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Full-Text Articles in Other Psychology

Attorneys' And Jurors' Perceptions Of Juvenile Offenders' Culpability, Catherine Camilletti Jan 2008

Attorneys' And Jurors' Perceptions Of Juvenile Offenders' Culpability, Catherine Camilletti

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Factors affecting attorneys' and mock jurors' perceptions of a juvenile offender's culpability were investigated. In study one, 30 attorneys from Texas responded to a survey in which they rated how likely 20 factors were to mitigate a juvenile offender's culpability in jurors' eyes. In study two, college students, serving as mock jurors, saw a photo of a juvenile offender and read a trial transcript. This study determined whether a juvenile offender's appearance (youthful vs. adult-like) and mock jurors' perceptions of the current crime trend would affect their verdict and sentence recommendations. Attorneys thought a juvenile offenders' youthful appearance would mitigate …


The Affective, Behavioral, And Cognitive Correlates Of Club Drug Use Among Hispanic College Students, Brenda Sue Hanson Jan 2008

The Affective, Behavioral, And Cognitive Correlates Of Club Drug Use Among Hispanic College Students, Brenda Sue Hanson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Limited information exists about club drug use among minorities. This study examined potential affective, behavioral, and cognitive correlates of club drug use in a Hispanic college student sample. Participants (N = 321) completed multiple measures assessing demographic information, acculturation, depression, anxiety, positive and negative affect, alexithymia, polysubstance use, sensation seeking, need for cognition, and prospective memory. Primary analyses included logistic regression models assessing the impact of affective, behavioral, and cognitive correlates on club drug use, while secondary analyses included moderation analyses exploring potential relationships between variables of interest, as well as assessment of univariate relationships between club drug use …


The N400 Erp: Semantic Vs. Evaluative Incongruities, Jennifer Hilda Taylor Jan 2008

The N400 Erp: Semantic Vs. Evaluative Incongruities, Jennifer Hilda Taylor

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this research was to utilize both behavioral (response times) and psychophysiological measures (ERPs - N400 & Pre-response Positivity) to uncover the cognitive mechanism responsible for the evaluative priming effect (spreading activation vs. response competition) by controlling for semantic influences. This research project examined the evaluative incongruity effect by controlling for semantic influences in two separate studies. The first study kept semantic associations among word pairs completely random, while the second study controlled for semantic associations by either pairing words from the same semantic category (e.g., animal-animal) or from different semantic categories (e.g., animal-person). Participants completed an evaluative …


Prosecutorial Perseveration: A Reaction To Public Commitment?, Elizabeth Rose Uhl Jan 2008

Prosecutorial Perseveration: A Reaction To Public Commitment?, Elizabeth Rose Uhl

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The startling number of cases in which prosecutors ignore clear-cut exculpatory evidence and persist in the prosecution of an almost certainly innocent suspect may be related to the public nature of these prosecutors' commitments. Research has shown that people who make a public commitment to a decision are more likely to stick with their decision in the face of contrary evidence than people who did not make a public commitment. This study examined the effects of public commitment on undergraduate mock prosecutors' decisions to prosecute in a fictional murder case. Half of the participants rendered an initial decision which was …