Showing 1 - 6 of 6 Items

Assigning Legal Punishment: Individual Differences in Justice Sensitivity and Selective Attention

Date: 2015-05-01

Creator: Emily C. Weinberger

Access: Open access

Selective attention and justice sensitivity (JS), a personality trait reflecting individual differences in perceptions of injustice, have been shown to affect how people assign punishments. In the present study peoples’ decision-making processes were investigated to better understand the inconsistencies in legal punishment decisions, particularly when using retributive versus restorative justice. Subjects participated in three phases of the experiment. First, subjects completed a justice sensitivity scale and then rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a criminal scenario. Second, participants’ selective attention was indicated by their recall of pertinent features from three ambiguous criminal scenarios. Finally, participants were primed with either restorative justice or neutral control words, and rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a new criminal scenario. Results revealed no significant associations between JS and ratings of punishment options, although patterns suggested negative relationships between observer JS and retributive justice ratings, and victim JS and restorative justice ratings. Results did show a significant effect of JS in predicting the facts remembered, such that as observer JS increased, more restorative justice facts were recalled, and as victim JS increased, fewer restorative justice facts were recalled. No significant effect of the restorative justice prime was observed. These results may contribute to better understanding of criminal justice policy in the United States.


Who We Are: Incarcerated Students and the New Prison Literature, 1995-2010

Date: 2013-05-01

Creator: Reilly Hannah N Lorastein

Access: Open access

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring poetry, essays, fiction, and visual art created by incarcerated students enrolled in the College Program at San Quentin State Prison. By engaging the first person perspective of the incarcerated subject, this project will reveal how incarcerated individuals describe themselves, how they maintain and create intimate relationships from behind bars, and their critiques of the criminal justice system. From these readings, the project outlines conventions of “the incarcerated experience” as a subject position, with an eye toward further research analyzing the intersection of one's “incarcerated status” with one’s race, class, gender, and sexuality.


Miniature of Selective Attention and Memory: Event Related Potentials and the IOR Effect
Selective Attention and Memory: Event Related Potentials and the IOR Effect
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      Date: 2015-05-01

      Creator: Leigh A Andrews

      Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



        Miniature of Lie to Me: Linguistic Markers of Deception in Relation to Individual Differences in Executive Control
        Lie to Me: Linguistic Markers of Deception in Relation to Individual Differences in Executive Control
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            Date: 2014-05-01

            Creator: Lauren Pashkowski

            Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



              Miniature of A Neighbor’s Impact: The Influence of Emotional Valence on Visual Word Processing
              A Neighbor’s Impact: The Influence of Emotional Valence on Visual Word Processing
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                  Date: 2014-05-01

                  Creator: Marissa C Rosenthal

                  Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                    Young Authoritarians? Trends and Individual Differences in Preschoolers' Perceptions of Adult Authority

                    Date: 2018-05-01

                    Creator: Ava Alexander

                    Access: Open access

                    Although traditional stage theories (e.g., Piaget, 1965) postulate that preschool age children are guided entirely by punishment avoidance and absolute deference to authority, more recent research suggests that their concepts of adult authority are complex and vary based on social cognitive domain and the content of the commands (e.g., Tisak, 1986). Also, although past studies have shown that the majority of children will reject adult authority in certain contexts, much individual variation between children has been observed (e.g., Laupa, 1994). The current study expanded upon past research by exposing children to multiple typical and atypical commands across domains, while also testing for individual differences based on two forms of parental authoritarianism. Results showed that children as young as four reject commands that go against established moral or conventional norms, and sometimes reject commands in the personal domain. This pattern grew stronger with age. High right-wing authoritarianism was a significant predictor of more authoritarian parenting style, and also predicted lower child support for authority in typical conventional scenarios.