Hugh McGinley

Insanity Plea: National Survey of Frequency and Success

The 50 states were surveyed to determine the operative insanity rule and frequency and success of the insanity plea. Reflecting the dearth of information regarding this important public policy concern, only a limited number of jurisdictions could provide statistics on the pleas frequency and success. Among these, incidence of the plea was generally low, while its success rate was quite variable.

National Survey of the Frequency and Success of the Insanity Plea and Alternate Pleas

The 50 states and the District of Columbia were surveyed for the operative insanity rule and frequency and success of the insanity plea and related alternate pleas. These data were compared with data collected for the year 1983. As in the earlier report, there seems to be a dearth of information about the use and success of the pleas. The information that is available is quite varied. There is a discussion of why basic data may not be available and what information is needed in order to have a basic understanding of the use of the insanity plea and alternate pleas.

Smiling, body position, and interpersonal attraction

Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, regardless of her body position, a woman who smiled the majority of the time (70%) was seen as more interpersonally attractive than a woman who seldom smiled (20%). When the woman seldom smiled, she was rated as more interpersonally attractive when she displayed open body positions than when she displayed closed body positions. In Experiment 2, the closed body position/smiling and nonsmiling effect was replicated. Subjects’ eye gazes were monitored while they viewed the slides of the woman. Regardless of the smiling condition, subjects looked at the woman’s face about 55% of their total looking time.

READING GROUPS AS PSYCHOLOGICAL GROUPS

Six classes of first-grade children were given a sociometric question asking them with which classmates they would prefer to work. The children were classified by their reading groups, and their in-group and out-group choices were analyzed. Each class was naturally trichotomized into three reading groups; top, middle, and lower. The reading groups were the only enduring groups of the classes. It was found that the lower reading group members chose fewer than expected children from their own groups (p < . 025) and more than expected children from the top reading groups (p < . 001). Members of the middle reading groups made fewer than expected choices from the lower reading groups (p < . 01) and more than expected choices from the top reading groups (p < . 001). The top reading group members made fewer than expected choices from the lower reading groups (p < . 001), f ewer than expected choices from the middle reading groups (p < . 06), and chose within their own groups more than expected (p < . 001). The r...

Understanding the use of the insanity defense

Psychologists often are called upon to give their opinion about a legal concept, the insanity plea. Criminal cases that involve the insanity plea consistently receive the attention of the media and of legislators who contemplate restricting the use of the defense, yet there is little nationwide information on the use and possible abuse of the insanity defense. This paper reviews what little is known and suggests that in order to make psychologically and socially responsible decisions, more information is needed on the use and success of the plea.

Insanity Defense: Ethnicity of Defendants and Mock Jurors

Prior research, in which only white subjects were used and socioeconomic status (SES) of the defendant was not controlled, has indicated that ethnicity of defendants influences the decisions of mock jurors in homicide trials in which insanity is an issue. Controlling for SES, the present study used black and white mock jurors who rendered verdicts about black or white defendants. No significant effect was found for ethnicity of either defendant or respondent.

A test for artifactual effects in an attitude similarity/interpersonal attraction study

Both a direct and indirect measure were used in order to assess subjects’ awareness of attitude similarity or dissimilarity between themselves and strangers. Although there was an attitude similarity/interpersonal attraction effect, there were no significant differences between the aware and unaware subjects either in their attraction toward the strangers or in the correctness of their recall of the strangers’ attitudes.

Contingency awareness and interpersonal attraction

The role of contingency awareness in research concerned with attitude similarity and interpersonal attraction was investigated by using both a traditional attitude questionnaire and a correlated attitude questionnaire procedure for manipulating attitude similarity. The results showed that the correlated questionnaire procedure led to fewer subjects who were judged to be contingency aware. Both of the procedures led to replications of the often reported finding that interpersonal attraction is directly related to the proportion of attittude similarity between two people. This effect was obtained both for subjects who were judged to be contingency aware and for subjects who were not so judged.

A clash of theoretical orientations: Demand characteristics and the attraction paradigm

One hundred and seventy-five female students viewed a videotaped presentation of a female stranger who expressed opinions about topical areas that were correlated with but not the same as the topics of items to which the subjects had responded on an attitude questionnaire. The results showed that both judged aware and judged unaware subjects responded more positively to the stranger and inferred more similar interests if she was attitudinally similar to them. Since verbalized awareness of attitudinal similarity is not a necessary condition in a reinforcement point of view of interpersonal attraction, the overall results of the study support such a viewpoint.

EXPERIMENTER-EXPECTANCY PHENOMENON: EXPERIENCE OF E, MECHANICAL VS MANUAL STIMULUS PRESENTATION AND IQ VS SUCCESS-FAILURE JUDGMENTS

50 Es obtained person perception data from 576 Ss. In Phase I, 2 experienced Es obtained IQ and success-failure (SF) judgments from 50 male and 50 female Ss about 10 women whose pictures they viewed. In Phase II, 48 inexperienced Es obtained IQ and SF judgments from 476 female Ss. The independent variables in Phase II were 0 or +5 expectancy, mechanical or manual presentation of picture stimuli, IQ or SF judgments, and order of expectancy inducement. Results showed only a judgment effect, higher ratings for SF than IQ. Questionnaire data showed that Ss whose data were collected by experienced Es felt that SF judgments were easier to make than did Ss whose data were collected by inexperienced Es. They also felt more strongly that SF judgments could be made by looking at a picture of a person, were more confident in their judgments and rated the instructions as clearer.