PSYC781 - Applied Issues in Cultural and Social Psychology TEST 2

three drawbacks, or biases, that can be found within media theories and research.

- The first is that most of the thinking and research on media influences is concerned only with the effects of television. In fact, relatively little attention is paid to other forms of media (e.g., books, newspapers, movies, computers, and computer games). The belief appears to have been that, because it is so salient and omnipresent in our culture, TV is the medium that has the most potential to have a negative impact on people. -Second, most researchers study the harm (or benefits) that media have on children, with little parallel research conducted with adults. This research is motivated by the assumption that children are more strongly influenced by both the displacement effects and the content of the media. Wartella and Reeves (1985), as well as Williams, Rice, and Rogers (1988), describe how media research has been driven by the study of their effects on our culture's youth. Williams et al. note that prior to 1970, there were only 300 English publications examining the impact of television on children, but by 1980 there were over 1,670 publications addressing this relationship (i.e., a 557% increase in only 10 years). Wartella and Reeves describe how similar rates of increase were evidenced during the proliferation of radio and movies. Unlike television research, however, once the diffusion rate of radio and motion pictures peaked (i.e., when most people had a radio or went to the movies regularly), the research interest in their influence declined sharply. This pattern has not been found with television research; even though most families have had at least one television for the past 20 years, research interest on the influence of television has grown substantially instead of dissipating. - This point leads to the third issue to be raised, and that is that media research most often studies the unintended effects of media. That is, those interested in media influences tend to be more intrigued by effects that a medium did not intend ( e.g., aggression, stereotypes) rather than its overt attempts to teach others (e.g., the popular American children's show Sesame Street that was produced to teach children to count and read). The notion that the Russell children might be inadvertently affected by the violent content of cartoons or the gender-typed portrayal of men and women in music videos tends to create a larger volume of research than that attempting to determine whether prosocial content is effective. One reason cited for this special interest in unintended effects is that a medium's content may reflect social unrealities or stereotypes (Gerbner et al., 1994). As a result, children may inadvertently adopt unrealistic social beliefs and expectations from television and other media. For example, until very recently, North American situation comedies portrayed the family in a middle-class, "white-collar" manner, in which both the mother and father work in highly esteemed jobs. Many North American families come from strong blue-collar environments in which parents perform lower status manual labor, or they belong to families that live at or below the poverty line because one or both parents are unemployed. By watching situation comedies, the Russell children may have seen only a one-sided portrayal of the North American family, and they may come to believe that what they see on television is an accurate depiction of the way the majority of people live. The phenomenal popularity of such shows as Roseanne indicates that the blue-color segment of the population may be more fairly represented in the future.

Less-Than-Unanimous Verdicts

The jury's size is not all that has changed. In 1972, the Supreme Court considered whether states may accept jury verdicts that are not unanimous. In one opinion, two defendants had been convicted by jury verdicts that were not unanimous-one by a vote of 11 to 1, the other by 10 to 2 (Apodaca v. Oregon, 1972). In a second opinion, a guilty verdict was determined by a 9-to-3 margin (Johnson v. Louisiana, 1972). In both decisions, the Supreme Court upheld the convictions. The Court was divided in its view of these cases. Five justices argued that a rule allowing verdicts that are not unanimous would not adversely affect the jury; four justices believed that it would reduce the intensity of deliberations and undermine the potential for minority influence. Table 12.6 presents these dueling points of view. Which do you find more convincing? Imagine yourself on a jury that needs only a 9-to-3 majority to return a verdict. You begin by polling the group and find that you already have the nine votes needed. What next? According to one script, the group continues to argue vigorously and with open minds. According to the alternative scenario, the group begins to deliberate but the dissenters are quickly cast aside because their votes are not needed. Again, which scenario seems more realistic? To answer that question, Reid Hastie and others (1983) recruited more than 800 people from the Boston area to take part in 69 mock juries. After watching a reenactment of a murder trial, the groups were instructed to reach a verdict by a 12-to-0, a 10-to-2, or an 8-to-4 margin. The differences were striking. Compared with juries that needed unanimous decisions, the others spent less time discussing the case and more time voting. After reaching the required number of votes, they often rejected the holdouts, terminated discussion, and returned a verdict. Afterward, participants in the non-unanimous juries rated their peers as more dose-minded and themselves as less informed and less confident about the verdict. What's worse, Hastie's team saw in tapes of the deliberations that majority-rule juries often adopted "a more forceful, bullying, persuasive style" (1983, p. 112). 50 non-unanimous civil juries in Arizona, Shari Diamond and colleagues (2006) similarly observed that thoughtful minorities were sometimes "marginalized" by majorities that had the power to ignore them. Today, only two states permit less-than-unanimous verdicts in criminal trials. A substantial number do so for civil cases. Yet research has shown that this procedure weakens jurors who are in the voting minority, breeds close-mindedness, short-circuits the discussion, and leaves many jurors uncertain about the decision. Henry Fonda, step aside. The jury has reached its verdict.

Eliciting conformity and compliance

Uncertainty about the "right" answers Some degree of trust in the officer asking the questions Unspoken expectation that the interviewee is supposed to know the answer Leading questions: questions that are worded so as to suggest and elicit answers that the interrogator expects

Conclusions: Violent Media

Violence is pervasive in contemporary media Media violence influences might be more subtle than people realise Modelling Priming Fear We don't have adequate solutions

Cultivation Hypothesis.

What effects might the presentation of gender stereotypic images in the mass media have on children and adults? The cultivation hypothesis (Gerbner et al., 1994) suggests that people use television and the other forms of mass media to learn ( either directly or indirectly) about the culture they live in and how it works. As described earlier, however, the media often portray a distorted view of that reality. This can result in people developing one of two distinct images of the "real world": social reality or TV reality. According to the cultivation hypothesis, those who watch the most TV should have a perception of reality that corresponds more to television's portrayal than with the actual social reality. With regard to gender stereotypes in the media ( especially television), the cultivation hypothesis would predict that people who watch a lot of TV should have more gender stereotypic attitudes and should act in more gender stereotypic ways than those who watch little TV. This assumption was supported by Signorielli and Lears (1992), whose study showed that the more time children in Grades 1, 3, 5, and 7 spent watching TV, the more likely they were to have stereotypic beliefs about which gender should be performing various household chores. However, a longitudinal study conducted by Morgan (1982) showed that TV viewing contributed to the development of sexist attitudes only for girls. In the NOTEL study, Kimball (1986) also observed a differential impact of TV viewing on boys and girls. She measured children's (Grades 6 and 9) gender stereotypic perceptions of their peers and their parents. Data were collected at two points in time: just before TV's introduction to NOTEL and 2 years afterwards. Also, for this study in the NOTEL series, only cross-sectional data were collected. Kimball's results showed that for perceptions of their peers, the boys in NOTEL tended to be less gender-typed than boys in UNITEL and MULTITEL before TV's introduction to their community. However, 2 years after TV arrived in NOTEL, these boys were just as gender-typed as those in the other towns. A similar pattern emerged for girls' perceptions of their parents (Kimball, 1986). Durkin (1985c) and Potter (1991) suggest that the assumption of linearity built into the cultivation hypothesis may not be accurate. In his review of the correlational evidence linking the amount of TV viewing with gender role beliefs, Durkin (1985c) notes that, in most of this research, the correlations are low, not significant, and even contradictory. Because the assumption of linearity is the underlying premise of correlation coefficients, the lack of a correlation ( or its small size) could be a result of a curvilinear relationship similar to the plateau effect described in the discussion of displacement theory. In summary, the cultivation hypothesis suggests that those with greater exposure to one or more media should be more inclined to adopt the media's distorted perceptions of the world (i.e., to view the media's notion of reality as the reality). To give an example, the kinds of media Emily Russell uses might predispose her to adopt more gender-stereotypic attitudes than her twin brother. Emily and her friends watch soap operas that often portray men and women in gender-typed roles; the commercials they see while watching TV also portray gender stereotypic images; the magazines Emily reads send her images about what women should look like, which may predispose her to believe she is overweight (when she really is not) because the models in the magazines are well below the national average for body fat. The more Emily is exposed to these messages, the more cultivation theory predicts she will come to believe that they tell the real story about how life is.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR MEDIA INFLUENCE RESEARCH

Where will applied social psychological research into the influence of the media go next? There are several directions it may take, but two are discussed here: intervention research and broadening the study of media influences to include the "new media" (Rice, 1984). It was mentioned earlier that correlational analyses of displacement and content effects are difficult to interpret causally and, because almost everyone in the latter part of the 20th century has grown up with TV, quasi-experimental studies with proper control groups are now unrealistic. With this in mind, one might ask oneself where applied social psychology can make an impact in the study of displacement and content effects. One promising area is that of intervention. Research of this nature would concern itself with studying the impact of restricting the amount or type of television a child watches and observing its effects. For example, Gadberry (1980) studied the impact of decreased TV viewing in a sample of 6-year-olds who were randomly assigned to either a restricted (i.e., half their normal viewing time per day) or unrestricted viewing group. After 6 weeks, children whose TV viewing was restricted had higher performance IQ scores and were less impulsive. Parental reports showed that children in the restricted group used this extra time to do more reading. This intervention demonstrated the causal relationship between displacement effects and cognitive outcomes in a way that is essentially a backward approach compared to the previous research in this area. Similar kinds of research can address content effects. Durkin (1985b) describes the "Freestyle" project, in which 9- and 12-year-olds were presented with a 13-part television series in which they were exposed to counter-gender-stereotypic role portrayals. When the children were given the opportunity to discuss each episode after viewing it, they became more open to people crossing gender-role boundaries and their gender-typed notions were lessened. Other research shows how intervening can influence modelled or primed behaviours. Waite, Hillbrand, and Foster (1992) studied the impact of a psychiatric hospital's decision to remove a TV channel carrying music videos from its televisions. Its removal resulted in significant decreases in the frequency of aggressive behaviours made by patients. Thus, even though one cannot study the impact of television's introduction, one can study the effects of its removal, restriction, or changes in its contents. Finally, mention should be made about the introduction of the new media into our culture and the role that social psychology can play in studying its impact. With the advent of portable telephones, computers, moderns, FAXes, CD-ROMs, and other forms of portable and digital media, new avenues open up for people, and new patterns of media use appear. How people use these new forms of media determine, in part, the problems that may arise out of their use. However, even though Kiesler, Siegel, and McGuire (1984) first brought this issue to psychology's attention more than a decade ago, social psychology has practically ignored the impact of the new media. These new forms of communication can create several kinds of social problems. Kiesler et al. note that electronic mail can produce a social context in which social norms disintegrate. Because people cannot see or hear the person they are communicating with, nonverbal and paraverbal feedback is absent. This can result in people misinterpreting what others say (Rice & Love, 1987). Also, because social status cues are missing and there is a great degree of social anonymity, electronic communicating can be depersonalizing. This can lead to a sense of deindividuation, which may cause people to interact in more socially aggressive and socially inappropriate ways (i.e., the so-called "flaming" that occurs on computer bulletin boards is 226 McCreary an example of this; it entails sending scathing and vulgar replies to people who disagree with your opinion on a subject). Although these factors can lead to many negative outcomes, they can also help others communicate more effectively by erasing barriers based on prejudice (e.g., a physical disability or deformity). Another area of the new media whose impact is understudied is that of telecommuting. People who telecommute spend one or two days a week working at home either because of the distance they must travel to work or because of difficulties in arranging child care. These people have jobs that give them the freedom to make this arrangement; they usually do most of their work at a computer and can easily perform their work at home. Tim and Linda Russell (from the vignette) are examples of telecommuters. Even though it appears to be an advantageous situation, there are some disadvantages to telecommuting that may leave the individual feeling more stressed than he or she would normally feel in a traditional office setting. First, the type of job an individual performs can have a significant impact on the telecommuting experience. Those in low autonomy positions have the least positive experiences, whereas highly skilled professionals who are accustomed to high levels of autonomy are the mmt satisfied (Olson & Primps, 1984). Second, because telecommuters tend to be isolated from the office, they lack a social support network to deal with work-related stress. Norman, Collins, Conner, Martin, and Rance (1995) showed that telecommuters who were able to cope with stress in a problem-focused manner had higher levels of job satisfaction. Even though there appear to be problems associated with telecommuting, an evaluation of a recent telecommuting program at Statistics Canada showed that working one day a week at home had significantly more: benefits than harmful effects: Reduced role overload, reduced number of problems resulting from the interference between wo1 k and family, increased ability of the teleworker to manage personal and family time, and a positive effect on their family members were among the benefits (Statistics Canada, 1995).

Culture is now widely recognized as

an important, if not crucial, variable to be integrated in theory and research on all aspects of human behavior

Techniques for eliciting compliance include

Deceit: lead suspect to believe that they have evidence of his/her guilt "Soft-shell" technique: involves minimizing the strength of the evidence and the seriousness of the charge Elicits a false sense of security Internalization: when innocent suspects come to believe that they are guilty of the crime

Displacement Theory

the way people portion out their activities on any given day is done in a zero-sum manner; spending time doing one activity means there is less time to devote to other pursuits. For example, after subtracting sleep time and time spent in work or school, there is very little time left for recreation and (for students) homework. This has important implications for children. During childhood, there are several important developmental milestones that must be attained. These milestones include cognitive growth ( e.g., creativity, imagination, intelligence), as well as the development of language and reading skills. *Displacement theory states that, when children watch television, they are taking important time away from activities geared toward meeting these developmental goals. As a result, the more television* children watch, the poorer they are expected to do tests of these milestones ( e.g., psychological tests of creativity or academic tests of reading ability) because they have had less time to spend learning the necessary skills. In this way, displacement theory is specifically directed toward describing the impact that television has on children's cognitive growth, their educational attainment, as well as other activities that cannot be time-shared with TV ( e.g., many leisure pursuits). For example, consider cognitive growth. The pre-high school era is one of the most important points in children's intellectual development (Harrison & Williams, 1986). Many of the skills children learn in school that help to foster cognitive growth need to be reinforced with practice at home. As a result, children need to spend a certain number of hours outside of school practising their math skills and mastering their cognitive abilities through play and other exercises. Because children tend to spend so much of their out-of-school time watching television, however, they are displacing time that might be better spent mastering these skills and abilities. Because displacement theory predicts a causal relationship between TV viewing and academic and cognitive outcomes, the most direct way to examine this inference is by using an experimental design. An experimental approach would necessitate finding a large sample of children who had never been exposed to TV and then randomly assign them to either a TV-viewing condition or a non-TV-viewing condition. Once this has been done, their performance on variables such as cognitive growth and academic performance can be measured both before and after the experimental group is exposed to television. If the children in the experimental group (i.e., those who watched TV) reduced their scores on the outcome measures while the control group (i.e., those who still had no TV exposure) remained the same, then displacement effects would be the cause. Similar assumptions would be made if the control group improved its abilities whereas the experimental group went unchanged. An even greater experimental test of this hypothesis would involve comparing the control group to two comparison groups: a high-TV-viewing group (e.g., 3-4 hours per day) and a low-TV-viewing group (e.g., 1-2 hours per day). However, this kind of experiment is unrealistic in the 1990s. Given that most homes in North America have at least one television, it would be an impossible task to locate enough children who have not had extensive exposure to TV and who are otherwise representative of the general population. Still, there are two viable alternatives for studying displacement effects: (a) correlational studies that examine the relationship between the number of time children spend watching TV and their cognitive and academic achievements, and (b) quasi-experimental designs that have taken advantage of the introduction of television to one or more communities and monitored the effects it had on people's behaviour. Both kinds of studies have demonstrated significant displacement effects and will be discussed next.

The Ecological Level (Culture or Not Culture?)

there are many potentially relevant noncultural variables, such as affluence or socioeconomic status, population density, religion and religious practices, and climate (Georgas & Berry, 1995; Georgas, van de Vijver, & Berry, 2004). Each of these varies greatly among countries, and each has potential impact on psychological processes. For example, according to the World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), the country with the highest per capita purchasing-power parity is Luxembourg at $62,700; the country with the lowest is East Timor at $400. This is quite a spread. Even the differences between the United States ($41,800) and Japan ($30,400), South Korea ($20,300), and mainland China ($6,200), countries often compared with the United States, are considerable and cannot be overlooked. Given that affluence is related to individualism (e.g., Hofstede, 1980, reported a correlation of .82 between the two; see also Kashima & Kashima, 2003; Triandis, 2001), there is a distinct possibility that observed between-country differences that are assumed to occur because of differences in individualism-collectivism may in fact occur because of economic factors. Climate is another variable to consider. Climates, average temperatures, rainfall, and the degree of extreme weather—either hot or cold—can influence culture and behavior. Kashima and Kashima (2003) demonstrated that geographical latitude predicted individualism on the country level, and Van de Vliert and his colleagues have amassed impressive data demonstrating that climate is related to leadership behavior and volunteer work across countries One interesting line of research in recent years is that of McCrae and his colleagues, who have demonstrated the existence of between-country differences in levels of personality traits, as measured by the five-factor model To be sure, these findings raise interesting conceptual issues, especially concerning whether or not personality traits are conceptually linked to culture. The five-factor model suggests that these traits represent biologically based predispositions for behaviors, and that cultures provide individuals with specific ways in which these predispositions are manifested in concrete behaviors. To the extent that personality and culture are separate, therefore, one question that arises is the degree to which between-country differences occur because of culture, or because of aggregate differences in personalities in the countries being measured. There are many other noncultural factors that could be sources of between-country differences in psychological processes and behavior. Countries differ, for example, not only in the relative degree to which religion is practiced, but also in the degree to which religion is infused in government and culture. Also, it is difficult to imagine that such factors as the amount of arable land relative to population density do not have an impact on culture and behavior. Countries also differ in educational practices, and there are likely to be differences between countries that use an American or Western European style of education and those that do not. Even among countries that have an American system, there may be major differences in how the system is implemented. In Japan and South Korea, for instance, students are required from a very early age to memorize facts in a much more passive, didactic manner than students in the United States are. These types of differences may contribute to differences in performance of cognitive-related tasks requiring attention, perception, or memory; systemic cultural differences such as differences in individualism-collectivism are not the only possible explanation. Of course, it may be that these noncultural ecological-level factors contribute to the development of cultures in the first place, an idea that is consistent with an environmental causation model of culture (described later in ''In Which Directions Do the Arrows Point?'').

Content effects (media)

concerned with what children and adults inadvertently learn from the media.

informational influence

conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people

Nisbett reading culture outline

(a) their naive metaphysical1 systems at a deep level (b) their tacit epistemologies, and (c) even the nature of their cognitive processes - the ways by which they know the world. More specifically, we put forward the following propositions.

Culture includes objective and subjective elements

(Triandis, 1972) produced and reproduced by interconnected individuals to solve complex social problems (Kashima, 2000; Triandis, 1994). The distinction between the objective and subjective elements of culture is related to Kroeber and Kluckhohn's (1952/1963) distinction between implicit and explicit culture. Because interpretations about the source of cross-cultural differences were limited, it became necessary for psychologists to identify meaningful dimensions of cultural variability that describe the subjective elements of culture. Such dimensions would aid researchers in interpreting their findings. Hofstede addressed this need in his seminal work. Initially (Hofstede, 1980), he reported data from 40 countries, and soon thereafter (Hofstede, 1984), he added 13 more. Most recently (Hofstede, 2001), he has reported data from 72 countries—the responses of more than 117,000 employees of a multinational business organization to his 63 work-related values items. This research project spanned more than 20 languages and seven occupational levels. Originally, Hofstede conducted ecological-level factor analyses on the country means for his work-related items and generated three dimensions that he suggested could describe the cultures of the countries sampled. He then split one of the dimensions into two on the basis of theoretical reasoning and the fact that controlling for the country-level gross national product produced a differentiation in the factor structure. This resulted in his well-known set of four dimensions: Individualism Versus Collectivism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity. Recently, Hofstede incorporated a fifth dimension called Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede & Bond, 1984). The identification of these dimensions, their quantification on scales, and the placement of countries on these scales were major advances for the field, enabling researchers to predict and explain cultural differences along meaningful dimensions of variability. Of Hofstede's five dimensions, individualism-collectivism became especially popular. Triandis championed this dimension and used it to explain many cross-cultural similarities and differences in behaviours, including cross-cultural differences in relationships within-groups versus out-groups (Triandis, 1994, 1995, 2001; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988). Individualism has been theoretically related to cultural differences in the expression, perception, and antecedents of emotion (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988; Matsumoto, 1989, 1991; Wallbott & Scherer, 1988); self-monitoring and communication (Gudykunst et al., 1992); the effects of speech rate on perceptions of speakers' credibility (Lee & Boster, 1992); and family values (Georgas, 1989, 1991). In fact, although Hofstede's other dimensions have received some attention in the literature (Gudykunst, Nishida, & Chua, 1986; Gudykunst, Yang, & Nishida, 1985; Shuper & Sorrentino, 2004), individualism-collectivism became the most widely studied dimension in the field and has been conceptually linked to many psychological differences across cultures (Hofstede, 2001; Triandis, 1995, 2001) (phase 2)

Sociocognitive Systems

- It is possible to derive the intellectual differences between the ancient Greek and Chinese approaches to science and philosophy - their differing metaphysics and epistemology - from their differing social psychological attributes.

Psychology and the Law

Applied social psychology Social- or social-cognitive perspective Forensic psychology (Often) clinical perspective Criminology (Often) sociological/social sciences perspective

environmental causation model

Another theoretical consideration concerns the models of the relationship between culture and behavior. The prevalent model is ... which is rooted in anthropology and evolutionary psychology. It suggests that ecological factors such as climate, natural resources, group-level affluence, and population density influence the creation of cultures. Cultures, therefore, are human-made responses to the ecology within which societies exist; cultures are created as societies adapt to their contexts in order to meet the biological and social necessities of survival. In this model, culture is ''encoded'' in the form of social practices, norms, rituals, beliefs, worldviews, values, and other subjective as well as objective elements. Encoded culture is transmitted to individuals by enculturation agents across the life span, especially during formative childhood and adolescent years. Enculturation agents include parents, families and extended families, members of the community; schoolteachers, and colleagues at work; as well as social institutions such as schools, day-care centers, community recreational centers, and work organizations. In this model, individuals are relatively blank slates; cultures shape and mold their personalities, which, in turn, affect their specific mental processes and behaviors, worldviews, and phenomenological experiences. Thus, one speaks of how culture influences behavior, and the arrows in the model point this way: culture to personality-self to mental processes and behaviors. However, it is also possible that personality traits represent basic tendencies that are rooted in biology and interact with culture in shaping specific mental processes and behaviors. This view is rooted in the five-factor model of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1999), which suggests that traits have only biological bases, and that cultures shape the expression of traits, but not their levels (Hofstede & McCrae, 2004). In this view, regional and national differences in genes related to personality traits may give rise to some aspects of cultural differences. Differences in trait-related genes may occur because of accidents of ancestral migration, genetic drift, or even natural selection. If they exist, they may help to shape cultural values. For example, extraverts may be inherently inclined to express emotions more than introverts, and if a cultural area contains many extraverts, emotional expression may become the norm partly because of the existence of such trait-related genes. In this model of reverse causation (Allik & McCrae, 2002), the arrows point in a different direction: biologically based personality traits to culture to specific mental processes and behaviors. There are undoubtedly many other theoretical models that can be created. Our point is that research that merely demonstrates the existence of differences between countries, either in mean levels of responses or in patterns of relationships among variables, cannot be used to empirically justify either of these (or other) theoretical models. Thus, causal interpretations of such differences that suggest the arrows point in one direction or another are, in fact, speculations. Yet researchers are often quick to interpret their findings within an assumed model, most often the environmental causation model (i.e., they conclude that culture caused the differences). Future researchers should consider undertaking studies that can address which model fits data better.

what is culture?

Attempts to define culture go back well over a hundred years (e.g., Baumeister, 2005; Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 1992; Jahoda, 1984; Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952/1963; Pelto & Pelto, 1975; Rohner, 1984; Tylor, 1865), and there is no one accepted definition of culture in anthropology, sociology, or psychology today. Yet most definitions share certain characteristics, and we believe that human culture is generally defined as: a meaning and information system shared by a group and transmitted across generations. (phase 2)

Notel Study

Compared the same village before and after the TV was introduced to the town. They studied the changes in physical and verbal aggression among kids, youth, and adults before and after TV was introduced. Findings: Physical and verbal aggression were significantly increased among elementary students. Also, social activity participation decreased.

The Eyewitness

Conclusions drawn from studies: Eyewitnesses are imperfect - worst evidence Certain personal and situational factors systematically influence their performance Judges, juries, and lawyers are not well informed about these factors why are eyewitnesses so inaccurate? - three-stage memory process -- retrieval, storage, acquisition --- sources of error at all three stages

Correlational Studies

Correlational research examines the relationship between two naturally occurring events; there are no experimental or control groups in this research design. Studies of this nature assess the number of television children watch and then correlate that with variables such as their academic achievement, cognitive development, and degree of physical fitness. Displacement theory would predict a Positive correlation between TV viewing and these outcomes. In other words, TV viewing increases factors such as school grades, creativity, and fitness should decrease. Several studies have examined the relationship between the number of television children watch and their reading and academic abilities. In a study of over 28,000 American high school seniors, Keith, Reimers, Fehrmann, Pottebaum, and Aubey (1986) found that the more TV these adolescents watched, the less time they spent doing their homework and the lower their reading and mathematics ability scores on nationwide standardized tests. Neuman (1988) and Potter (1987), however, have observed that for those children and adolescents who watch fewer than 4 hours of TV per day, there appears to be little impact on their reading abilities; it is only when TV viewing exceeds 4 hours per day that reading abilities are observed to be seriously impaired. This suggests that the relationship between TV viewing and academics/reading is not necessarily as linear as the displacement hypothesis would predict. That is, there appears to be a plateau effect whereby children who watch TV at levels at or beyond the plateau tend to be most adversely affected (Beentjes & Van der Voort, 1988). A child's cognitive growth (e.g., daydreaming and creativity) might also be affected adversely by watching too much television. However, some would suggest that because of its varied nature, watching television often may actually stimulate cognitive growth instead of impairing it. Valkenburg and Van der Voort (1994) reviewed the scientific literature examining the evidence for the cognitive stimulation and cognitive reduction hypotheses. Their overview examined the impact of TV viewing separately for two measures of cognitive growth: daydreaming and creativity. They showed that the vast majority of research has found a positive relationship between TV viewing and the frequency of children's daydreaming. However, when Valkenburg and Van der Voort reviewed the relationship between the amount of time children spent watching TV and their degree of creativity, a negative relationship emerged. Thus, children who watch a lot of TV tend to daydream more often but are less creative than children who watch TV less frequently. These results show the mixed influence that TV has on cognitive development. Because television tends not to be time-shared with physical fitness activities (especially in children), there should be a negative relationship between the amount of TV viewing and level of physical fitness or obesity. Tucker (191:<,) examined this relationship in a sample of adolescent boys. He observed no effect of time spent watching TV on obesity levels. However, Tucker did find that children who watched TV less than 2 hours per day were significantly more physically I!t than both moderate viewers (i.e., between 2 and 4 hours per day) and heavy viewers (i.e., more than 4 hours per day). The relationship between TV viewing and physical fitness and obesity in adolescent girls is still not known. Even though the studies reported here illustrate the relationship predicted by displacement theory, correlational analyses cannot be used to make the causal inferences the theory wants to make; it is just as likely that children who do not do well in school, who have poorer cognitive abilities, or who are not as physically fit spend more time watching television because of these deficits rather than as a result of them. This point has been argued by Ritchie, Price, and Roberts (1987), whose 3- year panel study examined the amount of time a group of children spent watching TV, how well the children read, and how much time they spent reading. Ritchie et al. noticed that, over time, children who read well and read a lot continued to do so. They also observed that the amount of time children spent watching TV and both their reading ability and time spent reading were highly intercorrelated at all three testing points. When, over the course of their study, there were changes in reading time and abilities, the change was not necessarily correlated with the amount of TV viewing the child did. Thus, Ritchie et al. argue that it is impossible to determine if changes in reading are a direct result of increased time watching television or whether there are other intervening variables that need to be identified and tested in future research ( e.g., peer support for reading activities).

What is Culture?

General characteristics Food and clothing Housing and technology Economy and transportation Individual and family activities Community and government Welfare, religion, and science Sex and the life cycle Activities and behaviour complex, studying outward behaviours, traditions, clothes etc to infer underlying beliefs

violence and aggressive behaviour is overdetermined

Has multiple causes, rather than a single necessary mechanism Sex Personality Anger Stress Environment Culture

Culture or Not Culture? The Ecological Level

Given that most cross-cultural research is really cross-national, one needs to consider all the relevant sources that could potentially produce observed between-country differences. Some may be cultural, some may not, and it will be important for research in the future to rule out the possibility that noncultural sources contribute to observed group differences. Our definition of culture—as a meaning and information system shared by a group and transmitted across generations—would allow researchers (as would any other definition) to begin to parse out many noncultural variables that vary between countries and need to be considered. On the ecological level, there are many potentially relevant noncultural variables, such as affluence or socioeconomic status, population density, religion and religious practices, and climate (Georgas & Berry, 1995; Georgas, van de Vijver, & Berry, 2004). Each of these varies greatly among countries, and each has a potential impact on psychological processes. For example, according to the World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), the country with the highest per capita purchasing-power-parity is Luxembourg at $62,700; the country with the lowest is East Timor at $400. This is quite a spread. Even the differences between the United States ($41,800) and Japan ($30,400), South Korea ($20,300), and mainland China ($6,200), countries often compared with the United States, are considerable and cannot be overlooked. Given that affluence is related to individualism (e.g., Hofstede, 1980, reported a correlation of .82 between the two; see also Kashima & Kashima, 2003; Triandis, 2001), there is a distinct possibility that observed between-country differences that are assumed to occur because of differences in individualism-collectivism may in fact occur because of economic factors. Climate is another ecological-level variable to consider. Climates, average temperatures, rainfall, and the degree of extreme weather—either hot or cold—can influence culture and behaviour. Kashima and Kashima (2003) demonstrated that geographical latitude predicted individualism on the country level, and Van de Vliert and his colleagues have amassed impressive data demonstrating that climate is related to leadership behaviour and volunteer work across countries (Van de Vliert, 2004, 2006; Van de Vliert, Huang, & Levine, 2004; Van de Vliert & Janssen, 2002; Van de Vliert, Schwartz, Huismans, Hofstede, & Daan, 1999). One interesting line of research in recent years is that of McCrae and his colleagues, who have demonstrated the existence of between-country differences in levels of personality traits, as measured by the five-factor model (Allik & McCrae, 2004; McCrae, 2002; McCrae & Costa, 1999; McCrae et al., 2005). Thus, countries differ on aggregate levels of Neuroticism,Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, and Agreeableness and their facets. To be sure, these findings raise interesting conceptual issues, especially concerning whether or not personality traits are conceptually linked to culture. The five-factor model suggests that these traits represent biologically based predispositions for behaviors, and that cultures provide individuals with specific ways in which these predispositions are manifested in concrete behaviors. To the extent that personality and culture are separate, therefore, one question that arises is the degree to which between-country differences occur because of culture, or because of aggregate differences in personalities in the countries being measured. There are many other noncultural factors that could be sources of between-country differences in psychological processes and behavior. Countries differ, for example, not only in the relative degree to which religion is practiced, but also in the degree to which religion is infused in government and culture. Also, it is difficult to imagine that such factors as the amount of arable land relative to population density do not have an impact on culture and behavior. Countries also differ in educational practices, and there are likely to be differences between countries that use an American or Western European style of education and those that do not. Even among countries that have an American system, there may be major differences in how the system is implemented. In Japan and South Korea, for instance, students are required from a very early age to memorize facts in a much more passive, didactic manner than students in the United States are. These types of differences may contribute to differences in performance of cognitive-related tasks requiring attention, perception, or memory; systemic cultural differences such as differences in individualism-collectivism are not the only possible explanation. Of course, it may be that these noncultural ecological-level factors contribute to the development of cultures in the first place, an idea that is consistent with an environmental causation model of culture (described later in ''In Which Directions Do the Arrows Point?''). Even so, it may be wise for researchers to incorporate some of these factors in studying the sources contributing to between-country differences, because not all groupspecific ecological differences are cultural (at least as defined here).

Before the trial begins...

How the police deal with witnesses and suspects Inquisitorial approach (a search for the truth) vs. adversarial approach (an attempt to prove guilty) In Britain, 50% of police use methods aimed at obtaining a confession Setting (isolation and affiliative desire) Authority of questioner

Conclusions: psych and law

Many aspects of the legal system relate to core areas of social psychology However, what psychologists have discovered is not necessarily known to judges, lawyers, jurors, or the public Reliability of confession evidence Reliability of eyewitness accounts Biased processes and procedures How can this be remedied? - he doesn't know

The Individual Level

Many of the same concerns exist on the individual level as well, and researchers need to exercise caution in ensuring that their samples are adequately representative of the cultures in question and do not differ in other, noncultural demographic variables. Again, this is important because one cannot simply assume that the only differences between samples from different countries are cultural. There may, in fact, be noncultural demographic differences between the samples that may contribute to any observed differences in behaviour and psychological processes, and these noncultural differences need to be ruled out. Most cross-cultural research uses university-student samples, and it is easy to believe that there is some degree of equivalence among samples because of their level of education. In many cases, this may be true. But it is also true that requirements for entrance into universities vary across countries. In the United States, it is very common for high school graduates to gain entrance into a university or college. In some countries, however, a university education is a luxury that is limited to members of a privileged class. Even among university samples, there can be many noncultural demographic differences. In the United States, for instance, the average age of undergraduate students is between 18 and 22 at many universities, but considerably higher at others. At commuter schools like San Francisco State University, for instance, where one of us is located, the average age of student samples is typically about 26. Obviously, such differences need to be accounted for in testing for cultural differences. University samples in different countries can also differ in living situations or work experience. In the United States, for instance, students often work either full- or part-time while attending school. Many live on their own or with other students. Many support themselves or are only partially supported by parents. However, many of these factors differ in other countries. For example, in Japan and South Korea, which often serve as comparisons to the United States, many students live at home and are completely supported by their families. It is not clear what effect these kinds of differences have on psychological variables, but they potentially have some kind of noncultural effect that needs to be accounted for. Religious backgrounds and practices are another major difference among individuals from different cultures. In the United States, for instance, religious practices are relatively separable from nonreligious practices, and most people can choose which religion to practice and how much to actively practice it. In some cultures, however, there is little or no separation between religion and culture, and in others, religion is so well infused in the culture that the two are indistinguishable. Another individual-level variable researchers should consider is personality. As we have noted, countries differ in aggregate levels of personality traits. Samples from such countries are therefore also likely to differ on those traits, and if these differences are not controlled, between-country differences in culture are confounded by between-country differences in levels of personality traits in their samples. As is the case with the ecological-level factors, all of the individual-level variables described in this section may in fact be inseparable from culture, and it may be impossible for cross-cultural studies to establish equivalence in samples on all demographic characteristics. We suggest, nevertheless, that cross-cultural researchers should conduct full demographic assessments of samples whenever possible, examine possible relationships between demographic variables and the psychological processes of interest, and note demographic variables

The Individual Level (Culture or Not Culture?)

Most cross-cultural research uses university-student samples, and it is easy to believe that there is some degree of equivalence among samples because of their level of education. In many cases, this may be true. But it is also true that requirements for entrance into universities vary across countries. In the United States, it is very common for high school graduates to gain entrance into a university or college. In some countries, however, a university education is a luxury that is limited to members of a privileged class. Even among university samples, there can be many noncultural demographic differences. In the United States, for instance, the average age of undergraduate students is between 18 and 22 at many universities, but considerably higher at others. At commuter schools like San Francisco State University, for instance, where one of us is located, the average age of student samples is typically about 26. Obviously, such differences need to be accounted for in testing for cultural differences. University samples in different countries can also differ in living situations or work experience. In the United States, for instance, students often work either full- or part-time while attending school. Many live on their own or with other students. Many support themselves or are only partially supported by parents. However, many of these factors differ in other countries. For example, in Japan and South Korea, which often serve as comparisons to the United States, many students live at home and are completely supported by their families. It is not clear what effect these kinds of differences have on psychological variables, but they potentially have some kind of noncultural effect that needs to be accounted for. Religious backgrounds and practices are another major difference among individuals from different cultures. In the United States, for instance, religious practices are relatively separable from nonreligious practices, and most people can choose which religion to practice and how much to actively practice it. In some cultures, however, there is little or no separation between religion and culture, and in others, religion is so well infused in the culture that the two are indistinguishable. Another variable researchers should consider is personality. As we have noted, countries differ in aggregate levels of personality traits. Samples from such countries are therefore also likely to differ on those traits, and if these differences are not controlled, between-country differences in culture are confounded by between-country differences in levels of personality traits in their samples. As is the case with the ecological-level factors, all of the individual-level variables described in this section may in fact be inseparable from culture, and it may be impossible for crosscultural studies to establish equivalence in samples on all demographic characteristics. We suggest, nevertheless, that cross-cultural researchers should conduct full demographic assessments of samples whenever possible, examine possible relationships between demographic variables and the psychological processes of interest, and note demographic variables that potentially confound cultural differences, sometimes even inextricably. Undoubtedly, obtaining these demographic data and isolating the source of between-country differences to specific cultural or demographic influences, even if the latter are inextricably intertwined with culture, is a step forward in establishing linkage.

Sociocognitive Systems in Homeostasis

Mere inertia would not result in contemporary differences in the way people think. We propose that systems of thought exist in homeostasis with the social practices that surround them. We will describe a number of ways in which the social practices and cognitive processes could support or "prime" one another (Y.-y. Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martinez, 2000). HOLISTIC VERSUS ANALYTIC PRACTICES 1. The practice of feng shui for choosing ˆ building sites (even Hong Kong skyscrapers) may encourage the idea that the factors affecting outcomes are extraordinarily complex and interactive, which in turn encourages the search for relationships in the field. This may be contrasted with more atomistic and rule-based approaches to the problem-solving characteristic of the West. Consider, for example, the nature of approaches to self-help in the West: "The Three Steps to a Comfortable Retirement" or "Six Ways to Increase Your Word Power." 2. Employees in the top one-third of the Japanese economy are rotated among their company's divisions frequently, to be able to see the company's operations from as many viewpoints as possible. A graduate of a top university would be expected to work in the factory for the first year or two of employment and might actually represent union employees to the company (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993). 3. The West, beginning in the 18th century and continuing at an increasingly rapid pace into the 20th century, introduced "modularity" - that is, uniform, atomistic, and interchangeable design and production (Shore, 1996). From the introduction of the piece good manufacture in English cottages to Henry Ford's production line to the chain restaurant, the West - and America in particular - remain the chief innovators and consumers of modular production and products. 4. The most popular game of intellectuals in the East is Go and the most popular in the West is chess. Xia (1997) and Campbell (1983) have pointed out that Go is more complex and holistic than chess, the analytic game par excellence. Go boards have 19 × 19 spaces whereas chess boards have 8 × 8 spaces. Go pieces have more variation in possible moves than do chess pieces, which must adhere to a fixed set of rules for movement. Hence, moves in Go are more difficult to predict. The appropriate strategy for Go has been termed dialectic in that the "competition between the black and white is a well-calculated trade-off. . . . It is not wise to be greedy and overplay" (Xia, 1997). ARGUMENT, DEBATE, AND RHETORIC 1. In daily life, East Asians strive to maintain harmony. Ohbuchi and Takahasi (1994) asked Japanese and American businesspeople how they dealt with conflict with their fellow managers. Twice as many Japanese as American respondents reported using avoidance as a means of dealing with a conflict of views, and three times as many Americans as Japanese reported attempting to use persuasion. 2. Decision processes in boardrooms and executive councils in Japan are designed to avoid conflicts. Meetings often consist of nothing more than the ratification of consensus among members obtained by the leader prior to the meeting. 3. Western educators often complain that their Asian students do not participate in class discussions and that they do not follow the requirements of rhetoric in their writings - for example, statement of principles and assumptions, derivations, hypotheses, evidence, argumentation, conclusion. Neither their culture nor their prior educational experience has prepared them for the canonical rhetoric forms that are taken for granted in the West. (See Tweed & Lehman, 2000, for a review.) 4. Galtung (1981) has described the intellectual styles of academics from different cultures. The Anglo-American style "fosters and encourages debate and discourse . . . and pluralism is an overriding value" (pp. 823-824). In contrast, for the Japanese, "the first rule would be not to harm pre-established social relations" (p. 825). LAW AND CONTRACTS 1. Although the ancient Chinese had a complex legal system, it was in general not codified in the way it was in the West (Logan, 1986). Today, courts of law are relatively rare in the East, and there is a marked preference for solving conflicts on the basis of the particulars of a specific case and by negotiation through a middleman (Leung & Morris, 2001). 2. Easterners and Westerners have fundamentally different understandings of the nature of contracts. In the West, a contract is unalterable; in the East, a contract is continually renegotiable in the light of changed circumstances (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1993). This drastic difference of view has often resulted in conflict and bitterness between Eastern and Western negotiators. RELIGION 1. Some scholars have contended that Christianity has far stronger theological concerns than other religions have, finding it "necessary to formulate elaborately precise statements about the abstract qualities and relations of gods and humans" (Dyson, 1998, p. 8). 2. Religions in East Asia have long been characterized by their interpenetrating and blending qualities. Societies and individuals readily incorporate aspects of several different religions into their worldviews. In contrast, for Christians, there is a strong tendency toward an insistence on doctrinal purity. This sometimes results in religious wars in the West, a rarity in East Asia. LANGUAGE AND WRITING Perhaps the most pervasive and important of all practices that operate to sustain the cognitive differences are those having to do with language and writing. Indeed, some scholars, notably Logan (1986), have tried to make the case that most of the cognitive differences we have discussed are due primarily to differences in language and writing systems. 1. The basic writing system of Chinese and other East Asian languages has been essentially pictographic. It can be maintained that the Western alphabet is more atomistic and analytic by nature and "is a natural tool for classifying and served as a paradigm for codified law, scientific classification, and standardized weights and measures" (Logan, p. 55). 2. The actual grammar of Indo-European languages encourages thinking of the world as being composed of atomistic building blocks, whereas East Asian languages encourage thinking of the world as continuous and interpenetrating. "[R]ather than one-many, the Chinese language motivates a part-whole dichotomy" (Hansen, 1983, p. vii). 3. East Asian languages are highly contextual in every sense. Because of their multiple meanings, words must be understood in the context of sentences. Because of the minimal nature of syntax in Sinitic languages, context is important to understanding sentences (Freeman & Habermann, 1996). In contrast, Heath (1982) has shown that language socialization for middle-class American children quite deliberately decontextualizes language. Parents try to make words understandable independent of verbal context and utterances understandable independent of situational context. 4. Although Western toddlers learn nouns (i.e., words referring to objects) at a much more rapid rate than they learn verbs (i.e., words referring to relationships), the reverse appears to be true for Chinese (Tardif, 1996) and Koreans (S. Choi & Gopnik, 1995). Moreover, Western toddlers hear more noun phrases from their mothers, whereas East Asian children hear more verbs (Fernald & Morikawa, 1993; Tardif, Shatz, & Naigles, 1997). 5. "Generic" noun phrases - that is, those referring to categories and kinds (e.g., "birds," "tools," as opposed to exemplars such as "sparrow," "hammer") - are more common for English speakers than for Chinese speakers (Gelman & Tardif, 1998), perhaps because Western languages mark in a more explicit way whether a generic interpretation of an utterance is the correct one (Lucy, 1992). 6. Consistent with the above findings of category usage, Ji and Nisbett (Ji, 2001; Ji & Nisbett, 2001) found that Englishspeaking Chinese used relationships more and categories less when they grouped words in Chinese than when they did so in English. Thus there are some good reasons to believe that social practices and cognitive ones maintain each other in a state of equilibrium. Cognitive practices may be highly stable because of their embeddedness in larger systems of beliefs and social practices.

Quasi-Experimental Studies on displacement

More powerful research methods are needed in order to determine if the causal relationship predicted by displacement theory can be supported. To this end, several studies have employed a quasi-experimental method known as the interrupted time-series design. Researchers who have utilized this method have taken advantage of a naturally occurring event (e.g., the introduction of television to one or more communities) in order to examine the impact that displacement caused by TV viewing has on children. In this way, they can use a pre-post design (i.e., taking measures of the dependent variables both before and after a special event has occurred), looking for changes in a group of people after TV has been introduced to their lifestyle. However, unlike the correlational studies reported earlier, these studies do not correlate time spent watching TV with the outcome variables; it is only assumed that the introduction of TV causes children to spend less time developing their cognitive and reading abilities. Thus, quasi-experimental research first needs to determine that children living in communities without TV spend more time doing activities geared to stimulating cognitive development and reading. One of the first quasi-experimental studies to address this issue was conducted by Parker (1963; see also Cook & Campbell, 1979). Parker examined the impact of displacement on people's reading during the introduction of television in the United States. Between 1951 and 1953, there was a moratorium in the granting of new licenses to operate television stations. Parker identified 55 Illinois communities that had TV prior to this ban and then matched them with demographically similar communities that did not receive television until after the ban was lifted. Parker operationalized a community's involvement in reading by calculating the ratio of each community's public library book circulation to its population. This per-capita statistic was calculated for all of the matched communities. Parker's data showed that the introduction of TV to a community (irrespective of whether it came prior to 1951 or after 1953) caused it's per capita library circulation to drop significantly. For both the early and late TV communities, the decrease following the introduction of TV was statistically significant. Whereas Parker's study aggregated children's and adult's reading into a per capita circulation statistic, similar studies have examined the impact of TV's introduction specifically on the time children spend reading. Historically, the first of these studies was conducted around the time of TV's introduction in the United Kingdom (Himmelweit, Oppenheim, & Vince, 1958), followed by the United States and Canada (Schramm, Lyle, & Parker, 1961), Japan (Furu, 1962), Australia (Murray & Kippax, 1978), and South Africa (Mutz, Roberts, & van Vuuren, 1993). For example, Furu (1962) used a before-after design in order to determine whether the introduction of television had displacement effects on reading in Japanese children. Furu's study was especially strong in that he also included a matched control group of children who had no exposure to TV at any time during the study. He found that once television had been introduced, those children who were exposed to TV reduced the amount of time they spent reading books, magazines, comic books, and newspapers, compared to children in the control group. Thus, television viewing does appear to displace time that would otherwise be spent on tasks geared to helping children attain cognitive-developmental and reading milestones. There are two reasons, however, why quasi-experimental studies addressing whether there are actual declines in children's cognitive growth and reading abilities after the introduction of television are fairly uncommon. First, the earlier studies of displacement did not adequately determine the cognitive and academic effects of displacement. These studies tended to be more concerned with the impact that the new medium of television had on people's use of the preexisting media ( e.g., whether they read newspapers or books as frequently as before). In these studies, issues such as changes in reading abilities and time spent doing homework and other cognitive tasks were only inferred from changes in the time the children spent utilizing the older media. A second reason these kinds of studies are uncommon is that, with the advent of satellite communications and cable television, there are few (if any) communities left.in the Western world that does not have access to television. Because of this, it is not feasible to conduct a newer, more controlled, and psychologically focused pre-post, quasi-experimental study so that displacement effects can be more thoroughly examined. Still, even with these past and present limitations, there is one well-documented case that provides important insights into the social psychological implications of displacement theory (Williams, 1986b ). Unlike many of the previous studies of this kind, the NOTEL study conducted by Williams and her colleagues (see Box 11-1 for an overview) was not concerned with changes in media use. Their goal was to study the social-psychological impact that the introduction of television had on members of the NOTEL community (albeit mostly the children). Corteen and Williams (1986) studied TV's displacement effects on children's reading. Because they believed that displacing reading activities might have a more negative impact in younger children, Corteen and Williams tested boys and girls who were in Grades 2, 3, and 8 before TV was introduced in NOTEL. Two years later, they retested those same children (they were now in Grades 4, 5, and 10) in addition to testing a new group of children in Grades 2, 3, and 8. With regard to the longitudinal data, Corteen and Williams found no evidence that children's reading competencies declined after the arrival of television in NOTEL; however, by the same token, their abilities did not increase either. Cross-sectionally, the data tell a very different story. At Phase 1 of the study, Grade 2 and Grade 3 girls and boys in NOTEL had significantly better reading abilities than same-grade children in UNITEL or MULTITEL. However, the introduction of TV to NOTEL saw a significant decline in the average NOTEL children's reading scores that was not matched in the other two towns. Thus, two years after TV's introduction, Grade 2 and 3 children in NOTEL appeared to give up their superior reading abilities; they developed the same (lower) reading abilities as children who had grown up with TV. The reading abilities of children in Grade 8 appeared to be unaffected by the introduction of TV to their community. Harrison and Williams (1986) examined creativity changes in Grade 4 and 7 NOTEL children. The longitudinal data show that at Phase 1, NOTEL children were significantly more creative than same-grade children in the two comparison towns. However, after 2 years of watching television, the NOTEL children's creativity scores decreased and were similar to UNITEL and MULTITEL children's scores. This pattern was even more profound in the cross-sectional data. Before NOTEL had TV, children in Grades 4 and 7 had staggeringly higher creativity scores when compared to the children in UNITEL and MULTITEL. By Phase 2, the average level of creativity in Grade 4 and Grade 7 NOTEL children was approximately 40% less than it had been before TV was introduced, equalling the children in the other towns. In summary, correlational research shows that children who watch a lot of television (especially more than 4 hours per day) tend to be most adversely affected. Their reading and math abilities are less than those children who watch less TV, and they also score lower on measures of creativity. Quasi-experimental evidence also suggests that reading ability and creativity decline as a result of displacement effects from watching television. This suggests that Tim and Linda Russell should be concerned about the amount of time their two children spend watching television; it is clear that time spent doing homework should take precedence. Whether or not Ethan and Emily Russell are too old to be adversely affected by displacement effects is unknown. The correlational data show negative relationships into adulthood, whereas the NOTEL data suggest that younger children are the most at risk for displacement effects.

Conclusion: culture and psychology

Thinking is not the same everywhere The ways that we think help us to cope with our unique realities We have developed divergent modes of thought (even though we share biological structures)

normative influence

changing their overt behavior in the majority's direction even though they disagree in private

Experiments

Linkage can also be demonstrated by ex in which researchers create conditions to establish cause-effect relationships and participants are assigned randomly to the conditions. Such studies are fundamentally different from unpackaging studies because the latter are quasi-experimental, and researchers cannot create the cultural groups or randomly assign participants to those groups. We discuss three types of experiment-based linkage studies: priming studies, questionnaire based studies, and behavioral studies.

Does the lie-detector test really work?

Many laypeople think of it as foolproof, but scientific opinion is split. Some researchers report accuracy rates of up to 80% to 90%. Others believe that such claims are exaggerated. One well-documented problem is that truthful persons too often fail the test. A second problem is that people who understand the test can fake the results. Studies show that you can beat the polygraph by tensing your muscles, squeezing your toes, or using other physical countermeasures while answering the control questions. By artificially inflating the responses to "innocent" questions, one can mask the stress that is aroused by lying on the crime-relevant questions (for a comprehensive overview of research, see Honts et al., 2002).

CSI effect

Perhaps you have watched the popular television drama CSI (which stands for "crime scene investigation"), and focuses on the process by which police investigators collect and analyze fingerprints, bodily fluids, and other types of forensic evidence (the original is set in Las Vegas; spin-offs were later set in Miami and New York). Many legal commentators are speculating that the public's exposure to this show is influencing jury verdicts. The fear is that the television Prejudicial-publicity jurors who "passed" the voir dire programs lead jurors to have unrealistically high expectations that cause them to vote cautiously for acquittal because they find the actual evidence insufficient to support a guilty verdict. If true, then the effect would represent a special type of pretrial publicity potentially influencing an entire population of juries. Tom Tyler (2006a) is quick to note, however, that although the hypothesis is plausible, there is at present no hard evidence to support it. Just as jurors are biased by news stories, they occasionally receive extralegal information within the body of the trial itself. If a witness discloses hearsay that is not considered reliable, or blurts out something about the defendant's past that the courts consider prejudicial-in either case, information the jury is not supposed to hear-then what? What happens next, typically, is that the opposing lawyer will object and the judge will sustain the objection and instruct the jury to disregard the disclosure. If something seems wrong with this series of events, you should know that it is a script often replayed in the courtroom. But can people really strike information from their minds the way court reporters can strike it from the record? Can people on a jury resist the forbidden fruit of inadmissible testimony? Although common sense suggests they cannot, the research is mixed. In one study, a group of mock jurors read about a murder case based on evidence so weak that not a single juror voted guilty. A second group read the same case, except that the prosecution introduced an illegally obtained tape recording of a phone call made by the defendant: "I finally got the money to pay you off. . . . When you read the papers tomorrow, you'll know what I mean:' The defense argued that the illegal tape should not be admissible but the judge disagreed. At this point, the conviction rate increased to 26%. In a third group, as in the second, the tape was brought in and the defense objected. Yet this time, the judge sustained the objection and told jurors to disregard the tape. The result: 35% voted for conviction (Sue et al., 1973). Other studies as well have revealed that jurors are often not deterred by "limiting instructions" (Steblay et al., 2006). Why do people not follow a judge's order to disregard inadmissible evidence? There are several possible explanations (Lieberman & Arndt, 2000). Imagine yourself in the jury box, and three reasons will become apparent. First, the added instruction draws attention to the information in controversy. It's like being told not to think about white bears. As we saw in Chapter 3, trying to suppress a specific thought increases its tendency to intrude upon our consciousness (Wegner, 1994 ). A second reason is that a judge's instruction to disregard, much like censorship, restricts a juror's decision making freedom. As a result, it can backfire by arousing reactance. So, when a judge emphasizes the ruling by forbidding jurors from using the information ("You have no choice but to disregard it"), they become even more likely to use it (Wolf & Montgomery, 1977). The third reason is the easiest to understand. Jurors want to reach the right decision. If they stumble onto relevant information, they want to use that information whether it satisfies the law's technical rules or not. To test this third hypothesis, Kassin and Sommers (1997) had mock jurors read a transcript of a double murder trial that was based on weak evidence, leading only 24% to vote guilty. Three other groups read the same case except that the state's evidence included a wiretapped phone conversation in which the defendant confessed to a friend. In all cases, the defense lawyer objected to the disclosure. When the judge ruled to admit the tape into evidence, the conviction rate increased considerably, to 79%. But when the judge excluded the tape and instructed jurors to disregard it, their reaction depended on the reason the tape was excluded. When told to disregard the tape because it was barely audible and could not be trusted, participants mentally erased the information, as they should, and delivered the same 24% conviction rate as in the no-tape control group. But when told to disregard the item because it had been illegally obtained, 55% voted guilty. Despite the judge's warning, these latter participants were unwilling to ignore testimony they saw as highly relevant merely because of a legal technicality . Additional studies indicate that jurors in this situation may comply with a judge's instruction to disregard when the technicality involves a serious violation of the defendant's rights (Fleming et al., 1999) and that the process of deliberation increases compliance, which minimizes the bias (London & Nunez, 2000).

Sexually Explicit Material definition

Pornography - graphic, unconcealed sexual material with the primary purpose of sexual arousal vs. Embedded sexual material - intensely sexual in nature, but embedded within a story (i.e., not the emphasis)

Simultaneous lineups use a...

Relative judgment strategy: the witness compares each of the lineup members to each other determines which lineup member is closest to their memory of the criminal decides if this "most similar" lineup member is the criminal an alternative is a sequential lineup...

common misconceptions of violent media

Reverse causation - only violent people (or people with certain characteristics) watch violent programs -- longitudinal research does not support this idea Cathartic effect - Violent programs decrease violence by helping people relieve stress and violent impulses -- no support for this idea, it can even make it worse and increase violent impulses. long term cumulative effect likely, difficult to test causality.

Bobo doll experiment

nursery school students observed an adult play aggressively (yelling & hitting) with an inflatable clown (Bobo); when children were later allowed to play with the Bobo, those children who witnessed the Bobo doll performed the same aggressive actions and improvised new ways of playing aggressively. Compared to those who observed the adult playing nicely with the doll, did not show aggression.

Methodological Considerations: Cross-cultural research

A detailed discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of this article (interested readers are referred to van de Vijver & Leung, 1997, and van de Vijver & Matsumoto, in press). Here we elaborate on only two issues—equivalence and response bias— because these are most germane to cross-cultural comparisons and unpackaging studies.

Nonevidentiary Influences

A trial is a well-orchestrated event that follows strict rules of evidence and procedure. The goal is to ensure that juries base their verdicts solely on the evidence and testimony presented in court-not on rumors, newspaper stories, a defendant's physical appearance, and other information. The question is "To what extent is this goal achieved, and to what extent are jury verdicts tainted by non-evidentiary influences?" Before Amanda Knox was tried for murder in Perugia Italy, in 2007, newspapers and social media-not only in Italy, but in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere in the world-were saturated with stories about Knox, her past, her Italian boyfriend, her alleged confession, and witnesses who claimed to have seen her near the crime scene. By the time Knox went to trial, her jury had already been exposed to a good deal of information that was not in evidence. Many high-profile cases find their way into newspapers and other mass media long before they appear in court. In these instances, the legal system struggles with this dilemma: Does exposure to pretrial news stories corrupt the pool of prospective jurors? Public opinion surveys consistently show that the more people know about a case, the more likely they are to presume the defendant guilty, even when they claim to be impartial (Kovera, 2002; Moran & Cutler, 1991). There is nothing mysterious about this result. The information in news reports usually comes from the police or district attorney's office, so it often reveals facts unfavorable to the defense. The question is whether these reports have an impact on juries that go on to hear evidence in court and deliberate to a verdict. To examine the effects of pretrial publicity, Geoffrey Kramer and his colleagues (1990) played a videotaped reenactment of an armed robbery trial to hundreds of people participating in 108 mock juries. Before watching the tape, participants were exposed to news clippings about the case. Some read news material that was neutral. Others read information that was incriminating-for example, revealing that the defendant had a prior record or implicating the defendant in a hit-and-run accident in which a child was killed. Even though participants were instructed to base their decisions solely on the evidence, pretrial publicity had a marked effect. Among those exposed to neutral material, 33% voted guilty after deliberating in a jury. Among those exposed to the prejudicial material, that figure increased to 48%. What's worse, neither judges nor defense lawyers could identify in a simulated voir dire which jurors had been biased by the publicity. As shown in Figure 12.7, 48% of jurors who were questioned and perceived to be impartial-those who said they were unaffected-went on to vote guilty (Kerr et al., 1991).

the need to test competing cultural models (subjective culture)

Over the past 15 or so years, one cultural construct has dominated theory and research: individualism versus collectivism. And it has dominated the field for good reason. For centuries, philosophers have discussed the tendencies underlying these constructs as integral to humans. A review of the literature, indicates that there are at least six major lines of research that have documented the existence of multiple cultural constructs on the ecological level (Table 1). Hofstede's (1980), of course, was first, and it initially included three constructs in addition to individualism-collectivism. One of these— power distance—was highly correlated with individualism collectivism. Since that publication, Hofstede has added one dimension (long- vs. short-term orientation); Schwartz (2004) has uncovered seven universal value orientations; Smith, Dugan, and Trompenaars (1996) have reported two universal value orientations; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2003) have reported nine value orientations related to leadership; Inglehart (1997) has reportedtwo attitude-belief-value orientations; and Bond et al. (2004) have reported two dimensions of social axioms. Thus, there is a wide range of cultural dimensions to utilize in developing cultural theories and accounting for between-country differences in psychological processes. Moreover, the problem posed by the existence of multiple dimensions of cultural variability is exacerbated in two-country comparisons, which are characteristic of cross-cultural research. Although two countries may differ on one dimension, they often also differ on other dimensions. In Hofstede's (2001) data, for instance, the United States ranks 1st on individualism versus collectivism, and Japan ranks 27th (of 70 countries total). This fact has been used to support the characterization of the United States as an individualistic culture and Japan as a collectivistic one (despite the fact that, in reality, Japan is in the middle of the scale). But on Hofstede's dimension of uncertainty avoidance, Japan ranks 8th and the United States ranks 59th, an even bigger difference. On long- versus short-term orientation, Japan ranks 4th and the United States ranks 26th (out of 36 total). In fact, the U.S.-Japan difference in uncertainty avoidance can easily be used to explain the U.S.-Japan difference in anxiety reported by Iwata and Higuchi (2000). Theoretical frameworks to account for observed between country differences in many psychological processes may be developed using dimensions other than individualism versus collectivism. Indeed, some data suggest the importance of other dimensions. In two of our recent studies, for example, long-term orientation was the best predictor of country differences in norms governing emotional expressivity (Matsumoto et al., 2005) and emotional experience (Matsumoto, Nezlek, & Koopmann, in press). Also, the country-level dimensions listed in Table 1 are related to one another. As already mentioned, Hofstede's (1980) individualism-collectivism was highly correlated with power distance. Other correlations among his dimensions have been reported as well (Hofstede, 2001). Hofstede's dimensions have also been correlated with Schwartz's (2004) value orientations; individualism, for instance, is correlated with intellectual and affective autonomy and with egalitarianism. Thus, researchers may focus on individualism versus collectivism, but their frameworks may be more appropriately related to other dimensions. We make these points not to criticize the immense contribution that the individualism-collectivism construct has made up to now (see also Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). We do believe, however, that in the future researchers will need to examine more carefully all of the cultural constructs available to them in developing theoretical models that predict differences (and similarities) in psychological processes. In particular, models that incorporate multiple cultural dimensions in interaction may provide better, more nuanced views of how subjective culture affects behavior than do models that incorporate individualism-collectivism only. In the end, individualism versus collectivism and related constructs such as independent versus interdependent selves may be the best framework for understanding cultural differences; if competing cultural frameworks are not developed and tested, however, there is no way to know this.

Matsumoto & Juang, 2008 culture definition

"A unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs of survival, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life."

Key questions that have been looked about media:

Do the media create a violent society? Can the media increase our level of general fearfulness? What happens when people watch pornography? Do the media influence what we think are important issues? Can the media have an effect on elections?

CONTENT EFFECTS

Television programs carry more information than their producers typically intend, as do other kinds of media, such as magazines, books, comics, and music. For example, the way characters behave on TV tells us not only about the story's plot but also about what kinds of behaviour are acceptable and expected by our culture. *Content effects measure the extent to which these peripheral cues influence the viewer.* Furthermore, they are the most studied aspect of the media's influence over people ( especially that of television). Researchers studying content effects want to know how people using a medium such as television learn behaviours or attitudes that were not intended to be taught. Several theories have been proposed to explain how mass media's content can influence people. The theories described next are the ones used most commonly by social psychologists to explain these effects. In order to emphasize the wide variety of content effects that can be studied, however, each section will be prefaced by an overview of a different media-related social problem. Once the problem has been described, the ways in which the highlighted theories are used to account for the social problem are discussed.

Cultivation Hypothesis (textbook)

The Case of Gender Stereotypes Background. Television and most of the other types of media are full of gender stereotypic images of men and women. In fact, the media have become influential agents in the socialization of gender-related stereotypes (Durkin, 1985a). The media's influence often can begin at birth. Bridges (1993) has shown that cards congratulating parents on the birth of their child offer several gender-typed messages: Boy's cards and envelopes are never pink whereas girl's cards are never blue; action is more often a theme in boy's cards whereas gentleness is more commonly associated with girl's cards. Gender role bias in children's stories also provides a way for gender-typed messages to be passed on to children. Older story books often portray more male than female characters and the females in these stories are often relegated to passive roles or roles that require them to be dependent on the more active male characters. Current research suggests that although there have been changes in the ratio of male to female characters, females in newer children's stories are still represented in a passive and dependent way (Kortenhaus & Demarest, 1993). Men and women are also portrayed differently in a wide range of print advertisements. Evidence from medical journals shows that advertisements depicting female characters most often present these women in gender stereotypic occupations ( e.g., secretaries, waitresses) and portray women as the most frequent consumers of medication. This latter finding is in direct contradiction to reality, because men have been shown to use the medications being advertised much more frequently than women (Hawkins & Aber, 1993). The most striking gender stereotypic image in magazines comes from the way men's and women's physical appearance is portrayed. First, studies of the curvaceousness of women used to model or advertise products in magazines such as Vogue and Ladies Home Journal have shown a consistently positive correlation between trends to use thinner models and the rate of disordered eating among women (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson, & Kelly, 1986). Also, magazines subject women to more implicit and explicit messages that they should diet, whereas men are told they need to become physically bigger by improving their muscle mass (Andersen & DiDomenico, 1992; Mishkind, Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1986; Silverstein et al., 1986; Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1992). In addition to the print media, there are many ways in which television presents gender-biased images of men and women. Research shows that TV overrepresents men (McCauley, Thangavelu, & Rozin, 1988) and presents men's lives in ways that suggest they are more interesting and more powerful than women's lives (Durkin, 1986). When women are shown, they are mostly young (under 30), whereas men's ages tend to cross the life span (Durkin, 1985b, 1986). This presents the idea that it is culturally more acceptable for men to show their age but that women should always look young. Research examining the way men and women are portrayed in television commercials shows that women are more often used for food advertisements, in ads highlighting that a product is cheaper than similar items, and when a product will enhance the degree to which one can gain approval from others (e.g., breath mints). Men are more often used in voice-overs and are used to advertise practical products (Furnham & Bitar, 1993; Mazella, Durkin, Cerini, & Buralli, 1992).

Implications for Psychology Magnitude of Effects

The cognitive differences we have discussed vary in size, but it is important to note that many of them are unusually large, whether the standard is the magnitude of mean or proportion differences (often on the order of 2:1, 3:1, or higher) or effect size (often well in excess of 1.00). But, in fact, most of the differences we have reported are not merely large. The East Asians and the Americans responded in qualitatively different ways to the same stimulus situation in study after study. For example, American participants showed large primacy effects in judgments about covariation, whereas Chinese participants showed none. "Control" tended to increase the degree of covariation seen and the self-reported accuracy of Americans but tended to have the opposite effect on Chinese, and "control" increased the accuracy and confidence of American participants for the Rod and Frame test but had no effect for Chinese participants (Ji et al., 2000). Similarly, Cha and Nam (1985) and Norenzayan, Choi, and Nisbett (2001) found that Koreans were greatly influenced in their causal attributions by the sort of situational information that has no effect for Americans. I. Choi and Nisbett (2000) found that Koreans showed large hindsight bias effects under conditions where Americans showed none. Peng and Nisbett (1999) found that Americans responded to contradiction by polarizing their beliefs, whereas Chinese responded by moderating their beliefs. Qualitative differences, with Americans responding in one way and East Asians in another, were found in other studies by Briley et al. (2000), I. Choi and Nisbett (1998), Davis et al. (2000), Norenzayan et al. (2000), and Peng and Nisbett These qualitative differences indicate that literally different cognitive processes are often invoked by East Asians and Westerners dealing with the same problem. Universality The assumption of universality of cognitive processes lies deep in the psychological tradition. We believe that the results discussed here force consideration of the possibility that an indefinitely large number of presumably "basic" cognitive processes may be highly malleable. When psychologists perform experiments on "categorization," "inductive inference," "logical reasoning," or "attributional processes," it does not normally occur to them that their data may apply only rather locally, to people raised in a tradition of European culture. They are, of course, prepared for parameter differences, but parameter differences between populations on the order of 3:1 or more provide an occasion for wondering about universality. It is no exaggeration to state that qualitative differences between populations preempt any claim to universality - unless there is reason to believe that experimental procedures are not comparable across groups. Just how great the cultural differences can be is unclear at this point, of course. Moreover, although we have looked at tasks that measure important perceptual and cognitive variables, we have no way of knowing what population these variables were selected from. It is possible that the particular variables we have examined exhibit cultural differences that are substantially greater than the differences that might be found in other tasks that are equally good measures of the conceptual variables. But it is equally - if not more - probable that investigators have not been uncannily insightful at this early stage of research and that there are variables and measures that would show even larger differences than the ones we have examined. Moreover, the participant populations, consisting mostly of college students, would be expected to be more similar to one another than to more representative members of their parent populations. Fixedness of Cognitive Content It is ironic that, just as our evidence indicates that some cognitive processes are highly susceptible to cultural influence, other investigators are providing evidence that some cognitive content may not be very susceptible to cultural influence. Naive theories of mechanics and physics (Baillargeon, 1995; Carey & Spelke, 1994; Leslie, 1982; Spelke, 1988, 1990), naive theories of biology (Atran, 1990, 1995; Berlin, 1992; Berlin, Breedlove, & Raven, 1973; Gelman, 1988) and naive theory of mind (Asch, 1952; D'Andrade, 1987; Leslie, 1994; Wellman, 1990) appear so early and are apparently so widespread that it seems quite likely that at least some aspects of them are largely innate and resistant to social modification. Theories of causality - both highly general ones having to do with temporal sequence and spatial contiguity (Seligman, 1970), as well as highly specific ones, such as the link that all omnivorous mammals are likely to make between distinctive tasting food and gastrointestinal illness experienced many hours later (Garcia, McGowan, Ervin, & Koelling, 1968) - are clearly a part of the organism's biologically given cognitive equipment. Hirschfeld (1996) has argued that "essentialist" beliefs about the nature of the social world are universal, and Sperber (1985) and Boyer (1993) have argued that even religious conceptions such as spirits and superhuman agents are remarkably similar from one culture to another. As Sperber (1996) has written, the human mind is equipped with a set of cognitive properties that make it easier or harder to think about certain kinds of thoughts. Thus, it appears that the assumption that cognitive content is learned and indefinitely malleable and the assumption that cognitive processes are universally the same and biologically fixed may both be quite wrong. Some important content may be universal and part of our biologically given equipment and some important processes may be highly alterable. The continued existence on the planet of widely different social and intellectual traditions offers an opportunity to learn a great deal more about the fixedness and malleability of both content and process. The Inseparability of Process and Content Our theoretical position is at the same timeless radical and more radical than the assertion that basic processes differ across cultures. We are urging the view that metaphysics, epistemology, and cognitive processes exist in mutually dependent and reinforcing systems of thought, such that a given stimulus situation often triggers quite different processes in one culture than in another. Thus it is not possible to make a sharp distinction between cognitive process and cognitive content. Content in the form of metaphysical beliefs about the nature of the world determines tacit epistemology. Tacit epistemology in turn dictates the cognitive procedures that people use for solving particular problems. People who believe that knowledge about objects is normally both necessary and sufficient for understanding their behaviour will believe it is important to find the appropriate categories that apply to the object and the appropriate rules that apply to the categories. The search for categories and rules will dictate particular ways of organizing knowledge as well as procedures for obtaining new knowledge about rules. Such practices in turn are aided by reliance on formal logic, especially including attention to the spectre of contradiction that undermines beliefs about the validity of rules. Abstractions will be a goal because categories and rules will seem to be useful just to the extent that they have wide applicability and because it can be easier to apply formal logic to abstractions than to concrete objects. Similar points can be made about people who believe that causality is a complex function of multiple factors operating on an object in a field. Complexity indicates dynamism and constant change. A belief in change and instability will tend to make the habits of categorization and of the search for universal rules about objects seem dubiously relevant. Rather, an attempt to see the interrelatedness of events will seem important. Contradiction will seem inevitable, since change is constant, and opposing factors always coexist. A concern with concrete objects and events will seem to be more useful than will a search for abstractions. Logic will not be allowed to overrule sensory experience or common sense. Thus, without saying that Easterners are unable to make use of categorization or that Westerners are unable to detect covariation, we can see that the differences between cultures can still be very great: (a) The circumstances that prompt the use of one process versus another will differ substantially across cultures; (b) the frequencies with which the very most basic cognitive processes are used will differ greatly; (c) consequently, the degree and nature of expertise in the use of particular cognitive processes will differ; and (d) tacit or even explicit normative standards for thought will differ across cultures (Stich, 1990). Claude Levi-Strauss, the great French anthropologist, proposed that, in their attempts to solve the problems of daily life, people might be regarded as bricoleurs - handymen with their bags of cognitive tools. Pursuing this metaphor, we may say that even if all cultures possessed essentially the same basic cognitive processes as their tools, the tools of choice for the same problem may habitually be very different. People may differ markedly in their beliefs about whether a problem is one requiring the use of a wrench or pliers, in their skill in using the two types of tools, and in the location of particular tools at the top or the bottom of the tool kit. Moreover, members of different cultures may not see the same stimulus situation as a problem in need of repair. A seeming contradiction is a problem for Westerners but may not be for Easterners. Indeed, as some of the perceptual work we have reviewed indicates, the different focus of attention of Easterners and Westerners indicates that they may sometimes not be seeing the same stimulus situation at all - even when their heads are immobilized at a fixed distance away from a computer screen. Another way that cognitive processes can differ is that cultures may construct composite cognitive tools out of the basic universal toolkit, thereby performing acts of elaborate cognitive engineering, as Dennett's (1995) characterization of culture as a "crane-making crane" (p. 338) suggests. Modern statistical, methodological, and cost-benefit rules provide examples of such crane-produced cranes. Nothing like them existed prior to the 17th century, when they were constructed in the West on the basis of rule-based empirical observation, mathematics, and formal logic, and there is great variation among members of Western society today in the degree of understanding and use of these rules. Similar points may be made about the transformation of the ancient Chinese notions about yin and yang into more sophisticated dialectical notions about change, moderation, relativism, and the necessity of multiple viewpoints. The psychological ideas that our position most closely resembles are those in the tradition of Vygotsky (1978, 1987; e.g., Cole, 1995; Cole & Scribner, 1974; Hutchins, 1995; Lave, 1988; Luria, 1931; Rogoff, 1990), which insists that thought always occurs in a pragmatic problem setting, including the cultural assumptions that are brought to the task. This view, recently referred to as the "situated cognition" view, has been defined by Resnick as the assumption that "the tools of thought. . . embody a culture's intellectual history. . . . Tools have theories built into them, and users accept these theories - albeit unknowingly - when they use these tools" (Resnick, 1994, pp. 476-477). The particular cognitive orientations we have been discussing have endured for millennia. One of the questions that intrigue us most concerns what it might take to seriously disturb the homeostasis of one of these historically rooted systems of thought. It is not hard to introduce Westerners to cost-benefit rules; these rules can affect their reasoning and their behaviour and leave them fully accepted members of their communities. It is far from clear that it would be so easy to introduce East Asians to that rule system, that it would leave members who adopted the rule system so fully accepted by their communities or that it would leave unscathed the sociocognitive homeostasis of their societies if the rule system were to be widely adopted. There seems to be one quite interesting case of resistance to change of a homeostatic system. The introduction of the highly individualistic economic element of capitalism into Japan 130 years ago appears to have had far less effect on either social practices or, as our research indicates, cognitive processes than might have been anticipated. It is clear from some of the work summarized in this article that Asians move radically in an American direction after a generation or less in the United States. But it might be a mistake to extrapolate from these facts and assume that it would be an easy matter to teach one culture's tools to individuals in another without total immersion in that culture. It is far from clear that, using normal pedagogical techniques, Americans could be given many of the advantages of a dialectical stance or that East Asians could be taught to experience surprise at outcomes when the surprise is warranted. We hope we have persuaded the reader that the cognitive processes triggered by a given situation may not be so universal as generally supposed, or so divorced from content, or so independent of the particular character of thought that distinguishes one human group from another. Two decades ago, Richard E. Nisbett wrote a book with Lee Ross entitled, modestly, Human Inference (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Roy D'Andrade, a distinguished cognitive anthropologist, read the book and told Richard Nisbett he thought it was a "good ethnography." The author was shocked and dismayed. But we now wholeheartedly agree with D'Andrade's contention about the limits of research conducted in a single culture. Psychologists who choose not to do cross-cultural psychology may have chosen to be ethnographers instead.

Inferential rules and cognitive processes

appear to be malleable even for adults within a given society, it should not be surprising if it turned out to be the case that members of markedly different cultures, socialized from birth into different world views and habits of thought, might differ even more dramatically in their cognitive processes.

Displacement effects (media)

are concerned with the fact that watching television detracts from the time available to perform other, more important tasks.

Priming Studies

involve experimentally manipulating the mindsets of participants and measuring the resulting changes in behavior. If the mind-set resulting from a manipulation is related to culture, the researcher can infer that the primed cultural mind-set caused the observed differences in behavior, and a link between a cultural product (the mind-set) and a psychological process (the behavior) has been established. For instance, Trafimow, Triandis, and Goto (1991) primed American and Chinese participants with instructions that emphasized either a private or a collective mind-set. The instructions for the private mind-set stated, ''For the next two minutes, you will not need to write anything. Please think of what makes you different from your family and friends'' Research instructions for the collective, group-oriented mind-set stated, ''For the next two minutes, you will not need to write anything. Please think of what you have in common with your family and friends. What do they expect you to do?'' (p. 651). After reading the instructions, all participants completed a self-attitude instrument consisting of a series of incomplete statements starting with ''I am . . . .'' Their responses were coded according to whether they were individually oriented or group oriented. As expected, Americans as a whole produced more individually oriented responses than Chinese, and Chinese produced more group-oriented responses than Americans. But the results also demonstrated the effects of priming. Individuals who were primed with the private mind-set produced more individually oriented responses than those who were primed with the collective mind-set, regardless of whether they were American or Chinese. Likewise, individuals who were primed collectively produced more group-oriented responses than those who were primed with the private mind-set, regardless of whether they were American or Chinese. Other priming studies (Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999; Trafimow, Silverman, Fan, & Law, 1997) have provided similar evidence for linkage.

The Ancient Greeks and Personal Agency

- Curiosity about the world and the presumption that it could be understood by the discovery of rules -The Greeks speculated about the nature of the objects and events around them and created causal models of them. - The construction of these models was done by categorizing objects and events and generating rules about them for the purpose of systematic description, prediction, and explanation. - This characterized their advances in, some have said invention of, the fields of physics, astronomy, axiomatic geometry, formal logic, rational philosophy, natural history, history, and ethnography - Whereas many great ancient civilizations, including the earlier Mesopotamian and Egyptian and the later Mayan, made systematic observations in many scientific domains, only the Greeks attempted to model such observations in terms of presumed underlying physical causes

Eyewitnesses Memory stage 3

3) Retrieval: retrieval of the information from memory when needed Factors affecting the identification process: a) Line-up construction b) Line-up instructions c) Line-up format d) Familiarity-induced biases

peremptory challenge

A means by which lawyers can exclude a limited number of prospective jurors without the judge's approval.

But why? Westerners

Ancient Greece Landscape: Maritime location and mountainous terrain Trade, fishing, and hunting could be done alone Political System: Ruled by the Assembly; had to persuade others with rational arguments Greeks free to live lives as they chose Philosophy: Focus on abstraction Each object contains an essence; unchanging World fundamentally static View of the Self: Independent; pursuit of personal goals paramount; unconstrained by social relationships

What Aspect of Subjective Culture?

Another consideration for future research is the need to test competing cultural models. Over the past 15 or so years, one cultural construct has dominated theory and research: individualism versus collectivism. And it has dominated the field for good reason. For centuries, philosophers have discussed the tendencies underlying these constructs as integral to humans, and in the past century and a half, social scientists have joined this discussion. This construct seems relevant to a core understanding of human nature and to how human nature can be moulded culturally. And it has served as the basis for interesting theoretical developments and empirical work in cross-cultural psychology for the past 25 years. Still, the field's passion for individualism-collectivism may have blinded it to other aspects of subjective culture that may be equally or even more useful. A review of the literature, for instance, indicates that there are at least six major lines of research that have documented the existence of multiple cultural constructs on the ecological level (Table 1). Hofstede's (1980), of course, was first, and it initially included three constructs in addition to individualism-collectivism. One of these— power distance—was highly correlated with individualism-collectivism. Since that publication, Hofstede has added one dimension (long- vs. short-term orientation); Schwartz (2004) has uncovered seven universal value orientations; Smith, Dugan, and Trompenaars (1996) have reported two universal value orientations; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2003) have reported nine value orientations related to leadership; Inglehart (1997) has reported two attitude-belief-value orientations, and Bond et al. (2004) have reported two dimensions of social axioms. Thus, there is a wide range of cultural dimensions to utilize in developing cultural theories and accounting for between-country differences in psychological processes. Moreover, the problem posed by the existence of multiple dimensions of cultural variability is exacerbated in two-country comparisons, which are characteristic of cross-cultural research. Although two countries may differ on one dimension, they often also differ on other dimensions. In Hofstede's (2001) data, for instance, the United States ranks 1st on individualism versus collectivism, and Japan ranks 27th (of 70 countries total). This fact has been used to support the characterization of the United States as an individualistic culture and Japan as a collectivistic one (despite the fact that, in reality, Japan is in the middle of the scale). But on Hofstede's dimension of uncertainty avoidance, Japan ranks 8th and the United States ranks 59th, an even bigger difference. On long- versus short-term orientation, Japan ranks 4th and the United States ranks 26th (out of 36 total). In fact, the U.S.-Japan difference in uncertainty avoidance can easily be used to explain the U.S.-Japan difference in anxiety reported by Iwata and Higuchi (2000). Theoretical frameworks to account for observed between-country differences in many psychological processes may be developed using dimensions other than individualism versus collectivism. Indeed, some data suggest the importance of other dimensions. In two of our recent studies, for example, long-term orientation was the best predictor of country differences in norms governing emotional expressivity (Matsumoto et al., 2005) and emotional experience (Matsumoto, Nezlek, & Koopmann, in press). Also, the country-level dimensions listed in Table 1 are related to one another. As already mentioned, Hofstede's (1980) individualism-collectivism was highly correlated with power distance. Other correlations among his dimensions have been reported as well (Hofstede, 2001). Hofstede's dimensions have also been correlated with Schwartz's (2004) value orientations; individualism, for instance, is correlated with intellectual and affective autonomy and with egalitarianism. In addition, Hofstede's dimensions have been correlated with the dimensions reported by Smith et al. (1996), House et al. (2003), and Bond et al. (2004). Thus, researchers may focus on individualism versus collectivism, but their frameworks may be more appropriately related to other dimensions. We make these points not to criticize the immense contribution that the individualism-collectivism construct has made up to now (see also Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). We do believe, however, that in the future researchers will need to examine more carefully all of the cultural constructs available to them in developing theoretical models that predict differences (and similarities) in psychological processes. In particular, models that incorporate multiple cultural dimensions in interaction may provide better, more nuanced views of how subjective culture affects behaviour than do models that incorporate individualism-collectivism only. In the end, individualism versus collectivism and related constructs such as independent versus interdependent selves may be the best framework for understanding cultural differences; if competing cultural frameworks are not developed and tested, however, there is no way to know this.

What is cross-cultural psychology?

Cross-cultural research asks whether or not the truths we know about human behaviour are the same for everyone, regardless of age, class, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Media Violence and Fear

Harrison and Cantor (1999) - 25% of college students were still affected by a frightening movie watched prior to turning 11 eg- jaws - not going near the ocean Most research on fright reactions has focused on children Can lead to nightmares, sleeplessness, acute stress, depression

Eyewitness memory: stage 1

Three-stage process of Memory: 1) Acquisition: witness's perceptions at the time of the event in question Environmental factors Lighting, exposure time, distance, disguise, distraction, etc. Arousal - narrow in on one aspect and miss all other details Weapons-focus effect - spends less time focusing on the person holding the gun more focus on the weapon Cross-race identification bias - when we see our own race we see more details of their face - quirk of our brain - ingroup bias

Juries

"Why should anyone think that 12 persons brought in from the street, selected in various ways for their lack of general ability, should have any special capacity for deciding controversies between persons?" - Former Dean, Harvard Law School Problems: Trouble understanding complex evidence Trouble reaching an unbiased verdict - discussion of who should not be included by those who choose juries

RELATIONSHIPS AND SIMILARITIES VERSUS RULES AND CATEGORIES culture

- East Asians would be expected to group objects and events on the basis of functional relationships and part-whole relationships; for example, "A is a part of B." - Americans, in contrast, would be expected to group objects more on the basis of category membership; for example, "A and B are both Xs." - Other predictions include the expectations that Americans might learn rule-based categories more readily than East Asians do and that Americans might rely more on categories for purposes of deduction and induction

ATTENTION and culture

- Easterners and Westerners attend to different aspects of the environment. - East Asians would be expected to attend more to the field than European Americans, who would be expected to attend more to a salient target object. - Process implications follow: East Asians should be more accurate at covariation detection than Americans are, that is, the perception of relationships within the field. East Asians should also be more field-dependent (Witkin, Dyk et al., 1974); that is, they should find it more difficult than Americans to isolate and analyze an object while ignoring the field in which it is embedded.

Three types of pornography generally studied

- Erotica - which is a nonaggressive sexual activity between willing, caring partners. There has not been much research done in this area. However, the research that has been conducted shows that erotica arouses both men and women. There has been no evidence of erotica leading to sexual aggression, the only consistent effect was exposure to erotica increases the tendency to masturbate. - Nonviolent pornography - is nonaggressive, explicit sexual activity amongst (typically) casual partners, it not empathetic like erotica and is used in most online porn. The short-term effects are inconsistent. Some research suggests that males become more dominant and less anxious with females after brief exposures to nonviolent pornography. The long-term effects include having more negative attitudes toward women, particularly for men who are already hostile towards women. Zillman and Bryant studied 70 men and 70 women watched six 1h videos over 6 weeks (porn vs. non-sexual). The results were that the exposure to porn group was more accepting of casual sex and viewed faithfulness as less important than the control group. The exposure group also accepted the repression risk myth more, which is the idea that sexual repression can lead to physical health problems and reported to be less sexually satisfied. Another finding in this study is that people have an increased tendency to watch other types of pornography such as violent pornography. Violent pornography - involves violence or coercion paired with explicit sexual activity. Examples of violent pornography include s & m, bondage or physically harming. There is very little research due to ethical reasons, violent porn can be illegal. If a study is done on those who already watch violent porn, there is likely to be a social desirability factor in answers. Social desirability involves wanting to act in ways that are socially acceptable. People are not likely to be completely truthful in this case due to violent porn being taboo. The effects are probably similar to embedded violent sexual material. eg- s & m, bondage, physically harming

EXPLANATION and culture

- If East Asians continue to have a metaphysical commitment to the notion that the whole context is relevant for a causal assessment of outcomes, - we should find that their explanations of events invoke situational factors more frequently than do those of Americans. - East Asians would be expected to explain events, both social and physical, with respect to the field - that is, contexts and situations - more than Americans would, and Americans would be expected to explain events more with respect to a target object and its properties. - Thus Americans would be expected to be more prone to the fundamental attribution error - the tendency to attribute behaviour to dispositions of the person and to slight the role of situations and contexts (Ross, 1977)

CONTROL and culture

- If a belief in personal agency underlay Greek curiosity and the invention of science, then -Americans might be expected to perceive more control in a given situation than do East Asians and to benefit more from being given control. - They might also be more subject to the illusion of control (Langer, 1975), that is, a greater expectation of success when the self is involved in interaction with the object - even when that interaction could not logically have an effect on the outcome.

DIALECTICS VERSUS THE LAW OF NONCONTRADICTION

- If harmony remains the watchword in social relations for East Asians, and if social needs influence intellectual stances, East Asians would be expected to seek compromise solutions to problems, to prefer arguments based on principles of holism and continuity, and to try to reconcile or transcend seeming contradictions. - If the debater's concern about contradiction continues to affect Western approaches to problems, Americans should be more inclined to reject one or both of two propositions that could be construed as contradicting one another. - As we will see, there is support for each of these hypotheses. Suffice it to say that we find supportive evidence whether the East Asians studied are ethnic Chinese, Koreans, or Japanese and whether they are living in their own countries or living as foreign students at U.S. universities and whether materials for East Asians are in English or translated into their native languages. - Though most of the participants in research to date are students, there is also supportive evidence for nonstudents. - It is entirely possible, of course, that there are significant differences among the various East Asian populations with respect to some of the issues we discuss. - Certainly, there are substantial social and cultural differences, some of which might plausibly affect cognitive processes. It should also be noted that the great majority of people of European culture who have been studied are Americans, and North Americans may well differ more from East Asians than do Europeans or Latin Americans.

LOGIC VERSUS EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE culture reading

- If the scant role played by logic in the history of East Asian mathematics, science, and philosophy has resonance in the thought processes of ordinary people today, and if the sympathy for formal approaches remains in the West, East Asians might be expected to rely more on prior beliefs and experience-based strategies when evaluating the convincingness of formal arguments than do Americans. - We might also find that East Asians would be heavily influenced by prior beliefs in judging the soundness of formal arguments. - Americans should be more capable of ignoring prior beliefs and setting aside experience in favor of reasoning based on logical rules.

(ILLUSION OF) CONTROL

- It seems likely that if Americans believe they have control over events, they might pay more attention to them. - Moreover, control is sufficiently important that people often fail to distinguish between objectively controllable events and uncontrollable ones. - This "illusion of control" was defined by Langer (1975) as being an expectancy of personal success higher than the objective probability would warrant. The illusion of control can actually result in improvement of some cognitive functions for Americans. - For example, participants were found to perform better on routine tasks when they believed mistakenly that they could control a loud noise that occurred periodically during the tasks (Glass & Singer, 1973). - Some cross-cultural work suggests that East Asians may not be so susceptible to this illusion. Yamagushi, Gelfand, Miguno, and Zemba (1997) found that American males were more optimistic in a condition in which they had an illusion of personal control over the environment, whereas American females and Japanese of both genders were not.

DETECTION OF COVARIATION

- Ji, Peng, and Nisbett (2000) examined the ability to detect covariation among environmental stimuli. - Chinese and American participants were asked to judge the degree of association between arbitrary figures. - On the left side of a computer screen, one of the two arbitrary figures was shown - for example, a schematic medal or a schematic light bulb. - Immediately following that, on the right of the screen, one of another two figures was shown - for example, either a pointing finger or a schematic coin. - Actual covariation between figures on the left and those on the right ranged from the equivalent of a correlation of .00 to one of .60. - Chinese participants reported a greater degree of covariation than did American participants and were more confident about their covariation judgments. - Their confidence judgments were also better calibrated with actual covariation. - In addition, as Yates and Curley (1996) found, American participants showed a strong primacy effect, making predictions about future covariations that were much more influenced by the first pairings they had seen than by the overall degree of covariation to which they had been exposed. - Chinese participants, in contrast, showed no primacy effect at all, making predictions about future covariation that were based on the overall covariation they had actually seen.

CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION AND PREDICTION

- One of the best-established findings in cognitive social psychology concerns the so-called "correspondence bias" (Gilbert & Malone, 1995) or "fundamental attribution error" (FAE; Ross, 1977) - the tendency to see behaviour as a product of the actor's dispositions and to ignore important situational determinants of the behaviour. - If it is really the case that East Asians are more oriented toward contextual factors than are European Americans, then we might expect that they would be less subject to the FAE. - I. Choi, Nisbett, and Norenzayan (1999; Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 1999) have recently reviewed research supporting this contention.

Masuda and Nisbett (2001)

- Presented realistic animated scenes of fish and other underwater objects to Japanese and Americans and asked them to report what they had seen. - The first statement by American participants usually referred to the focal fish ("there was what looked like a trout swimming to the right"), whereas the first statement by Japanese participants usually referred to background elements ("there was a lake or pond"). - Although Americans and Japanese were equally likely to mention details about the focal fish, Japanese participants made about 70% more statements about background aspects of the environment. - In addition, Japanese participants made about twice as many statements concerning relations involving inanimate aspects of the environment ("the big fish swam past the grey seaweed"). - In a subsequent recognition task, Japanese performance was harmed by showing the focal fish with the wrong background, indicating that the perception of the object had been "bound" (Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996) to the field in which it had appeared. - In contrast, American recognition of the object was unaffected by the wrong background. A similar "binding" result was obtained by Hedden and his colleagues (Hedden et al., 2000; Park, Nisbett, & Hedden, 1999). - They asked their Chinese and American participants to look at a series of cards having a word printed either on a background of social stimuli (e.g., people at a market) or on no background. - The words were unrelated to the pictures. Then participants were asked to recall as many words as they could. - Chinese, but not Americans, recalled words better if they had been presented on the background, indicating that recall of the background served as a retrieval cue for the word for them.

From Social Organization to Cognitive Processes

- Social organization can influence cognitive processes without mediation by metaphysical beliefs. - Dialectics and logic can both be seen as cognitive tools developed to deal with social conflict. - People whose social existence is based on harmony would not be expected to develop a tradition of confrontation or debate - Several commentators have maintained that the Greeks brought to the pursuit of science essentially the same principles of rhetoric that governed debate in the marketpla

The Ancient Chinese and Harmony

- The Chinese felt that individuals are part of a closely-knit collectivity, whether a family or a village and that the behaviour of the individual should be guided by the expectations of the group - Confucianism, was essentially an elaboration of the obligations that obtained between emperor and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, older brother and younger brother, and between friend and friend. -Chinese society made the individual feel very much a part of a large, complex, and generally benign social organism in which prescriptive role relations were a guide to ethical conduct - Chinese civilization was technologically far advanced beyond that of the Greeks. The Chinese have been credited with the original or independent invention of irrigation systems, ink, porcelain, the magnetic compass, stirrups, the wheelbarrow, deep drilling, the Pascal triangle, pound-locks on canals, fore-and-aft sailing, watertight compartments, the stempost rudder, the paddle-wheel boat, quantitative cartography, immunization techniques, astronomical observations of novae, seismographs, and acoustics (Logan, 1986, p. 51). Many of these technological achievements were in place at a time when the Greeks had none. - Chinese genius for practicality - Chinese never developed a concept corresponding to the laws of nature for the sufficient reason that they did not have a concept of "nature" as distinct from human or spiritual entities

Chinese and Greek Science, Mathematics, and Philosophy

- The cognitive differences between ancient Chinese and Greeks can be loosely grouped under the heading of holistic versus analytic thought - We define holistic thought as involving an orientation to the context or field as a whole, including attention to relationships between a focal object and the field, and a preference for explaining and predicting events on the basis of such relationships - Holistic approaches rely on experience-based knowledge rather than on abstract logic and are dialectical, meaning that there is an emphasis on change - We define analytic thought as involving detachment of the object from its context, a tendency to focus on attributes of the object to assign it to categories, and a preference for using rules about the categories to explain and predict the object's behaviour - The distinction between holistic and analytic thought rests on a long tradition of theory about reasoning beginning with James and Piaget and continuing to the present. - Holistic thought is associative, and its computations reflect similarity and contiguity. Analytic thought recruits symbolic representational systems, and its computations reflect rule structure.

PREDICTION AND "POSTDICTION" cuture

- We are proposing that East Asians have always lived in a complex world in which many relevant factors are important to a consideration of outcomes. - Thus their predictions about events might cast a wider net among potential causal candidates. - They might also be expected to be less surprised by any given outcome because of their ready ability to find some explanation for it in the complex of potentially relevant factors. - If explanations come to mind very easily for Asians, we might find that they are more susceptible to hindsight bias, the tendency to regard events as having been inevitable in retrospect (Fischhoff, 1975).

Attention and Control Work

- by Meyer and Kieras and their colleagues (Meyer, 1995; Meyer & Kieras, 1997a, 1997b, 1999) suggests that allocation of attention is highly malleable and subject to learned strategic adjustments such that perceptual "bottlenecks" can be improved. - Work by Rogoff and her colleagues (Chavajay & Rogoff, 2000; Rogoff, Mistry, Gonc ¨ u, & Mosier, 1993) indicates that people in some cultures attend to a much wider range of events simultaneously than do people in other cultures. - Thus East Asians might be capable of attending to both the object and the field, and to a wider range of objects in the field, than are Americans. - We might also expect that, if Westerners attend to the object more, and if they believe that they understand the rules influencing the object's behaviour, they might have a greater belief in the controllability of the object than is characteristic of Asians. - Several implications follow from these considerations: (a) Easterners should see wholes where Westerners see parts; (b) Easterners should more easily see relationships among elements in the field but (c) find it more difficult to differentiate an object when it is embedded in the field, and (d) Westerners' perceptions and behaviour should be more influenced by the belief that they have control over the object or environment.

Eyewitnesses Memory Stage 2

2) Storage: the witness stores the information in memory to avoid forgetting Problems: Memory is less reliable with time Can be distorted by: Media Discussions with other people Questioning by investigators Misinformation effect: Witnessing an event, receiving misinformation about it, and then incorporating the "misinformation" into one's memory of the event

How Does Media Violence Effect Us?

58% of TV programs contain violence 85% for premium channels like HBO, Showtime Of those, 78% have no remorse, criticism, or penalty 40% of violent incidents are initiated by heroes or attractive role models Average 12yo has seen more than 100,000 acts of TV violence

Things that frighten us changes

< 6yo: Scary-looking things (not necessarily dangerous) eg- the Hulk After 9 or 10: Things that could realistically happen - eg- murder etc Adolescents: More abstract threats - eg- nuclear war younger people use physical comfort eg- blanket, teddy, hugging older children use cognitive coping strategies such as minimizing threat "it couldn't happen"

Priming

A second social psychological theory that can be used to explain the effects of violent television content on people's behavior is known as the priming hypothesis. This concept suggests that televised aggression tends to give people ideas about acting aggressively. They might be watching the aftermath of a violent event on the news, or they might be watching a violent movie. Either way, the priming hypothesis predicts that this kind of stimulus prepares people to think about acting in an aggressive way. The priming hypothesis also suggests that people learn to associate stimuli with the commitment of violent acts. The presence of these associative stimuli (also known as cues) may enhance the likelihood of people acting aggressively. The weapons effect, described by Berkowitz and LePage (1967), is an excellent example of how cues can become associated with aggression and then can be used to trigger aggressive actions. Objects that are present when violence occurs (but are not used as weapons themselves) often become associated with violence and their presence in future situations is more likely to lead to violence. Research examining the weapons effect typically involves showing participants a video of an aggressive situation. Somewhere in that video will be an object that is not used in an aggressive way but stands out visually so that it gets people's attention. In this way, the object becomes associated with violence. Other participants watch a violent video without the object being there. After viewing the violent video, subjects are brought into a laboratory where, among all the other furnishings in the room, the associated object is prominently placed. Research has shown that the likelihood of violence occurring increases significantly for those who associated violence with these cues (Berkowitz, 1993). A study by Josephson (1987) provides an interesting demonstration of how an object as innocuous as a walkie-talkie can become associated with aggression and can prime people exposed to that cue to act more aggressively in a naturalistic game situation. Josephson randomly assigned a group of boys to watch either an aggressive or nonaggressive video. Those watching the aggressive video saw one of two videos: the one with the associative cue involved a violent police assault on a heavily armed group of criminals; the order to begin the assault came by walkie-talkie. The other aggressive video did not contain this associative cue. Later, all the boys were given the task of playing a game of floor hockey. While playing this game, their behavior was monitored for levels of aggression. Aggression levels were significantly higher in boys who had seen the aggressive video clip with the cue when the hockey game's referee used a walkie-talkie to confer with officials. To summarize, social learning and priming are two theories that have been used to explain how violent content in the media can adversely influence users of those media. These theories predict that people are directly affected by violent content and that those who are exposed more frequently should be at greater risk than those who experience little exposure to that content. For example, Ethan Russell, the 13-year-old boy described in the opening vignette, is more likely to be affected by violent media than his twin sister Emily because he has surrounded himself with it. Ethan spends much of his spare time watching sporting events and horror movies; the level of interpersonal aggression in both types of programming is high. This can provide Ethan with several models of aggressive, antisocial behavior. Furthermore, Ethan enjoys playing video games, which, as studies have shown, can prime later aggression in its players (e.g., Anderson & Ford, 1987; Cooper & Mackie, 1986; Silvern & Williamson, 1987). Being exposed to one risk factor may not pose a significant threat, but exposure to several may be harmful.

Sequential lineups use an...

Absolute judgment strategy: the witness compares each lineup member to their memory of the criminal (not to other lineup members) as a result, selects the person only if they are extremely similar to their memory. Person pops out Familiarity-induced biases: occurs when a person remembers/recognizes a face, but forgets from where. eg- car store salesman falsey describes criminal for bombing, person was seen on a different day

Phase III: Cultural Studies

Although the elucidation of dimensions of cultural variability such as individualism-collectivism was clearly an advance in the field, it still did not completely address issues concerning the cultural attribution fallacy; country names were just replaced with dimension labels. For example, merely assuming that cultural groups were either individualistic or collectivistic and that the members of individualistic cultures harboured individualistic values whereas the members of collectivistic cultures harboured collectivistic values, remained just that—an assumption. Therefore, between-group differences could still not be justifiably attributed to cultural sources because the cultural differences of the studied samples were being assumed. This problem was addressed by Markus and Kitayama's (1991) landmark work linking individualism-collectivism on the cultural level with the concept of self on the individual level. They posited that individualistic cultures foster the development of independent self-construals, which, in turn, have consequences for mental processes and behaviours. Likewise, they suggested that collectivistic cultures foster the development of interdependent self-construals, which have different consequences. This work was important in the evolution of crosscultural research methods because it identified an important potential mediator of cultural differences—self-construals (defining self). Different types of self-construals, emerging from different cultural contexts, could therefore be one of the sources of observed cultural differences.

HINDSIGHT BIAS

An advantage of the more simplistic, rule-based stance of the Westerner may be that surprise is a frequent event. Post hoc explanations may be relatively difficult to generate, and epistemic curiosity may be piqued. The curiosity, in turn, may provoke a search for new, possibly superior models to explain events. In contrast, if Eastern theories about the world are less focused, and a wide range of factors are presumed to be potentially relevant to any given outcome, it may be harder to recognize that a particular outcome could not have been predicted. Hindsight bias (Fischhoff, 1975), or the tendency to assume that one knew all along that a given outcome was likely, might therefore be greater for Easterners. These notions were tested in a series of experiments by I. Choi and Nisbett (I. Choi, 1998; I. Choi & Nisbett, 2000). One study presented a scenario based on the "Good Samaritan" experiment of Darley and Batson (1973). Participants were told about one particular young seminary student, who, they were assured, was a very kind and religious person. He was headed across campus to deliver a sermon and along the way he encountered a man lying in a doorway asking for help. Participants were also told that the seminarian was late to deliver his sermon. In Condition A, where participants did not know what the target had done, they were asked what they thought was the probability that the target would help and how surprised they would be if they were to find out that he had not helped. Both Koreans and Americans reported about an 80% probability that the target would help and indicated they would be quite surprised if he did not. In Condition B, participants were told the target had helped the victim, and in Condition C they were told he had not helped the victim. Participants in these conditions were asked what they believed they would have regarded as the probability that the target would have helped - if, in fact, they had not been told what he did - and also how surprised they were by his actual behavior. Again, both Koreans and Americans in Condition B indicated they would have thought the probability of helping was about 80%, and both groups reported no surprise that he did help. Americans in Condition C, where the target unexpectedly did not help the victim, also reported that they would have thought the probability was about 80% that the target would have helped and reported a great deal of surprise that he did not do so. In contrast, Koreans in Condition C reported that they would have thought the probability was only about 50% that the target would have helped and reported little surprise that he did not. Thus Americans experienced surprise where Koreans did not, and Koreans showed a very pronounced hindsight bias, indicating that they thought they knew something all along which in fact they did not.

Methodological Issues: biases

Bias and equivalence Conceptual bias - Is the theoretical framework meaningful across participating cultures? Method bias Sampling bias - Are the participants representative of their culture? Are they equivalent in other aspects? Linguistic bias - Are the materials semantically equivalent? eg- treaty of waitangi. Solution- "back translation" - a procedure whereby a translator (or team of translators) interpret or re-translate a document that was previously translated into another language, back to the original language. Not perfect but can help a lot. Procedural bias - Do the procedures mean the same thing to all of the participants? Eg- Students who participate in research for their course as it is compulsory can be seen as coercive and is a confounding factor. Bias and equivalence Measurement bias - Are the measurements equally reliable and valid across cultures? Response biases - Are they the same across cultures? Socially desirable responding - still happens on anon surveys collectivist groups tend to be socially desirable Acquiescence bias - tendency to say yes rather than no Extreme response bias - tendency to use the very ends of the scale rather than the middle counties such as the medditaranian tend to show acquience and extreme response bias compared to countries such as Germany or UK Reference group effect - Found in Japanese... Tend to compare to others when talking about their personality. Eg- am I outgoing? Yes compared to my friend... Problems in comparing cultures

THE EVOLUTION OF CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH METHODS

Bond (2004) distinguished three generations of cross-cultural studies, each identified by its emphasis on a particular methodology. To be sure, contemporary cross-cultural research involves all the types of methods. Thus, the methods associated with the various phases of cross-cultural research are not mutually exclusive; rather, the relative emphasis on different methods has changed across time.

Early connitive process theories

Brain equals hardware, inferential rules and data processing procedures equal the universal software, and output equals belief and behavior, which can, of course, be radically different given the different inputs possible for different individuals and groups. "Basic" processes such as categorization, learning, inductive and deductive inference, and causal reasoning are generally presumed to be the same among all human groups. The British empiricist philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Locke, Hume, and Mill, wrote about cognitive processes as if they were the same for all normal adults. This assumption of universality was adopted by mainstream psychology of the 20th century, where it has been predominant from the earliest treatment of cognitive psychology by Piaget

Three Ethics Approach (Jensen, 2008)

But what about cultural biases? Preconventional and conventional are seen as universal, however, postconventional is seen as problematic as different cultures value different things as the highest moral imperative. Jensen updates Kohlberg's theory of moral development, to account for cultural differences in morality - post-conventional morality, the highest level of morality would differ according to culture. 1. Ethic of autonomy - emphasizes individual rights and justice. Values freedom as the most important as long as you are not harming anyone else. More likely to occur in individualistic cultures 2. Ethic of community - emphasizes interpersonal relationships and community. What's right is not necessarily right for the individual but would be right for the family, community or the nation. Morality is dependent on one's duties and obligations and one's role within the group. More likely to occur in collectivist cultures. 3. Ethic of divinity - emphasizes the centrality of religious beliefs and spirituality. More likely to occur in theocracies such as the middle east, countries in the north and south America.

Western Ideas of Intelligence

Cicero - intelligentia Piaget - Cognitive development leading to abstract reasoning and principles Spearman - "g" factor - general mental ability. Ability to reason logically Intelligence testing - Binet & Simon - To assess mental age and predict schooling progress - No assumptions about the origin of intelligence 1913 - began to be administered to immigrants at Ellis Island

Methodological Issues

Cross-cultural comparisons vs. indigenous cultural studies Exploratory vs. hypothesis testing studies Individual vs. ecological (cultural) level E.g., independence/interdependence vs. individualism/collectivism

Dialectics Versus the Law of Noncontradiction

Dialectics Versus the Law of Noncontradiction Peng and Nisbett (Peng, 1997; Peng & Nisbett, 1999) have maintained that East Asians do not have the same commitment to avoiding the appearance of contradiction as do Westerners. Examples of rules about contradiction that have played a central role in the Western intellectual tradition include the following: 1. The law of identity: A = A. A thing is identical to itself. 2. The law of noncontradiction: A = not-A. No statement can be both true and false. 3. The law of the excluded middle: Any statement is either true or false. Following the proposals of many philosophers of both the East and the West (e.g., Liu, 1974; Needham, 1962, 1978; Zhang & Chen, 1991), Peng and Nisbett argued that there is a tradition in Eastern philosophy that is opposed at its roots to the formal logic tradition, namely the dialectical approach. So-called "naive dialecticism" resembles the dialectic of Hegel and Marx inasmuch as it sometimes involves the creation of synthesis from a thesis and antithesis. But more commonly it involves transcending, accepting, or even insisting on the contradiction among premises (Huff, 1993; Liu, 1974; Lloyd, 1990; Needham, 1962; Zhang & Chen, 1991; Zhou, 1990). Peng and Nisbett (1999) characterized dialecticism in terms of three principles. 1. The principle of change: Reality is a process that is not static but rather is dynamic and changeable. A thing need not be identical to itself at all because of the fluid nature of reality. 2. The principle of contradiction: Partly because change is constant, contradiction is constant. Thus old and new, good and bad, exist in the same object or event and indeed depend on one another for their existence. 3. The principle of relationship or holism: Because of constant change and contradiction, nothing either in human life or in nature is isolated and independent, but instead, everything is related. It follows that attempting to isolate elements of some larger whole can only be misleading. These principles are, of course, not altogether alien to Western epistemology of either the naive or the professional sort. Indeed, Western developmental psychologists (Baltes & Staudinger, 1993; Basseches, 1980, 1984; Riegel, 1973) have argued that such "post-formal" principles are learned in late adolescence and early adulthood to one degree or another by Westerners and that "wisdom" consists in part of being able to supplement the use of formal operations with a more holistic, dialectical approach to problems. But the evidence we now present indicates that Western reliance on dialectical principles is weaker than that of Easterners, and Western reliance on the foundational principles of formal logic, especially the principle of noncontradiction, is stronger.

Embedded Violence

Exposure to embedded violent sexual material eg- "Slasher" / "Women-in-danger" films - explicit sex scenes but is not considered porn as it is embedded in a storyline. " Alfred Hitchcock's psycho" - people reporting being afraid to step into the shower for years Extensively studied; the vast majority of research is on men In contrast to nonviolent porn, even very brief exposures show adverse effects Increases in sexual arousal Increases in rape fantasies Decreases insensitivity to the portrayed violent acts Increases in acceptance of rape myths and violence toward women Increases tolerance toward rapists However, no evidence of actually leading to sexual violence

Reducing Harmful Effects

Four general approaches: 1. Legally ban distribution and sale - censorship - not a feasible option except when extreme illegal acts taking place. Most countries have free speech and expression. When we are restricted from doing something the more desirable we perceive it to be psychological - scarcity principle, cognitive dissonance. 2. Teach critical viewing skills - harmful effects were reduced with teen education about pornography 3. Debrief people after viewing violent sexuality - education on the effects of violent pornography - shown to be effective, all studies negated the impact of porn. - movie producers are not going to add these debriefing warnings, people are unlikely to want to watch debriefing 4. Inform people about the effects ahead of time - more effective than debriefing after viewing. Similar to inoculation. Watching before viewing or having a separate course Effectiveness? Practicality?

PERSUASION BY STRONG VERSUS WEAK ARGUMENTS

If Westerners respond to apparent contradiction by trying to decide which side is correct, but Easterners respond by yielding points to both sides, then the two groups might respond differently to arguments against an initially held position. Westerners might increase their confidence in their initial position when presented with a weak argument, whereas Easterners might decrease their confidence. This is what was found by Davis and her colleagues (Davis, 2000; Davis, Nisbett, & Schwarz, 2000). They presented groups of Korean, Asian American, and European American participants with a set of strong arguments in favour of funding a particular scientific project. They presented another group with the same set of strong "pro" arguments and an additional set of weak arguments against funding the project. Korean and American participants were equally in favour of funding the project when presented with just the strong "pro" arguments, but the two groups behaved in qualitatively different ways when presented additionally with weak "anti" arguments. Koreans were more unfavourable when weak "anti" arguments were added. But Americans were actually more favourable toward funding the project when presented with the additional weak "anti" arguments than when presented with no "anti" arguments - behaviour that is normatively quite suspect.

KNOWLEDGE VERSUS LOGIC

In another study, Norenzayan and colleagues (2000) presented participants with syllogisms that were either valid or invalid and that had conclusions that were either plausible or implausible. In addition, some arguments were presented in abstract form with no content. Korean and American university students were instructed to evaluate the logical validity of each argument and decide whether the conclusion followed from the premises. Results showed that, overall, there was an effect of logic as well as of knowledge, consistent with past research. Thus, participants correctly judged valid arguments to be more valid than invalid ones, and incorrectly judged arguments with plausible conclusions to be more valid than arguments with implausible conclusions. As predicted, Korean participants showed a stronger "belief bias" for valid arguments than did American students, being more inclined to judge valid arguments as invalid if they had implausible conclusions. Importantly, this difference cannot be attributed to cultural differences in the ability to reason logically, since both cultural groups showed equal performance on the abstract items. Rather, the results indicate that when logical structure conflicts with everyday belief, American students are more willing to set aside empirical belief in favor of logic than are Korean students

Cultural Orientation and Self-construal

Individualism and collectivism are deeply ingrained, and mold our identities (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) individualistic culture = independent self-construal: The self is distinct, autonomous, self-contained, and has unique disposition collectivist culture = interpendent self-construal: The self includes a larger social network, and is inseparable from one's social roles

How the police deal with witnesses and suspects

Inquisitorial approach (a search for the truth) vs. adversarial approach (an attempt to prove guilty) In Britain, 50% of police use methods aimed at obtaining a confession Setting (isolation and affiliative desire) Authority of questioner How information about the case is presented in the media

The purpose of media

Is mainly twofold. - One aim is to inform and educate. To this end, people often read newspapers and magazines to keep apprised of the most recent social and political events, or they watch specialty television channels ( e.g., the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, or CNN) that have been designed to educate people on specific topics. Schools and universities use textbooks, computers, and other forms of audiovisual aids to assist in educating their students. Finally, businesses use several types of media to train their employees ( e.g., video and books) and to advertise their products to consumers; in other words, they want to inform and educate people about what their products do, where they can be bought, and when they are on sale. - The media's second major purpose is to entertain. In fact, this function pervades all types of media. The medium used most frequently for entertainment is television. This is evidenced by the strong presence of entertainment-based programming, which provides a mixture of situation comedies, dramatic serials, madefor-TV movies, and several forms of reality-based TV ( e.g., talk shows, crime and rescue re-creations). Recent American statistics show that one or more household TV sets are turned on for an average of 7 hours per day, and the average person in the United States spends more than 21 hours per week watching television (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1994).

RELATIONSHIPS VERSUS CATEGORIES AS THE BASIS FOR JUDGMENTS OF ASSOCIATION

Ji and Nisbett (Ji, 2001; Ji & Nisbett, 2001) obtained the same results as Chiu did with adult Chinese and American college students, who were tested in their native languages. They asked participants to indicate which of two objects out of three, described verbally, were most closely related. In all cases, two of the objects shared some kind of relationship, either functional (e.g., pencil and notebook) or contextual (e.g., sky and sunshine) and also shared a category (e.g., notebook and magazine) or some feature that would allow them to be categorized together (e.g., sunshine and brightness). Chinese were more likely to group on the basis of relationships, and Americans were more likely to group on the basis of categories or shared object features. Participants were asked to justify their groupings and Chinese were found to be more likely to offer relationships as the justification ("the sun is in the sky"), whereas Americans were more likely to offer category membership as the justification ("the sun and the sky are both in the heavens").

Courtroom testimony

Jurors tend to place great weight on eyewitness testimony and to take less account of the factors that might reduce the reliability of eyewitness accounts. It is estimated that 70% of wrongly convicted defendants, later cleared by DNA evidence, were originally convicted based largely on eyewitness testimony. Jurors tend to overestimate the accuracy of eyewitnesses

Juror Bias

Jurors' response to the evidence depends upon a number of personal and situational factors Trustworthiness Credibility Prejudices Attractiveness of Defendants Stronger for serious but nonfatal crimes Female defendants - judged less guilty more than male defendants -- one exception, if it is a violent crime or masculine behaviour influences perceptions of guilt

Effects of emotional publicity

Kramer, Kerr, & Carroll (1990) Conditions: Prior to watching the trial, participants were exposed to: Emotional publicity Factual publicity No publicity Participants watched video of trial Participants deliberated in 12-member mock juries The emotional publicity biased the jurors the most More jurors in the emotional publicity condition gave a guilty verdict than in the other two conditions Even after researchers removed participants who said they could not form an unbiased opinion Asking jurors whether they can give an unbiased verdict might not be effective

Culture and Morality

Moral principles and ethics provide guidelines for people's behaviours, very close to culture, morals vary depending on the place and culture What is and is not appropriate? What is moral? Is it wrong for a widow to eat fish after her husband's death? Is it wrong to not give up a seat for an elderly person on the bus? Is it wrong to clean your toilet with your country's flag? Is it wrong to eat your dog? Is it wrong to be kiss your sister/brother?

Misinformation Effect

Loftus & Palmer (1974): Participants watched a video of a traffic accident "About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" IVs: the verb used in the questions hit, smashed, collided, bumped, and contacted DV: Estimated Speed one word impacted the memory of speed in eyewitnesses Loftus, Miller, & Burns (1978) Participants were shown slides of a traffic accident One slide showed a car stopped at a STOP sign or a YIELD sign "Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the STOP sign?" OR "Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the YIELD sign?" less than half made an incorrect judgment with misinformation - how questions are asked makes eyewitnesses change their memories

Media Publicity

Media wants to make a strong argument favouring the victim judges are influenced by media Mistaken faith in own lack of bias Moran & Cutler (1991): Knowledge of a case is significantly and positively correlated with perceived culpability of the defendant But knowledge of the case was not correlated with willingness to admit impartiality Priming effects Exposure to serious crimes affects people's views of other, unrelated crimes and offenders Prevalence of crime A study by U of Toronto Centre of Criminology Media publicity overrepresents violent crimes 50% of reporting, but a small fraction in reality Availability heuristic Assumptions and decisions are based on the (biased) information that comes to mind easily

Studies on CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION AND PREDICTION

Morris and Peng (Morris, Nisbett, & Peng, 1995; Morris & Peng, 1994) showed that causal explanations by Americans of events such as mass murders focused almost wholly on the presumed mental instability and other negative dispositions of the murderers, whereas accounts by Chinese of the same events speculated on situational, contextual, and even societal factors that might have been at work. Lee, Hallahan, and Herzog (1996) found that sports editorial writers in Hong Kong focused on contextual explanations of sports events, whereas American sportswriters were more likely to prefer explanations involving the dispositions of individual team members. Norenzayan, Choi, and Nisbett (2001) found that Korean participants were more responsive to contextual factors when making predictions about how people, Cha and Nam (1985) also found Koreans to make far more use of situationally relevant information when making causal attributions than Americans did. Importantly, Norenzayan et al. (2001) found that Koreans and Americans were able to articulate metatheories of behaviour that accorded with their explanations and predictions. Menon, Morris, Chiu, and Hong (1999) have found that East Asian dispositional explanations of events (e.g., scandals in organizations) were more likely than those of Americans to refer to group dispositions. The different forms of preferred explanation apparently extend beyond social events. Morris and Peng (1994) and Hong, Chiu, and Kung (1997) showed participants cartoon displays of fish moving in relation to one another in various ways. Chinese participants were more likely to see the behaviour of the individual fish as being produced by external factors than Americans were, and American participants were more inclined to see the behaviour as being produced by internal ones. For ambiguous physical events involving phenomena that appeared to be hydrodynamic, aerodynamic, or magnetic, Chinese were more likely to refer to the field when giving explanations (e.g., "the ball is more buoyant than the water") than Americans were. (For less ambiguous, lever and "billiard ball" events, the explanations of Americans and Chinese were almost identical.) Thus the attributional differences probably should not be regarded as mere belief differences about local aspects of the world, but rather as deep metaphysical differences not limited to rules about particular domains specifically taught by the culture.

Priming Aggressive Thoughts

Neoassociationistic model of media priming (Berkowitz, 1984) Priming - effect of a preceding stimulus on how we react to a subsequent stimulus Based on the idea of associationist network - network memory, nodes represent concepts that are connected to other concepts. - repeated exposure of priming the easier other concepts are activated - eg - violence - accidentally bumped = on purpose violent act or seeing a pro-gun sticker, violence is triggered in the brain. Benjamin, Kepes, & Bushman (2017) meta-analysis- The mere presence of weapons increased aggressive thoughts - priming BUT Did not increase feelings of anger -- suggesting a cognitive, not an affective route -- tv or movies still can trigger emotions eg- jaws "Associative pathways"

What About Video Games?

Not only watching violence but often committing it You would expect the effects to be worse but... Most research: Same effects as TV/movies Notable exception: Asheron's Call 2 MMORPG No increase in aggressiveness after 1 month, despite 50h average playing time Killing fantasy creatures Involves cooperation

Death Qualification

On September 21, 2011, 43-year old Troy Davis was executed by lethal injection for the 1989 murder of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. Davis had been convicted at trial on the basis of several eyewitnesses and informants who said they heard him confess. Over the years, however, many witnesses recanted their testimony, saying they were pressured to give it. New evidence seemed to implicate someone else. The courts were unconvinced. Whatever the truth may have been, the Davis execution was highly controversial, drawing protest and criticism from around the world. In his final dying words, Davis maintained his innocence: "Well, first of all I'd like to address the MacPhail family. I'd like to let you all know, despite the situation-I know all of you are still convinced that I'm the person that killed your father, your son and your brother, but I am innocent:' Over the years, the death penalty has stimulated a heated public debate in America (Bedau & Cassell, 2004). Think about it: If you had to sentence someone to die, could you do it? Not everyone answers this question in the same way. Yet your answer could mean the difference between life and death for a defendant convicted of murder. Today, a majority of American states permit capital punishment. Among those that do, the jury decides not only the verdict but the sentence as well. In these cases, it is not surprising that sentencing decisions are influenced not only by the facts of a specific case but also by jurors' general attitudes toward the death penalty. Kevin O'Neil and his colleagues ( 2004) found that these attitudes are composed of various beliefs, such as beliefs in the legitimacy of retribution and revenge ("There are some murderers whose death would give me a sense of personal satisfaction"), deterrence ("The death penalty makes criminals think twice before committing murder"), and cost ("Executing a murderer is less expensive than keeping him in jail for the rest of his life"). Monica Miller and David Hayward (2008) found that people who favour the death penalty are more likely to hold fundamentalist religious views and a belief in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Brooke Butler and Gary Moran (2007) found that people who favour the death penalty also tend to harbour authoritarian beliefs and the belief that the world is a just place in which people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. In cases involving crimes punishable by death and in which the jury makes both decisions, a special jury-selection practice known as death qualification is typically used. Through death qualification, judges may exclude all prospective jurors who say that they would refuse to vote for the death penalty. These jurors are excluded for the entire trial. To ensure that sentencing decisions are unbiased, it makes sense to exclude those who admit they are close-minded. But does this same selection practice tip the balance toward the prosecution when it comes to the verdict? In other words, are death-qualified juries prone to convict? In a series of studies, Phoebe Ellsworth, Craig Haney, and others have examined this question. Their results have shown that compared to people who oppose the death penalty, those who support it are more prosecution-minded on a host of issues. For example, they are more concerned about crime, more trustful of police, more cynical about defence lawyers, and less tolerant of procedures that are designed to protect the accused (Fitzgerald & Ellsworth, 1984; Haney et al., 1994). When it comes to trial verdicts, the difference can be substantial. In one study, 288 people watched a videotaped murder trial and then participated in mock juries. The results showed that jurors who said they were willing to impose the death penalty were more likely to vote guilty both before and after deliberating than were those who would have been excluded for their refusal to impose a death sentence (Cowan et al., 1984). Similar results have been found in studies of real jurors (Moran & Comfort, 1986). In fact, Haney (1984) found that hearing death-qualification voir dire questions themselves is biasing because these questions presume the defendant's guilt and communicate to prospective jurors that the courts consider death a desirable form of punishment. In his studies, even randomly selected mock jurors were more likely to vote for conviction-and for the death penalty-when exposed to such questions during the voir dire than when they were not. As the research evidence mounted, American courts had to face a sobering prospect. Were hundreds of prisoners on death row tried by juries that were biased against them? In the case of Lockhart v. McCree (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court considered the issue. To help to inform the Court, the American Psychological Association submitted an exhaustive review of the literature (Bersoff & Ogden, 1987)-but to no avail. In an opinion that disappointed many social psychologists, the Court rejected the research and ruled that death qualification does not violate a defendant's right to a fair trial. Should the Supreme Court have been persuaded by the research findings of social psychologists? Some say yes (Ellsworth, 1991 ); others say no (Elliott, 1991). Either way, it is now important to devise alternative, non Prejudicial methods that can be used to select capital juries. For example, research shows that many people who would be excluded because of general opposition to capital punishment also admit that they would consider the death penalty for specific defendants found guilty of committing atrocious acts of violence-suggesting that perhaps these individuals should not be removed from the jury (Cox & Tanford, 1989). This issue continues to spark interest and concern among social psychologists (Costanzo, 1997). It is especially relevant these days, in light of sobering revelations brought about by DNA tests showing that many prisoners, including many on death row, did not commit the crimes for which they were convicted (Baumgartner et al., 2008).

Phase II: Identifying Meaningful Dimensions of Cultural Variability

One of the limitations of Phase I cross-cultural comparisons (and many Phase III cultural studies) is that they do not allow for empirically justified interpretations about culture as the source of group differences. That is, when group differences have been found, researchers have typically concluded that those differences have a cultural source, when in fact the mere documentation of between-group differences does not justify such interpretations. There are many ways in which two or more countries, ethnic groups, or racial groups may differ. Some of these ways are cultural, and some are not. The problem in inferences occurs when researchers attribute the source of group differences to culture without being empirically justified in doing so. And even if the source of observed differences is indeed culture, it is not exactly clear what cultural variables produce the differences and why. Campbell (1961) referred to this type of error of interpretation in inference as the ecological fallacy, and in the case of cross-cultural studies, we refer to them as the cultural attribution fallacy —the inference that something ''cultural'' about the groups being compared produced the observed differences when there is no empirical justification for this inference. This limitation exists partly because of the ways cultures are sampled—via country, ethnic, or racial groups—and partly because many cross-cultural studies involve comparisons of only two or a small handful of groups. The groupings used, however, are not necessarily cultural.

JUDGMENTS ABOUT CONTRADICTORY PROPOSITIONS

One of the strongest implications of the notion that Westerners adhere to a logical analysis of problems is that, when presented with apparently contradictory propositions, they should be inclined to reject one in favor of the other. Easterners, on the other hand, committed to the principle of the Middle Way, might be inclined to embrace both propositions, finding them each to have merit. In one study, Peng and Nisbett (1999) presented participants with either one proposition or two propositions that were, if not outright contradictions, at least very different and on the surface unlikely to both be true. The propositions were presented in the form of social science studies. For example, one proposition was: "A survey found that older inmates are more likely to be ones who are serving long sentences because they have committed severely violent crimes. The authors concluded that they should be held in prison even in the case of a prison population crisis." Its counterpart was: "A report on the prison overcrowding issue suggests that older inmates are less likely to commit new crimes. Therefore, if there is a prison population crisis, they should be released first." Participants read about one of these studies (A or B) or both (A and B) and rated their plausibility. In the case of all five issues presented, Chinese and American participants agreed on which of the two was more plausible. In the A and B condition, Americans judged the plausibility of the more plausible proposition as greater than did Americans who read only the more plausible assertion by itself. Thus Americans actually found a contradicted assertion to be more plausible than the same proposition when not contradicted, a normatively dubious tendency that indicates that they felt substantial pressure to resolve the contradiction by buttressing their prior beliefs. (This finding is reminiscent of one by Lord, Ross, & Lepper [1979], who found that when people read about two different studies, one supporting their view on capital punishment and one opposing it, they were more convinced of their initial position than if they had not read about any studies.) In contrast, Chinese participants in the A and B condition resolved the contradiction between the two propositions by finding them to be equally plausible, as if they felt obligated to find merit in both the conflicting propositions. They actually found the less plausible proposition to have more merit when it had been contradicted than when it had not - also a normatively dubious inference but utterly different in kind from that of the Americans.

DIALECTICISM AND PREFERRED ARGUMENT FORM

Peng and Nisbett (Peng, 1997; Peng & Nisbett, 1999) gave Chinese and American participants, all of whom were graduate students in the natural sciences, two different types of arguments for each of two different propositions and asked them to indicate which argument they preferred. In each case, one of the arguments was a logical one involving contradiction and one was a dialectical one. Thus, in one problem, two arguments for the existence of God were pitted against one another. One was a variant of the so-called "cosmological" or "first cause" argument. It holds that because everything must have a cause, this creates an infinite regression of cause and effect unless there is a primary cause by an infinite being. The dialectical argument applied the principle of holism, stating that when two people see the same object, such as a cup, from different perspectives, one person sees some aspects of the cup, and the other sees other aspects. But there must be a God above all individual perspectives who sees the truth about the object. Americans preferred the argument based on noncontradiction in each case, and Chinese preferred the dialectic one.

Kohlberg's Theory of Morality Development

Presented people with a moral dilemma and ask the reasons for their decision - 3 moral stages. Preconventional morality Compliance to rules to avoid punishment and gain rewards Conventional morality Conformity to rules that are defined by others' approval or disapproval Postconventional morality (highest level) Based on individual principles and conscience the theory has been highly influential on how people view morality but there have been critiques: Gilligan (1982) - Kohlberg's stages are biased toward the particular way that males view relationships. She argued that male moral reasoning is based on abstract justice, whereas, female moral reasoning is based on obligations and responsibilities, more social elements. This has been called "Morality of justice" vs. "Morality of caring". However, research has not found a difference in gender so this argument has not been used much. However, few gender differences

Investigating media violence

Quasi-experiments - naturally occurring manipulations E.g., 1973 - small Canadian town ("Notel") receiving TV broadcasts for the first time -- a sudden dramatic increase in violence in that town after tv was introduced Introduction of TV in the US, Canada, and South Africa -- confounds were civil rights movements etc. The social context may have played a part in the increase of violence Longitudinal studies - following the same people over the years E.g., a 15-year study looking at 1st and 3rd-grade children in Chicago - interviewed as adults 15 years later - TV viewing time was a predictor of aggression, even when other factors were controlled for eg- SES, parent aggression etc. Violence better predicted by the amount of violent TV than by childhood aggression Even after controlling for other factors Parents' level of aggression SES Intelligence Etc. Experimental studies - can determine causality Hundreds of studies indicate that media violence increases aggression 1986 meta-analysis: 230 studies, 100,000+ participants However, most research involves mild forms of aggression E.g., mild shocks, loud noises, hot sauce Watching violent programming also increases risky behaviour: Unsafe sex Driving at unsafe speeds Not wearing seat belts Hard drug use

5 components of sequential lineups

Sequential lineups: Members are presented one at a time 1. Each lineup member is presented one at a time (sequentially) 2. The witness must make a decision before viewing the next lineup member 3. The series of pictures will only be shown to the witness once 4. The witness will not know how many pictures are in the set 5. Double-blind testing: The police officer constructing the lineup should not know which lineup member is the suspect. *IMPORTANT* - subtle body language of police end of set reached or when criminal is identified - procedure stopped better than simultaneous as people feel more pressured to choose someone even if the real perpetrator is not in the line-up.

Media Effects

Rideout et al. (2010) on adolescent media use: Average time spent per day - 7h 38m Total media exposure per day - 10h 45m! Compared to 7h 29m in 1999 29% of time spent with at least two different media 2015 study - Young adults use their phones 5hrs a day 85 separate times, most less than 30 secs But they aren't aware of how addicted they are! They estimated half as much as they actually are People are constantly multitasking on their phones which explains part of increased usage. App developers - gambling to capture and maintain usage

Sequential lineups advantages and disadvantages

Sequential lineups: Members are presented one at a time Advantages: Low false identification rate Reduces the impact of biases on false identification rates Disadvantages: Police can easily alter the procedure Correct identification rates slightly lower

What is the difference between social cognitive theory and social learning theory?

Scope. Social cognitive theory has a broader theoretical scope as it includes a conceptualization of humans as agents capable of shaping their environment and of self-regulation. Social learning theory on the other hand is limited to tackling the learning process in the social context.

Describe Bandura's social cognitive theory (paraphrased)

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) describes the influence of individual experiences, the actions of others, and environmental factors on individual behaviours. observational learning, also called vicarious learning, is the acquisition of information, skills, or behaviour through watching the behaviour of others, either directly or through media such as films and videos. The bobo doll experiment showed observational learning. It involved nursery school students who observed an adult play aggressively (yelling & hitting) with an inflatable clown (Bobo); when children were later allowed to play with the Bobo, those children who witnessed the Bobo doll performed the same aggressive actions and improvised new ways of playing aggressively. This was compared to those who observed the adult playing nicely with the doll, did not show aggression. There are three principles influence modelling. The first is that people are more likely to model someone with a high status such as a celebrity. Secondly, people who lack skill or status are more likely to observe and model behaviour and lastly, people tend to model behaviour that they see as being rewarding to the model. There are four necessary processes for vicarious learning, which is learning through others experiences. The first process is paying attention to the modelled behaviour, this can be seen in the media which captures attention by making it exciting to view. Second is remembering and rehearsing the behaviour, an example is that children can often be seen running around with guns, likely rehearsing the behaviour they have learnt. Next is performing and generalizing the behaviour, for this the person needs to be able to carry out the behaviour. For example, a child that is not strong enough to perform the learned behaviour is unlikely to model it. Generalizing the behaviour could involve hitting the bobo doll then generalising that behaviour to hitting your sibling. Lastly, there needs to be a motivational factor, people are much more likely to perform behaviour that they are rewarded for rather than punished. This translates to violence in the media, it is very rare to observe violence being punished in the media. Other motivational factors for vicarious learning include, imitating violent behaviour is more likely if it is seen as being justified, for example if violence is used as self-defence or as justice. Another factor is if the violence is realistic, it is more likely to be modelled which may explain reduced violence in fantasy games that are very realistic. Identifying with the perpetrator is another factor, if you like or look up to them you are more inclined to imitate them. Lastly, desensitization from repeated exposure to violence means there is less of a negative response, this desensitization transfers to when the violent behaviour is performed, there is less of a negative emotional or physiological response. The implications of Bandura's experiment can be translated to media as children who watched the model hit the Bobo doll often mimicked the violent behaviour they observed on the videotape. Research into "copycat crimes", crimes that have been copied also suggests that people model aggressive behaviour. Berkowitz (1993) describes several incidences of people modelling suicide and other forms of aggression. For example, after highly publicized fights, the national homicide rate in the United States tends to increase; similar studies have shown the same effects regarding suicides as observing suicide increases the risk of "copycat suicides" either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media. As a result, New Zealand has criminal laws governing what can and can't be said when it comes to suicide or suspected suicide. Parent intervention when viewing media by teaching children not to act in an aggressive manner can instil a sense of restraint. However, media influences can work to undermine or improve these already learned behaviours and motivations. Bandura's belief that social learning theory can be used to remove unwanted behaviours provides a way to prevent and reverse the negative effects of modelling by providing positive messages in the media that can be modelled.

Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977, 1994).

Social learning theory has often been used by social psychologists to explain the ways in which people ( especially children) model the aggression and violence they see portrayed in the media. Bandura (1977) has proposed that a person's observations of how others behave provide him or her with information about behavioural possibilities that are not already included in his or her own behavioural repertoire. Once an individual observes a new behaviour being modelled, Bandura (1977) believes that he or she enters a four-stage process that culminates in the internalization of the observed behaviour. First, the person must be paying attention to the behaviour being modelled. Bandura has divided this feature into two components: (a) aspects of the stimulus that either can enhance or inhibit the likelihood of people paying attention to it ( e.g., how distinctive or complex the stimulus is); and (b) characteristics of the observer that limit his or her experience of the stimuli ( e.g., the person's present level of arousal or the existence of a perceptual set may increase or decrease the chances of the person attending to the modelled behaviour). Once the individual has paid attention to a modelled behaviour, she or he must then retain that information. This often involves using a set of cognitive processes to encode and organize the observed information into an appropriate mental structure (i.e., a schema). With the information properly retained, the person next must reproduce the observed behaviour. In order for this to occur, he or she must be physically capable of performing the action. Finally, if that action is to be retained in the individual's behavioural repertoire (as opposed to being just a one-time display), then he or she must be motivated to perform that behaviour again. In other words, the behaviour must be reinforced. This might involve a person being rewarded by others for his or her actions or the person rewarding himself or herself. Once these four conditions have been met, the individual has used social learning to add new behaviour to his or her repertoire. To show that social learning processes play a causal role in the relationship between viewing violent television shows and acting in aggressive ways requires evidence that people do indeed model the violent actions they see portrayed in the media. Much of Bandura's initial research has shown ways in which children will repeat novel aggressive behaviours presented to them by televised models. The famous "Bobo Doll" experiments conducted by Bandura and his colleagues in the 1960s demonstrate this effect (e.g., Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961). These studies use videotape produced specifically for the experiment. In these videos, models either perform aggressive actions toward a blow-up doll or act in a nonviolent way. After watching one of the two tapes, children are allowed to play in a room that, among its many toys, contains replicas of the blow-up doll and the tools used to hit it. In studies like this, children who watched the model hit the Bobo doll often mimicked the violent behaviour they observed on the videotape. Archival research into so-called "copycat crimes" also demonstrates how people model aggressive behaviour. Berkowitz (1993) describes several incidences of people modelling suicide and other forms of aggression. For example, after highly publicized prize fights, the national homicide rate in the United States tends to increase; similar findings have been observed after highly publicized suicides. Some argue that parental mediation is the most important way to reduce the negative impact of social learning ( e.g., Singer, Singer, Desmond, Hirsch, & Nicol, 1988). However, Bandura (1994) notes that "modelling influences can strengthen or weaken restraints over behaviour that have been previously learned" (p. 71, emphasis added). This point emphasizes the notion that social learning is a dynamic process. Parents may teach children not to act in an aggressive manner, thus instilling a sense of restraint; however, media influences can work either to erode or enhance these already learned behaviours and motivations. Although this may sound overly pessimistic, it is not. Bandura's belief that social learning theory can be used to get rid of unwanted behaviours means that television's undesirable influences can be combatted using the same modelling processes.

Lindsay et al. (1981)

Staged a theft of a calculator in front of unsuspecting students and then examined how accurately the students could pick the perpetrator out of a photo lineup Conditions: The "thief" wore a knit cap pulled down over his ears (appeared for 12s) The knit cap was worn higher on the head, obscuring fewer features No cap was worn (appeared for 20s) students could better identify the thief when more visual info was given Next, experimenter played the role of a lawyer Questioned the students about the eyewitness identifications Sessions were videotaped A new group of participants playing the role of jurors watched the videotapes of these cross-examinations Rated the extent to which they believed the witnesses had correctly identified the "thief" confidence and accuracy are not related

Social Learning Theory and Priming: The Case of Violence Background.

That television contains violent images is beyond debate. As Gunter (1994) describes, attempts to delineate the extent of mass media violence began as early as 1920 in the United States. At that time, the medium of interest was motion pictures, but the assumptions were the same: that watching violent images causes people to act violently. Since then, violence on television has become the main source of concern. Several studies have attempted to describe the level of televised violence and which kinds of programs might put children at greater risk for developing an aggressive behavioral repertoire (Tan, 1986). There is a wide variety of research examining the impact that viewing violent actions and images on television has on the incidence of aggressive and violent behavior in both children and adults. Centerwall (1989) showed how the introduction of television in the United States, Canada, and South Africa was related to a substantial increase in the murder rates of white citizens in each of those countries (the data were limited to this group because the social-political situation in South Africa made it difficult to compare the lifestyles of blacks in North America and South Africa). Centerwall's data showed that between 1945 (when TV was first introduced in North America) and 1974 (just before TV's introduction in South Africa), per capita-based homicide deaths rose in both the United States and Canada by 93%, but actually decreased 7% in South Africa. Following the introduction of TV to South Africa, however, the per capita white homicide rate increased 56% (between 1975 to 1983), while the rates in Canada and the United States remained stable. Other, more direct, evidence for the relationship between television viewing and aggressive behavior continues to show that the more violent TV children watch, the more aggressive they are. As part of a 3-year, multinational study of aggression rates and violent TV viewing, Wiegman, Kuttschreuter, and Baarda (1992) have shown that the amount of violent TV children watched in the first year of the study was significantly correlated with the peer-nominated rates of aggression in the third year. However, Wiegman et al. also show that this effect seems to be affected by the country in which an individual lives. The relationship between TV viewing and aggression levels tends to be strongest in children and adolescents living in the United States and in Israeli cities. Similar findings were observed by Wood, Wong, and Chachere (1991). Their meta-analytic review of the experimental research, which examined the impact that watching violent television has on children's free play, found a moderate effect size (in other words, the impact was consistent across studies and fairly robust). Some have argued that TV viewing leads to aggression only in the laboratory and that it does not occur to the same degree in natural settings ( e.g., schoolyards, playgrounds). However, Wood et al. also showed that viewing TV violence tended to induce aggressive play irrespective of whether the study was performed in a laboratory or in a natural setting.

JUSTIFICATION OF CHOICE

The Western preference for principle-guided decisions and the Eastern preference for the "Middle Way" appears to apply also for actual choice behaviour. Briley, Morris, and Simonson (2000) studied the consumer choices of East Asians and European Americans. All choices were among a triad of objects that differed on two dimensions. Object A was superior to both Object B and C on one dimension, and Object C was superior to both Object A and B on the other dimension. Object B was always intermediate between A and C on both dimensions. On average, across the range of choices, Americans and East Asians in a control condition were about equally likely to choose intermediate Object B. In an experimental condition, Briley et al. had participants give reasons for their choice. They anticipated that this would prompt Americans to look for a simple rule that would justify a given choice (e.g., "RAM is more important than hard drive space") but would prompt people of Asian culture to seek a compromise ("both RAM and hard drive space are important"). This is what was found. Americans in the justification condition moved to a preference for one of the extreme objects whose choice could be justified with reference to a simple rule, whereas Asian culture participants moved to a preference for the compromise object. Justifications given by participants were consistent with their choices, with Americans being more likely to give rule-based justifications and Chinese being more likely to give compromise-based justifications. Thus, there is substantial evidence to indicate that Easterners are not concerned with contradiction in the same way as are Westerners. They have a greater preference for compromise solutions and holistic arguments; they are more willing to endorse apparently contradictory arguments; and they are more willing to move their beliefs in the direction of an argument, even when it is a weak one. Finally, when asked to justify their choices, they seem to move to a compromise, "Middle Way," instead of referring to a dominating principle. It should be noted that the greater adherence to the principle of noncontradiction on the part of Americans seems to produce no guarantee against normatively questionable inferences. On the contrary, their adherence to the principle of noncontradiction may sometimes cause them to become more extreme in their judgments under conditions in which the evidence indicates they should become less extreme. This tendency mirrors complaints about hyper logical Western habits of mind often expressed by philosophers and social critics (Korzybyski, 1933/1994; Lin, 1936; Liu, 1974; Nagashima, 1973; Saul, 1992).

Phase I: Cross-Cultural Comparisons

The backbone of cross-cultural psychology is cross-cultural comparisons that document the existence of differences across cultural groups. Methodologically, such studies are quasi-experimental studies in which cultural group is the independent variable and psychological variables are dependent variables. Most often the cultural groups are national groups (i.e., countries), although ethnic, language and racial groupings have also been studied. Studies have been useful in generating knowledge about universal and culturally specific psychological processes. And they have spurred critical thinking about the cross-cultural applicability of all aspects of psychological inquiry. This first phase of cross-cultural research began more than 100 years ago. Rivers' (1905) study was one of the first, demonstrating that individuals from India and New Guinea were more fooled by optical illusions than were individuals from England. Many other pioneering studies demonstrated cultural similarities and differences in cognition (Cole & Scribner, 1974; Mishra, 2001; Segall, Campbell, & Herskovits, 1963), emotional (Ekman, 1972), and social cognition (Kashima, 2001). The Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, which specializes in the publication of cross-cultural comparisons, has been in existence for more than 35 years.

The Origin of Sociocognitive Systems

The explanation for the cognitive differences that we prefer is a distally materialistic but proximally social one that we have put together from the arguments of scholars in a large number of disciplines (Barry, Child, & Bacon, 1959; Berry, 1976; Cromer, 1993; Nakamura, 1964/1985; Needham, 1954; Whiting & Child, 1953; Whiting & Whiting, 1975; Witkin & Berry, 1975). Chinese civilization was based on agriculture, which entailed that substantial cooperation with neighbours was necessary to carry out economic activities in an effective way. This is especially true of the rice agriculture common in the south of China. China was organized at the level of the large state very early on, and society was complex and hierarchical: The king and later the Emperor and the bureaucracy were everpresent controlling factors in the lives of individual Chinese. Harmony and social order were thus central to Chinese society. Social scientists since Marx have observed that economic and social arrangements such as these are generally associated with "collectivist" or "interdependent" social orientations as distinguished from "individualistic" or "independent" social orientations that are characteristic of societies with economies based on hunting, fishing, trading, or the modern market economy. In marked contrast to all the other great civilizations of the ancient world, the Greek economy was not completely dependent on agriculture. The Greek ecology conspired against an agrarian base, consisting as it does most of the mountains descending to the sea. This sort of ecology was more suited to herding and fishing than to large-scale agriculture. The sense of personal agency that characterized the Greeks could have been the natural response to the genuine freedom that they experienced in their less socially complex society. The politically decentralized Greek cities also provided a great scope of action as compared to Chinese cities. Greeks who wished to leave one city for another were free to do so: The sea provided an escape route for dissidents. In addition, Greeks were involved in trade at one of the crossroads of the world. Thus they would have had plenty to pique their curiosity and much to discuss. The nature of social relations meant that debate would have posed a few interpersonal risks, and the authority structure of the city-state was too weak to prevent the free expression of opinion. Indeed for Athens and other city-states debate was an integral part of the political system. Speculative as it is, this view has the virtue that it at least is consistent with the economic changes that preceded the Renaissance, namely, the reduced reliance on agriculture and the rise of relatively independent city-states with economies based on crafts and trade. During the Renaissance, the West recapitulated some of the Greek social forms and intellectual traditions, including the rediscovery of science. The invention of the printing press greatly enhanced the conditions of freedom of thought. Ironically, though the Chinese invented movable type before the Europeans did, it was suppressed in China, on the quite correct grounds that the authority of the government would be undermined by it. Some research by Witkin and his colleagues gives credence to the notion that stronger social networks might produce a more holistic orientation to the world. Berry and Witkin (Berry, 1967, 1976; Witkin & Berry, 1975) showed that farmers in a number of societies are more field-dependent than hunters, herders, or industrialized peoples. Witkin and his colleagues (Adevai, Silverman, & McGough, 1970; Dershowitz, 1971; Meizlik, 1973) found that Orthodox Jewish boys, whose families and communities require strict observance of a variety of social rules, were more field-dependent than were secular Jewish boys, who in turn were more field-dependent than Protestant boys. These differences held even when general intelligence was controlled for. Moreover, individual differences in social orientation within a culture apparently are associated with field dependence. Americans who are more interested in social activities and in dealing with other people are more field-dependent (even when intelligence is controlled) than are people with less social interest (Witkin & Goodenough, 1977; Witkin, PriceWilliams, et al., 1974). Finally, Kuhnen, Hannover, and Schubert ¨ (2000) were able to prime field dependence on the Embedded Figures Test by a variety of techniques intended to make participants temporarily more collectivist in their orientations. For example, they asked participants to think about what they had in common with family and friends (vs. asking them to think about how they differed from family and friends). The results confirmed that a collectivist prime led to more field dependence.

Culture and Thought

The idea that cultural differences exist not only in terms of our beliefs and behaviours but also in terms of our cognitive processes and the ways in which we reason about the world is very intriguing Cognitive Psychology once characterized by this universality assumption However, recent research suggests that cognitive processes are not as universal or unchanging as they were once though to be

Premises of cultural research

The results of psychological research are bound by our methods Cultural framework determines our methods and how we evaluate research

Formal Logic Versus Experiential Knowledge

There is a long Western tradition - from the ancient Greeks, to the medieval Scholastics, to the propositional logic theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - of analyzing argument structure apart from content and of reasoning on the basis of the underlying abstract propositions alone. Such a tradition has never been common in the East, where instead there has been explicit disapproval of such decontextualizing practices and an emphasis on the appropriateness of plausibility and sense experience in evaluating propositions. Several studies suggest that East Asians do indeed rely less on formal logic and more on experiential knowledge in reasoning than do Americans - at any rate when logic and experience are in conflict. TYPICALITY VERSUS LOGIC Consider the following two deductive arguments. Is one more convincing than the other? 1. All birds have ulnar arteries. Therefore, all eagles have ulnar arteries. 2. All birds have ulnar arteries. Therefore, all penguins have ulnar arteries. One way to measure the extent to which people spontaneously rely on formal logic versus experiential knowledge in reasoning is to examine how they project properties (the "blank" property "ulnar arteries" in the above example) from superordinate categories (birds) to subordinate categories (eagles, penguins). Notice that the two arguments have identical premises, but their conclusions vary in the typicality of the exemplar. (Eagles are more typical birds than penguins.) Reasoners who apply logic would "see" the implicit middle premises of each argument ("All eagles are birds," and "all penguins are birds"). Such reasoners would find both deductive valid arguments equally convincing. But people often find typical arguments to be more convincing than atypical ones (Sloman, 1993). Norenzayan and colleagues (2000) asked Korean, Asian American, and European American participants to evaluate the convincingness of a series of such arguments. The responses of participants who received only typical arguments were compared with those who received only atypical arguments. As expected, Koreans showed a large typicality effect, being more convinced by typical than by atypical arguments. European Americans, in contrast, were equally convinced by typical and atypical arguments. Asian Americans' responses were in between those of European Americans and Koreans. (When an experimental manipulation was introduced that increased the salience of the typicality information, all three groups showed the typicality effect to the same extent.)

Conclusion: culture, ethics and morality

Thinking is not the same everywhere! It is important to guard against ethnocentrism The tendency to use one's own group as the standard against which all other groups are compared; to place one's group at the top of the hierarchy and to rank all others as lower

Culture and Intelligence

Traditional view - a conglomeration of numerous intellectual activities relating to verbal and analytic tasks Multi-factor vs. Spearman's "g factor" Well-documented cultural and ethnic differences in intelligence test scores Biases? Genetic vs. environmental? Population stat of genetic intelligence does not mean individual intelligence, does not account for education etc. Methodological bias Cultures differ in how they view "intelligence" Many languages have no word corresponding to our idea of intelligence Mandarin - "good brain and talented" - associated with imitation, effort, and social responsibility Baganda (East Africa) - obugezi - being steady, cautious, and friendly Djerma-Sonhai (West Africa) - akkal - combo of intelligence, know-how, and social skills Baoule (West Africa) - n'glouele - mentally alert and willing to volunteer services without being asked

Conclusions: psychology and media (sexual content)

Violence in the media there are issues particularly with younger children who can model violence, particularly if realistic and rewarded Portrayed violence can increase aggressive thoughts and (at least temporarily) increase violent reactions Sexually explicit material: Little evidence that sexuality itself is harmful - could be beneficial in some circumstances Nonviolent pornography has most of its effects on attitudes - not behavioural but attitudes can impact perceptions and be problematic Violent sexual material leads to greater callousness and acceptance of violence towards women These effects can be mitigated by using the right strategies

THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH: PHASE IV STUDIES

We argue that it is time for cross-cultural research methods to evolve once again—to Phase IV. This phase will be characterized by what we call linkage studies because they empirically link the observed differences in means or correlations among variables with the specific cultural sources that are hypothesized to account for those differences. This phase of research will be an important extension to Phase III studies because, although the theoretical frameworks of many Phase III cultural studies have done an excellent job at identifying the potentially active cultural ingredients that supposedly produce predicted differences, these studies often do not measure those cultural ingredients—be they self ways, affordances, worldviews, or cultural practices—and link them to the observed differences empirically (Matsumoto, 1999). Without such linkage, the theories about how observed differences between groups were produced remain speculative and empirically unjustified, despite their elegance

categories of culture studies

Work by I. Choi, Nisbett, and Smith (1997) indicates that Koreans make less use of categories for purposes of inductive inference than do Americans. For example, they were less influenced than Americans by coverage of the category - unless the category was made salient in some way. In one manipulation, the category was mentioned in the conclusion (i.e., participants made an inference about "mammals" rather than "rabbits"). This manipulation had no effect on Americans but increased the degree to which Koreans relied on the category. Thus categories are apparently less spontaneously salient for Koreans and, hence, are less available for guiding generalizations. If East Asians are relatively unlikely to use explicit rules for assigning attributes to objects and objects to categories, then it might be more difficult for them to learn how to classify objects by applying rule systems. Work by Norenzayan et al. (2000) suggests this is the case. Adopting a paradigm of Allen and Brooks (1991), they presented East Asians, Asian Americans, and European Americans with cartoon animals on a computer screen and told them that some of the animals were from Venus and some were from Saturn. Participants in an exemplar-based categorization condition were asked simply to observe a series of animals and make guesses, with feedback, about the category to which each belonged. Other participants were assigned to a rule condition and went through a formal, rule-based category learning procedure. They were told to pay attention to five different properties of the animals - curly tail, knobby antennas, and so forth - and were told that if the animal had any three of these properties it was from Venus; otherwise, it was from Saturn. Asian and American participants performed equally well at the exemplar-based categorization task with respect both to errors and to the speed of response. But in the rule condition, East Asian participants' response times were slower than those of Americans. Most tellingly, when the test trial in the rule condition presented an animal that met the formal rule criteria for a given category but more closely resembled an animal in the other category - thus placing rule-based and memory-based categorizations in conflict - Asians made more errors of classification than did Americans. (They did not make more errors when the test animal more closely resembled an instance of the category of which it was also a member in terms of the formal rule, and thus either a rule-based decision or an exemplar-based decision would yield the right answer.) Asian Americans' performance was almost identical to that of European Americans for both speed and accuracy. Thus the results of several studies indicate that East Asians rely less on rules and categories and more on relationships and similarities in organizing their worlds than do Americans. East Asians preferred to group objects on the basis of relationships and similarity, whereas Americans were more likely to group objects on the basis of categories and rules Americans were more likely to rely spontaneously on categories for purposes of inductive reasoning than were East Asians and found it easier to learn and use rule-based categories.

Is Online Content Different?

Zimbardo - Porn is messing with our brains Internet porn use may affect: Neurological arousal responses - eg- erectile dysfunction in young males = currently around 27-33% compared to 2-3% historically - internet porn effects - evidence controversial Relationships and social behaviours - depression, anxiety, stress and reduced social functioning for heterosexual uni student males -- stopped watching porn and all these things reduced - cycle hard to get out of. Our understanding of sex and other people - social cues adjust our behaviour, affects the way we view and expect sex which can lead to disappointment or frightening situations Are these changes reversible? - Yes -- studies that show cutting back or quitting porn reduces social anxiety, mental clarity, memory, stress, real-life sex etc.

Identification Process

a) Lineup construction: Should have 4 - 8 "fillers"/"foils" b) Lineup instructions: Malpass & Devine (1981) Staged a crime and then had witnesses attempt to identify the culprit from a lineup In some cases the culprit was in the lineup and in some cases he was not "The perpetrator may or may not be in the lineup." OR "The perpetrator is in the lineup." (Biased instructions) Anything that makes one of the individuals stand out will make it more likely that they will be selected eg- iven lineup was forced to be there he was the only redhead and therefore did not want to be included in the lineup. He was picked Almost 80% guessed who was a culprit when told that the criminal is in the lineup, false assumption made. Smaller amount guessed even when told "may or may not be in the lineup". c) Lineup format: Simultaneous lineups: Lineup members (either live or pictures) are presented all at once Advantages: high correct identification rate Disadvantages: the high false identification rate the greater impact of biases

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) framework cultural studies

rich descriptions of complex theoretical models of culture and self that predict and explain cultural differences. In the area of emotion, for instance, Mesquita (2001; Mesquita & Karasawa, 2002) has described how cultural systems produce different concepts of the self, which, in turn, produce different types of specific concerns for the individual. According to her framework, individualistic cultures encourage the development of independent senses of self that encourage a focus on personal concerns and the view that emotions signal internal subjective feelings; collectivistic cultures, in contrast, encourage the development of interdependent senses of self that encourage a focus on one's social worth and the worth of one's ingroup, and the notion that emotions reflect something about interpersonal relationships. Another major line of research that exemplifies Phase III is the impressive work produced by Nisbett and his colleagues in the area of cognition (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 2000). In recent years, this group has demonstrated numerous differences in perception and cognition between Americans and East Asians. These researchers suggest that cultural differences, born from differences in ecologies, lead to different social practices in the United States and East Asia. In the United States, social practices encourage agency, whereas, in East Asia, they encourage harmony. These different affordances produce differences in the way individuals in the two cultural groups categorize items (Ji, Zhang, & Nisbett, 2004), communicate (Sanchez-Burks et al., 2003), make attributions (Nisbett et al., 2001), and perceive the environment (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). In this framework, North Americans' cognitive styles are analytic and logical, whereas East Asians' cognitive styles are holistic and dialectical. Other cultural studies have addressed a host of psychological constructs and processes, including morality (Shweder, 1993), the nature of unspoken thoughts (Kim, 2002), the need for high self-esteem (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999), and many others (many of these areas of research are reviewed in Heine & Norenzayan, 2006, this issue). They provide fascinating descriptions of cultural practices and potential mechanisms for how cultural differences may be produced (intrapersonal, interpersonal, situational, and ideological), and the conceptual frameworks of the studies are often supported by thoughtful discussions of the sociohistorical contexts in which these practices are embedded. These frameworks are also often complemented by observations of everyday life in various cultures. Cultural studies go beyond simply examining cultural differences in mean levels of responses (which characterize much of Phase I research); they often compare relationships among variables across cultures, suggesting how variables function differently in different cultural contexts. (phase 3)

The Nine Steps of Interrogation

1. Confront the suspect with assertions of his or her guilt. 2. Develop "themes" that appear to justify or excuse the crime. 3. Interrupt all statements of innocence and denial. 4. Overcome all of the suspect's objections to the charges. 5. Keep the increasingly passive suspect from tuning out. 6. Show sympathy and understanding and urge the suspect to tell all. 7. Offer the suspect a face-saving explanation for his or her guilty action. 8. Get the suspect to recount the details of the crime. 9. Convert that statement into a full written confession.

culture

Attempts to define c go back well over a hundred years (e.g., Baumeister, 2005; Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 1992; Jahoda, 1984; Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952/1963; Pelto & Pelto, 1975; Rohner, 1984; Tylor, 1865), and there is no one accepted definition of c in anthropology, sociology, or psychology today. Yet most definitions share certain characteristics, and we believe that human c is generally defined as a meaning and information system shared by a group and transmitted across generations.

Main goals of psychology in general:

Build a body of knowledge about people Apply knowledge to people's lives Mainstream research based on WEIRDos Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic

Storing the Memory

Can remembrances of the remote past be trusted? As you might expect, memory for faces and events tends to decline with the passage of time. Longer intervals between an event and its retrieval are generally associated with increased forgetting (Shapiro & Penrod, 1986). But not all recollections fade, and time alone does not cause memory slippage. Consider the plight of bystanders who witness firsthand such incidents as terrorist bombings, shootings, plane crashes, or fatal car accidents. Afterward, they may talk about what they saw, read about it, hear what other bystanders have to say, and answer questions from investigators and reporters. By the time witnesses to these events are officially questioned, they are likely to have been exposed to so much postevent information that one wonders if their original memory is still "pure:' According to Loftus (1996), it probably is not. Many years ago, based on her own studies of eyewitness testimony, Loftus proposed a now classic theory of reconstructive memory. After people observe an event, she said, later information about that event whether the information is true or not-becomes integrated into the fabric of their memory. An initial experiment by Loftus and John Palmer (1974) illustrates the point. Participants viewed a film of a traffic accident and then answered questions, including: ''About how fast were the cars going when they hit each ta from the MRI scans showed that the true memories-those based on the slides-were accompanied by more activation of the visual cortex of the brain, while false memories-those based on the audio recording-were accompanied by more activation in the auditory cortex. This phenomenon raises an additional, potentially troubling question. If adother?" Other participants answered the same question, except that the verb hit was replaced by smashed, collided, bumped, or contacted. All participants saw the same accident, yet the wording of the question affected their reports. • Figure 12.2 shows that participants given the "smashed" question estimated the highest average speed and those responding to the "contacted" question estimated the lowest. But there's more. One week later, participants were called back for more probing. Had the wording of the questions caused them to reconstruct their memories of the accident? Yes. When asked whether they had seen broken glass at the accident (none was actually present), 32% of the "smashed" participants said they had. As Loftus had predicted, what these participants remembered of the accident was based on two sources: the event itself and postevent information. This misinformation effect has aroused a great deal of controversy. It's clear that eyewitnesses can be compromised when exposed to postevent information-as when they are told, for example, that either the person they identified or someone else had confessed during an interrogation (Hasel & Kassin, 2009). But does this information actually alter a witness's real memory so that it can never be retrieved again? Or do participants merely follow the experimenter's suggestion, leaving their true memory intact for retrieval under other conditions? Either way, whether memory is truly altered or not, it is clear that eyewitness reports are hopelessly biased by postevent information and that this effect can be dramatic (Frenda et al., 2011). In one laboratory study, Craig Stark and others (2010) showed participants a series of slides showing a man stealing a woman's wallet and tucking it into his jacket pocket. These same participants then heard a recorded account of the event that was accurate or misinformed them that the man hid the wallet in his pants pocket. All were later tested about the details of the event while lying in an MRI scanner. Sure enough, a substantial number of misinformation participants incorrectly recalled that the thief put the wallet in his pants, not his jacket-and said that they remembered that detail from the photographs. Interestingly, the neuroimaging daults can be misled by postevent information, what about young children? In 1988, Margaret Kelly Michaels, a 26-year-old preschool teacher, was found guilty of 115 counts of sex abuse committed at the Wee Care Nursery School in New Jersey. The charges against her were shocking. For a period of more than 7 months, the jury was told, she danced nude in the classroom, stripped the children, licked peanut butter off their genitals, and raped them with knives, forks, spoons, and Lego blocks. Were the children's stories accurate? On the one hand, there were some striking consistencies in the testimonies of 19 child witnesses. On the other hand, the social workers and investigators who conducted the interviews often prompted the children with suggestive leading questions, told them that Michaels was a bad person, urged them to describe acts they had initially denied, offered bribes for disclosures, and pressured those who claimed ignorance. Except for this testimony, there was no physical evidence of abuse and no other witnesses even though the acts were supposed to have occurred during school hours in an open classroom. Michaels was found guilty and sentenced to 47 years in prison. After serving five of those years, she was released when the state appeals court overturned the conviction on the ground that the children's testimony could not be trusted. "One day you're getting ready for work and making coffee, minding your business:' said Michaels, "and the next minute you are an accused child molester:' Can suggestive interview procedures cause young children to confuse appearance and reality? Over the years, thousands of sex abuse charges have been filed against babysitters, preschool teachers, and family members. Rekindling images of the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century, some of these suspects were falsely accused of participating in satanic cults (Bottoms & Davis, 1997). In light of these events, judges struggled to decide: Are preschoolers competent to take the witness stand, or are they too suggestible, too prone to confuse reality and fantasy? To provide guidance to the courts, researchers have studied the factors that influence children's eyewitness memory (Bruck & Ceci, 1999; Lamb et al., 2008). This research has evolved through several stages. At first, simple laboratory experiments showed that preschoolers were more likely than older children and adults to incorporate misleading "trick" questions into their memories for simple stories ( Ceci et al., 1987). Other studies showed that interviewers could get young children to change their memories ( or at least their answers) simply by repeating a question over and over-a behavior that implies that the answer given is not good enough (Poole & White, 1991). But are young children similarly suggestible about stressful real-life experiences? In one study, Leichtman and Ceci ( 1995) told nursery school children about a clumsy man named Sam Stone who always broke things. A month later, a man visited the school, spent time in the classroom, and left. The next day, the children were shown a ripped book and a soiled teddy bear and asked what had happened. Reasonably, no one said that they saw Stone cause the damage. But then, over the next 10 weeks, they were asked suggestive questions ("I wonder if Sam Stone was wearing long pants or short pants when he ripped the book?"). The result: When a new interviewer asked the children in the class to tell what happened, 72% of the 3 and 4 year olds blamed Stone for the damage and 45% said they saw him do it. One child "recalled" that Stone took a paintbrush and painted melted chocolate on the bear. Others "saw" him spill coffee, throw toys in the air, rip the book in anger, and soak the book in warm water until it fell apart. It's important to realize that false memories in children are not necessarily a byproduct of bad questioning procedures. Even when interviews are fair and neutral, false reports can stem from young children's exposure to misinformation from such outside sources as television (Principe et al., 2000), parents (Poole & Lindsay, 2001), and classmates (Principe & Ceci, 2002), and the use of anatomical dolls and diagrams as props that interviewers sometimes use to get children to demonstrate how they were touched (Poole et al., 2011). To summarize, research shows that repetition, misinformation, and leading questions can bias a child's memory report and that preschoolers are particularly vulnerable in this regard. The effects can be dramatic. In dozens of studies, these kinds of procedures have led children to falsely report that they were touched, hit, kissed, and hugged; that a thief came into their classroom; that something "yucky" was put into their mouth; and even that a doctor had cut a bone from their nose to stop it from bleeding. Somehow, the courts must distinguish between true and false claims-and do so on a case-by-case basis. To assist in this endeavor, researchers have proposed that clear interviewing guidelines be set so that future child witnesses will be questioned in an objective, nonbiasing manner (Lamb et al., 2008).

Culture and Reasoning western vs eastern

Western Philosophers Logic Analyze the structure of an argument (rather than experience) to determine its validity If A = B and B = C then A = C, regardless of what these variables represent East Asian Philosophers Experiential Knowledge Emphasize plausibility and experience when evaluating conclusions or propositions If A = B and B = C then A = C, BUT it depends on what these variables represent

Culture and Categorisation research

A study using this same method tested East Asians' and Westerners' tendency when grouping items (Ji, 2001; Ji and Nisbett, 2001) Results Chinese relational pairings Euro-Americans categorical pairings (i.e., based on common features) Similar findings have been uncovered among Chinese and Euro-American children (Chui, 1972) Why did this pattern of results occur? East Asians relationships most salient Westerners features most salient

But why? east asian

Ancient China Landscape: Rivers, fertile plains, low mountains Farming and irrigation required cooperation Political System: Centralized government required to regulate farming Large, complex, and hierarchical system Philosophy: Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism Emphasized harmony, social obligations, change and connectedness View of the Self: Interdependent; the self is defined and constrained by its relationships with others

Cultural Practices

Also important in unpackaging studies are context variables that assess cp behaviorally. Such variables include measures of child rearing, the nature of interpersonal relationships, exposure to cultural icons, educational experiences, and opportunities for mobility. We deem these types of assessments especially important because many theoretical frameworks generated in Phase III cultural studies have suggested that socialization and enculturation, and actual social practices, play an important role in producing cultural differences. Many of the recent studies showing cultural differences in cognitive processes and styles between Americans and East Asians (Ji et al., 2004; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Miyamoto et al., 2006; Nisbett et al., 2001), for example, are based on the assumption that differences in social structures and social practices that are rooted in ancient histories, philosophies, and religions can account for the observed cultural differences. According to these frameworks, collectivism requires attention to people, whereas individualism requires attention to objects, and these attentional differences generalize as an individual is enculturated. A next logical step in this line of research, therefore, may be a study that actually measures differences in attentional focus during development, links them to cultural practices, and then links them to the observed differences in cognitive style. Without a study or two that actually demonstrate the links between these potential cultural sources and the observed cognitive differences, researchers will not really know exactly what caused those differences. After all, the cultural differences in attentional recall and recognition obtained in this research (e.g., Masuda & Nisbett, 2001) may be due to differences in schooling emphases. East Asian schooling systems generally require much more rote memorization of facts than American schools do. Thus, East Asian students may remember more background objects in animated displays or pictures than American students do simply because they are better at memorization tasks, which are reinforced through years of schooling (Stevenson, 1985; Stigler & Baranes, 1988), and not because of a long-term, systemic culture rooted in ancient collectivistic philosophies. East Asian students' better memory for background objects may also be due to their computer-game culture; computer games in East Asia embed more important figures and objects in the background than American games do. Educational practices (e.g., use of memorization tasks) and recreational activities (e.g., interaction styles in computer games) may also be used as interesting context variables in unpackaging studies.

Jury Deliberation

Anyone who has seen the original 1957 movie Twelve Angry Men can appreciate how colorful and passionate a jury's deliberation can be. This film classic opens with a jury eager to convict a young man of murder-no ifs, ands, or buts. The group selects a foreperson and takes a show-of-hands vote. The result is an 11-to-l majority, with actor Henry Fonda the lone dissenter. After many tense moments, Fonda manages to convert his peers, and the jury votes unanimously for acquittal. It is often said that the unique power of the jury stems from the wisdom that emerges when individuals come together privately as one group. Is this assumption justified? Twelve Angry Men is a work of fiction, but does it realistically portray what transpires in the jury room? And in what ways does the legal system influence the group dynamics? By interviewing jurors after trials and by recruiting people to participate on mock juries and then recording their deliberations, researchers have learned a great deal about how juries make their decisions.

Testing Cultural Versus Noncultural Sources of Influence

As we mentioned earlier, researchers conducting Phase IV studies will need to consider how to empirically demonstrate that the source of observed between-country differences is cultural, as opposed to noncultural. There are many potential noncultural sources of observed between-country differences. One of these is personality. As already mentioned, McCrae and his colleagues have conducted an interesting line of research demonstrating the universality of the five-factor model of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1997; McCrae et al., 2005). If one believes culture and personality are different constructs, an important issue is the degree to which between-country differences occur because of culture or because of aggregate differences in personalities in the countries being measured. Recently one of us examined this issue (Matsumoto, 2006a). American and Japanese respondents completed two measures of emotion regulation and a measure of the five-factor model of personality. As predicted, Americans scored higher than Japanese on reappraisal, a dimension of emotion regulation, whereas the Japanese scored higher on suppression. These between country differences were entirely mediated by Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness. Moreover, country differences in personality were not mediated by emotion regulation. These findings suggest that apparent cultural differences in emotion regulation may not be cultural at all, but may be due to aggregate differences in levels of personality traits. Similar kinds of studies will need to tease out other potential noncultural sources of between-country differences to determine whether such differences are indeed due to culture.

two factors to get people to confess to an act they did not commit

Based on the events of actual cases, Kassin and Kiechel (1996) theorized that two factors can increase this risk: (1) a suspect who lacks a clear memory of the event in question and (2) the presentation of false evidence. To test this hypothesis, they recruited pairs of college students to work on a fast- or slow-paced computer task. At one point, the computer crashed and students were accused of having caused the damage by pressing a key they had been instructed to avoid. All students were truly innocent and denied the charge. In half the sessions, however, the second student (who was really a confederate) said that she had seen the student hit the forbidden key. Demonstrating the process of compliance, many students confronted by this false witness agreed to sign a confession handwritten by the experimenter. Further demonstrating the process of internalization, some students later "admitted" guilt to a stranger (also a confederate) after the study was supposedly over and the two were alone. In short, innocent people who are vulnerable to suggestion can be induced to confess and to internalize guilt by the presentation of false evidence (see Table 12.4). This finding has been replicated in a number of experiments (Perillo & Kassin, 2011; Horselenberg et al., 2003; Nash & Wade, 2009). False evidence is one tactic that can cause innocent people to confess. Another tactic is an offer of leniency. Melissa Russano and others (2005) asked participants to solve a series of problems, sometimes alone and sometimes with a fellow participant (who was actually a confederate). In the alone trials, participants were instructed not to seek or provide assistance. In a guilty condition, the confederate asked for help, inducing most participants to break the rule. In an innocent condition, no such request was made. Moments later, the experimenter returned, accused the pair of participants of cheating-a possible violation of their university honor code-and then interrogated everyone as to whether they had cheated. As part of this interrogation, the experimenter offered leniency for cooperation to some participants, minimized the seriousness of the violation to others, used both tactics, or used no tactics at all. Would students sign a confession to cheating? Yes. Both promises and minimization increased the number of true confessions among students who broke the rule but also increased the rate of false confessions among students who did nothing wrong.

objective and subjective culture (phase 2)

C includes objective and subjective elements (Triandis, 1972) produced and reproduced by interconnected individuals to solve complex social problems (Kashima, 2000; Triandis, 1994). The distinction between the two elements of culture is related to Kroeber and Kluckhohn's (1952/1963) distinction between implicit and explicit culture hofstede study of subjective cultures - cultural dimensions

familiarity induced bias

Research shows that people often remember a face but not the circumstances in which they saw that face. In one study, for example, participants witnessed a staged crime and then looked through mug shots. A few days later, they were asked to view a 495 496 Chapter 12 Law lineup. The result was startling: Participants were just as likely to identify an innocent person whose picture was in the mug shots as they were to pick the actual criminal (Brown et al., 1977) Many different studies have shown that witnesses will often identify from a lineup someone they had seen in another context, including innocent bystanders who also happened to be at the crime scene (Deffenbacher et al., 2006).

Culture and Psychology

Different approaches: Study particular cultures to determine the relationship between the culture and the behaviour of individuals living in the culture (cultural psych, indigenous psych). Similar to cultural anthropology - living with the society observing and partaking in their culture. Comparison of characteristics of human behaviour in different cultures; cross-cultural validation of psychological theories (cross-cultural psych -- DIFFERENT FROM CULTURAL PSYCH) - most commonly used and will be focused on in this paper. Study of the interactive effects of cultures that co-exist within a larger societal context (intercultural psych) Psychology and inquiry as culturally, situationally, historically, and linguistically bound (social constructionism)

Culture and Categorisation

Group of 3 words... one word will be in bold, capital letters at the top of the screen the other two will appear in the lower left- and right-hand corners of the screen Your task is to decide which of the two words in the lower part of the screen belongs with the word in the upper part of the screen Grass cow 2 Women man 1 Banana Monkey 2 Pencil notebook 2 Sun bright 1 Sink dishes 2 Car road 2 Water ocean 2 6 2s and 2 1s

Culture and Biases

Hindsight bias or "I knew it all along" Outcomes are seen as more likely to occur after they've happened than before Who might be more susceptible, East Asians or Westerners?

Identifying the Culprit

For eyewitnesses, testifying is only the last in a series of efforts to retrieve what they saw from memory. Before witnesses reach the courtroom, they are questioned by police and lawyers, view a lineup or mug shots, and even assist in the construction of a facial composite or an artist's sketch of the perpetrator. Yet each of these experiences increases the risk of error and distortion. Imagine trying to reconstruct a culprit's face by selecting a set of eyes, a nose, a mouth, a hairstyle, and so on, from vast collections of features and then combining them into a composite of the face. Research shows that this process seldom produces a face that resembles the actual culprit (Kovera et al., 1997). To further complicate matters, the face construction process itself may confuse witnesses, making it more difficult for them later to identify the culprit. In one study, for example, participants were asked to select from six pictures a person's face they had seen 2 days earlier. Sixty percent accurately identified the target. When they first tried to reconstruct the face using a computerized facial composite program, however, their identification accuracy dropped to 18% (Wells et al., 2005). When there are multiple eyewitnesses to a crime, it is common for descriptions of the culprit to vary from one witness to the next. But what if the various descriptions could somehow be averaged into a single face? Is a collection of witnesses better than one witness? To answer this question, Lisa Hasel and Gary Wells (2007) had participants view a series of target faces and construct a sketch for each one, resulting in four sketches per face. Then for each target they used morphing software to create one composite image that combined the four sketches. To see if these morphs resembled the actual faces better than the average of the individual sketches, a new sample of participants rated the similarity of each set of sketches and morphed composite image to the original target. The results were encouraging: On average, the morphs were rated as more similar to the targets than were the individual sketches on which they were based (see• Figure 12.3). Nothing an eyewitness does has greater impact than making an identification from a photographic or live lineup. Once police have made an arrest, they often call on their witnesses to view a lineup that includes the suspect and five to seven other individuals. This procedure may take place within days of a crime or months later. Either way, the lineup often results in tragic cases of mistaken identity. Through the application of eyewitness research findings, this risk can be reduced (Wells et al., 1998; Wells et al., 2007).

Confessions in the Courtroom

How does the legal system treat confessions brought out by police interrogations? The process is straightforward. Whenever a suspect confesses but then withdraws the statement, pleads not guilty, and goes to trial, the judge must determine whether the statement was voluntary or coerced. If the confession was clearly coerced-as when a suspect is isolated for long periods of time, deprived of food or sleep, threatened, or abused-it is excluded. If the confession is not coerced, it is admitted into evidence for the jury to evaluate. In these cases, juries are confronted with a classic attribution dilemma: A suspect's statement may indicate guilt (personal attribution) or it may simply provide the suspect with a way to avoid the unpleasant consequences of silence (situational attribution). According to attribution theory, jurors should reject all confessions made in response to external pressure. But wait. Remember the fundamental attribution error? In Chapter 4, we saw that people tend to overattribute behavior to persons and overlook the influence of situational forces. Is it similarly possible, as in the Amanda Knox and Central Park jogger cases, that jurors view suspects who confess as guilty even if their confessions were coerced during interrogation? To examine this question, Kassin and Sukel ( 1997) had mock jurors read one of three versions of a double murder trial. In a control version that did not contain a confession, only 19% voted guilty. In a low-pressure version in which the defendant was said to have confessed immediately upon questioning, the conviction rate rose considerably, to 62%. But there was a third, high-pressure condition in which participants were told that the defendant had confessed out of fear while his hands were cuffed behind his back, causing him pain. How did jurors in this situation react? Reasonably, they judged the confession to be coerced and said it did not influence their verdicts. Yet the conviction rate in this situation increased sharply, this time from 19% to 50%. Apparently, people are powerfully influenced by evidence of a confession, even when they concede that it was coerced. Confessions are powerfully incriminating not only to lay people. The same result was recently found in a study involving judges (Wallace & Kassin, 2012 ). The jury's reaction to confession evidence may also depend on how that evidence is presented. Today, many police departments videotape confessions for presentation in court. But could you tell the difference between a true confession and a false confession? Maybe not. Inside prison walls, Kassin, Meissner, and Norwick (2005) videotaped male inmates giving full confessions to the crimes for which they were incarcerated and concocting false confessions to offenses suggested by the researchers that they did not commit. College students and police investigators then watched and judged 10 different inmates, each of whom gave a true or false confession to one of five crimes: aggravated assault, armed robbery, burglary, breaking and entering, and car theft. The results showed that although the police were generally confident in their performance, neither group exhibited high levels of accuracy. In light of recently discovered false confessions, a number of states are beginning to require that the full interrogations be video recorded. This is an important reform to current practice, in part because it enables judges and juries to see for themselves how a confession came about and the extent to which the suspect was coerced (Kassin et al., 2010). But how should these events be staged for the camera? In a series of experiments, Daniel Lassiter and his colleagues (2001) taped mock confessions from three different camera angles so that either the suspect or the interrogator or both were visible. All participants heard the same exchanges of words, but those who watched the suspects saw the situations as less coercive overall than did those who focused on the interrogators. Follow-up research has shown that even the perceptions of experienced trial judges are influenced by these variations in camera perspective (Lassiter et al., 2007). The practical policy implications are clear: When the camera directs all eyes at the accused, jurors are likely to underestimate the amount of pressure exerted by the "hidden'' interrogator.

The Dynamics of Deliberation

If the walls of the jury room could talk, they would tell us that the decision-making process typically passes through three stages (Hastie et al., 1983; Stasser et al., 1982). Like other problem-solving groups, juries begin in a relaxed orientation period during which they set an agenda, talk in open-ended terms, raise questions, and explore the facts. Then, once differences of opinion are revealed (usually after the first vote is taken), factions develop and the group shifts abruptly into a period of open conflict. With the battle lines sharply drawn, discussion takes on a more focused, argumentative tone. Together, jurors scrutinize the evidence, construct stories to account for that evidence, and discuss the judge's instructions (Pennington & Hastie, 1992). If all jurors agree, they return a verdict. If not, the majority tries to achieve a consensus by converting the holdouts through information and social pressure. If unanimity is achieved, the group enters a period of reconciliation, during which it smoothes over the conflicts and affirms its satisfaction with the outcome. If the holdouts continue to disagree, the jury declares itself hung. This process is diagrammed in • Figure 12.8. When it comes to decision-making outcomes, deliberations follow a predictable course first discovered by Kalven and Zeisel (1966). By interviewing the members of 225 juries, they were able to reconstruct how these juries split on their very first vote. Out of 215 juries that opened with an initial majority, 209 reached a final verdict consistent with that first vote. This finding-which was later bolstered by the results of mock jury studies (Kerr, 1981; Stasser & Davis, 1981; see Table 12.5)-led Kalven and Zeisel (1966) to conclude that "the deliberation process might well be likened to what the developer does for an exposed film; it brings out the picture, but the outcome is predetermined" (p. 489). Setting aside Henry Fonda's Twelve Angry Men heroics, one can usually predict the final verdict by knowing where the individual jurors stand the first time they vote. There is one exception to this majority-wins rule in the jury room. In criminal trials, deliberation tends to produce a leniency bias that favors the defendant. All other factors being equal, individual jurors are more likely to vote guilty on their own than they are in a group; they are also more prone to convict before deliberations than they are afterward (MacCoun & Kerr, 1988). Look again at Table 12.5, and you'll see that juries that are equally divided in The Road to Agreement: From Individual Votes to a Group Verdict their initial vote are ultimately likely to return not-guilty verdicts. Perhaps it is easier to raise a "reasonable doubt" in other people's minds than it is to erase all doubt. In this regard, it is interesting to note that in their classic study, as described earlier, Kalven and Zeisel found that juries are more lenient than their judges would have been. Perhaps this disagreement is due, in part, to the fact that juries decide in groups and judges individually. Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed the decision-making dynamics of the jury in two ways. In the following pages, we look at these important issues and what they mean.

culture and biases study

Korean and Euro-Americans were presented with the "Good Samaritan" scenario (Choi, 1998; Choi and Nisbett, 2000) Condition 1 Participants told student did help Condition 2 Participants told student did not help Key questions: Regardless of the outcome, what do you believe is the probability that the student would have helped? How surprised were you by his actual behaviour? Results Condition 1 (did help) Probability of student helping = 80% No participants were surprised by the outcome Condition 2 (did not help) Koreans Probability of student helping = 50% Reported little surprise in the outcome Euro-Americans Probability of student helping = 80% Reported a lot of surprise in the outcome Koreans... -Not surprised by either outcome -The probability that they thought the student would help changed according to whether he helped or not

Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions

Initially (Hofstede, 1980), he reported data from 40 countries, and soon thereafter (Hofstede, 1984), he added 13 more. Most recently (Hofstede, 2001), he has reported data from 72 countries—the responses of more than 117,000 employees of a multinational business organization to his 63 work-related values items. This research project spanned more than 20 languages and seven occupational levels. Originally, Hofstede conducted ecological-level factor analyses on the country means for his work-related items and generated three dimensions that he suggested could describe the cultures of the countries sampled. He then split one of the dimensions into two on the basis of theoretical reasoning and the fact that controlling for country-level gross national product produced a differentiation in the factor structure. This resulted in his well-known set of four dimensions: Individualism Versus Collectivism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity. Recently, Hofstede incorporated a fifth dimension called Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede & Bond, 1984). The identification of these dimensions, their quantification on scales, and the placement of countries on these scales were major advances for the field, enabling researchers to predict and explain cultural differences along meaningful dimensions of variability. Of Hofstede's five dimensions, individualism collectivism became especially popular. Triandis championed this dimension and used it to explain many cross-cultural similarities and differences in behaviors, including cross-cultural differences in relationships with in-groups versus out-groups (Triandis, 1994, 1995, 2001; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988). Individualism has been theoretically related to cultural differences in the expression, perception, and antecedents of emotion (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988; Matsumoto, 1989, 1991; Wallbott & Scherer, 1988); self-monitoring and communication (Gudykunst et al., 1992); the effects of speech rate on perceptions of speakers' credibility (Lee & Boster, 1992); and family values (Georgas, 1989, 1991). In fact, although Hofstede's other dimensions have received some attention in the literature (Gudykunst, Nishida, & Chua, 1986; Gudykunst, Yang, & Nishida, 1985; Shuper & Sorrentino, 2004), individualism-collectivism became the most widely studied dimension in the field and has been conceptually linked to many psychological differences across cultures (Hofstede, 2001; Triandis, 1995, 2001).

False Confessions: Why Innocent People Confess

It could be argued that the use of trickery and deception does not pose a serious problem because only perpetrators confess; innocent people never confess to crimes they did not commit. This assumption, however, is incorrect. As hard as it is to believe, a number of chilling cases of false confessions are on record. Illustrating the point is the story of Amanda Knox, the American college student accused but ultimately acquitted for the tragic murder of her roommate in Italy. Also illustrating the point is the Central Park jogger case in which five false confessions to a rape were taken. In fact, research shows that false confessions were present in 25% of all cases involving prisoners who were convicted and later proved innocent by DNA evidence (Garrett, 2011). Importantly, too, this sample represents just the tip of an iceberg. Although most case studies are based in the United States and England, proven false confessions have been documented in countries all over the world-including Canada, Norway, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Japan (Kassin et al., 2010). It seems unimaginable. Why would an innocent person ever confess to police to a crime he or she did not commit? There are two reasons-and two types of false confession. Sometimes innocent people under police interrogation agree to confess as an act of mere compliance-to escape a very stressful situation. Applying basic psychology, Stephanie Madon and her colleagues (2012) point out that human beings in general are influenced more by rewards and punishments that are immediate (now) than by those that are delayed (later). People are particularly short-sighted when they are tired, stressed, or otherwise in need. For a suspect under intense scrutiny and interrogation, stopping the process through confession may feel so urgent that he or she does not fully consider the future consequence of doing so. Madon et al. demonstrated this type of short-sightedness in a series of experiments in which participants were more likely to admit to various transgressions (such as buying alcohol before they were 21, driving without a license, illegally downloading music, shoplifting, or taking credit for someone else's idea) when doing so was in their immediate interest and the negative consequence would come later. In real life, the process of interrogation can be so stressful that the short-term benefit of confession outweighs the long-term benefit of denial. The experiences of Amanda Knox and the Central Park jogger boys illustrate the point. All had been in custody and interrogated overnight, relentlessly, for several hours, before giving their confessions. Such long periods of time bring fatigue, despair, and a deprivation of sleep and other need states. In both cases, the police and suspects disagree about what happened during these unrecorded hours so it is not possible to know for sure. In both cases, however, the defendants claimed that they felt threatened and uncertain as to what would happen if they refused to confess. In both cases, the defendants then tried to withdraw their confessions as soon as the pressure of interrogation had passed. In contrast to instances in which innocent people confess as an act of compliance, or obedience to authority, sometimes the process of interrogation can cause innocent people to confess because they become enough to believe that they are guilty of the crime. In these instances, the false confession illustrates a strong form of social influence known as internalization. This process was evident in the recent story of three men and three women in Beatrice, Nebraska. In 1989, they were convicted of the murder of a 68-year-old woman. Five of them pled guilty; four gave vividly detailed confessions to police as a result of intense interrogations. Twenty years later, all six defendants were pardoned after DNA testing cleared them and identified the actual culprit. After a reinvestigation, the Nebraska Attorney General's Office concluded that despite all the confessions, these individuals were innocent " beyond all doubt:' Yet remarkably, all of them had come to internalize the erroneous belief in their own guilt. One woman stood by her statement until just before she was pardoned, at which point she said, "I guess I was brainwashed" (Hammel, 2008).

Culture and Reasoning

Once we have information encoded and organized, we put it to use! We use our knowledge to reason and formulate expectations about the world we live in. How convincing do you find these arguments to be? All birds have ulnar arteries Therefore, all eagles have ulnar arteries (typical bird) All birds have ulnar arteries Therefore, all penguins have ulnar arteries (atypical bird) Westerners find both equally convincing whereas easterners are more convinced with the first sentence

The Judge's Instructions

One of the most important rituals in any trial is the judge's instructions to the jury. It is through these instructions that juries are educated about relevant legal concepts, informed of the verdict options, admonished to disregard extralegal factors, and advised on how to conduct their deliberations. To make verdicts adhere to the law, juries are supposed to comply with these instructions. The task seems simple enough, but there are problems. To begin with, the jury's intellectual competence has been called into question. For years, the courts have doubted whether jurors understood their instructions. One skeptical judge put it bluntly when he said that "these words may as well be spoken in a foreign language" (Frank, 1949, p. 181). He may have been right. When actual instructions are tested with community mock jurors, the results reveal high levels of misunderstanding- a serious problem in light of the fact that jurors seem to have many preconceptions about crimes and the requirements of the law. Comprehensibility is even problematic when it comes to death penalty instructions that are required in capital cases (Wiener et al., 1995) and for college students as well as ordinary jurors from the community (Rose & Ogloff, 2001). There is, however, reason for hope. Research has shown that when conventional instructions-which are poorly structured, esoteric, and filled with complex legal terms-are rewritten in plain English, comprehension rates increase markedly (Elwork et al., 1982; English & Sales, 1997). Supplementing a judge's instructions with flow charts, computer animations, and other audiovisual aids is also effective (Brewer et al., 2004 ). A lack of comprehension is one reason that a judge's instruction may have little impact. But there's a second reason: Sometimes juries disagree with the law, thus raising the controversial issue of jury nullification. Because juries deliberate in private, they can choose to disregard, or "nullify;' the judge's instructions. The pages of history are filled with poignant examples. Consider the case of someone tried for euthanasia, or "mercy killing:' By law, it is murder. But to the defendant, it might be a noble act on behalf of a loved one. Faced with this kind of conflict-an explosive moral issue on which public opinion is sharply dividedjuries often evaluate the issue in human terms, use their own notions of commonsense justice, and vote despite the law for acquittal (Finkel, 1995; Horowitz & Willging, 1991; Niedermeier et al., 1999). This nullification tendency is particularly likely to occur when jurors who disagree with the law are told of their right to nullify it (Meissner et al., 2003). In these instances, research suggests the possibility that a nullification instruction may unleash a form of "chaos;' liberating jurors to follow their emotions in an emotionally charged case (Horowitz et al., 2006). Jury nullification is what happened in cases pertaining to physician-assisted suicide, as was practiced by the late Jack Kevorkian, a pathologist. During the 1990s, Kevorkian presided over 130 deaths. For three of these incidents, he was tried for murder and the juries, sympathetic to his plight, practiced nullification and acquitted him. Then he injected a terminally ill man with a lethal dose of drugs, videotaped the death, gave the tape to CBS News, and again challenged authorities to take him to court. They did, and in 1999, after having defied the law in the boldest of ways, Kevorkian was found guilty. He was Prisoner #284797 in a Michigan state prison until he was released on parole in June 2007. He died 4 years later at the age of 83.

Juries in Black and White: Does Race Matter?

Research suggests that there is no simple answer. In one study, Norbert Kerr and others (1995) tested the most intuitive hypothesis of all, that jurors favor defendants who are similar to themselves. They presented mixed-race groups with a strong or weak case involving a black or white defendant. They found that when the evidence was weak, the participants were more lenient in their verdicts toward the defendant of the same race. Yet when the evidence was strong, they were harsher against that similar defendant, as if distancing themselves from his or her wrongdoing. In a second study, Sommers and Ellsworth (2001) tested the popular notion that jurors will show preference for others of their racial group when a crime involves race, as when it is a motivated hate crime or when attorneys "play the race card" in arguments to the jury. Yet they found the opposite pattern. When race was not an issue that is "on the radar;' white jurors predictably treated the defendant more favorably when he was white than when he was black. Yet when race was made a prominent issue at trial, white jurors bent over backward not to appear prejudiced and did not discriminate. Other research has shown that jurors may at times be motivated to watch for racist tendencies in themselves, leading them to process trial information even more carefully when a defendant is black than when he or she is white (Sargent & Bradfield, 2004). The potential for individual jurors to exhibit racial bias may also depend on the composition of the jury with whom they expect to deliberate. In a courthouse located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sommers (2006) showed a Court TV summary of a sexual assault trial in which the defendant was African American. A total of 200 locals participated in 29 six-person mock juries after a voir dire that either did or did not make race an issue. Ultimately, the juries that were formed were either all white or heterogeneous, consisting of four whites and two blacks. After the videotaped trial summary but before the groups deliberated, each juror was asked to indicate his or her verdict preference. Look at • Figure 12.6, and you'll see that jurors were influenced by the racial composition of their groups as a whole. In diverse groups, 34% of white jurors voted guilty compared to 23% of black jurors, a small difference. In the all-white groups, however, 51 % of jurors voted guilty, which represented a significant jump compared to both blacks and whites in the more diverse groups.

Perceiving the Crime

Some kinds of persons and events are more difficult to perceive than others. Common sense tells us that brief exposure time, poor lighting, long distance, physical disguise, and distraction can all limit a witness's perceptions. For example, Rod Lindsay and his colleagues (2008) had approximately 1,300 participants observe a target person, outdoors, at one of various distances ranging from 5 meters (16 feet) to 50 meters (164 feet). They found, first, that the witnesses were not accurate at estimating distance and, second, that the further witnesses were from the target, the less accurate was they were at identifying the target in a lineup shortly afterward. Research has uncovered other relevant aspects of the witnessing situation. Consider the effects of a witness's emotional state. Often people are asked to recall a bloody shooting, a car wreck, or an assault-emotional events that trigger high levels of stress. In a study that illustrates the debilitating effects of stress, Charles Morgan and others (2004) randomly assigned trainees in a military survival school to undergo a realistic high-stress or low-stress mock interrogation. Twenty-four hours later he found that those in the high-stress condition had difficulty identifying their interrogators in a lineup. In another study, Tim Valentine and Jan Mesout (2009) fitted adult visitors to the London Dungeon-a house of horrors-with a wireless heart monitor and asked them afterward to describe and identify a scary person they had encountered inside. The more anxious visitors were in the Dungeon, the less accurate they were later at describing and identifying the scary person in a lineup. It turns out that arousal has a complex effect on memory. Realizing the importance of what they are observing, highly aroused witnesses zoom in on the central features of an event such as the culprit, the victim, or a weapon. As a direct result of this narrowed field of attention, however, arousal impairs a witness's memory for other less central details (Brown, 2003; Christianson, 1992). Alcohol, a drug often involved in crimes, can also cause problems. When participants in one study witnessed a live staged crime, those who had earlier consumed fruit juice were more accurate in their recollections than were those who had been served an alcoholic beverage (Yuille & Tollestrup, 1990). Under the influence of alcohol, people can recognize the perpetrator in a lineup, but they too often make false identifications when the actual perpetrator is absent (Dysart et al., 2002). The weapon-focus effect is also an important factor. Across a wide range of settings, research shows that when a criminal pulls out a gun, a razor blade, or a knife, witnesses are less able to identify that culprit than if no weapon is present (Pickel, 1999; Steblay 1992). There are two reasons for this effect. First, people are agitated by the sight of a menacing stimulus, as when participants in one study were approached by an experimenter who was holding a syringe or threatening to administer an injection (Maass & Kohnken, 1989). Second, even in a harmless situation, a witness's eyes lock in on a weapon like magnets, drawing attention away from the face (Hope & Wright, 2007). To demonstrate, Elizabeth Loftus and others ( 1987) showed people slides of a customer who walked up to a bank teller and pulled out either a pistol or a chequebook. By tracking eye movements, these researchers found that people spent more time looking at the gun than at the chequebook. The net result: An impairment in the ability to identify the criminal in a lineup. The weapon focus effect is the tendency for witnesses who observe an armed criminal to direct their attention toward the weapon so that they fail to encode and remember information about the perpetrator's physical appearance as accurately as they would have if no weapon had been visible. The race is another important consideration. By varying the racial makeup of participants and target persons in the laboratory and real-life interactions, researchers discovered that people are more accurate at recognizing members of their own racial group than of a race other than their own-an effect known as the own-race identification bias (Malpass & Kravitz, 1969). In one field study, for example, 86 convenience store clerks in El Paso, Texas, were asked to identify three customers-one white, one African American, and one Mexican American-all experimental confederates who had stopped in and made a purchase earlier that day. It turned out that the white, black, and Mexican American clerks were all most likely to accurately identify customers belonging to their own racial or ethnic group (Platz & Hosch, 1988). The finding that "they all look alike" ( referring to members of other groups) is found reliably and in many different racial and ethnic groups. Indeed, Christian Meissner and John Brigham (2001) statistically combined the results of 39 studies involving a total of 5,000 mock witnesses. They found that the witnesses were consistently less accurate and more prone to making false identifications when they tried to recognize target persons from racial and ethnic groups other than their own. Paralleling this research, studies also show that children, young adults, and the elderly have more difficulty recognizing others of an age group other than their own (Rhodes & Anastasi, 2012).

Citing social psychological research on stereotyping and prejudice

Sommers and Norton (2008) point to two problems: (1) The influence of conscious and unconscious racial stereotypes on social perceptions is prevalent and likely to influence lawyers in the courtroom; and (2) these racial biases are difficult to identify in specific instances because lawyers, like everyone else, typically do not acknowledge having been influenced by their stereotypes. In a study that illustrated both points, Sommers and Norton (2007) presented college students, law students, and attorneys with a summary of a criminal trial involving a black defendant and asked them to choose between two prospective jurors with various characteristics-one white, the other black. As predicted, all groups were far more likely to challenge the juror who was black rather than the one who was white, yet very few subjects cited race as a factor in their decisions. The intuitive approach to jury selection sometimes leads to discrimination on the basis of race and other characteristics. This approach is also not very effective. Thus, although some experienced trial attorneys take pride in their jury-selection skills, researchers have found that most lawyers cannot effectively predict how jurors will vote, either on the basis of their intuitive rules of thumb ( Olczak et al., 1991) or by relying on how prospective jurors answer questions during the voir dire (Kerr et al., 1991; Zeise! & Diamond, 1978). Apparently, whether a juror characteristic predicts verdicts depends on the specifics of each and every case. Hence a new service industry was born: scientific jury selection.

Suspect Interviews: The Psychology of Lie Detection

Sometimes police identify a suspect for interrogation by talking to witnesses and informants, obtaining physical evidence from the crime scene, and other methods of investigation. Often, however, police decide to interrogate a particular person based solely on a personal judgment they make by conducting a special pre-interrogation interview that exposes deception. In Criminal Interrogations and Confessions, an influential manual on interrogation first published in 1962 and now in its fifth edition, Inbau and others (2013) have proposed a process by which police can distinguish truths from lies. In this approach, police are advised to ask certain non-accusatory questions and then to observe changes in the suspect's verbal and nonverbal behavior-looking, for example, at eye contact, pauses, posture, fidgety movements-to determine whether he or she is telling the truth or lying. For a person who is under suspicion, a police officer's judgment at this stage is crucial because it can determine whether a suspect is judged deceptive and interrogated or presumed innocent and sent home. In theory, this approach makes sense. As described in Chapter 4 on social perception, however, research has consistently shown that most of the verbal and nonverbal demeanor cues that are suggested do not discriminate at high levels of accuracy between truth-telling and deception (DePaulo et al., 2003; Hartwig & Bond, 2011). At present, it appears that laypeople on average are only 54% accurate; that training produces little if any improvement; and that police officers, judges, psychiatrists, customs inspectors, and other "professionals" tend to perform only slightly better, if at all (Meissner & Kassin, 2004; Vrij, 2008). That people are notoriously inept at making accurate judgments of truth and deception can be seen every day-which is why Ponzi scheme perpetrators like Bernie Madoff can fool even an affluent and intelligence clientele. Are there more accurate means of lie detection? In part to improve performance, police over the years have used a polygraph, or what most of us would call a lie-detector test.

Jury Decision Making

The criminal justice system is complex. Yet through it all, the trial-a relatively infrequent but highly dramatic event-is at the heart and soul of the system. The threat of trial is what motivates parties to gather evidence and, later, to negotiate a deal. And when it is over, the trial by judge or jury forms the basis for sentencing and appeals decisions. In this section, we examine the three stages of an American trial: ( 1) jury selection; (2) the presentation of evidence, arguments, and instructions; and (3) the processes by which juries deliberate to reach a verdict.

voir dire

The pretrial examination of prospective jurors by the judge or opposing lawyers to uncover signs of bias.

How is scientific jury selection carried out?

The procedure is simple. Because lawyers are often not allowed to ask jurors intrusive and personal questions, they try to determine jurors' attitudes and verdict tendencies from information that is known about their backgrounds. The relevance of this information can be determined through focus groups, mock juries, or community-wide surveys, in which statistical relationships are sought between general demographic factors and attitudes relevant to a particular case. Then, during the voir dire, lawyers ask prospective jurors about their backgrounds and use peremptory challenges to exclude those whose profiles are associated with unfavorable attitudes. As you might expect, scientific jury selection is a controversial enterprise. By law, consultants are permitted to communicate with or approach the pro ) spective jurors themselves, despite the tactics in Runaway fury.

Why are eyewitness confidence and accuracy not more highly related?

The reason is that confidence levels can be raised and lowered by factors that do not have an impact on identification accuracy. To demonstrate, Elizabeth Luus and Wells (1994) staged a theft in front of pairs of participants and then had each separately identify the culprit from a photographic lineup. After the participants made their identifications, the experimenters led them to believe that their partner, a co-witness, either had picked the same person, a similar looking different person, or a dissimilar-looking different person or had said that the thief was not in the lineup. Participants were then questioned by a police officer who asked, "On a scale from 1 to 10, how confident are you in your identification?" The result: Participants became more confident when told that a co-witness picked the same person or a dissimilar alternative and less confident when told that the co-witness picked a similar alternative or none at all. Other studies as well have demonstrated that eyewitnesses are influenced in this way by the reports of co-witnesses (Gabbert et al., 2003; Shaw et al., 1997; Skagerberg, 2007). Other studies confirm that a witness's confidence can be influenced by extraneous information. John Shaw (1996) found that mock witnesses who are repeatedly questioned about their observations become more and more confident over time-even though they did not become more accurate. Demonstrating what they called "the dud effect;' Steve Charman and his colleagues (2011) found that an eyewitness's confidence in a mistaken identification is inflated by the presence of fillers in the lineup that bear no resemblance to the criminal. By contrast to these duds, the witness's lineup choice seems closer and more correct.

East vs. West Comparisons

The vast majority of cross-cultural research that is published compares Westerners (Euro-Americans, Euro-Canadians, Western Europeans, and Australians and New Zealanders from a European Background) with East Asian populations (Chinese, Korean, and Japanese) Experts, resources, and participants are easily accessible in these areas These groups represent extreme ends of the continuum; therefore, psychologists are more likely to study them

format

When witnesses are presented with a simultaneous spread of all photographs, they tend to make relative, multiple-choicelike judgments, comparing the different alternatives and picking the one who looks most like the criminal. This strategy increases the tendency to make a false identification. The solution: When the same photos are shown in a sequential lineup, one picture at a time, witnesses tend to make absolute judgments by comparing each target person with their memory of the criminal. This situation diminishes the risk of a forced and often false identification of an innocent suspect (Lindsay & Bellinger, 1999; Lindsay et al., 1991; Lindsay & Wells, 1985). Some researchers are concerned that the benefit of the sequential format will depend on how it is implemented and the extent to which it reduces correct identifications when the actual perpetrator is in the lineup. But the results are clear: In a metaanalysis of 72 comparisons of simultaneous and sequential lineups involving more than 13,000 mock witnesses, identifications were more accurate when the photos were presented in a sequential format (Steblay, Dysart, & Wells, 2011).

self-construal

how we characterize ourselves, which can vary depending on what identity is salient at any given moment refers to the grounds of self-definition, and the extent to which the self is defined independently of others or interdependently with others. Initially, the term derived from perceived cultural differences in the self.

cultural attribution fallacy

the inference that something ''cultural'' about the groups being compared produced the observed differences when there is no empirical justification for this inference. This limitation exists partly because of the ways cultures are sampled—via country, ethnic, or racial groups—and partly because many cross-cultural studies involve comparisons of only two or a small handful of groups. The groupings used, however, are not necessarily cultural. The most widely used cultural interpretation involves the cultural dimension Individualism‐Collectivism (IC)

Markus and Kitayama's (1991)

work linking individualism-collectivism on the cultural level with the concept of self on the individual level. They posited that individualistic cultures foster the development of independent self-construals, which, in turn, have consequences for mental processes and behaviors. Likewise, they suggested that collectivistic cultures foster the development of interdependent self-construals, which have different consequences. This work was important in the evolution of crosscultural research methods because it identified an important potential mediator of cultural differences—self-construals. Different types of self-construals, emerging from different cultural contexts, could therefore be one of the sources of observed cultural differences. self construals = self-definition, and the extent to which the self is defined independently of others or interdependently with others. Initially, the term derived from perceived cultural differences in the self

Focus of cross-cultural research

Testing possible limitations to our knowledge Are our psychological principles and theories universal or culture-specific?

positive feedback eyewitness testimony effects

A witness's confidence is not all that can be affected by extraneous information. Gary Wells and Amy Bradfield (1998) found that eyewitnesses who received positive feedback about their false identifications went on to reconstruct their memory of other aspects of the eyewitnessing experience. In a series of studies, they showed participants a security camera videotape of a man who shot a guard followed by a set of photographs that did not contain the actual gunman (in other words, all identifications made were false). The experimenter then said to some witnesses, but not to others, "Oh good. You identified the actual murder suspect:' When witnesses were later asked about the whole experience, those given the confirming feedback "recalled" that they had paid more attention to the event, had a better view of the culprit, and found it easier to make the identification (see• Figure 12.4).

Scientific Jury Selection

In a movie based on John Grisham's Runaway Jury, a ruthless jury consultant named Rankin Fitch, played by Gene Hackman, helps lawyers select jurors through the use of intrusive high-tech surveillance work. Burrowing deep into the lives of prospective jurors, Fitch trails them, investigates them, and even resorts at times to bribery, blackmail, and intimidation. Determined to stack the jury in order to defend gun company defendants against a multimillion-dollar wrongful death lawsuit, Fitch declares, ''A trial is too important to be left up to juries:' Grisham's depiction of jury consulting is a work of fiction, not fact. But it is based on a kernel of truth. Instead of relying on hunches, successful stock market investors, baseball managers, and poker players play the odds whenever they can. Now many trial lawyers do too. In recent years, the "art" of jury selection has been transformed into something of a "science" (Lieberman & Sales, 2007). This use of jury consultants began during the Vietnam War era, when the federal government prosecuted a group of antiwar activists known as the Harrisburg Seven. The case against the defendants was strong, and the trial was to be held in the conservative city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. To help the defense select a jury, sociologist Jay Schulman and his colleagues ( 1973) surveyed the local community by interviewing 840 residents. Two kinds of information were taken from each resident: demographic (for example, sex, race, age, and education) and attitudes relevant to the trial (for example, attitudes toward the government, the war, and political dissent). By correlating these variables, Schulman's team came up with a profile of the ideal defense juror: "a female Democrat with no religious preference and a white-collar job or a skilled blue-collar job" (p. 40). Guided by this result, the defense selected its jury. The rest is history: Against all odds, the trial ended in a hung jury, split 10 to 2 in favor of acquittal. Today, the technique known as scientific jury selection is used often, especially in high-profile criminal trials and civil trials in which large sums of money are at stake. Research shows, for example, that jurors are differently predisposed when confronted with cases that pit lone individuals against large corporations, with some people favouring big business and others harbouring an anti-business prejudice (Hans, 2000). But how effective are the techniques that are employed? It's hard to say. On the one hand, trial lawyers who have used scientific jury selection boast an impressive winning percentage. On the other hand, it is impossible to know the extent to which these victories are attributable to the jury-selection surveys (Strier, 1999).

So does scientific jury selection work?

Although more data are needed to evaluate the claims made, it appears that attitudes can influence verdicts in some cases and that pretrial research can help lawyers identify these attitudes (Lieberman et al., 2011; Seltzer, 2006). As we'll soon see, the linkage between attitudes and verdicts is particularly strong in cases that involve capital punishment. Before concluding our review of scientific jury selection, let's stop to consider an ethical question: Is justice enhanced or impaired by the intervention of professional jury consultants? Is the real goal for lawyers to eliminate jurors who are biased or to create juries slanted in their favor? Those who practice scientific jury selection argue that picking juries according to survey results is simply a more refined version of what lawyers are permitted to do by intuition. If there's a problem, they say, it is not in the science but in the law that permits trial attorneys to use peremptory challenges to exclude jurors who are not obviously biased. In response, critics argue that scientific jury selection tips the scales of justice in favor of wealthy clients who can afford the service, an outcome that further widens the socioeconomic gap that exists within the courts. Hence, Neil and Dorit Kressel (2002), authors of Stack and Sway: The New Science of jury Consulting, 5 argue that peremptory challenges, which enable lawyers and their consultants to strike jurors who are not overtly biased, should be abolished.

response bias

Another important problem area in cross-cultural research is the possibility of rb, which can be defined as a systematic tendency to respond in a certain way to items or scales. In cross-cultural comparisons, several different types of rb are a potential concern. One is socially desirable responding—that is, the tendency to give answers that make oneself look good (Paulhaus, 1984). People of certain cultures may have greater concern about responding in socially desirable ways compared with people of other cultures. There are two facets of socially desirable responding, self-deceptive enhancement (seeing oneself in a positive light) and impression management. Lalwani, Shavitt, and Johnson (2006), for instance, demonstrated that European American university students scored higher on self-deceptive enhancement than both Korean Americans and students from Singapore, but the latter two groups scored higher on impression management than European Americans. Other types of rb are acquiescence bias, which is the tendency to agree rather than disagree to items on questionnaires; extreme response bias, which is the tendency to use the ends of a scale regardless of item content; and the referencegroup effect (Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholtz, 2002). The latter is explained by the notion that people make implicit social comparisons with others when making ratings on scales, rather than relying on direct inferences about a private, personal value system (Peng, Nisbett, & Wong, 1997). Johnson, Kulesa, Cho, and Shavitt (2004) examined these biases in 19 countries and correlated indices of the biases with each country's score on Hofstede's (2001) cultural dimensions. Extreme rb was associated with cultures that encouraged masculinity, power, and status. Johnson et al. suggested that this response style achieves clarity, precision, and decisiveness in one's explicit verbal statements, characteristics that are valued in these cultures. Also, respondents from individualistic cultures were less likely to engage in acquiescence bias than respondents from collectivistic cultures. Rb can be viewed as methodological artifacts that need to be controlled in order to get to ''true'' responses, but they can also be viewed as an important part of cultural influence on data. The complexity of this issue was demonstrated in a recent study showing that when rb's were statistically controlled, between-country differences on individual level measures of culture disappeared (Matsumoto, 2006b). Regardless of how researchers choose to view this issue, we agree with Smith (2004) in that the potential effects of response bias should be acknowledged and addressed in data analysis in cross-cultural comparisons and unpackaging studies.

Police Interrogations: Social Influence Under Pressure

As the events of the Central Park jogger case unfolded, questions mounted: Why would five boys-or anyone else, for that matter-confess to a crime they did not commit? In general, what social influences are brought to bear on suspects interrogated by police? Many years ago, police detectives would use brute force to get confessions. Among the commonly used coercive methods were prolonged confinement and isolation; explicit threats; deprivations of sleep, food, and other needs; extreme sensory discomfort (for example, by shining a bright, blinding strobe light on a suspect's face); and assorted forms of physical violence (for example, forcing suspects to stand for hours at a time or beating them with a rubber hose, which seldom left visible marks). Today, the police are required to warn suspects of their Miranda rights to silence and an attorney, and the tactics they use are more psychological in nature. In Criminal lnterrogation and Confessions, Inbau et al. (2013) advise police, once they have identified a suspect they believe to be lying, to conduct a process of interrogation. This process begins when police put a suspect alone-with no friends or family present-into a small, bare, soundproof room, a physical environment that is designed to arouse feelings of social isolation and discomfort. Next, they present a vivid nine-step procedure designed to get suspects to confess (see Table 12.3).

Individual-Level Measures of Culture

As we mentioned earlier, Triandis became a major proponent of the importance of the individualism-collectivism dimension. One of his and his colleagues' major accomplishments was the development of a battery of measures that operationalized this dimension on the individual level. Hui (1988), for example, developed the INDCOL scale to measure individualism-collectivism tendencies in relation to six collectivities (spouse, parents and children, kin, neighbors, friends, and coworkers and classmates). Later, Triandis, Leung, Villareal, and Clack (1985); Triandis, Bontempo, Betancourt, and Bond (1986); and Triandis et al. (1988) built on this work to develop additional measures of individualism-collectivism. Triandis, McCusker, and Hui (1990) used a multimethod approach to measuring individualism-collectivism that represented an evolution not only methodologically but also conceptually. These researchers viewed individualism-collectivism as a cultural syndrome that includes values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; they treated the various psychological domains of subjective culture as a collective rather than as separate aspects of culture. Their multimethod approach included ratings of the social content of the self, perceptions of homogeneity of in-groups and out-groups, attitude and value ratings, and perceptions of social behavior as a function of social distance. On the individual level, Triandis et al. (1985) referred to individualism as idiocentrism and collectivism as allocentrism. Most recently, Triandis and his colleagues (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, & Gelfand, 1995) have developed measures that include items assessing a revised concept of individualism and collectivism they call horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Triandis and his colleagues are not the only researchers who have developed individual-level measures of individualismcollectivism. For example, Matsumoto, Weissman, Preston, Brown, and Kupperbusch's (1997) context-specific measure and Yamaguchi's (1994) collectivism scale have been used successfully to demonstrate that individualism-collectivism mediates observed between-country differences (Matsumoto et al., 2002). Other scales operationalize Hofstede's (1980) four cultural dimensions (see Table 2). To be sure, some of these scales were developed as individual-level measures of personality constructs, not specifically to operationalize cultural dimensions, and thus have no cross-cultural validity data. They are listed here to illustrate the kinds of scales that may be available for use on the individual level, depending on the culture-level dimension that needs to be operationalized.

What kinds of context variables can be used?

Basically, a context variable—be it a paper-and-pencil measure of traits, attitudes, values, opinions, worldviews, or norms or a behavioral assessment of actual cultural practices— *needs to operationalize the active cultural ingredients that researchers believe account for predicted differences.* In this section, we outline several possibilities. This list is intended to be illustrative, not comprehensive. Each variable we discuss has advantages and disadvantages, and we urge researchers to consider their theoretical ramifications fully

equivalence

By far the most important concept that researchers need to be aware of when conducting cross-cultural research is e, which we define as a state or condition of similarity in conceptual meaning and empirical method between cultures that allows comparisons to be meaningful. E needs to be established as much as possible for all aspects of research, including sampling methods and characteristics, language, data-collection procedures, theoretical framework, and meaningfulness and relevance of hypotheses. Perhaps the most important area in which e needs to be ascertained is in measurement. Measurement e refers to the degree to which measures used to collect data in different cultures are equally valid and reliable. Establishing linguistic e, through procedures such as backtranslation, does not establish measurement equivalence. Measurement e can only be ascertained psychometrically. For instance, if a questionnaire is used in a cross-cultural comparison, researchers should ascertain that its factor structures are equivalent across the cultures sampled (e.g., through confirmatory factor analysis), and that intercorrelations among factor scores within and between measures are equivalent across cultures (establishing structural e). Item analyses conducted separately for each culture can ascertain the internal reliability of the items in each culture. Optimally, researchers should consider using measures that demonstrate equivalent convergence with other constructs in the cultures sampled, although this is often difficult because measures are not often validated to the same degree in different cultures, and because there are inherent cultural differences in convergent relationships between constructs. Cross-cultural validation studies that demonstrate the reliability and validity of measures are often necessary prior to their use in cross-cultural comparisons, as well as in the development of indigenous measures.

Summary east asian versus westerners

East Asians Attend to all items in the field; focus on relationships Categorize items based on relationships Rely on experience when evaluating conclusions Are not surprised by unforeseen outcomes Expect change to occur in the future Holistic thinking Westerners Attend to most salient items in the field; isolate items Categorize items based on common features Use logic when evaluating conclusions Are surprised by unforeseen outcomes Do not expect change in future analytical thinking

Confessions

Every now and then, an extraordinary event comes along that shakes the way you think. The Central Park jogger case was one of these events. In 1989, five boys who were 14 to 16 years old were found guilty of a monstrous assault and rape of a female jogger in New York's Central Park after they confessed (four of them did so on videotape) in vivid detail. Thirteen years later, a serial rapist named Matias Reyes stepped forward from prison to admit that he alone, not the boys, had committed the crime. As part of a thorough investigation of Reyes's claim, the district attorney DNA-tested the semen from the crime scene and found that it was a match: Reyes was the rapist. The five boys, now men, were innocent. Their confessions were false, and the convictions were vacated (Burns, 2011)

Eyewitness Testimony

Every year, thousands of people are charged with crimes solely on the basis of eyewitness evidence. Many of these eyewitness accounts are accurate, but many are not-which is why psychologists have been interested in the topic for more than 100 years (Doyle, 2005). Several years ago, the National Institute of Justice reported on 28 wrongful convictions in which convicted felons were proved innocent by new tests of old DNA evidence after varying numbers of years in prison. Remarkably, as in Ronald Cotton's case, every one of these convictions involved a mistaken identification (Connors et al., 1996). Now, some 300 DNA exonerations later, it is clear: Eyewitness error is the most common cause of wrongful convictions (Wells, Memon, & Penrod, 2006; Brewer & Wells, 2011).

Pretrial publicity is potentially dangerous in two respects.

First, it often divulges information that is not later allowed into the trial record. Second is the matter Contaminating Effects of Pretrial Publicity of timing. Because many news stories precede the actual trial, jurors learn certain facts even before they enter the courtroom. From what is known about the power of first impressions, the implications are clear. If jurors receive prejudicial news information about a defendant before trial, that information will distort the way they interpret the facts of the case (Hope et al., 2004). In fact, an analysis of secretly recorded mock jury deliberations showed that exposure to pretrial publicity completely tainted their discussions of the defendant and evidence-despite the judge's warning to disregard that information (Ruva & Le Vasseur, 2012). So, is there a solution? Since the biasing effects persist despite the practices of jury selection, the presentation of hard evidence, cautionary words from the judge, and open jury deliberations, justice may demand that highly publicized cases be postponed or their trials moved to less informed communities (Steblay et al., 1999; Studebaker & Penrod, 1997).

Testifying in Court

Eyewitnesses can be inaccurate, but that's only part of the problem. The other part is that their testimony is not easy to evaluate. To examine how juries view eyewitness testimony, Gary Wells, Rod Lindsay, and others conducted a series of early experiments in which they staged the theft of a calculator in the presence of unsuspecting research participants, who were later cross-examined after trying to pick the culprit from a photo spread. Other participants, who served as mock jurors, observed the questioning and judged the witnesses. The results were sobering: Jurors overestimated how accurate the eyewitnesses were and could not distinguish between witnesses whose identifications were correct and those whose identifications were incorrect (Lindsay et al., 1981; Wells et al., 1979). There appear to be two problems. First, people do not know about many aspects of human perception and memory through common sense. Brian Cutler and others ( 1988) found that mock jurors were not sensitive enough to the effects of lineup instructions, weapon focus, and certain other aspects of an eyewitnessing situation, such as the own-race bias, in evaluating the testimony of an eyewitness. People are knowledgeable about some factors but not others (Desmarais & Read, 2011). The second problem is that people tend to base their judgments of an eyewitness largely on how confident that witness is, a factor that only is modestly predictive of accuracy. This statement may seem surprising, but studies have shown that the witness who declares "I am absolutely certain" is not necessarily more likely to be right than the one who appears less certain (Penrod & Cutler, 1995; Sporer et al., 1995; 0 Wells & Murray, 1984).

Improving Eyewitness Justice

Having described the problems with information obtained from eyewitnesses, social psychologists are in a position to put their knowledge to use in two important ways: ( 1) By educating judges and juries about the science so they can better evaluate eyewitnesses who testify in court, and (2) by making eyewitness identification evidence itself more accurate. To educate juries, psychologists sometimes testify as eyewitness experts at trial. Just like medical doctors who testify about a patient's physical condition, economists who testify on monopolies and other antitrust matters, and architectural engineers who testify on the structural integrity of buildings, psychologists are often called by one party or the other to inform the trial jury about relevant aspects of human perception, memory, and behavior (Cutler, 2009). What, specifically, do these experts say to the jury? What findings do they present in court? Several years ago, researchers surveyed 64 eyewitness experts, many of whose studies are described in this chapter. The principles listed in Table 12.2 were seen by the vast majority of respondents as highly reliable and worthy of expert testimony (Kassin et al., 2001). Does the jury need to be informed? On some matters, yes. Research shows that there are certain aspects of the psychology of eyewitness testimony (for example, the fact that lineup instructions and presentation format can affect whether eyewitnesses will identify an innocent person) that the average person does not already know as a matter of common sense (Desmarais & Read, 2011). This selective lack of knowledge is not limited to lay people. Surveys show that compared to experts, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys also lack awareness of many of the factors described in this chapter that influence eyewitness memory (Benton et al., 2005; Wise & Safer, 2004; Magnussen et al., 2008). In recent years, psychologists have also helped to improve upon the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Led by Gary Wells, eyewitness researchers have replicated their laboratory experiments in police departments; they have testified not only in trials but in state legislatures and criminal justice commissions; they have appeared in national news shows; they have submitted briefs to courts; and they have inspired a wave of state-level reforms-all designed to improve the procedures that are used in getting lineup identifications from eyewitnesses. At present, for example, a growing number of police departments require the use of double-blind lineups, unbiased instructions, sequential presentation formats, and the immediate assessment of a witness's confidence.

Jury Selection

If you're ever accused of a crime in the United States or involved in a lawsuit, you have a constitutional right to a trial by an impartial jury from your community. This right is considered essential to doing justice within a democracy. Yet whenever a controversial verdict is reached in a high-profile case, people, right or wrong, blame the 12 individuals who constituted the jury. That's why it is important to know how juries are selected. Jury selection is a three-stage process. First, the court uses voter registration lists, telephone directories, and other sources to compile a master list of eligible citizens who live in the community. Second, so that a representative sample can be obtained, a certain number of people from the list are randomly drawn and summoned for duty. If you've ever been called, you know what happens next. Before people who appear in court are placed on a jury, they are subject to what is known as voir dire, a pretrial interview in which the judge and lawyers question the prospective jurors for signs of bias. If someone knows one of the parties, has an interest in the outcome of the case, or has already formed an opinion, the judge will excuse that person "for cause:' In fact, if it can be proven that an entire community is biased, perhaps because of pretrial publicity, then the trial might be postponed or moved to another location. Although the procedure seems straightforward, there is more to the story. In addition to de-selecting individuals who are clearly biased, the lawyers are permitted to exercise peremptory challenges. That is, they can reject a certain limited number of prospective jurors even if they seem fair and open-minded, and they can do so without having to state reasons or win the judge's approval. Why would a lawyer challenge someone who appears to be impartial? What guides lawyers' decisions to accept some jurors and reject others? These questions make the process of voir dire particularly interesting to social psychologists (Vidmar & Hans, 2007).

Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement

In 1999, the U.S. Department ofJustice took a bold step in response to this problem, assembling a group of police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and research psychologists to devise a set of "how-to'' guidelines. Led by social psychologist Gary Wells, this Technical Working Group went on to publish this As eyewitnesses, people can be called upon to remember just about anything-a face, a weapon, an accident, or a conversation. To date, hundreds of tightly controlled studies of eyewitness testimony have been conducted. Based on this research, three conclusions can be drawn: (1) eyewitnesses are imperfect; (2) certain personal and situational factors can systematically influence their performance, and (3) judges, juries, and lawyers are not adequately informed about these factors (Cutler & Penrod, 1995; Lindsay et al., 2007). It appears that even the U.S. Supreme Court harbors outdated misconceptions about the nature of eyewitness memory (Wells & Quinlivan, 2009).

instructions

In a study by Roy Malpass and Patricia Devine ( 1981 ), students saw a staged act of vandalism, after which they attended a lineup. Half of the students received "biased" instructions: They were led to believe that the culprit was in the lineup. The others were told that he might or might not be present. Lineups were then presented either with or without the culprit. When the students received biased instructions, they felt compelled to identify someone and often picked an innocent person (see Table 12.1). Additional studies have both confirmed and qualified this basic result: When the criminal is present in the lineup, biased instructions are not problematic. When the criminal is not in the lineup, however-which occurs whenever the police suspect is innocent-biased instructions substantially increase the rate of mistaken identifications (Clark, 2005; Steblay, 1997). Again, the story of Steve Titus is a case in point. The police told the victim to pick her assailant from a group of six. After studying the pictures for several minutes and shaking her head in confusion, she was urged to concentrate and make a choice. "This one is the closest;' she said. "It has to be this one" (Loftus & Ketcham, 1991, p. 38).

Jury Size: How Small Is Too Small?

In keeping with British tradition, twelve has been the magic number. Then, in the case of Williams v. Florida (1970), the defendant was convicted of armed robbery by a sixperson jury. He appealed the verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court but lost. As a result of this precedent, American courts are now permitted to cut trial costs by using six-person juries in cases that do not involve the death penalty. Juries consisting of fewer than six are not permitted (Ballew v. Georgia, 1978). What is the impact of moving from twelve to six? The Supreme Court approached this question as a social psychologist would. It sought to determine whether the change would affect the decision-making process. Unfortunately, the Court misinterpreted the available research so badly that Michael Saks ( 197 4) concluded that it "would not win a passing grade in a high school psychology class" (p. 18). Consider whether a reduction in size affects the ability of those in the voting minority to resist normative pressures. The Supreme Court did not think it would. Citing Asch's (1956) conformity studies, the Court argued that an individual juror's resistance depends on the proportional size of the majority. But is that true? Is the lone dissenter caught in a 5-to-l bind as well insulated from the group norm as the minority in a 10-to-2 split? The Court argued that these 83%-to-l 7% divisions are psychologically identical. But wait. Asch's research p Jury Decision Making 519 showed exactly the opposite-that the mere presence of a single ally enables dissenters to keep their independence better than anything else. Research has shown that the size of a jury has other effects too. Michael Saks and Molli Marti (1997) conducted a meta-analysis of studies involving 15,000 mock jurors who deliberated in over 2,000 six-person or twelve-person juries. Overall, they found that the smaller juries were less likely to represent minority segments of the population. They were also more likely to reach a unanimous verdict and to do so while deliberating for shorter periods of time. Even in civil trials, in which juries have to make complex decisions on how much money to award the plaintiff, six-person groups spend less time discussing the case (Davis et al., 1997).

Differences in perception and cognition (Nesbett et al).

In recent years, this group has demonstrated numerous differences in p and c between Americans and East Asians. These researchers suggest that cultural differences, born from differences in ecologies, lead to different social practices in the United States and East Asia. In the United States, social practices encourage agency, whereas in East Asia, they encourage harmony. These different affordances produce differences in the way individuals in the two cultural groups categorize items (Ji, Zhang, & Nisbett, 2004), communicate (Sanchez-Burks et al., 2003), make attributions (Nisbett et al., 2001), and perceive the environment (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). In this framework, North Americans' cognitive styles are analytic and logical, whereas East Asians' cognitive styles are holistic and dialectical. include cultural diff of intrapersonal, interpersonal, situational, and ideological, and the conceptual frameworks of the studies are often supported by thoughtful discussions of the sociohistorical contexts in which these practices are embedded Cultural studies go beyond simply examining cultural differences in mean levels of responses (which characterize much of Phase I research); they often compare relationships among variables across cultures, suggesting how variables function differently in different cultural contexts

Leadership in the Jury Room

In theory, all jurors are created equal. In practice, however, dominance hierarchies tend to develop. As in other decision-making groups, a handful of individuals lead the discussion while others join in at a lower rate or watch from the sidelines, speaking only to cast their votes (Hastie et al., 1983). It's almost as if there is a jury within the jury. The question is, what kinds of people emerge as leaders? It is often assumed that the foreperson is the leader. The foreperson, after all, calls for votes, acts as a liaison between the judge and jury, and announces the verdict in court. It seems like a position of importance, yet the selection process is very quick and casual. It's interesting that foreperson selection outcomes do follow a predictable pattern (Stasser et al., 1982). People of higher occupational status or with prior experience on a jury are frequently chosen. Interestingly too, the first person who speaks is often chosen to be the foreperson (Strodtbeck et al., 1957). And when jurors deliberate around a rectangular table, those who sit at the heads of the table are more likely to be chosen than are those seated in the middle (Bray et al., 1978; Strodtbeck & Hook, 1961) . If you find such inequalities bothersome, fear not: Forepersons may act as nominal leaders, but they do not exert more than their fair share of influence over the group. In fact, although they spend more time than other jurors talking about procedural matters, they spend less time expressing opinions about the verdict (Hastie et al., 1983). Thus, it may be most accurate to think of the foreperson not as the jury's leader but as its moderator. In Twelve Angry Men, actor Martin Balsam-not Henry Fonda-was the foreperson. He was also among the least influential members of the jury.

Culture and Predictions

Lay theory of change (Ji et al., 2001) Westerners tend to engage in linear thinking styles Predict linear trends Easterners tend to engage in cyclical thinking styles Predict cyclical trends Euro-Americans were found to make more predictions consistent with the trends depicted in the graphs than were Chinese. This was found to be the case across many different scenarios

Social axioms

Leung et al. (2002) general beliefs and premises about oneself, the social and physical environment, and the spiritual world (e.g., ''belief in a religion helps one understand the meaning of life''). are assertions about the relationship between two or more entities or concepts; people endorse them and use them to guide their behavior in daily living. Using data from 41 cultural groups, Leung et al. created a measure of endorsement of these axioms and demonstrated the universal existence of five types on the individual level: cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, religiosity, and fate control. Researchers interested in accounting for cultural differences with beliefs may consider using this measure to assess context variables.

The Courtroom Trial

Once a jury is selected, the trial officially begins and the evidence previously gathered comes to life. The evidence produced in the courtroom can range far and wide, from eyewitness testimony, informants, and confessions to DNA and other types of physical evidence, medical tests, handwriting samples, diaries, fingerprints, photographs, and business documents. A trial is a well-orchestrated event. Lawyers for both sides make opening statements. Witnesses then answer questions under oath. Lawyers make closing arguments. The judge instructs the jury. Yet there are many problems in this all-too-human enterprise: The evidence may not be accurate or reliable, jurors may harbour misconceptions or bias from extraneous factors, judges' instructions may fall on deaf ears, and the process of deliberation may cause some jurors to vote for a verdict that contradicts their beliefs. The social psychology of jury decision-making is involved and fascinating (see Bornstein & Greene, 2011; Lieberman & Krauss, 2009; Vidmar & Hans, 2007). In this section, we identify some of the problems and possible solutions. Over the years, psychologists and other social scientists have sought to evaluate the competence of trial juries to reach accurate verdicts. In The American fury, Henry Kalven and Hans Zeisel (1966) surveyed 550 judges who presided over 3,576 criminal jury trials nationwide. While each jury was deliberating, judges were asked to indicate what their verdict would be. A comparison of their responses to the actual jury verdicts revealed that judges and juries agreed on a verdict in 78% of all cases (in a separate study of civil cases, typically involving disputes over money, a 78% agreement rate was also observed). Among the 22% of cases in which there was a disagreement, it was because the jury voted to acquit a defendant that judges perceived to be guilty. This last result suggests that juries are more lenient than judges. Are juries competent, objective, and accurate in their verdicts? There is no simple way to answer this question. As a general rule, research has shown that juries are sound decision-makers, even in cases containing complex evidence, and that jury verdicts are based largely on the strength of the evidence presented at trial (Diamond & Rose, 2005; Eisenberg et al., 2005; Hans et al., 2011). Still, as we saw earlier, juries tend to accept eyewitness identifications and confessions-often without sufficient scrutiny or concern about the situations and ways in which these types of evidence were taken. To help inform juries in these cases, psychologists sometimes testify as expert witnesses (Cutler & Kovera, 2011).

two approaches to method of interogation

One approach is to pressure the suspect into submission by expressing certainty in his or her guilt and even, at times, claiming falsely to have damaging evidence such as fingerprints or an eyewitness. In this way, the accused is led to believe that it is futile to continue in his or her denials. A second approach is to befriend the suspect, offer sympathy and friendly advice, and "minimize" the offense by offering face-saving excuses or blaming the victim. Under stress, feeling trapped, lulled into a false sense of security, and led to expect leniency, many suspects agree to give a confession. This approach is carefully designed to increase the anxiety associated with denial and reduce the anxiety associated with confession. It may sound like interrogation process springs from a Law & Order TV script, but in real life these tactics are routinely used. In an observational study of 182 live and videotaped interrogations, Richard Leo ( 1996) found that detectives used an average of five to six tactics per suspect. In a survey of 631 police investigators, Kassin and others (2007) found that the most common reported tactics were to physically isolate suspects, identify contradictions in their accounts, establish rapport, and confront them with evidence of their guilt, appeals to self-interests, and offer sympathy and moral justification. Whatever specific methods are used, it is clear that being accused and pointedly questioned about a crime is a very stressful experience. In one study, participants who were accused of cheating on a laboratory task-compared to those who were not accused-were less able to process the rights they were given to remain silent and to have a lawyer present (Scherr & Madon, in press). It is also now clear that physically painful methods of persuasion, often referred to as "enhanced interrogation" techniques, have been used in recent years to interrogate suspected terrorists (Mayer, 2007; McKelvey, 2007; O'Mara, 2009).

memory as a three-stage process

People tend to think that human memory works like a video camera-that if you turn on the power and focus the lens, all events will be recorded for subsequent playback. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Over the years, researchers have found it useful to view memory as a tsp involving the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. The first of these stages, encoding, refers to a witness's perceptions at the time of the event in question. Second, the witness rehearses and stores the information in memory to avoid forgetting. Third, the witness retrieves the information from storage when needed. This model suggests that errors can occur at three different points.

Behavioral Studies

Perhaps the most stringent experiments that can demonstrate linkage involve manipulations of actual environments hypothesized to produce cultural differences. For example, it is commonly thought that members of collectivistic cultures cooperate more with each other than do members of individualistic cultures, because cooperation is necessary for groups to function effectively, and because of the group-oriented nature of collectivism. Two classic studies on cooperative behavior demonstrate the importance of experiments in identifying the aspects of cultures that produce differences in such behavior. In the first study, Yamagishi (1986) used questionnaire responses to categorize Japanese participants as having high or low trust in other people. All the participants then participated in an experiment in which they could cooperate with others by giving money to them; in one condition, a sanctioning system provided punishments, and in a second condition, there was no sanctioning system. The results indicated that, as expected, people with high levels of trust cooperated more than people with low levels of trust when there was no sanctioning system; when the sanctioning system was in effect, however, people with low trust cooperated more than those with high trust. Yamagishi (1988) replicated this study in the United States and compared American and Japanese responses. He found the same results for the Americans as for the Japanese: When there was no sanctioning system, high-trusting Americans cooperated more than low-trusting Americans. When there was a sanctioning system, the findings reversed. Moreover, there were no differences between the Americans and the Japanese when the sanctioning system was in effect. This suggests that the greater cooperation in Japanese relative to U.S. culture exists because of the sanctioning system in Japan; when Americans were placed in that same type of system, they behaved in similar ways. *sanctioning = punishment* Results of cooperation were bc of the fear of punishment in those with trust issues

Culture and Attention

Research suggests that East Asians and Westerners differ in the types of things they attend to in the world Results Japanese and Euro-American participants made an equal number of statements about the main fish However, the Japanese made 70% more statements about the other aspects of the scenes (i.e., fish, rocks, plants, insects) than Euro-Americans Also, Japanese made twice as many statements about the relationships between the items in the scene than Euro-Americans Conclusion East Asians view the world through a wide-angle lens Westerners view the world through a zoom lens Masuda and Nisbett, 2001

Trial Lawyers as Intuitive Psychologists

Rumour has it that trial lawyers have used some unconventional methods to select juries. Under pressure to make choices quickly and without much information, lawyers rely on implicit personality theories and stereotypes. As described in Chapter 4, implicit personality theory is a set of assumptions that people make about how certain attributes are related to each other and to behaviour. When we believe that all members of a group share the same attributes, these implicit theories are called stereotypes. As far as trial practice is concerned, how-to books claim that the astute lawyer can predict a juror's verdict by his or her gender, race, age, ethnic background, and other simple demographics. It has been suggested, for example, that athletes lack sympathy for fragile and injured victims, that engineers are unemotional, that men with beards resist authority, and that cabinetmakers are so meticulous in their work that they will never be completely satisfied with the evidence. Clarence Darrow, one of the most prominent trial attorneys of the twentieth century, suggested that; jurors of southern Europe descent favoured the defence whereas those from Scandinavia favoured the prosecution. Other lawyers have theorized that women are more sceptical as jurors than men, particularly in response to attractive female witnesses. Still, others offer selection advice based on faces, facial expressions, body language, and clothing. Perhaps the most interesting rule of thumb is also the simplest: "If you don't like a juror's face, chances are he doesn't like yours either!" (Wishman, 1986, pp. 72-73). The intuitive approach to jury selection by which lawyers use peremptory challenges may provide for colourful stories from inside the courtroom, but the consequences of this kind of stereotyping for justice can be troubling. For example, what if a prosecutor were to use peremptory challenges to exclude from the jury all whites, blacks, Latinos, or Asians; or all men or all women, possibly stripping the jury of the defendant's peers? In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has for the first time limited the use of peremptory challenges to prevent lawyers from systematically excluding prospective jurors on the basis of race. According to the Court, judges can now require lawyers suspected of discriminating in this way to explain the basis of their challenges (Batson v. Kentucky, 1986; Miller-El v. Dretke, 2005).

Definitions of Culture

Several definitions Patterns of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols Historically derived and selected ideas, and their attached values Cultural groups are characterised by some of the following: shared history, same geographical origin, same language, common rituals, beliefs and values, and normative practices re child-rearing, kinship arrangements and social roles A system of shared meanings that provide a common lens for perceiving and structuring reality for its members Whatever outsiders recognise as making a group different (or marginal) (e.g. cultures based on sexual or political orientation) The (originally) adaptive ways of transforming the natural environment which are transmitted down the generations (institutionalised) within a group of individuals The ideology which legitimises power differences within a society and keeps that society stable

Self-Construal Scale

Spurred on by Markus and Kitayama's (1991) framework, Singelis (1994) developed the sc scale, which measures independent and interdependent sc Using this scale, Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, and Lai (1999) showed that cultural differences in self-esteem and embarrassability were empirically linked to individual differences on these types of self-construals, again exemplifying the utility of unpackaging studies. Recent research, however, has challenged the cross-cultural and structural validity of this particular scale (Hardin, in press; Hardin, Leong, & Bhagwat, 2004; Levine et al., 2003), and researchers need to exercise caution.

construction

To be fair, a lineup should contain four to eight innocent persons, or "foils;' who match the witness's general description of the culprit. If the witness describes seeing a white male in his 20s with curly hair, for example, foils should not be included that are old, nonwhite, and bald. Also, anything that makes a suspect distinctive compared to the others in the lineup increases his or her chance of being selected (Buckhout, 1974). This is what happened to Steve Titus, who was mistakenly accused of rape when the police showed the victim his photograph alongside those of five other men. Although the foils resembled Titus in appearance, his picture stood out like a sore thumb. It was smaller than the others and was the only one without a border. Titus was also the only man in the group with a smile on his face (Loftus & Ketcham, 1991)

Can expectation of guilt lead police to use tactics that draw false confessions?

To test this hypothesis, Fadia Narchet and others (2011) trained eight young men, over 5 weeks, on how to conduct interrogations using various techniques. In a study like the one just described, these trainees were asked to interrogate guilty and innocent participants to determine if they had cheated on the alone task. In some cases, the interrogators were led to believe the participant was probably guilty; in other cases, that he or she was probably innocent. Did expectations influence outcomes? Yes. Figure 12.5 shows that interrogators elicited confessions from most participants who had actually cheated regardless of expectations. But when they interrogated participants who did not cheat, interrogators with guilty expectations used more coercive tactics and produced a high rate of false confessions

lie detector conclusion

What, then, are we to conclude? The National Research Council (2003) has concluded that there is no simple answer. Under certain conditions-for example, when the suspect is naive and the examiner is competent-it is possible for the polygraph to detect truth and deception at fairly high levels of accuracy. In fact, handheld "pocket" polygraphs have been used for rapid screening of terrorism suspects in the field. Still, the problems identified by research are hard to overcome, which is why the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in the context of a military court martial, that judges may refuse to admit polygraph test results into evidence (United States v. Scheffer, 1998). Seeking alternatives, researchers are trying to develop tests that distinguish between truth and deception through the use of a modified polygraph test that asks different types of questions (Ben-Shakhar & Elaad, 2003); the measurement of involuntary electrical activity in the brain (Winograd & Rosenfeld, 2011); pupil dilation when the person being tested is asked to lie, which requires more cognitive effort than telling the truth (Dionisio et al., 2001); the Implicit Association Test, or IAT, which shows that people are quicker to respond to true statements than to false statements (Sartori et al., 2008); the use of fMRI to measure blood oxygen levels in areas of the brain that are associated with deception (Kozel et al., 2005; Bhatt et al., 2009); and the use of thermal imaging cameras in airports to detect lying through rises in skin temperature (Warmelink et al., 2011). Especially in light of the post-9/11 need for intelligence gathering from terrorism suspects, prisoners of war, witnesses and informants, researchers are also working to improve the quality of the interviewing methods used in the field (Loftus, 2011).

cross cultural comparisons (phase 1)

began more than 100 years ago. Rivers's (1905) study was one of the first, demonstrating that individuals from India and New Guinea were more fooled by optical illusions than were individuals from England. Many other pioneering studies demonstrated cultural similarities and differences in cognition and emotional expression which specializes in the publication of cross-cultural comparisons, has been in existence for more than 35 years.

Attitudes, values, and beliefs

can serve as important context variables that may unpackage cultural differences. Schwartz's work, for instance, focuses on values, which are defined as desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992, 1994b). He has measured values in 46 cultural groups in 42 nations and in college-student samples representing 41 cultural groups in 40 nations (Schwartz & Ros, 1995). Schwartz categorized his individual-level items into seven major ecological-level values that he proposes are universal (Schwartz & Ros, 1995). On the individual level, Schwartz has reported a 10-value typology that he suggests is universally valid and reliable (Schwartz, Melech, Lehmann, Harris, & Owens, 2001; Schwartz & Sagiv, 1995); his Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence, Universalism, Self-Direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, Power, and Security scales measure these values. Researchers interested in accounting for observed cultural differences with values may consider using these scales as measures of context variables. Other constructs relating to attitudes, values, and beliefs may also serve as important and interesting context variables. These include culturally based attitudes, worldviews, theories of mind, and the like. Some of these may be tapped by currently available measures of values or beliefs; some may not.

five factors can affect identification performance

constuction instruction format familiarity-induced biases (subtle) police officer who administers the lineup

linkage studies (phase 4)

empirically link the observed differences in means or correlations among variables with the specific cultural sources that are hypothesized to account for those differences. This phase of research will be an important extension to Phase III studies because, although the theoretical frameworks of many Phase III cultural studies have done an excellent job at identifying the potentially active cultural ingredients that supposedly produce predicted differences, these studies often do not measure those cultural ingredients—be they selfways, affordances, worldviews, or cultural practices—and link them to the observed differences empirically (Matsumoto, 1999). Without such linkage, the theories about how observed differences between groups were produced remain speculative and empirically unjustified, despite their elegance.1 For instance, Iwata and Higuchi (2000) compared Japanese and American responses to the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and reported that Japanese reported less positive feelings and higher state and trait anxiety than Americans. possible reasons not emperically linked: In traditional Japan, a typical collectivistic society, individual psychological well-being is subordinate to the well-being of the group; that is, maintenance of social harmony is one of the most important values (Iwata et al., 1994). The healthy collectivist self is characterized by compliance, nurturance, interdependence, and inhibited hedonism (P. J. Watson, Sherbak, & Morris, 1998). The inhibition of positive affect seems to represent a moral distinction and reflect socially desirable behavior in Japan (Iwata et al., 1995). For this reason, the Japanese are taught from childhood to understate their own virtues and avoid behaving assertively (Iwata et al., 1994). Because of this socialization, the Japanese seem less likely to generate positive feelings and more likely to inhibit the expression of positive feelings.

misinformation effect

incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event A quote by Elizabeth Loftus "Memory is like a Wikipedia page, you can edit it, but so can others" Loftus asked people to watch a video of a car crash, then asked them 'how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" Other participants answered the same question, except that the verb hit was replaced by smashed, collided, bumped, or contacted. All participants saw the same accident, yet the wording of the question affected their reports. • Figure 12.2 shows that participants given the "smashed" question estimated the highest average speed and those responding to the "contacted" question estimated the lowest. But there's more. One week later, participants were called back for more probing. Had the wording of the questions caused them to reconstruct their memories of the accident? Yes. When asked whether they had seen broken glass at the accident (none was actually present), 32% of the "smashed" participants said they had. As Loftus had predicted, what these participants remembered of the accident was based on two sources: the event itself and postevent information. This misinformation effect has aroused a great deal of controversy.

polygraph

is an electronic instrument that simultaneously records multiple channels of physiological arousal. The signals are picked up by sensors attached to different parts of the body. For example, rubber tubes are strapped around a suspect's torso to measure breathing, blood-pressure cuffs are wrapped around the upper arm to measure pulse rate, and electrodes are placed on the fingertips to record sweat-gland activity, or perspiration. These signals are then boosted by amplifiers and converted into a visual display. The polygraph is used to detect deception on the assumption that when people lie, they become anxious and physiologically aroused in ways that can be measured. Here's how the test is conducted. After convincing a suspect that the polygraph works and establishing his or her baseline level of arousal, the examiner asks a series of yes-no questions and compares how the suspect reacts to emotionally arousing crime-relevant questions ("Did you steal the money?") and control questions that are arousing but not relevant to the crime ("Did you take anything that did not belong to you when you were younger?"). In theory, suspects who are innocent-whose denials are truthful-should be more aroused by the control questions, while guilty suspects-whose denials are false-should be more aroused by the crime-relevant questions.

Unpackaging Studies

possible emperical approach 1 extensions of basic cross-cultural comparisons, but they include the measurement of a variable that assesses the active cultural ingredients thought to produce the differences on the variable (or variables) being compared across cultures. The underlying thought to these studies is that cultures are like onions, so that layer after layer needs to be peeled off until nothing is left. The idea of unpackaging culture is not new. Bond (1998) suggested the importance of unpackaging culture a decade ago, and these ideas were extensions of an incisive critique of crosscultural research by Clark (1987). The Whitings also discussed these ideas in their classic studies of children (Whiting & Whiting, 1975). In unpackaging studies, culture as an unspecified variable is replaced by more specific variables, called context variables, in order to truly explain cultural differences. A context variable should be measured at the level of the participants from all cultures in the comparison. The researcher then examines the degree to which this variable statistically accounts for the observed differences, typically by mediation or covariance analyses (Baron & Kenny, 1986; MacKinnon, Lockwood, Hoffman, West, & Sheets, 2002). If evidence for mediation is obtained, then the researcher is empirically justified in claiming that that specific aspect of culture (i.e., that context variable) is linked to the differences observed. If it does not, then the researcher knows that that specific context variable did not produce the observed differences. In either case, the researcher is empirically justified in making claims about which aspects of culture are related to the variable of interest.

cultural studies (phase 3)

rich descriptions of complex theoretical models of culture and self that predict and explain cultural differences. In the area of emotion, for instance, Mesquita (2001; Mesquita & Karasawa, 2002) has described how cultural systems produce different concepts of the self, which, in turn, produce different types of specific concerns for the individual. According to her framework, individualistic cultures encourage the development of independent senses of self that encourage a focus on personal concerns and the view that emotions signal internal, subjective feelings; collectivistic cultures, in contrast, encourage the development of interdependent senses of self that encourage a focus on one's social worth and the worth of one's ingroup, and the notion that emotions reflect something about interpersonal relationships.

police officer adminstering lineup

typically a lineup that contains a suspect and some innocent foils. Can a lineup administrator inadvertently steer a witness's identification decision, most likely to the suspect (who may or may not be the culprit)? In a study that specifically addressed this question, Sarah Greathouse and Margaret Bull Kovera ( 2009) paired student "witnesses" to a staged theft with student "police" who were trained how to administer a simultaneous or sequential photo lineup using either biased or unbiased instructions. In these lineups, a picture of the actual culprit was either present or absent. Half the administrators were informed of who the police suspect was in the lineup; the other half was blind as to the suspect's identity. The results showed that under relatively biasing conditions (simultaneous photo spreads and biased instructions), witnesses made more suspect identifications-even when the suspect was truly innocent-when the administrator was informed rather than blind. Videotapes of the sessions showed that the informed administrators unwittingly increased identification rates by telling witnesses to look carefully, by asking them to look again when they failed to make a selection, and in some cases by letting on that they knew who the suspect was. Other studies have also shown that comments made by a lineup administrator can influence eyewitness identification decisions (Clark et al., 2009). This research strongly supports a point of reform, recently adopted in several states, that eyewitness researchers have long advocated: the use of a "double-blind" procedure in which neither the suspect nor the police administrator know who the suspect is within the lineup.