdict-driven deliberation style before again providing case perceptions, including a guilt determination, a narrative about what happened during the incident, and an evidence recognition test. Multi-level regression analyses revealed that evidence order, deliberation style and sample interacted to influence both story consistency measures and guilt. Among students, participants in the verdict-driven deliberation condition formed more consistent pro-prosecution stories when the prosecution presented their case in story-order, while participants in the evidence-driven deliberation condition formed more consistent pro-prosecution stories when the defense's case was presented in story-order. Findings were the opposite among community members, with participants in the verdict-driven deliberation condition forming more consistent pro-prosecution stories when the defense's case was presented in story-order, and participants in the evidence-driven deliberation condition forming more consistent pro-prosecution stories when the prosecution's case was presented in story-order. Additionally several story consistency measures influenced guilt decisions. Thus there is some support for the hypothesis that story consistency mediates the influence of evidence order and deliberation style on guilt decisions.

The effects of parental nurturance and involvement on peer relationships and psychosocial functioning of young adults

This study examined peer relationships and psychosocial functioning as a function of maternal and paternal involvement and nurturance along with the moderating effects of gender, family form, and ethnicity. Prior research has shown the influence of mother’s involvement on peer relationship quality but not of fathers. Further, previous studies did not examine moderation by family form, gender, or ethnicity. The sample consisted of 1359 students who identified their biological mother and father as the most influential parental figures in their lives. Their ages ranged from 18 to 26; Sixty-one percent of the sample was Hispanic, 13% non-Hispanic Black, 25% non-Hispanic White; 76% female and 70% from intact families. The analytical strategy included using bivariate correlations and structural equation modeling to examine these relationships. ^ All dimensions of maternal and paternal nurturing and involvement were positively related to positive characteristics of peer relationships, self-esteem and life satisfaction consistent with the multicultural findings of PARTheory (Rohner, Khalique, & Cournoyer, 2005). A structural model was developed that was able to adequately account for the relationship between parental influence, peer relationships, and psychosocial functioning. These effects of both maternal and paternal influence were strongly moderated by culture, family form, and gender. Finally, a differential effect was found among parental influence with fathers having a greater influence on friendship quality and importance than mothers, despite greater maternal involvement. ^ These findings have theoretical, clinical, and social implications as they call for a socially based theoretical perspective within which to study these relationships. Such a perspective would better inform clinicians when using impaired social functioning as indicative of axial diagnosis, and for the implementation of social policy to encourage paternal involvement. ^

Age differences and conformity in juror decision -making

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether older adults conform more than young and middle-aged adults on a juror decision making task. Degree of group pressure, personality characteristics, gender, and social influence processes were also examined.^ Registered voters (208 participants) completed a personality questionnaire. Several weeks later, groups of six participants listened to a robbery case that portrayed the defendant as guilty. Afterwards, participants completed the first of two ballots. On the first, participants rated the defendant's degree of guilt and scored their degree of certainty in this verdict rating. They also indicated in writing which piece of information (a statement of evidence) from the robbery case supported their verdict ratings. Next, participants reviewed photocopies of five contrived first ballots. Then participants completed second ballots, in which they again rated the defendant's degree of guilt and scored their degree of certainty in this verdict rating. Finally, participants rated the importance of the five contrived first ballot verdict ratings (normative social influence) and statements of evidence (informational social influence) in reaching their second ballot verdict ratings.^ The results demonstrated that not only did older adults conform as expected, but all age groups conformed; that is, all age groups changed their verdict ratings. After reviewing the other jurors' contrived first ballots (group pressure), participants rated the defendant as less guilty on their second ballot than on their first. However, only older adults significantly changed their level of certainty in their verdict ratings from first to second ballot compared to young and middle-aged adults. With regard to personality characteristics, only rigidity predicted conformity in young and middle-aged adults but not in older adults. It was also found that females conformed more than males. Finally, all three age groups reported that different social influence processes (normative vs. informational) were important in reaching their second ballot verdict ratings. The results of this research indicate that various factors can influence young, middle-aged, and older adults as they reach verdicts. Knowledge of these factors may help alter stereotypes of older adults in terms of conformity, rigidity, and desirability as jurors. ^

Intra -organizational turnover in a self -selective team environment

Four-hundred twenty-seven firefighter/paramedics and firefighter/emergency medical technicians completed questionnaires regarding past and current turnover decisions. The employees, who work in teams of either three or four, have a collective bargaining benefit that allows them to "bid for" (request) new positions/teams every six months; positions are awarded on the basis of seniority. Because employees are leaving neither the organization nor their job, the "bid" process creates intra-organizational turnover on a regular basis. It was hypothesized that those individuals higher in teamwork/social cohesion expectations, higher in interpersonal orientation, and lower in conflict tolerance would report placing greater importance on interpersonal reasons (teamwork/social cohesion) in past bid/assignment decisions. Creation of a conflict tolerance scale was the goal of a preliminary study. It was further hypothesized that current bid/assignment satisfaction would predict the current turnover decision (during the cycle in which the study was conducted), and that past individual turnover frequency would also predict current turnover. All hypotheses were supported. ^

Children's perceptions of marital conflict, parent -child relations and anxiety in children: A proposed systemic model

This study tested a systemic model in which internalizing behaviors in a clinically-referred sample of children are predicted by children's perceptions of marital conflict in the context of three additional, well-researched, familial variables: parent-child relations, mother's emotional functioning, and children's perception of social support. After finding preliminary support for the model, its generalizability was tested in a combined sample of the clinically-referred group and a community-based group of elementary school children. ^ The clinical group consisted of 31 participants from a specialty clinic for children's anxiety disorders: 15 boys and 16 girls, aged 6 to 16, from both intact and divorced homes. Children's reports and mothers' reports of children's internalizing behaviors were submitted to separate analyses. Mothers' reports of children's internalizing behaviors were predicted only by mothers' emotional functioning. As hypothesized by the model, children's own reports of their internalizing behaviors were predicted significantly by children's perceptions of marital conflict. Parent-child relations, children's perception of social support, and one interaction term, children's perception of marital conflict x children's perception of parental rejection, contributed to the regression solution, while mother's emotional functioning failed to meet entry criterion. ^ The combined sample added 37 community-based children, 18 boys and 19 girls, aged 6 to 11, creating a total of 68 subjects. The model was replicated on the combined sample. ^ Findings of the study suggest child perceptions of marital conflict have a strong direct effect on child internalizing behaviors, accounting for 28% of the variance between marital conflict and child outcome in the clinical sample and 42% in the combined sample. In the past only about 10% of the variance in children's internalizing behaviors was explained by marital conflict. Importance implications are made for optimal assessment and specific treatment strategies for children and families experiencing marital conflict, especially for those at risk for anxiety disorders. ^

Two -way direction of influence in mother-infant interaction as denoted by concurrent reciprocal learning processes

This series of 5 single-subject studies used the operant conditioning paradigm to investigate, within the two-way influence process, how (a) contingent infant attention can reinforce maternal verbal behaviors during a period of mother-infant interaction and under subsequent experimental manipulation. Differential reinforcement was used to determine if it is possible that an infant attending to the mother (denoted by head-turns towards the image of the mother plus eye contact) increases (reinforces) the mother's verbal response (to a cue from the infant) upon which the infant behavior is contingent. There was also (b) an evaluation during the contrived parent-infant interaction for concurrent operant learning of infant vocal behavior via contingent verbal responding (reinforcement) implemented by the mother. Further, it was noted (c) whether or not the mother reported being aware that her responses were influenced by the infant's behavior. Findings showed: the operant conditioning of the maternal verbal behaviors were reinforced by contingent infant attention; and the operant conditioning of infant vocalizations was reinforced by contingent maternal verbal behaviors. No parent reported (1) being aware of the increase in their verbal response reinforced during operant conditioning of parental behavior nor a decrease in those responses during the DRA reversal phase, or (2) noticing a contingency between infant's and mother's response. By binomial 1-tail tests, the verbal-behavior patterns of the 5 mothers were conditioned by infant reinforcement (p < 0.02) and, concurrently, the vocal-response patterns of the 5 infants were conditioned by maternal reinforcement (p < 0.02). A program of systematic empirical research on the determinants of concurrent conditioning within mother-child interaction may provide a way to evaluate the differential effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving parent-child interactions. The work conducted in the present study is one step in this direction. ^