Real Jurors\u27 Understanding of the Law in Real Cases

A survey of 224 Michigan citizens called for jury duty over a 2-month period was conducted to assess the jurors\u27 comprehension of the law they had been given in the judges\u27 instructions. Citizens who served as jurors were compared with a base line of those who were called for duty but not selected to serve, and with those who served on different kinds of cases. Consistent with previous studies of mock jurors, this study found that actual jurors understand fewer than half of the instructions they receive at trial. Subjects who received judges\u27 instructions performed significantly better than uninstructed subjects on questions about the procedural law, but no better on questions about the substantive (criminal) law. Additionally, jurors who asked for help from the judge understood the instructions better than other jurors. Since the results replicate previous research using simulated trials, this study provides evidence for the generalizability of earlier work to actual trials

Stress and Health in 1st-Year Law Students: Women Fare Worse

The social and psychological consequences of being a female law student may include greater stress and worse health than that experienced by male students. First-year law students at a major state university were surveyed about their physical and psychological health prior to, in the middle of, and at the end of the school year. They were also asked about specific sources of strain (e.g., grades, time pressure) at mid-year. Relative to men, women reported greater strain due to sexism, lack of free time, and lack of time to spend with one’s spouse/partner. Women also displayed more depression and physical symptoms at the end of the year. Partial correlation analyses controlling for baseline health were used to show associations between mid-year strain and end-of-year emotional and physical health. Gender-role constraints may be more responsible for women’s stress than law school per se

Emerging Adulthood: Theory, Assessment and Application

The later attainment of traditional adult roles by today’s youth compared to their counterparts of earlier decades has garnered considerable scholarly and public attention. This article describes a recent concept related to the transition to adulthood, known as emerging adulthood, including a discussion of relevant theory and historical background research. We then introduce a measurement instrument, the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA), which assesses identification with transition-to-adulthood themes. Results of initial scale-development studies were largely supportive of the measure’s reliability and validity. Respondents in their 20s identified with relevant themes to a greater extent than did their younger and older counterparts. Marital status differences on the IDEA emerged, but college and non-college respondents were largely similar. Finally, we provide suggestions for how parent educators can make use of the IDEA instrument in advising parents and their emerging adult children

Emerging Adulthood: Theory, Assessment and Application

The later attainment of traditional adult roles by today’s youth compared to their counterparts of earlier decades has garnered considerable scholarly and public attention. This article describes a recent concept related to the transition to adulthood, known as emerging adulthood, including a discussion of relevant theory and historical background research. We then introduce a measurement instrument, the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA), which assesses identification with transition-to-adulthood themes. Results of initial scale-development studies were largely supportive of the measure’s reliability and validity. Respondents in their 20s identified with relevant themes to a greater extent than did their younger and older counterparts. Marital status differences on the IDEA emerged, but college and non-college respondents were largely similar. Finally, we provide suggestions for how parent educators can make use of the IDEA instrument in advising parents and their emerging adult children

Machine learning uncovers the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across 43 longitudinal couples studies

Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identify which constructs reliably predict relationship quality. Across 43 dyadic longitudinal datasets from 29 laboratories, the top relationship-specific predictors of relationship quality were perceived-partner commitment, appreciation, sexual satisfaction, perceived-partner satisfaction, and conflict. The top individual-difference predictors were life satisfaction, negative affect, depression, attachment avoidance, and attachment anxiety. Overall, relationship-specific variables predicted up to 45% of variance at baseline, and up to 18% of variance at the end of each study. Individual differences also performed well (21% and 12%, respectively). Actor-reported variables (i.e., own relationship-specific and individual-difference variables) predicted two to four times more variance than partner-reported variables (i.e., the partner’s ratings on those variables). Importantly, individual differences and partner reports had no predictive effects beyond actor-reported relationship-specific variables alone. These findings imply that the sum of all individual differences and partner experiences exert their influence on relationship quality via a person’s own relationship-specific experiences, and effects due to moderation by individual differences and moderation by partner-reports may be quite small. Finally, relationship-quality change (i.e., increases or decreases in relationship quality over the course of a study) was largely unpredictable from any combination of self-report variables. This collective effort should guide future models of relationships

Stress, social support, coping, and health in a sample of married professional women with small children.

Data from a longitudinal survey of married professional women with small children (N = 200) were analyzed to investigate: (a) what types of occupational and role-conflict related stresses would be associated with the experience of physical and depressive symptoms, and (b) whether social support available from other people and /or the personality characteristic of "learned resourcefulness" could protect individuals from negative health effects of high stress. Six stress indices predicted physical and depressive symptoms, both concurrently and one year later (in the latter case, initial symptom levels were statistically controlled). These six stress indices reflected perceptions of: lack of authority and influence on the job; sex discrimination; a heavy workload; work imposing upon relaxation; family imposing upon relaxation; and overall suffering in different life arenas due to the other roles. Social support was measured by asking respondents about the degree to which they felt various types of assistance (e.g., advice, encouragement) were available from different sources (e.g., spouse, friends at work). Indices of support type (over all sources combined) buffered respondents against the effects of the stresses in six cases. Individuals who felt that useful information and advice was highly available from other people showed a reduced susceptibility to physical health symptoms under high levels of authority/influence stress in comparison to individuals lower in this type of support, and a reduced susceptibility to depressive symptoms under high levels of work amount stress. Individuals feeling that encouragement and reassurance were highly available from other people also showed a reduced susceptibility to depressive symptoms under high levels of work amount stress. Feeling that tangible assistance was highly available reduced the level of physical symptoms for individuals high in authority/influence stress. Actual participation in social activities buffered individuals who were bothered by work and family impositions on relaxation time against physical symptomatology. These results supported the idea that social support and interactions must be specifically tailored to the kind of stress being experienced for health-protective effects to occur. Indices of total social support from various sources (combining different types) yielded no stress-buffering effects. The resourceful personality disposition did not show any stress-buffering effects, either.Ph.D.Social psychologyWomen's studiesUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162516/1/9013996.pd

Real Jurors\u27 Understanding of the Law in Real Cases

A survey of 224 Michigan citizens called for jury duty over a 2-month period was conducted to assess the jurors\u27 comprehension of the law they had been given in the judges\u27 instructions. Citizens who served as jurors were compared with a base line of those who were called for duty but not selected to serve, and with those who served on different kinds of cases. Consistent with previous studies of mock jurors, this study found that actual jurors understand fewer than half of the instructions they receive at trial. Subjects who received judges\u27 instructions performed significantly better than uninstructed subjects on questions about the procedural law, but no better on questions about the substantive (criminal) law. Additionally, jurors who asked for help from the judge understood the instructions better than other jurors. Since the results replicate previous research using simulated trials, this study provides evidence for the generalizability of earlier work to actual trials

How Do Spouses’ Levels of Ambivalent Sexism Predict Allocations of Household Chores? Probing Why Women Still Perform Most of the Work in the U.S.

This study’s main objective was to examine whether, in a U.S. sample, ambivalent sexism would show stronger associations with heterosexual husbands and wives’ housework division (hours and proportion) than have previous gender-ideology measures. Unlike earlier conceptions of sexism emphasizing hostile and negative stereotypical views toward women, ambivalent sexism combines the two dimensions of hostile sexism and benevolent sexism (seemingly positive views and behaviors toward women that nevertheless convey underlying paternalistic and patronizing motivations). We hypothesized that male and female respondents high in both hostile and benevolent sexism would report the typical pattern of wives’ housework exceeding their husbands’, whereas those lower in hostile or benevolent sexism would report less housework being performed by wives. Married individuals (N = 249) were recruited via advertisements on Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform and announcements at a university to complete an online survey. Several variables were measured, including own and spouse’s housework hours, hostile and benevolent sexism, and demographic control variables previously associated with housework allocation. An interaction emerged for women, in which those high in benevolent, but low in hostile, sexism reported performing the highest proportion of housework, whereas those low in both forms of sexism performed the lowest proportion. These results provided full or partial support for different aspects of our hypotheses. Men reported greater housework (hours and proportion) the more hours their wife worked outside the house. Discussion examines implications for ambivalent sexism theory, housework sharing, and conceptions of sexism

Stress and Health in 1st-Year Law Students: Women Fare Worse

The social and psychological consequences of being a female law student may include greater stress and worse health than that experienced by male students. First-year law students at a major state university were surveyed about their physical and psychological health prior to, in the middle of, and at the end of the school year. They were also asked about specific sources of strain (e.g., grades, time pressure) at mid-year. Relative to men, women reported greater strain due to sexism, lack of free time, and lack of time to spend with one’s spouse/partner. Women also displayed more depression and physical symptoms at the end of the year. Partial correlation analyses controlling for baseline health were used to show associations between mid-year strain and end-of-year emotional and physical health. Gender-role constraints may be more responsible for women’s stress than law school per se