Neal, Tess
Tess Neal is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the ASU New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and is a founding faculty member of the [Program on Law and Behavioral Science](http://lawpsych.asu.edu/). Dr. Neal has published one edited book and more than three dozen peer-reviewed publications in such journals as PLOS ONE; American Psychologist; Psychology, Public Policy, and Law; and Criminal Justice and Behavior. Neal is the recipient of the 2016 Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law, co-awarded by the American Psychology-Law Society and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology. She was named a 2016 "Rising Star" by the Association for Psychological Science, a designation that recognizes outstanding psychological scientists in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD "whose innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions." She directs the ASU [Clinical and Legal Judgment Lab](http://psych-law.lab.asu.edu).
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- All Subjects: cognitive reflection
- All Subjects: STI
Bias, or systematic influences that create errors in judgment, can affect psychological evaluations in ways that lead to erroneous diagnoses and opinions. Although these errors can have especially serious consequences in the criminal justice system, little research has addressed forensic psychologists’ awareness of well-known cognitive biases and debiasing strategies. We conducted a national survey with a sample of 120 randomly-selected licensed psychologists with forensic interests to examine a) their familiarity with and understanding of cognitive biases, b) their self-reported strategies to mitigate bias, and c) the relation of a and b to psychologists’ cognitive reflection abilities. Most psychologists reported familiarity with well-known biases and distinguished these from sham biases, and reported using research-identified strategies but not fictional/sham strategies. However, some psychologists reported little familiarity with actual biases, endorsed sham biases as real, failed to recognize effective bias mitigation strategies, and endorsed ineffective bias mitigation strategies. Furthermore, nearly everyone endorsed introspection (a strategy known to be ineffective) as an effective bias mitigation strategy. Cognitive reflection abilities were systematically related to error, such that stronger cognitive reflection was associated with less endorsement of sham biases.
This study sought to identify stigma differences between HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Interviewees from Alabama, USA (n=537) rated two types of stigma (damage to social reputation and “moral weakness”) for seven infections ranging from “nuisance” conditions (e.g., pubic lice) to life-threatening disease (e.g., HIV/AIDS). When asked which of the seven STIs would be most damaging to reputation, 74.8% of respondents chose HIV/AIDS. However, when asked to choose which STI represented moral weakness in infected persons, HIV/AIDS was rated as significantly lower than the other STIs, which suggests that HIV/AIDS is perceived differently than non-HIV STIs. This study addresses the possibility that advances in public awareness of HIV/AIDS have not necessarily been extrapolated into awareness of other STIs. Clinicians should be aware of these high levels of stigma as potential barriers to treatment for all STIs. Public health officials should consider the impact of undifferentiated stigma on STI prevention messages.