Shannon M. Rauch

GUIDED JURY DISCRETION IN CAPITAL MURDER CASES The Role of Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

Saint Louis UniversityThis article analyzes whether state-approved jury instructions adequately guide jurydiscretion in the penalty phase of first-degree murder trials. It examines EighthAmendment jurisprudence regarding guided jury discretion, emphasizing the use of“empirical factors” to examine the quality of state-approved instructions. Psycho-logical research and testimony on the topic of the comprehensibility of juryinstructions are reviewed. Data from a recently completed simulation with 80deliberating juries showed that current instructions do not adequately convey theconcepts and processes essential to guiding penalty phase judgments. An additionalsimulation with 20 deliberating juries demonstrated that deliberation alone does notcorrect for jurors’ errors in comprehension. The article concludes with recommen-dations for policy and future research.

Effects of Social-Comparative Memory Feedback on Eyewitnesses' Identification Confidence, Suggestibility, and Retrospective Memory Reports

In 2 experiments, college students watched a videotaped theft and either recounted it orally or completed an objective memory test about it. Later, some eyewitnesses received either positive or negative feedback about these memory reports, suggesting a cowitnesss report agreed or disagreed with theirs or that they had better or worse memory accuracy than most cowitnesses. Feedback influenced a number of subsequent memory-related responses. Witnesses who had received positive (vs. no) memory feedback later evinced heightened suggestibility in terms of accepting misinformation embedded in a memory interview and made identifications more confidently, quickly, and (in one condition) accurately. Witnesses who had received negative memory feedback evinced heightened suggestibility, made identifications less confidently, and recalled the witnessing and identification experience as involving poorer conditions for memory. Feedback appears to influence the overall self-credibility of memory, thereby altering confidence in both the feedback-specific memory and other aspects of memory for the event.

Assessing the health of adult daughter former caregivers for elders with Alzheimer's disease.

Past research is varied in assessing the effect of caregiving on health, particularly caregivers in the postcaregiving phase. The variation may be due, in part, to methodological issues, including the use of health measures not psychometrically tested. The study examines the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36)1 health survey with 102 former caregivers whose family member was deceased for at least one year at the time of the study and had been identified as having Alzheimers disease or a related disorder. The SF-36 measures eight dimensions of physical and mental health and has been tested on a variety of populations, though not with former daughter caregivers. Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the factorial validity of the SF-36 for this population, indicating it is a promising tool for understanding postcaregiver health.

Validating a measure across groups: The use of MIMIC models in scale development

ABSTRACT This study tests the effects of causal indicators on the factorial invariance of a measure across groups. If a measure lacks invariance, MIMIC models (Multiple Indicators/Multiple Causes) can be used to identify the source of invariance. Using the Caregiver Well-Being Scale, two phases of multi-group modeling with post-care-givers and non-caregivers were analyzed. The first phase tested the scales validity and reliability using multi-group modeling without controlling for the demographics differences between the groups. The second phase analyzed a MIMIC model with multi-group modeling. Results indicate that when a MIMIC model is not used, the measure is unequally reliable across groups (unequivalent structure). By controlling for the demographic differences using MIMIC modeling, analysis indicates that the scale is factorially invariant. Implications on the use of MIMIC models in scale development are discussed.