Matching Items (57)
Description
The goal of this paper is to add to our knowledge on women’s political efficacy and learn new ways to motivate and encourage women to be more active in politics. This study will answer the question: What types of encouragement cause women to have a higher level of political efficacy? This study uses a 2x2 between-subjects survey experiment to address this question. The forms of encouragement (treatments) include two images and two statements making up our four treatment groups. It is expected for women to have a greater sense of political efficacy when
presented with a statement about how women have been very active in politics compared to a statement describing that many women do not run or are uninterested in politics, regardless of the image shown. The findings suggest that the pairs in which information is presented to men and women affects them differently, in which women were more influenced by a completely different pair of stimulus and encouragement than men.
presented with a statement about how women have been very active in politics compared to a statement describing that many women do not run or are uninterested in politics, regardless of the image shown. The findings suggest that the pairs in which information is presented to men and women affects them differently, in which women were more influenced by a completely different pair of stimulus and encouragement than men.
ContributorsGonzalez, Ruby Lee (Author) / Funk, Kendall (Thesis director) / Horne, Zachary (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
This study compared mock jurors' verdict decisions regarding three different insanity defenses that are used across jurisdictions in the United States' Criminal Justice System. Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity (NGRI), Guilty Except Insane (GEI) and Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI) all have different effects on the defendant and on the system, but little is known about how jurors' will use these different verdicts. This study used a vignette and online survey delivered through MTurk to see which of the three verdicts, if rendered, would be more preferable by the mock jurors. It was predicted that GEI (a "compromise" verdict with elements from both NGRI and GBMI) would be more favorable than NGRI (the most lenient) but less favorable that GBMI (the strictest). However, the findings indicated that lay people cannot tell the difference between the three insanity verdicts: an equal proportion of mock jurors in each condition chose the relevant insanity verdict. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.
ContributorsSiso, Cassidy Brooke (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis director) / Schweitzer, Nick (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Anecdotally, native Mandarin speakers have difficulty distinguishing between the “s” (as in sink) and the “th” (as in think) sounds as well as between the “a” (as in dad) and “ea” (as in dead) sounds. Here, 29 native English speakers, 52 native Mandarin speakers who live in China, and 34 native Mandarin speakers who have been living in an English language dominant environment were recruited to serve as participants. To assess the phoneme contrasts that may occur in native Mandarin speakers in China, and possible improvement in native Mandarin speakers living in an English environment, relative to Native English speakers living in America, a phoneme discrimination test was administered, three paired phonemes were used in the current study: /b/ paired with /p/ as a control pair, /æ/ paired with /ɛ/, and /θ/ paired with /s/. The results showed that native English speakers have significantly higher accuracy rates for the three paired phoneme discrimination tasks than the native Mandarin speakers who live in China. But there was no significant difference between the native English speakers and native Mandarin speakers who have lived in an English environment on the phonemes or words discriminations tasks.
ContributorsChen, Hao (Author) / Nanez, Jose (Thesis advisor) / Horne, Zachary (Thesis advisor) / Holloway, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Across three studies and two robust pilot studies, this project addressed issues surrounding prejudicial evidence and jury instructions to disregard inadmissible evidence. Specifically, this project examined a new framework for understanding how people vary in their response to prejudicial evidence, based on the morals they value, and tested the effectiveness of a novel way to phrase jury instructions to debias jurors inspired by moral foundations theory. In two experimental studies, participants read a transcript of a sexual assault (Study 1: n = 544) or an assault and battery criminal case (Study 2: n = 509). In each experiment, participants were randomly assigned to read either a case with or without prejudicial evidence. Participants exposed to prejudicial evidence were either given standard jury instructions to disregard the evidence, no instructions, or novel jury instructions inspired by moral foundations theory. Individual differences in moral foundations affected how susceptible people were to prejudicial evidence and case facts in general. This pattern emerged regardless of the type of jury instructions in most cases, suggesting that the moral foundation inspired instructions failed to help jurors disregard prejudicial evidence. The impact of people’s moral foundation endorsement has direct implications for how attorneys may phrase evidence to cater towards these moral biases and select ideal jurors during the voir dire process. To further advance people’s understanding of the effects of prejudicial evidence and jury instructions in legal settings, a third study looked at how attorneys (n = 138) perceived the prevalence and impact of prejudicial evidence in real cases and the effectiveness of jury instructions. Over three quarters of the sample (77.54%) reported having experienced prejudicial evidence in their cases and expressed concern that prejudicial evidence is influential to jurors with jury instructions being ineffective. Taken altogether, the results of this project show the potential impact moral foundation endorsement can have on case judgments and how jurors are differently influenced by prejudicial evidence. In addition, data from attorneys showing the perceived prevalent and impact of prejudicial evidence in real cases further
justifies the need to continue researching safeguards against prejudicial evidence.
ContributorsMcCowan, Kristen Marie (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Stolzenberg, Stacia N (Committee member) / Fox, Kate A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
For decades, researchers have found that jurors are consistently unable - or unwilling - to disregard inadmissible evidence when instructed to do so by a judge. The legal system ignores the problem entirely: judges have repeatedly affirmed that a judge’s instructions to disregard are a sufficient safeguard of defendants’ constitutional rights, regardless of whether the jury actually disregards the inadmissible evidence. This study tested four interventions derived from psychological research to identify the combination that most effectively helped jurors disregard inadmissible evidence (operationalized by lower conviction rates). It was hypothesized that the most effective interventions identified in Study 1 would yield significantly lower conviction rates when compared to traditional instructions to disregard in Study 2. The interventions were tested in Study 1 using Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) methodology to identify the optimized intervention package through regression analysis. Study 2 served as a randomized controlled trial in which treatment as usual (a judge’s instructions to disregard) was compared to the optimized intervention package. Participants were randomly assigned to either (1) be exposed to no inadmissible evidence, (2) receive inadmissible evidence and treatment as usual, (3) receive inadmissible evidence, treatment as usual and the optimized intervention package, or (4) receive the inadmissible evidence without objection. Logistic regression revealed that jurors who were given an instruction to disregard produced lower conviction rates when they also received the optimized intervention package. Interpretation, limitations, and calls to action are discussed.
ContributorsSandberg, Pamela Nicole (Author) / O'Hara, Karey L. (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
When questions about a person’s mental state arise in court, psychologists are often called in to help. Psychological assessment tools are routinely included in these evaluations to inform legal decision making. In accordance with the Daubert standard, which governs the admissibility of expert testimony, courts are obligated to exclude evidence that relies on poor scientific practice, including assessment tools. However, prior research demonstrates that psychological assessment tools with weak psychometric properties are routinely admitted in court, rarely challenged on the basis of their reliability, and if a challenge is indeed raised, often still admitted (Neal et al., 2019). Is neuropsychological assessment evidence in particular vulnerable to the same pitfalls? The present research aimed to 1) quantify the quality of neuropsychological assessment evidence used in court, 2) evaluate whether courts are calibrated to the quality of these tools through the rate and success of legal admissibility challenges raised, and 3) compare forensic mental health evaluators’ experiences and practices with regard to the quality of neuropsychological versus non-neuropsychological assessment tools. Neuropsychological tools appeared to perform worse than non-neuropsychological tools in terms of psychometric quality. However, in a case law analysis, significantly fewer challenges were observed to the legal admissibility of neuropsychological tools than to non-neuropsychological tools. To protect the legitimacy of the legal system and prevent wrongful decisions, it is critical that the evidence on which psychologists’ expert opinions are formed is scientifically valid, and that judges and attorneys adequately scrutinize the quality of evidence introduced in court.
ContributorsMathers, Elizabeth (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Burleson, Mary (Committee member) / Roberts, Nicole (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
A cornerstone of children’s socio-cognitive development is understanding that others can have knowledge, thoughts, and perceptions that differ from one’s own. Preschool-aged children often have difficulty with this kind of social understanding, i.e., they lack an explicit theory of mind. The goal of this dissertation was to examine the role mental state language as a developmental mechanism of children’s early understanding of their own mental states (i.e., their introspective ability). Specifically, it was hypothesized that (1) parents’ ability to recognize and appropriately label their children’s mental states and (2) children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between their mental states shapes the development of children’s introspective ability. An initial prediction of the first hypothesis is that parents should recognized differences in the development of children’s self- and other-understanding in order to better help their children’s introspective development. In support of this prediction, parents (N = 400, Mage = 58 months, Range = 28-93 months) reported that children’s understanding of their own knowledge was greater than children’s understanding of others’ knowledge. A prediction of the second hypothesis is that children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between and appropriately label their own mental states should determine their ability to make fined grained judgments of mental states like certainty. In support of this prediction, children’s (N = 197, Mage = 56 months, Range = 36-82 months) ability to distinguish between their own knowledge and ignorance states was associated children’s ability to engage in uncertainty monitoring. Together, these findings provide support for the association between children’s linguistic environment and ability and their introspective development.
ContributorsGonzales, Christopher Ryan (Author) / Fabricius, William V. (Thesis advisor) / Spinrad, Tracy (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Horne, Zachary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This experiment uses the Community of Knowledge framework to better understand how jurors interpret new information (Sloman & Rabb, 2016). Participants learned of an ostensibly new scientific finding that was claimed to either be well-understood or not understood by experts. Despite including no additional information, expert understanding led participants to believe that they personally understood the phenomenon, with expert understanding acting as a cue for trustworthiness and believability. This effect was particularly pronounced with low-quality sources. These results are discussed in the context of how information is used by jurors in court, and the implications of the “Community of Knowledge” effect being used by expert witnesses.
ContributorsJones, Ashley C. T. (Author) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J. (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Committee member) / Salerno, Jessica M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Although recent research has suggested that motivations such as disease avoidance and self-protection are associated with increased social conservatism, less is known about the impact of other fundamental motivations on political attitudes. This is particularly important given that the currently studied motivations do not consistently push around economic attitudes, which are an important determinant of voting. The current study investigated the impact of a different motivation, status desire, on both economic and social attitudes in a sample of undergraduate students at a large southwestern university. Participants first reported their overall, economic, and social ideology one month before participating in a lab study. Then, in the lab, they were presented either with a vignette designed to elicit status desire, or a closely matched control, before responding to a series of items about economic and social political attitudes. It was predicted that economic conservatives and liberals in the status desire condition would report more economically conservative attitudes relative to their counterparts in the control condition. By contrast, it was predicted that social conservatives in the status desire condition would report more socially conservative attitudes, whereas social liberals in the status desire condition would report more socially liberal attitudes, relative to their counterparts in the control condition. However, the use of hierarchical linear regressions showed no significant effects of motive activation condition, or interactions of motive activation condition with relevant pre-screen political ideology, in predicting either economic or social political attitudes. Implications of these results for future research are discussed.
ContributorsWiezel, Adi (Author) / Shiota, Michelle N. (Thesis advisor) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Committee member) / Horne, Zachary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Juror impartiality is necessary for a fair and just legal system, but is true juror impartiality
realistic? The current study investigated the role of implicit and explicit social-cognitive biases in jurors’ conceptualizations of insanity, and the influence of those biases in juror verdict decisions. It was hypothesized that by analyzing the role of implicit and explicit biases in insanity defense cases, jurors’ attitudes towards those with mental illnesses and attitudes towards the insanity defense would influence jurors’ final verdict decisions. Two hundred and two participants completed an online survey which included a trial vignette incorporating an insanity defense (adapted from Maeder et al., 2016), the Insanity Defense Attitude Scale (Skeem, Louden, & Evans, 2004), Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill Scale (Taylor & Dear, 1981), and an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). While implicit associations concerning mental illness and dangerousness were significantly related to mock jurors’ verdicts, they no longer were when explicit insanity defense attitudes were added to a more complex model including all measured attitudes and biases. Insanity defense attitudes were significantly related to jurors’ verdicts over and above attitudes about the mentally ill and implicit biases concerning the mentally ill. The potentially biasing impact of jurors’ insanity defense attitudes and the impact of implicit associations about the mentally ill in legal judgments are discussed.
realistic? The current study investigated the role of implicit and explicit social-cognitive biases in jurors’ conceptualizations of insanity, and the influence of those biases in juror verdict decisions. It was hypothesized that by analyzing the role of implicit and explicit biases in insanity defense cases, jurors’ attitudes towards those with mental illnesses and attitudes towards the insanity defense would influence jurors’ final verdict decisions. Two hundred and two participants completed an online survey which included a trial vignette incorporating an insanity defense (adapted from Maeder et al., 2016), the Insanity Defense Attitude Scale (Skeem, Louden, & Evans, 2004), Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill Scale (Taylor & Dear, 1981), and an Implicit Association Test (Greenwald et al., 1998). While implicit associations concerning mental illness and dangerousness were significantly related to mock jurors’ verdicts, they no longer were when explicit insanity defense attitudes were added to a more complex model including all measured attitudes and biases. Insanity defense attitudes were significantly related to jurors’ verdicts over and above attitudes about the mentally ill and implicit biases concerning the mentally ill. The potentially biasing impact of jurors’ insanity defense attitudes and the impact of implicit associations about the mentally ill in legal judgments are discussed.
ContributorsHamza, Cassandra (Author) / Neal, Tess M.S. (Thesis advisor) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018