The Impact of Visual Stereotypes on Judgments about Rape

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Robert Busching ◽  
Johannes Lutz

Abstract. Legally irrelevant information like facial features is used to form judgments about rape cases. Using a reverse-correlation technique, it is possible to visualize criminal stereotypes and test whether these representations influence judgments. In the first step, images of the stereotypical faces of a rapist, a thief, and a lifesaver were generated. These images showed a clear distinction between the lifesaver and the two criminal representations, but the criminal representations were rather similar. In the next step, the images were presented together with rape scenarios, and participants (N = 153) indicated the defendant’s level of liability. Participants with high rape myth acceptance scores attributed a lower level of liability to a defendant who resembled a stereotypical lifesaver. However, no specific effects of the image of the stereotypical rapist compared to the stereotypical thief were found. We discuss the findings with respect to the influence of visual stereotypes on legal judgments and the nature of these mental representations.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loek Brinkman ◽  
Ron Dotsch ◽  
Jelmer Zondergeld ◽  
Henk Aarts ◽  
Neeltje van Haren

Introduction: Schizophrenia patients have difficulties recognizing emotional states from faces, with severe consequences for daily life. What do these patients see in their minds eye, when they think of a face expressing a particular emotion or trait? The content of such mental representations can shed light into the nature of their deficits, but are usually inaccessible. For the first time, we explored the applicability of reverse correlation, which has been successfully used to visualize mental representations in healthy populations, to visualize mental representations in schizophrenia patients. Method: We investigated mental representations of trustworthy faces, a primary dimension of social face evaluation. Patients (n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 34) classified images of noise-distorted faces as ‘trustworthy’, ‘untrustworthy’ or ‘neutral’. We visualized their mental representations of these concepts by averaging the noise patterns based on their classifications. These visualizations were then rated on trustworthiness by an independent sample of participants. Results: Patients were able to perform the reverse correlation task, with response times and biases similar to those of healthy controls, and the obtained images vividly reflected the respective constructs of interest. However, there were no significant differences between the ratings of the visualizations of patients and controls. Conclusion: These novel findings provide a proof of principle that the reverse correlation technique can be applied to investigate mental representations in schizophrenia patients.


2021 ◽  
pp. 2631309X2110178
Author(s):  
Eduardo Carvalho Nepomuceno Alencar ◽  
Bryant Jackson-Green

In 2014, the most prominent anti-corruption investigation in Latin America called Lava Jato, exposed a Brazilian corruption scheme with reverberations in 61 countries, resulting in legal judgments for nearly 5 billion USD in reimbursements thus far. This article applies the synthetic control method on data from 135 countries (2002–2018) to test the hypothesis that Lava Jato impacts the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil. The findings reveal that Lava Jato negatively affects control of corruption, the rule of law, and regulatory quality. There are signs of possible improvement in at least the corruption and the rule of law measures. This paper brings value to the criminological body of literature, notably lacking in the Global South.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jade B. Jackson ◽  
Eva Feredoes ◽  
Anina N. Rich ◽  
Michael Lindner ◽  
Alexandra Woolgar

AbstractDorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is proposed to drive brain-wide focus by biasing processing in favour of task-relevant information. A longstanding debate concerns whether this is achieved through enhancing processing of relevant information and/or by inhibiting irrelevant information. To address this, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during fMRI, and tested for causal changes in information coding. Participants attended to one feature, whilst ignoring another feature, of a visual object. If dlPFC is necessary for facilitation, disruptive TMS should decrease coding of attended features. Conversely, if dlPFC is crucial for inhibition, TMS should increase coding of ignored features. Here, we show that TMS decreases coding of relevant information across frontoparietal cortex, and the impact is significantly stronger than any effect on irrelevant information, which is not statistically detectable. This provides causal evidence for a specific role of dlPFC in enhancing task-relevant representations and demonstrates the cognitive-neural insights possible with concurrent TMS-fMRI-MVPA.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Longden ◽  
M. Sampson ◽  
J. Read

Background.This study examines relationships between childhood adversity and the presence of characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia. It was hypothesised that total adversity exposures would be significantly higher in individuals exhibiting these symptoms relative to patients without. Recent proposals that differential associations exist between specific psychotic symptoms and specific adversities was also tested, namely: sexual abuse and hallucinations, physical abuse and delusions, and fostering/adoption and delusions.Method.Data were collected through auditing 251 randomly selected medical records, drawn from adult patients in New Zealand community mental health centres. Information was extracted on presence and subtype of psychotic symptoms and exposure to ten types of childhood adversity, including five types of abuse and neglect.Results.Adversity exposure was significantly higher in patients experiencing hallucinations in general, voice hearing, command hallucinations, visions, delusions in general, paranoid delusions and negative symptoms than in patients without these symptoms. There was no difference in adversity exposure in patients with and without tactile/olfactory hallucinations, grandiose delusions or thought disorder. Indication of a dose–response relationship was detected, in that total number of adversities significantly predicted total number of psychotic symptoms. Although fostering/adoption was associated with paranoid delusions, the hypothesised specificity between sexual abuse and hallucinations, and physical abuse and delusions, was not found. The two adversities showing the largest number of associations with psychotic symptoms were poverty and being fostered/adopted.Conclusions.The current data are consistent with a model of global and cumulative adversity, in which multiple exposures may intensify psychosis risk beyond the impact of single events. Implications for clinical intervention are discussed.


2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euna Oh ◽  
Helen Neville

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a culturally relevant rape myth acceptance scale for Koreans. Three studies on the Korean Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (KRMAS) with approximately 1,000 observations provide initial validity and reliability. Specifically, results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support four subscales: myths about rape survivors, rape perpetrators, the impact of rape, and rape as spontaneous. The KRMAS was validated with student and community samples and a factorial invariance analysis provided evidence for the factor structure across men and women. The KRMAS total score was positively related to the Attitudes Toward Sex Role Scale–Korean and the Acceptance of Violence Scale, indicating that greater endorsement of rape myth acceptance was related to greater levels of attitudes toward traditional sex roles and violence against women. Implications of the findings and future research directions are provided.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta de Castro-Catala ◽  
Neus Barrantes-Vidal ◽  
Tamara Sheinbaum ◽  
Artal Moreno-Fortuny ◽  
Thomas R. Kwapil ◽  
...  

Schizotypy phenotypes in the general population share etiopathogenic mechanisms and risk factors with schizophrenia, supporting the notion of psychosis as a continuum ranging from nonclinical to clinical deviance. Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is a candidate susceptibility gene for schizophrenia that is involved in the regulation of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex. Several recent studies have reported a sex difference in the impact of COMT genotype on psychiatric and cognitive phenotypes and personality traits. The present study investigated the association of COMT Val158Met (rs4680) with psychometric positive and negative schizotypy and psychotic experiences in a sample of 808 nonclinical young adults. The main finding was that sex moderates the association of COMT genotype with the negative dimension of both schizotypy and psychotic experiences. Male subjects carrying the Val allele tended to score higher on the negative dimension of both trait and symptom-like measures. The results from the present study are consistent with recent work suggesting an association between negative schizotypy and diminished prefrontal dopamine availability. They support the idea that a biological differentiation underlies the positive and negative schizotypy dimensions. Additionally, these findings contribute to the growing literature on sex-specific effects of COMT on the predisposition to psychiatric disorders and personality traits.


2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aldert Vrij ◽  
Emma Kirby

Astudy is reported investigating gender differences in judging the behaviour of males and females during mixed-dyad conversations and the impact of the endorsement of rape myths in explaining these gender differences. A total of 51 males and 40 females watched a videotape of a male actor and female actor verbally interacting in a social environment and were asked to give their impression about this interaction. They were also requested to fill in the Rape Myths Acceptance Scale (1980). Results revealed that compared to females, males had a stronger tendency to see the interaction in sexual terms. Also, male participants endorsed rape myths more strongly. Finally, gender differences in rape myth endorsements accounted for gender differences in perceiving male-female mixed-dyad interactions to alimited extent. Implications of the findings are discussed.


Author(s):  
Aaron Michael Pangan ◽  
Matthew J Leineweber

Abstract The back squat is one of the most effective exercises in strengthening the muscles of the lower extremity. Understanding the impact of footwear has on the biomechanics is imperative for maximizing the exercise training potential, preventing injury, and rehabilitating from injury. This review focuses on how different types of footwear affect the full-body kinematics, joint loads, muscle activity, and ground reaction forces in athletes of varying experience performing the weighted back squat. The literature search was conducted using three databases, and fourteen full-text articles were ultimately included in the review. The majority of these studies demonstrated that the choice of footwear directly impacts kinematics and kinetics. Weightlifting shoes were shown to decrease trunk lean and generate more plantarflexion relative to running shoes and barefoot lifting. Elevating the heel through the use of external squat wedges is popular clinical exercise during rehabilitation and was shown to provide similar effects to WLS. Additional research with a broader array of populations, particularly novice and female weightlifters, should be conducted to generalize the research results to non-athlete populations. Further work is also needed to characterize the specific effects of sole stiffness and heel elevation height on squatting mechanics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Jin Jung ◽  
Han-Joon Kim ◽  
Sun Ha Paek ◽  
Beomseok Jeon

: Sleep-wake disturbances (SWD) are one of the most common non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) and can appear in the early stage even before the onset of motor symptoms. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established treatment for the motor symptoms in patients with advanced PD. However, the effect of DBS on SWD and its specific mechanisms are not widely understood and remain controversial. In addition to the circuit-mediated direct effect, DBS may improve SWD by an indirect effect such as the resolution of nocturnal motor complications and a reduction of dopaminergic medication. Here, the authors review the recent literatures regarding the impact of DBS on SWD in patients with PD. Furthermore, the selection of the DBS targets and the specific effects of applying DBS to each target on SWD in PD are also discussed.


1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Kristin L. Wiginton ◽  
Deborah Rhea

The incidence of eating disorders among female athletes continues to increase, presenting intervention challenges to athletic trainers. Additionally, a number of female athletes have disordered eating behaviors that do not yet constitute an eating disorder diagnosis, but have similar characteristics to those athletes diagonised with eating disorders. However, each athlete exhibits individual mental representations of disordered eating and the impact of those representations on important aspects of her life. The athletic trainer has the potential to offer comprehensive preventive education when all aspects of the athlete’s own understanding of disordered eating are assessed. Cognitive mapping is an assessment technique that can be used in addition to other preventive practices and can be useful in determining an athlete’s current mental representations of disordered eating.


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