The 'totality principle' in law aims to show mercy to offenders in multiple-offence (MO) cases and retain ordinal proportionality in punishing those who commit different categories of offence. The ...effect of this principle in practice, however, is largely unknown. The present study involved an analysis of data released by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales to estimate the prevalence of MO cases and compare the penalties they received against comparable single-offence (SO) cases. MO cases represented approximately half of the cases in the sample which included violent, property, drugs and driving offences. Offence-specific regression analyses revealed that MO/SO case status was not a significant predictor of receiving a custodial sentence or of custody length. Thus, by applying the totality principle, sentencers may be letting MO offenders 'off lightly'. Potential explanations for this unintentional effect on decision-making lies in how the totality principle is defined and interpreted, and recommendations are made for revising the guideline on application of the totality principle.
Communicating uncertainty using words and numbers Dhami, Mandeep K.; Mandel, David R.
Trends in cognitive sciences,
June 2022, 2022-Jun, 2022-06-00, 20220601, Letnik:
26, Številka:
6
Journal Article
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Life in an increasingly information-rich but highly uncertain world calls for an effective means of communicating uncertainty to a range of audiences. Senders prefer to convey uncertainty using ...verbal (e.g., likely) rather than numeric (e.g., 75% chance) probabilities, even in consequential domains, such as climate science. However, verbal probabilities can convey something other than uncertainty, and senders may exploit this. For instance, senders can maintain credibility after making erroneous predictions. While verbal probabilities afford ease of expression, they can be easily misunderstood, and the potential for miscommunication is not effectively mitigated by assigning (imprecise) numeric probabilities to words. When making consequential decisions, recipients prefer (precise) numeric probabilities.
The (positive and negative) directionality of verbal probabilities enables them to convey more than uncertainty. Probability terms can communicate uncertainty in a face-saving manner and implicitly shape receivers’ cognitions and behavior.Verbal probabilities preclude fine-grained uncertainty communication. Assigning numeric probability ranges to words does not eliminate their imprecise and variable meaning, but can have unintended effects on judgment and decision-making.Senders are misplaced in their belief that verbal expressions of uncertainty are especially helpful for those with lower numeracy and in thinking that these individuals cannot benefit from numeric probability information.The benefits of precise numeric expressions of uncertainty, coupled with receivers’ preference for numeric information when it really matters, suggests that senders ought to embrace numeric precision over vague words if they wish to communicate uncertainty clearly.
Intelligence analysis is fundamentally an exercise in expert judgment made under conditions of uncertainty. These judgments are used to inform consequential decisions. Following the major ...intelligence failure that led to the 2003 war in Iraq, intelligence organizations implemented policies for communicating probability in their assessments. Virtually all chose to convey probability using standardized linguistic lexicons in which an ordered set of select probability terms (e.g., highly likely) is associated with numeric ranges (e.g., 80-90%). We review the benefits and drawbacks of this approach, drawing on psychological research on probability communication and studies that have examined the effectiveness of standardized lexicons. We further discuss how numeric probabilities can overcome many of the shortcomings of linguistic probabilities. Numeric probabilities are not without drawbacks (e.g., they are more difficult to elicit and may be misunderstood by receivers with poor numeracy). However, these drawbacks can be ameliorated with training and practice, whereas the pitfalls of linguistic probabilities are endemic to the approach. We propose that, on balance, the benefits of using numeric probabilities outweigh their drawbacks. Given the enormous costs associated with intelligence failure, the intelligence community should reconsider its reliance on using linguistic probabilities to convey probability in intelligence assessments. Our discussion also has implications for probability communication in other domains such as climate science.
Public Significance Statement
Psychological research on probability communication suggests that using numbers such as 70% (or 65%-75%) rather than words such as likely provides a more clear and unambiguous way of communicating uncertainty in judgments. Therefore, we recommend that the intelligence community changes its current policy for probability communication in its assessments from the verbal to numeric mode, in order to mitigate intelligence failures such as that which led to the 2003 war in Iraq.
As the next generation of the internet, the metaverse is an immersive three-dimensional (3D) world that incorporates both physical and virtual environments. The metaverse affords numerous advantages ...for advancing our theoretical and practical understanding of human cognition, emotion, and behavior, as well as shaping our methodological approach to conducting psychological science. However, undertaking research in a world that merges the physical and virtual, also presents new and unique ethical challenges that are not addressed by current ethical guidelines such as the Belmont Report, the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, and the Association of Internet Researchers Internet Research Ethical Guidelines. We discuss the different domains of the metaverse relevant to psychological research and consider how three categories of ethical challenges (i.e., "respect for persons," "beneficence," and "justice") may arise when conducting research in the metaverse. We also provide recommendations for addressing these challenges that include reconfiguring existing ethical guidelines as well as creating new ones. Together, these can inform and assist researchers and institutional review boards in making decisions about conducting ethically sound psychological science in the metaverse.
Public Significance Statement
The metaverse is an immersive three-dimensional (3D) world that merges physical and virtual worlds. It potentially enables psychological scientists to gain a better understanding of human cognition, emotion, and behavior. However, doing research in the metaverse has unique ethical challenges. We identify these and provide recommendations for addressing them so researchers and ethics review boards can make informed decisions about conducting ethically sound psychological science in the metaverse.
By the end of March 2020, more than a fifth of the world's population was in various degrees of "lockdown" in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. This enforced confinement led some to liken ...lockdown to imprisonment. We directly compared individual's experiences of lockdown with prisoners' experiences of imprisonment in order to determine whether psychological parallels can be drawn between these two forms of confinement.
Online surveys of adults in lockdown in the UK (
= 300) and California (
= 450) were conducted 4 and 5 weeks into lockdown in each region, respectively. The UK data was then compared to Souza and Dhami's (2010) sample of 267 medium security prisoners in England, and the Californian data was compared to Dhami et al.'s (2007) sample of 307 medium security Federal prisoners in California. We measured the effects of Group (Lockdown v. Prison) on five categories of dependent variables (i.e., activity, social contact, thoughts, feelings, and rule-breaking), controlling for demographic differences between the groups.
In both regions, people in lockdown thought significantly less often about missing their freedom, as well as missing their family and friends living elsewhere than did first-time prisoners. However, people in lockdown in both regions were also significantly less engaged in a range of daily activities than were first-time prisoners. Additionally, in both regions, people in lockdown reported feeling more hopeless than first-time prisoners.
Although Governments introducing lockdown policies do not intend to punish their citizens as courts do when sending convicted offenders to prison, such policies can have unintended adverse consequences. Psychological parallels can be drawn between the two forms of confinement.
Public knowledge of child stranger rape is shaped largely by media portrayals of a small number of cases, often marked by sensational trials, which may result in juror misconceptions of this offense. ...It is important to understand the factors that may influence jury verdicts in order to maximize the chance of guilty defendants being convicted.
The aim is to explore the factors that predict juries’ decisions to convict or acquit in child stranger rape cases.
The study utilizes a police database of recorded child stranger rape cases from a UK urban force from 2001–2015. Seventy cases that were tried by jury were analyzed. We investigated the extent to which 19 child-, accused- and offense-related factors predict jury verdicts.
A four stage analytic process was employed: (a) Kendall’s tau-b measured inter-correlations among the factors; (b) Chi-Square and Welch t-tests measured associations between factors and verdicts; (c) binary logistic regression measured the power of factors in predicting verdicts; and (d) Stein’s formula was used to cross-validate the model.
Verdicts were predicted by two offense-related factors. A weapon increased the odds of conviction by 412%. An outdoor location increased the odds by 360%.
The findings have potential implications for prosecution case building and courtroom policy. Prosecutors could gather as much information as possible from victims about the factors found to be of importance to juries. Judges could challenge incorrect beliefs and stereotypes by instructing juries.
Egon Brunswik argued that psychological processes are adapted to environmental properties. He proposed the method of representative design to capture these processes and advocated that psychology be ...a science of organism-environment relations. Representative design involves randomly sampling stimuli from the environment or creating stimuli in which environmental properties are preserved. This departs from systematic design. The authors review the development of representative design, examine its use in judgment and decision-making research, and demonstrate the effect of design on research findings. They suggest that some of the practical difficulties associated with representative design may be overcome with modern technologies. The importance of representative design in psychology and the implications of this method for ecological approaches to cognition are discussed.
The ‘apology‐acceptance’ script that may prevail during the victim–offender mediation process suggests that victims may feel obliged or pressured to accept an offender's offer of an apology. ...Violations of this expectation in terms of rejection of an apology or no recognition of it may influence the outcomes of mediation in several ways. Two experiments examined the effects of a victim's response to an offender's offer of a full apology on offenders' perceptions of the victim's response, emotional reactions, perceptions of the victim, attitudes towards the dispute and attitudes towards mediation. Experiment 1 compared the effects of a rejection, acceptance and no recognition of an apology, and Experiment 2 further investigated the effects of an acceptance versus no recognition of an apology. It was found that offenders who had their apology rejected considered the victim's response as least appropriate and were least satisfied by it. ‘Rejected’ offenders felt more anger towards the victim and had more negative impressions of the victim. Offenders who had their apology accepted felt more guilt and shame. They were, however, also more willing to reach an agreement and were more likely to perceive the conflict as being resolved. ‘Accepted’ offenders were also more likely to participate in mediation in the future and more willing to recommend mediation to others. The present research also demonstrated that no recognition of an apology has adverse effects similar to a rejection of an apology.
Despite there being no legal distinction between different types of rapes (e.g., those committed by strangers to the victim versus those committed by perpetrators known to the victim), stereotypical ...beliefs about rape have meant that these can be treated differently by the justice system. The aim is to explore the factors that predict juries' decisions to convict or acquit in stranger rape cases.
: We measured the importance of a range of 20 perpetrator-, victim-, and offense-related factors in predicting outcomes for 394 stranger rape cases tried by a jury. A four-stage analytic process was employed: (a) Kendall's tau-b measured intercorrelations among the factors (predictors); (b) Chi-square and Welch
-tests measured associations between factors and verdicts; (c) binary logistic regression measured the power of factors in predicting verdicts; and (d) Stein's formula was used to cross-validate the model.
Jury verdicts were predicted by five offense-related factors and one victim-related factor. None of the perpetrator-related factors were significant predictors of convictions for stranger rape.
The findings have potential implications for victims of stranger rape, as well as prosecution and courtroom policy. We show that if a perpetrator is identified and charged, the likelihood of securing a conviction by a jury is high for victims of stranger rape. We suggest that prosecutors could gather as much information as possible from victims about the factors found to be of importance to juries, and judges could instruct juries on assumptions about the characteristics of the offense in order to challenge incorrect beliefs and stereotypes. Ultimately, this could be used to encourage victims of stranger rape to report and testify in court.
Summary
The intelligence community uses “structured analytic techniques” to help analysts think critically and avoid cognitive bias. However, little evidence exists of how techniques are applied and ...whether they are effective. We examined the use of the analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH)—a technique designed to reduce “confirmation bias.” Fifty intelligence analysts were randomly assigned to use ACH or not when completing a hypothesis testing task that had probabilistic ground truth. Data on analysts' judgement processes and conclusions were collected using written protocols that were then coded for statistical analyses. We found that ACH‐trained analysts did not follow all of the steps of ACH. There was mixed evidence for ACH's ability to reduce confirmation bias, and we observed that ACH may increase judgement inconsistency and error. It may be prudent for the intelligence community to consider the conditions under which ACH would prove useful and to explore alternatives.
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