Death-qualified jurors and the assumption of innocence: A cognitive dissonance perspective on conviction-prone verdicts

The conviction-prone behavior of death-qualified juries is a phenomenon that has been widely observed, but is not fully understood. This work presents a cognitive dissonance perspective as a possible mechanism that may be contributing to the high rate of conviction in death-qualified juries. This review contends that the selection procedures for death qualification may create juries with attitudes that are contrary to the fundamental assumption of innocence presupposed by the court. As a result of this conflict between juror attitudes and the assumption of innocence, dissonance will occur. One path to dissonance resolution may be the act of conviction. The empirical findings from juror studies support this dissonance interpretation of the conviction-prone status of death-qualified juries. This work also reviews the legal history of the death qualification process in Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968) and Hovey v. Superior Court (1980) and summarizes the social psychological criticism that process has received.     

Structuring a multi-site evaluation for youth mentoring programs to prevent teen alcohol and drug use

Despite mentoring's rapidly increasing popularity as an intervention for the prevention of teen alcohol and drug abuse and associated problems, there is little research consensus on its overall effectiveness or on the core principles and components that define effective mentoring. To advance knowledge concerning this important prevention intervention, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention has designed and funded a multi-site cooperative agreement involving seven mentoring programs. The programs are designed to provide a rigorous outcome evaluation that allows comparisons of differing approaches to organizing and delivering mentoring services to adolescents at high risk for substance abuse. The cooperative agreement guidelines set service parameters and options that focus on issues that are grounded in past research on mentoring prevention interventions. The cooperative agreement includes a quasi-experimental, longitudinal multi-site evaluation that provides evidence-based recommendations to advance the effective use of mentoring as a prevention strategy.     

Improving the sensitivity of needs assessment for substance abuse prevention planning: the measurement of differential severity of consequences for individual substance types

There is an absence of systematic, comparative research examining the negative consequences that are experienced as a result of using specific substances. Further, techniques typically used for needs assessment (i.e., prevalence proportions) do not take into account the probability of experiencing a negative consequence as a result of using specific substances. An approximated severity index is proposed that: a) takes into account the probability of experiencing negative consequences as a result of using specific substances; and b) is comparable across substances. Data from the NSDUH and the ADSS are used to demonstrate these techniques. The findings suggest that substances typically considered priorities based on prevalence proportions are not the same substances that have a high probability of causing negative consequences. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Game-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (GB-CBT) group program for children who have experienced sexual abuse: a preliminary investigation

This preliminary investigation examined the efficacy of a game-based cognitive-behavioral therapy group program for elementary school-aged children who have experienced sexual abuse. Treatment aimed to improve: (a) internalizing symptoms, (b) externalizing behaviors, (c) sexually inappropriate behaviors, (d) social skills deficits, (e) self-esteem problems, and (f) knowledge of healthy sexuality and self-protection skills. Results indicate that game-based cognitive-behavioral therapy was effective for improving internalizing and externalizing symptoms, reducing sexually inappropriate behaviors, and improving children's knowledge of abuse and self-protection skills. Although results pointed in a positive direction for social skills and self-perception, these findings were not statistically significant. Clinical significance was also evaluated to assess the clinical utility of treatment effects. Treatment implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.     

An assessment of the construct validity of Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being: Method, mode, and measurement effects

This study assesses the measurement properties of Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being (RPWB)—a widely used instrument designed to measure six dimensions of psychological well-being. Analyses of self-administered RPWB data from three major surveys—Midlife in the United States (MIDUS), National Survey of Families and Households II, and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS)—yielded very high overlap among the dimensions. These large correlations persisted even after eliminating several methodological sources of confounding, including question wording, question order, and negative item-wording. However, in MIDUS pretest and WLS telephone administrations, correlations among the dimensions were much lower. Past research demonstrates that self-administered instruments provide more valid psychological measurements than telephone surveys, and we therefore place more weight on the consistent results from the self-administered items. In sum, there is strong evidence that RPWB does not have as many as six distinct dimensions, and researchers should be cautious in interpreting its subscales.     

Point Estimates of Cancer Risk at Low Doses

There has been considerable discussion regarding the conservativeness of low-dose cancer risk estimates based upon linear extrapolation from upper confidence limits. Various groups have expressed a need for best (point) estimates of cancer risk in order to improve risk/benefit decisions. Point estimates of carcinogenic potency obtained from maximum likelihood estimates of low-dose slope may be highly unstable, being sensitive both to the choice of the dose–response model and possibly to minimal perturbations of the data. For carcinogens that augment background carcinogenic processes and/or for mutagenic carcinogens, at low doses the tumor incidence versus target tissue dose is expected to be linear. Pharmacokinetic data may be needed to identify and adjust for exposure-dose nonlinearities. Based on the assumption that the dose response is linear over low doses, a stable point estimate for low-dose cancer risk is proposed. Since various models give similar estimates of risk down to levels of 1%, a stable estimate of the low-dose cancer slope is provided by ŝ = 0.01/ED01, where ED01 is the dose corresponding to an excess cancer risk of 1%. Thus, low-dose estimates of cancer risk are obtained by, risk = ŝ × dose. The proposed procedure is similar to one which has been utilized in the past by the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration. The upper confidence limit, s , corresponding to this point estimate of low-dose slope is similar to the upper limit, q ₁ obtained from the generalized multistage model. The advantage of the proposed procedure is that ŝ provides stable estimates of low-dose carcinogenic potency, which are not unduly influenced by small perturbations of the tumor incidence rates, unlike ₁.     

Social action in response to terrorism: Understanding xenophobic violence from a value-added perspective

This paper explores waves of xenophobic violence that have followed terrorist attacks in the United States from a value-added perspective. This work explores the applicability of Smelser's (1962) theory of collective behavior to these incidences of postattack violence, collectively characterizing these events as hostile outbursts. The history of postterrorism violence in the U.S. is detailed in this work, including a review of the first World Trade Center attack (1993), and the Oklahoma City bombing (1995). Special focus is placed on the immediate American response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. This paper culminates with a discussion of future research directions and the benefits that may result from conceptualizing postterrorism xenophobic violence as a hostile outburst in terms of preventing unnecessary bloodshed in the wake of terrorist activity.     

Group Treatment for Child Sexual Abuse: Treatment Referral and Therapeutic Outcomes

A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the effectiveness of group (game-based cognitive behavioral) therapy to group-plus-individual therapy for child sexual abuse. The sample consisted predominantly of children from economically disadvantaged, African-American or Latino backgrounds. Pretreatment scores were examined in order to determine which factors influence treatment referral decisions. Results suggest that children who were referred for individual therapy in addition to group therapy report higher pretreatment levels of sexualized behavior. Posttreatment differences were also compared across therapy conditions. Results suggest that individual therapy is needed to address the sexual concerns of survivors but that it may not be needed to augment the effects of group therapy for other symptoms. Implications for treatment are discussed.     

Risk,protection, and substance use in adolescents: a multi-site model

This article reports findings from a national longitudinal cross-site evaluation of high-risk youth to clarify the relationships between risk and protective factors and substance use. Using structural equation modeling, baseline data on 10,473 youth between the ages of 9 and 18 in 48 high-risk communities around the nation are analyzed. Youth were assessed on substance use (cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use), external risk factors including family, school, peer and neighborhood influences, and individual risk and protective factors including self-control, family connectedness, and school connectedness. Findings indicate strong direct relationships between peer and parental substance use norms and substance use. Individual protective factors, particularly family and school connectedness were strong mediators of individual substance use. These findings suggest that multi-dimensional prevention programming stressing the fostering of conventional anti-substance use attitudes among parents and peers, the importance of parental supervision, and development of strong connections between youth and their family, peers, and school may be most effective in preventing and reducing substance use patterns among high-risk youth.