Geoffrey M. Stephenson

Memory for a Complex Social Discourse: The Analysis and Prediction of Individual and Group Recall.

Abstract The power of a macropropositional model of comprehension for a complex social interaction (a rape interrogation) to predict accurate recall by both individuals and groups was investigated. Quality of recall was assessed using a modification of the recall model developed by Kintsch and van Dijk. The model accounted for approximately a third of the recall variance for individual subjects, and was only slightly less successful at predicting recall in group conditions. The models “interrogation” strategy was significantly more powerful than several other processing strategies examined. These findings are considered in relation to strategic models of discourse comprehension, and the implications of this type of analysis for future social psychological research are discussed.

Bargaining and Arbitration in the Resolution of Conflict

The social psychological literatures concerned with bargaining and with intergroup relations have developed more or less independently. Effectively, there are two bodies of research and theory, with little expression of mutual interest. Consider, for example, Austin and Worchel’s (1979) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Neither “negotiation,” nor “bargaining,” nor “arbitration” appears in the subject index. When negotiation is treated explicitly, little is said about processes of bargaining or arbitration. What is regarded as important is simply the fact that negotiators act as representatives of groups. Thus, they provide paradigm cases of people who perform “boundary roles” (Holmes & Lamm, 1979).

Collaborative Testimony by Police Officers: A Psycho-legal Issue

One of the reasons why four men on trial at the Old Bailey in London were acquitted of serious conspiracy and petrol bomb charges some years back in 1983 was, according to the Sunday Times report, that “Eight policemen had compiled their prosecution notes together in a police canteen, in apparent ignorance of rules which forbid joint preparation.” (Shirley, 1983). Although the judge may have thought that the police canteen was an inappropriate venue for the meeting (in fact, the canteen was almost certainly the only room in the Station capable of accommodating eight policemen in any degree of comfort), the main point at issue, of course, was not the venue for their meeting, but the collaboration, especially of such a seemingly large number of collaborators. In this chapter we would like to describe a series of experiments that have systematically explored the effects on the quality of testimony of having two or more witnesses, including police officers, testify to what they have heard.