Psychological knowledge from eye-witness research is applied here to the particular problem of reporting road accidents. Thereby the paper highlights some of the assumptions in eye-witness research. The interface between that research and the reporting of road accidents is examined by reference to existing social psychological notions. These are notions about questioning and about hypothesis testing. The paper makes special reference to the questioning of child witnesses because problems therein are particularly acute.
Arbitration is usually described as a semi-judicial, evaluative process, where the parties to a dispute surrender their responsibility for its resolution to a disinterested third party. The arbitrator is expected to listen impartially to the arguments of both sides and, on the basis of the evidence put forward, decide the issue between them. This paper questions the validity of the typical image of arbitration and suggests that a more comprehensive understanding can be developed if it is viewed in the context of different models of negotiation. It is argued that the arbitrator is likely to have at least two contrasting roles: (1) that of manager of the process of concession-convergence, when the issues in dispute are relatively straightforward; and (2) that of joint negotiator with the parties, constructing a framework for a future detailed resolution of the dispute, when the issues are more complex. The parties, on the other hand, are likely to be differentiated according to their previous experience of arbitration. While the more experienced participants may be able to make skilful strategic use of the procedures, the inexperienced are likely to be adversely affected by the evaluative/judicial public image of arbitration.
Evidence from a variety of clinical sources concerning the nature of language processing ability within the right cerebral hemisphere (RH) is reviewed. It appears that the RH is severely deficient with respect to the expressive functions of speech and writing, but it may possess a significant ability to comprehend language. It has been suggested that the ability of the RH in this respect may be extensive, but the generality of conclusions drawn seems to be suspect. Evidence from patients with left hemisphere damage suggests that in some circumstances the RH may ‘take over’ the performance of language functions from its inoperative partner. Further work should help clarify the conditions under which this takes place. The theory that reading in deep dyslexia is mediated by the RH is also reviewed. The idea that the RH is able to encode print stimuli into semantic but not phonological representations, and the possibility that it is selectively able to process imageable nouns, are two aspects of this theory that are consistent with other sources of evidence concerning RH language ability. However, support for the theory is far from unanimous, and the contradictory evidence is noted.
Throughout the history of psychology the controversial belief in a relationship between physical appearance and criminality has reared its ugly head! Though modern criminologists do not believe that criminals belong to a single physical type, it is possible that the general public, the police, juries, and so forth, may believe in such relationships and act accordingly. The present paper describes some investigations of the extent to which the general public and the police believe that ‘the face fits the crime’. Studies of the facial appearance of prison inmates are reviewed, as is research on the effects of plastic surgery on prison recidivism rates. The relationship between children’s physical appearance and behavioural abnormalities is discussed, as is the literature on the way that we react to children as a function of their facial appearance. Studies concerning society’s reactions to facial disfigurement are presented to show that there may be some support for Cavior, Hayes and Cavior’s (1975) view that ‘low physical attractiveness contributes to careers of deviancy’.
Shyness is a widespread reaction to social situations, characterized by inaction, self-consciousness, and heightened physiological reaction. Two explanations of this pattern have been proposed, in terms of a primary emotion related to shame or as a form of social anxiety. These positions lead to different predictions, but have attracted little investigation. Explanations of individual differences in shyness have emphasized either social skill deficits or low self-esteem, but these are not supported by empirical evidence. It is argued that an explanation in terms of self-attentional processes accounts for current findings, leads to original predictions, and relates shyness more closely to social psychological principles.
Television has been heavily criticized in the popular press for the way it depicts women. Narrow and stereotyped portrayals of women may, according to some writers, cultivate misconceptions among the public about the way women are or should be. In a new investigation of this issue a survey study was undertaken with a large British sample in the London ITV region in which data were obtained on TV viewing behaviours and perceptions of the way women are portrayed on TV and beliefs about how they are or should be in real life. Results showed that only weight of action-drama viewing was significantly related to respondents’ perceptions of women. Heavy viewers of action-drama content were more likely than light viewers to perceive women in reality as self-reliant, not quarrelsome with other women, not dependent on attractiveness to get on, and not preoccupied by romantic affairs. However, heavy action viewers also tended to believe that most women actually want to become mothers, and do not want careers, and more importantly that women ought to be like this. Only in some respects were these relationships consonant with those inferred by content analysts.
The aim was to investigate further the effect of more vigorous orienting to stimuli denoting common fears than to neutral stimuli in subjects threatened with shock. In two experiments, orienting responses (ORs) to pleasant and to neutral words were compared. In Experiment I, the subjects were expecting shock and, in Experiment II, pleasant music. In neither experiment were there differences either in the magnitudes or in the habituation rates of the electrodermal ORs. For clarification, there should be control both of the subjective salience of the stimuli and also of the level of expectation.
Shared tool use in our hominid ancestry is perhaps the most satisfactory explanation for human dextrality and left-hemisphere language lateralization. Recent palaeoarchaeological evidence suggests that brachiation preceded bipedalism, which in turn preceded advanced tool use, with all three preceding any dramatic increase in brain size and/or the development of speech-related neural structures. Shared tool use probably led to population dextrality, and then to the development of left-hemisphere centres for fine motor coordination and the mediation of serial, segmental, time-dependent and syntactic processes at sensory and more particularly motor levels, including the control of limbs, fingers and articulators. Such centres, initially developed for tool construction and use, would have occupied an intermediate position in the evolutionary sequence. Thus cortically-driven facial gestures may possibly have accompanied manual signing, modulating limbic vocalizations of affect, though a cortical-limbic distinction with respect to communication may be unwarranted. However, the uniqueness of human language is still a matter of debate both with respect to other primates and our own evolutionary ancestors.
Police surveillance and enforcement activities can have a significant effect on the compliance of traffic rules and regulations. The extent to which road users are influenced by traffic law enforcement depends on the strategies used in police surveillance and on the efficiency of the punitive system. Although police surveillance can have limited and transient effects, the punitive system does not seem able to cope with the demands of the traffic system. Alternative approaches to traffic behaviour control are suggested that could have far greater impact on the behaviour of road users.
This paper reports an investigation of the mnemonic value of reading a summary before a text. Subjects (194 sixth-form students) read one of two folk-tales, either in isolation or preceded by a ‘List’ or an ‘Overview’ type of summary. Free recall of the story was then tested. Overall, both types of summary produced a significant increase in recall, although further analyses showed that their effects were located primarily in the recall of the latter parts of the stories. It is suggested that future work could usefully extend the analysis to a consideration of longer, and less well structured texts.
The coding system described was originally devised to facilitate the analysis of mother-infant interaction. Our aims were to provide accurate measures of the duration of different activities, to enable identification of particular actions in order to carry out sequential analyses, and to allow systematic assessment and improvement of reliability. At the time recording began, there appeared to be no readily available systems which achieved all of these aims.The system described here enables coded videotape material to be examined with the assistance of a computer. This is implemented through two subsystems, those of record and playback. In the playback subsystem the behaviour units identified by a coder are mapped on to this record. This results in a protocol of behaviour on a highly accurate time base.
The present paper reviews some of the major fields of interest in current life event research. Some theoretical issues are examined: for example, generality versus specificity of life event effects, the time span encompassed by life event research, development of life change scales, and perceptual concensus concerning the severity of life changes. Methodological problems concerned with causal or correlational conclusions and illness behaviour are also discussed. Models of the life event stress process are mentioned with reference to ‘resistance resources’. Finally the field of life event research has been integrated into McGrath’s conceptualization of stress research.
Ten reasons are proposed to explain why Kelley’s attribution theory and related questionnaire research fail to account for the cognitive processes underlying ordinary explanations of behaviour. In this first paper, five salient conceptual problems of the ANOVA model are reviewed: the inadequate analysis of behaviours and their contexts, and the inferences to which they give rise; deployment of the vague and ambiguous internal-external distinction; the normative view of people as poor social scientists; the crude analogy between ordinary reasoning and statistical procedures; and, fundamentally, the naive conceptualization of cognitive processes. Schank’s computational theory of social inference is identified as a sophisticated process model which avoids the conceptual problems inherent in the ANOVA model.
Two experiments are reported which examined the influence of context on face recognition accuracy for novel and familiar faces respectively. Context was manipulated by varying the physical background against which the faces appeared. In Experiment I, 80 student subjects observed 18 faces before attempting to recognize them in a sequence of 36 alternatives. For half the subjects, the backgrounds changed from study to test, while for the remainder they stayed the same. In addition, for half the subjects, both the pose and expression of the face also changed, while for the others it remained constant. Changes in pose plus expression and context significantly reduced recognition accuracy for the target faces. Experiment II used an identical design, except that the faces of celebrities replaced the novel faces. The influence of context was eliminated but the effects of pose and expression were maintained. However, when only faces which were actually identified by subjects were considered, the effects of pose and expression, too, were eliminated. The significance of these findings for theories of contextual memory are discussed.
The notion that verbal ability is related to mental processing speed was examined using tasks that systematically varied in semantic content. Subjects' reaction times were measured in five tasks involving arrow matching, physical identity word matching, or taxonomic identity word matching. The findings indicated that matching tasks using different decision rules and different stimuli were all related to verbal ability. In fact, reaction time for subjects required to judge whether two arrows pointed in the same direction was the best predictor of verbal ability. One explanation of the results is that speed of information processing (a general factor) may be the important component of verbal ability which is measured by seemingly different matching tasks.
Explanations of the undermining effects of tangible rewards on intrinsic motivation (the over-justification effect) are examined. It is shown that while self-perception models led to the ‘discovery’ of this phenomenon, there are major problems for these models in accommodating the central results, particularly the apparent inability of young children to use the discounting principle — a critical feature of such explanations. Accounts of over-justification effects based on the competing response hypothesis, behavioural contrast and cognitive scripts are shown to have some promise, without providing a theory capable of encompassing all the experimental evidence. Among the factors inhibiting theoretical progress are the conceptual ambiguities surrounding the intrinsic motivation construct, a lack of information on the environmental determinants of such motivation, and confusion over the importance of intrinsic motivation in intellectual and social development.
Adult male and female subjects performed two fluency tasks from the ‘Kit of Reference Tests for Cognitive Factors’. Although both word fluency and ideational fluency are said to show female superiority, a significant difference in favour of females could be found only in the task which primarily requires lexical access and not in the task requiring mental access to colour and form of objects.
A factor analysis of the PRF ANDRO reveals a structure reflecting the PRF scales from which the items came. It is argued that there is little value in combining a conglomeration of items from different Personality Research Form scales as has been done with the MASCUL and FEMIN scales of the PRF ANDRO. Rather, relevant intact PRF scales should be considered as separate predictors, for example in regression equations. Alternatively, if single scales are required to represent masculinity and femininity, it is suggested that PRF dominance and nurturance, the scales from which MASCUL and FEMIN draw a plurality of their items respectively, are more suitable than the two PRF ANDRO scales. These latter scales are less internally consistent and show less convergence with other sex-role scales than PRF dominance and nurturance.
This paper questions the role of legal constraints in the reporting of trials by reference to the situation in Great Britain. Traditionally a good deal of pre-trial publicity in the press and other media has been regarded as a threat to the fairness of the outcome of the trial. The Law on Contempt of Court has been used to control media activity in this area. However, much of this is built upon assumptions about the nature of the juror which may not be well founded. Research evidence is reviewed and it is suggested that the fairness of the juror and an ability to react in an unbiased manner to evidence after being exposed to ‘prejudicial’ publicity are more accurate interpretations. It is suggested that there are alternatives to legalistic controls over the media and that abandoning some legal control might not have the undesirable consequences sometimes imagined.
