The Relationship between Attitudes toward Capital Punishment and Assignment of the Death Penalty

1974 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Stricker ◽  
George L. Jurow

Questionnaires concerning attitude toward capital punishment, liberalism-conservatism, and the assignment of penalties in 13 capital cases were administered to 190 college students. All scales correlated significantly with each other, with Ss who were opposed to capital punishment less likely to assign the death penalty in specific cases. Factor analysis showed separate factors for murderers, assassins, attitudes and demographic data. The relationship of these findings to the Witherspoon case is discussed.

NASPA Journal ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kellah M. Edens

College students are sleeping less during the week than reported a few years ago. Lack of sleep among college students has been identified as one of the top three healthrelated impediments to academic performance by the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment survey; and it is associated with lower grades, incompletion of courses, as well as negative moods. This research examines the underlying dynamics of lack of sleep on academic motivation, a key predictor of academic performance. Specifically, the relationship of sleep habits with self-efficacy, performance versus mastery goal orientation, persistence, and tendency to procrastinate were investigated. Findings indicate that 42% of the participants (159 students out of a total of 377) experience excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS); and those identified with EDS tend: (1) to be motivated by performance goals rather than mastery goals; (2) to engage in procrastination (a self-handicapping strategy) to a greater extent than students who are rested; and (3) to have decreased self-efficacy, as compared to students not reporting EDS. Several recommendations for campus health professionals to consider for a Healthy Campus Initiative are made based on the findings.


1964 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 523-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Marlowe ◽  
Russell S. Beecher ◽  
Jonathan B. Cook ◽  
Anthony N. Doob

This study investigated the relationship of approval motivation to verbal conditioning under vicarious reinforcement. Fifteen college students completed 20 operant trials in a sentence construction task. They then observed E reinforce a “programmed” confederate who emitted critical responses according to a typical acquisition curve. Fifteen control Ss observed identical confederate behavior with the reinforcements omitted. An additional 15 control Ss did not receive the observation phase. All Ss then were given 40 nonreinforced trials. A significant conditioning effect occurred only for Ss with high need for approval in the vicarious reinforcement condition. Results were related to previous verbal conditioning research.


Author(s):  
Anthony Walsh ◽  
Virginia L. Hatch

This article explores the emotions behind the retributive urge as it applies to the death penalty in the United States. It is argued that the retributive urge is so strong because it engages the most primitive of our emotions, and that these emotions served adaptive purposes over the course of human evolution. Many scholars offended by the retributive instinct insist that we must put emotions aside when discussing the death penalty, even as jurors in death penalty cases, and rely on our rationality. To ask this is to ask what almost all normal people find impossible because the emotions evoked in capital cases (disgust, anger, sympathy for the victim, desire for justice) evolved for the purpose of maintaining group stability and survival by punishing freeloaders. Modern neuroscience has destroyed the traditional notion that rationality and emotion are antagonists. Brain imaging techniques show that they are fully integrated in our brain wiring, and both are engaged in decision making, but when reason and emotion yield conflicting judgments, the latter almost always triumphs. The evolutionary rationales for why emotions conducive to punitive responses for wrongdoers exist are examined.


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