Eyewitness memory in the news can affect the strategic regulation of memory reporting.

The public is increasingly exposed to news about eyewitness memory errors. This study draws from the strategic memory regulation framework [Goldsmith, M., Koriat, A., & Weinberg-Eliezer, A. (2002). Strategic regulation of grain size memory reporting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131(1), 73-95. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.131.1.73] to make predictions about how eyewitness memory reporting is affected by exposure to such reports. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 226) viewed a mock crime, were exposed to a fictitious news report about eyewitness memory accuracy (memory is accurate, memory is inaccurate, or a control condition), and then recalled the mock crime. Participants who read that eyewitness memory is inaccurate were less confident in their memory accuracy and reported less information about the mock crime compared to those in the other conditions. The specificity and accuracy of recall did not vary across conditions, however. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 2,491) watched a mock crime and were asked to identify the perpetrator from a simultaneous lineup. Participants who read that eyewitness memory is inaccurate evaluated their memory for the mock crime as relatively poorer but their lineup decisions did not differ compared to other participants. This suggests that news about eyewitness memory inaccuracy affects how people evaluate their memory capability, and differentially affects memory output depending on the memory task.

Relations among Parental Acceptance-Rejection and Forgiveness and Vengeance: A Comparison between Pakistani Madrassa and Public School Students.

This study investigated relations among adolescents' perceptions of parental acceptance and rejection, psychological (mal)adjustment, forgiveness, and vengeance in the predominantly Muslim country of Pakistan. Participants included adolescent males (Mage = 17, SD = 1.4, range = 15-19) from madrassas (educational institutions for Islamic instruction; n = 355) and public schools (n = 355). They responded to short forms of the maternal and paternal Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaires (PARQ), the Adult Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ), the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), the Vengeance Scale (VS-10), and a Personal Information Form (PIF). Findings revealed that both the madrassa students and the public school students perceived their mothers (but not their fathers) to be warm and loving. The adolescents also reported fair psychological adjustment, and on average, were forgiving and non-vengeful. However, madrassa students reported perceiving their parents-especially their mothers-as more loving and accepting than did public school students. Additionally, madrassa students reported better psychological adjustment, a greater tendency to be forgiving, and a lesser tendency to be vengeful than did public school students. Maternal and paternal rejection were positively correlated with psychological maladjustment and vengeance, whereas maternal and paternal acceptance were associated with psychological adjustment and forgiveness among both groups of students. Psychological adjustment was a significant mediator of the relation between parental acceptance and the disposition toward forgiveness for both groups. Psychological maladjustment was not a significant mediator between paternal rejection and vengeance among madrassa students, but not public school students. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.