Increasing lifetime and past 30-day marijuana use among middle school students regardless of recreational marijuana sales.

PURPOSE: This study investigated whether adult use marijuana sales were associated with changes in lifetime and past 30-day (P30D) marijuana use among middle school students in Nevada (NV), which had adult-use marijuana sales during the study period, compared to New Mexico (NM), which did not have adult-use marijuana sales during the study period. METHODS: Data were drawn from the middle school 2017 and 2019 NV Youth Risk Behavior and NM Youth Risk and Resiliency Surveys. Difference-in-difference analyses compare changes in lifetime and P30D marijuana use in NV (adult-use sales implemented July 2017) vs. NM (no adult-use sales during the study period). RESULTS: There was no difference in lifetime (aOR 1.11; 95% CI 0.91,1.36) and P30D (aOR 1.17; 95% CI 0.91,1.51) marijuana use by adult-use sales status. The odds of lifetime and P30D marijuana use increased in both states, particularly among students who were female, older, non-White, or attending a Title 1 school. DISCUSSION: Adult-use sales were not associated with an increase in lifetime or P30D marijuana use. State-level prevention efforts should focus on sub-populations with increasing lifetime and P30D use regardless of adult-use sales status.

Youth Assets and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use: The Importance of Family Structure.

This research analyzed data from the Youth Asset Study (YAS), a 4-year longitudinal investigation designed to examine the prospective influence of youth assets, which are believed to influence behavior at the individual, family, and community levels, on youth risk behaviors. The purpose was to determine if specific youth assets (e.g., responsible choices, family communication, community involvement) differentially protected adolescents from alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use (ATODU) according to family structure (one-parent and two-parent households). Five waves of data were collected annually over four years from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of adolescents (N = 722, 51.5% male, baseline mean age = 14.1 years). Pearson chi-square tests for independence were used to test for significant differences in the prevalence of assets between one-parent and two-parent households. Generalized linear mixed models were used to identify prospective associations between 17 youth assets and ATODU while stratifying by family structure and controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. Compared to adolescents living in one-parent households, adolescents living in two-parent households were significantly more likely to possess six of 17 assets. Among adolescents living in one-parent households, those who possessed any one of eight youth assets were significantly less likely to use ATODU. Among adolescents living in one-parent households, those with any one of seven assets were significantly less likely to use ATODU. Family- and community-level assets had the most significant asset/ATODU associations for adolescents living in one-parent households (AORs ranged from 0.23 to 0.61). Individual-level assets had the most significant asset/ATODU associations for adolescents living in two-parent households (AORs ranged from 0.38 to 0.60). The results suggest that developing asset-based interventions tailored to the adolescents' family structure may be useful in preventing adolescents from engaging in ATODU.

Longitudinal associations between moral injury perceptions and mental health among healthcare workers during the pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic strained the healthcare system and resulted in higher rates of potentially morally injurious events. These events are perceived as violating one's own moral code, so a more precise construct label could be moral injury perceptions (MIPs). MIPs may exacerbate stress-related symptoms. However, consistent with the broader literature on mood-congruent cognitive bias, stress symptoms may also exacerbate MIPs. To test this bidirectional hypothesis, we examined the relationship between MIPs and stress symptoms among healthcare workers during the first year of the pandemic. METHOD: Online questionnaires for MIPs and stress-related symptoms (i.e., pandemic-related posttraumatic stress [PTSS], perceived stress, depression, and anxiety) were completed in April/May 2020 (time point one [T1]; N = 184), 1 month later (time point 2 [T2]; N = 135), and 6 months later (time point three [T3]; N = 112). RESULTS: Findings from cross-lagged panel modeling favored unidirectional models, but the direction of the relationship varied by symptom type. Perceived stress, PTSS, and depression, all predicted increased MIPs at a later time point. However, in a reversal of direction, MIPs predicted increased anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that MIPs may function as both a predictor and an outcome of stress-related symptoms. Mood-congruent cognitive biases could account for why depression, PTSS, and perceived stress predicted subsequent MIPs, whereas MIPs may have exacerbated more generalized anxiety about the future. Broadly, these findings highlight the importance of early access to mental health services for healthcare workers during public health crises to disrupt the relationship between MIPs and stress-related symptoms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Validity of forensic cartridge-case comparisons.

This article presents key findings from a research project that evaluated the validity and probative value of cartridge-case comparisons under field-based conditions. Decisions provided by 228 trained firearm examiners across the US showed that forensic cartridge-case comparison is characterized by low error rates. However, inconclusive decisions constituted over one-fifth of all decisions rendered, complicating evaluation of the technique's ability to yield unambiguously correct decisions. Specifically, restricting evaluation to only the conclusive decisions of identification and elimination yielded true-positive and true-negative rates exceeding 99%, but incorporating inconclusives caused these values to drop to 93.4% and 63.5%, respectively. The asymmetric effect on the two rates occurred because inconclusive decisions were rendered six times more frequently for different-source than same-source comparisons. Considering probative value, which is a decision's usefulness for determining a comparison's ground-truth state, conclusive decisions predicted their corresponding ground-truth states with near perfection. Likelihood ratios (LRs) further showed that conclusive decisions greatly increase the odds of a comparison's ground-truth state matching the ground-truth state asserted by the decision. Inconclusive decisions also possessed probative value, predicting different-source status and having a LR indicating that they increase the odds of different-source status. The study also manipulated comparison difficulty by using two firearm models that produce dissimilar cartridge-case markings. The model chosen for being more difficult received more inconclusive decisions for same-source comparisons, resulting in a lower true-positive rate compared to the less difficult model. Relatedly, inconclusive decisions for the less difficult model exhibited more probative value, being more strongly predictive of different-source status.

fullROC: An R package for generating and analyzing eyewitness-lineup ROC curves.

A police lineup is a procedure in which a suspect is surrounded by known-innocent persons (fillers) and presented to the witness for an identification attempt. The purpose of a lineup is to test the investigator's hypothesis that the suspect is the culprit, and the investigator uses the witness' identification decision and the associated confidence level to inform this hypothesis. Whereas suspect identifications provide evidence of guilt, filler identifications and rejections provide evidence of innocence. Despite the capacity of lineups to provide exculpatory information, past research has focused, almost exclusively, on inculpatory behaviors. We recently developed a method for incorporating all lineup outcomes in a single receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve. The area under the full lineup ROC curve reflects the total capacity of a lineup procedure to discriminate guilty suspects from innocent suspects. Here, we introduce a Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) package, fullROC, to support eyewitness researchers in using the full ROC approach to analyze lineup data. The fullROC package provides functions for adjusting identification rates, generating full ROC curves for lineup data, computing the area under the ROC curves (AUC), and statistically comparing the AUCs of different lineups. Using both simulated and empirical data, we illustrate the functionality of the fullROC CRAN package. In brief, the fullROC package provides a useful tool for eyewitness researchers to analyze lineup data using the full ROC method, which incorporates both the inculpatory and exculpatory information of eyewitness behaviors.

Evidence-based suspicion and the prior probability of guilt in police interrogations.

OBJECTIVE: False confessions are prevalent in wrongful convictions, and much research has examined investigation factors and interrogation methods that can contribute to false confessions. However, not all these factors are under the control of the legal system, and improving the effectiveness of interrogation methods has a limited effect on evaluating the veracity of confessions. We suggest incorporating an important but often-neglected factor in interrogations: suspects' prior probability of guilt ("the prior," a Bayesian term meaning suspects' likelihood of being guilty before police conduct an interrogation). METHOD: By connecting interrogation practices to probability concepts, we discuss a gap in the literature between questions traditionally answered by lab research and a distinct question faced by the legal system. RESULTS: On the basis of our analysis, we argue that police should increase priors by collecting additional evidence to satisfy an evidence-based suspicion of guilt before interrogating suspects. CONCLUSIONS: Implementing the evidence-based suspicion practice can help police reduce false confessions, reallocate investigation time and resources, and assist prosecutors in building strong cases for trial. Likewise, researchers should expand the empirical and legal questions they ask and incorporate priors into their interrogation experiments to improve the generalizability of findings to the criminal justice system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Youth Assets and Initiation of Sexual Intercourse by Family Structure: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to assess the protective influence of individual, family, and community assets from the initiation of sexual intercourse (ISI) for adolescents living in one-parent households compared with adolescents living in two-parent households. METHODS: Five waves of data were collected annually over a 4-year period (N = 591, 52.5% female, mean age = 14.0 years) from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of adolescents. Extended Cox models were used to assess the relationship between assets and time of ISI while controlling for demographic variables. Potential interactions between adolescent's household structure and assets were examined. RESULTS: Five of 17 assets were prospectively and significantly associated with a reduced risk of ISI among adolescents living in one-parent households compared with 11 of 17 assets for adolescents living in two-parent households. Adolescents living in one-parent households who possessed any one of five assets (e.g., general aspirations for the future, relationship with mother, positive peer role models) had between a 27% and 57% lower risk of ISI, whereas adolescents living in two-parent households who possessed any of one of 11 assets (e.g., responsible choices, family communication, community involvement) had between a 20% and 42% lower risk of ISI. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that strengthening specific youth assets across multiple dimensions of behavioral influence may decrease the risk of ISI for adolescents living in both one-parent and two-parent households. Public health efforts focused on developing programs to promote asset building tailored to adolescent's family structure are warranted.

Evaluating classification performance: Receiver operating characteristic and expected utility.

One primary advantage of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis is considered to be its ability to quantify classification performance independently of factors such as prior probabilities and utilities of classification outcomes. This article argues the opposite. When evaluating classification performance, ROC analysis should consider prior probabilities and utilities. By developing expected utility lines (EU lines), this article shows the connection between a classifier's ROC curve and expected utility of classification. In particular, EU lines can be used to estimate expected utilities when classifiers operate at any ROC point for any given prior probabilities and utilities. EU lines are useful across all situations-no matter if one examines a single classifier or compares multiple classifiers, if one compares classifiers' potential to maximize expected utilities or classifiers' actual expected utilities, and if the ROC curves are full or partial, continuous or discrete. The connection between ROC and expected utility analyses reveals the common objective underlying these two methods: to maximize expected utility of classification. Particularly, ROC analysis is useful in choosing an optimal classifier and its optimal operating point to maximize expected utility. Yet, choosing a classifier and its operating point (i.e., changing conditional probabilities) is not the only way to increase expected utility. Inspired by parameters involved in estimating expected utility, this article also discusses other approaches to increase expected utility beyond ROC analysis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Prospective Associations Between Youth Assets and Truancy Within the Context of Family Structure.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to examine the prospective associations between 17 individual, family, and community level youth assets and truancy among adolescents living in 1-parent and 2-parent households. METHODS: Five waves of data were collected annually over a 4-year period from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of adolescents (N = 722, 51.5% female, mean age = 14.1 years). Generalized linear mixed models were used to identify prospective associations between youth assets and truancy while stratifying by family structure and controlling sociodemographic characteristics. RESULTS: Five of the 17 youth assets were significantly associated (p < .05) with reduced odds of truancy among adolescents living in 1-parent households compared to 10 of 17 assets for adolescents living in 2-parent households. The significant asset/truancy associations were stronger for adolescents living in 1-parent households, whereas for adolescents living in 2-parent households, more of the community assets were significantly protective (p < .05) from truancy. CONCLUSION: Assets that focus on supporting adolescents' future aspirations and expectations may reduce truancy among those living in 1-parent households, whereas assets that promote community involvement and increased interaction with teachers and peers may protect adolescents living in 2-parent households from truancy.

The association of distress tolerance and mindful awareness with mental health in first responders.

Mindful awareness (MA) and distress tolerance are emerging as robust predictors of mental health in populations with high levels of stress and trauma exposure, such as first responders. The combination of both protective factors may have potentiating benefits for mental health. First responders might especially benefit from high levels of MA if they are able to tolerate distressing present-moment experiences as needed. In this study, cross-sectional data were used to test whether distress intolerance (DI) moderated the relationship between MA and mental health. First responders (N = 176) completed an online assessment battery including measures of MA (Mindful Attention Awareness Scale), DI (Distress Intolerance Index), and mental health outcomes (i.e., Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] Checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition [DSM-5]; Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale; abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory; compassion satisfaction subscale of the Professional Quality of Life Scale; Satisfaction with Life Scale; and Brief Resilience Scale). Multiple regression models demonstrated that among first responders with higher DI, MA had a stronger association with lower anxiety and depression symptoms. Interactions between MA and DI were not significant for other outcome measures. However, higher MA and lower DI each independently predicted lower stress (lower posttraumatic stress, secondary traumatic stress, and general stress); higher MA independently predicted better occupational health (lower burnout and higher compassion satisfaction); and lower DI independently predicted positive mental health (greater resilience and life satisfaction). Results highlight the independent associations of high MA and low DI with first responders' mental health and underscore the importance of studying of interventions that promote both of these protective factors in first responders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Distress Tolerance and Emotion Regulation as Potential Mediators Between Secondary Traumatic Stress and Maladaptive Coping.

The extant literature has illustrated that protective service workers experience negative repercussions associated with their job (including the development of secondary traumatic stress; STS) and may utilize maladaptive coping mechanisms. Developing an improved understanding of factors that might explain the relationship between STS and the utilization of maladaptive coping mechanisms is warranted. This study sought to examine emotion regulation and distress tolerance as potential mediators between STS and the utilization of maladaptive coping mechanisms. Participants were 152 elder protective service workers and 105 child protective service workers who completed an online survey of self-report measures of emotion regulation, distress tolerance, STS, and coping behaviors. A parallel multiple mediator model was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the hypothesis that distress tolerance and emotion regulation would mediate the relationship between STS and the utilization of maladaptive coping. Our hypothesis was partially supported as the effect of STS on maladaptive coping was mediated by emotion regulation but not by distress tolerance. The results from this study have both prevention and intervention implications. From a prevention perspective, efforts could be directed at teaching emotion regulation skills to those at risk for developing STS as a mechanism for decreasing the probability of denial, substance use, behavioral disengagement, and self-blame that may occur as a consequence of STS. From an intervention perspective, some of the negative sequelae of exposure to STS may be averted by teaching EPS and CPS workers who present with STS symptoms, emotion regulation skills.

A Robust and Generalizable Immune-Related Signature for Sepsis Diagnostics.

High-throughput sequencing can detect tens of thousands of genes in parallel, providing opportunities for improving the diagnostic accuracy of multiple diseases including sepsis, which is an aggressive inflammatory response to infection that can cause organ failure and death. Early screening of sepsis is essential in clinic, but no effective diagnostic biomarkers are available yet. Here, we present a novel method, Recurrent Logistic Regression, to identify diagnostic biomarkers for sepsis from the blood transcriptome data. A panel including five immune-related genes, LRRN3, IL2RB, FCER1A, TLR5, and S100A12, are determined as diagnostic biomarkers (LIFTS) for sepsis. LIFTS discriminates patients with sepsis from normal controls in high accuracy (AUROC = 0.9959 on average; IC = [0.9722-1.0]) on nine validation cohorts across three independent platforms, which outperforms existing markers. Our analysis determined an accurate prediction model and reproducible transcriptome biomarkers that can lay a foundation for clinical diagnostic tests and biological mechanistic studies.

Eyewitnesses' free-report verbal confidence statements are diagnostic of accuracy.

OBJECTIVES: We assessed recent policy recommendations to collect eyewitnesses' confidence statements in witnesses' own words as opposed to numerically. We conducted an experiment to test whether eyewitnesses' free-report verbal confidence statements are as diagnostic of eyewitness accuracy as their numeric confidence statements and whether the diagnostic utility of eyewitnesses' verbal and numeric confidence statements varies across witnessing conditions. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that eyewitnesses' verbal and numeric confidence statements are both significantly associated with identification accuracy among choosers and that their diagnostic utility holds across varying witnessing conditions. METHOD: In the first phase of the experiment, eyewitnesses (N = 4,795 MTurkers; 48.8% female; 50.8% male; .3% other; age M = 36.9) viewed a videotaped mock-crime and made an identification decision from a culprit-present or culprit-absent lineup. We manipulated witnessing conditions at encoding and retrieval to obtain varied levels of memory performance. In the second phase of the experiment, evaluators (N = 456 MTurkers; 35.5% female; 62.7% male .4% other; age M = 36.5) translated witnesses' verbal confidence statements to a numeric estimate and we used calibration and confidence-accuracy characteristic analyses to compare the diagnosticity of witnesses' verbal and numeric confidence statements across the two levels of memory performance. RESULTS: Witnesses' verbal and numeric confidence statements were significantly and nondifferentially diagnostic of eyewitness accuracy for both choosers and nonchoosers, and their diagnostic utility held across variations in witnessing conditions. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest the applied utility of collecting either verbal or numeric confidence statements from eyewitnesses immediately following an identification decision. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale: Confirmatory Factor Analyses With a National Sample of Victim Advocates.

Secondary traumatic stress (STS) is a pattern of psychological symptoms that approximates the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and occurs in professionals who are exposed to individuals who have experienced trauma. While victim advocates are frontline health professionals who are trained to support victims of crime and interpersonal violence and are at risk for developing STS, they have been largely neglected in the extant literature on STS. The STS Scale (STSS) is a 17-item self-report questionnaire utilized to assess frequency of symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, and arousal, specifically related to providing services to victims of trauma. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the STSS with a sample of victim advocates (N = 135) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results indicated that both a single-factor model and three-factor model were equivalent. This study represents a first attempt to validate a measure of STS among victim advocates, a unique and understudied population who are at risk for developing STS given their work with individuals who have experienced interpersonal violence. Establishing effective, easy to administer, and efficient measures of STS is important given that this population encounters secondary trauma on a regular basis in the context of their job. While additional theoretical work regarding the construct of STS is needed, the STSS did demonstrate high reliability with this population and thus can be used as part of the assessment of STS among victim advocates.

Attempted Suicide Among Adolescents in Military Families: The Mediating Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Research has shown that adolescents in military families have higher rates of suicidal behaviors compared to their nonmilitary peers. This is typically attributed to military-specific stressors, but exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may also play a role. Our primary research objective was to determine whether cumulative exposure to ACEs mediates the relationship between military family involvement and attempted suicide. A two-stage cluster random sampling design was used to randomly sample 5,336 students from 98 high schools. Students were asked whether a parent or other adult in their home was serving on active duty in the military and attempted suicide in the past 12 months was assessed. Six measures of childhood abuse and household dysfunction were summed, and the ACE score was categorized as 0, 1, 2, and 3-6 ACEs. Weighted logistic regression and multinomial regression were used to assess differences in ACEs and attempted suicide, controlling for sex, age, race/ethnicity, rurality, and qualification for free/reduced lunch. To investigate potential mediation effects of ACEs on the relationship between military family and attempted suicide, we conducted path analyses controlling for demographics. Compared to their peers, students in military families had higher exposure to ACEs (1 ACE: adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.88, 2.53], 2 ACEs: AOR = 2.07, 95% CI = [1.23, 3.48], and 3-6 ACEs: AOR = 2.57, 95% CI = [1.54, 4.27]) and twice the odds of attempting suicide in the past 12 months (AOR = 2.16, 95% CI = [1.30, 3.61]). Mediation analyses showed that cumulative exposure to ACEs completely mediated the relationship between military family involvement and attempted suicide. The study results highlight the need for trauma-informed approaches to mental health promotion with military families.

Healthcare Utilization, Unmet Service Needs, and Medication Adherence Among People Living with HIV/AIDS.

BACKGROUND: Comorbidity rates and service needs are high among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). The effects of service utilization and unmet service needs on antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to investigate associations among PLWHA's service utilization, unmet service needs, and ART adherence. METHODS: PLWHA (N=162) 18 years or older were recruited from a Nevada statewide needs assessment project in 2016. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire on paper or online. The independent variables were service utilization and unmet service needs. The outcome variable was ART adherence. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between the amount of utilized services and unmet service needs with ART adherence. RESULTS: Only 12 (7.5%) participants reported they received all the needed services. The ART nonadherence group showed significantly higher unmet medical service needs compared to the ART adherence group (p=0.007). Unmet medical service needs (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) 0.69, CI 0.53-0.90) and unmet support service needs (AOR 0.68, CI 0.48-0.97) were negatively associated with ART adherence. However, utilizing medical services (AOR 1.06, CI 0.87-1.30) and support services (AOR 0.88, CI 0.74-1.04) in the current year were not significantly associated with ART adherence. CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that health promotion programming should focus not only on introducing new services at the community level, but also work to optimize the availability and awareness of current services. Furthermore, health promotion programs should focus on filling service coverage gaps and improving the facilitation of services.

Distinguishing Between Investigator Discriminability and Eyewitness Discriminability: A Method for Creating Full Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves of Lineup Identification Performance.

The conceptual frameworks provided by both the lineups-as-experiments analogy and signal detection theory have proven important to understanding how eyewitness lineups work. The lineups-as-experiments analogy proposes that when investigators use a lineup procedure, they are acting as experimenters and should therefore follow the same tried-and-true procedures that experimenters follow when executing an experiment. Signal detection theory offers a framework for distinguishing between factors that improve the trade-off between culprit and innocent-suspect identifications and factors that affect the frequency of suspect identifications. We integrate these two conceptual frameworks. We argue that an eyewitness lineup procedure is characterized by two simultaneous signal detection tasks. On one hand, the witness is tasked with determining whether the culprit is present in the lineup and identifying that person. On the other hand, the investigator knows which lineup member is the suspect and which lineup members are known-innocent fillers and is therefore tasked only with determining whether the suspect is the culprit. The investigator uses the witness's identification decision and associated level of confidence to decide whether the suspect is the culprit. We leverage this realization to demonstrate a method for creating full receiver operating characteristic curves for eyewitness lineup procedures.

Why suspects confess: The power of outcome certainty.

OBJECTIVE: In custodial interrogations, suspects tend to give disproportionate weight to immediate outcomes relative to future outcomes when deciding whether to confess or deny guilt. The current research examined whether the perceived (un)certainty of an immediate outcome influences suspects' short-sighted confession decisions. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that suspects are more likely to make short-sighted confession decisions when an immediate punishment is certain versus uncertain and that the effects of a certain immediate punishment become stronger the longer suspects are interrogated. METHOD: Using the repetitive question paradigm, college student participants (N = 164, 57% women, 87% Caucasian, M age 18.9 years) admitted or denied 20 illegal and unethical behaviors in an interview. Participants' admissions and denials received either an immediate punishment (answering repetitive questions) or a future punishment (meeting with a police officer in several weeks to discuss their misconduct). In addition, we manipulated participants' perceptions of the immediate punishment to be either certain or uncertain. RESULTS: Participants showed greater short-sightedness in their admission decisions when they perceived the immediate punishment to be certain versus uncertain. Moreover, the influence of the certain immediate punishment on participants' admission decisions tended to increase over time. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide empirical evidence that the certainty of immediate outcomes may contribute to suspects' shorted-sighted confession decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Mobilization and resistance in response to interrogation threat.

This research tested whether the perception of threat during a police interrogation mobilizes suspects to cope with interrogation demands and bolsters their resistance to self-incrimination pressures. Experimental procedures led university undergraduates (N = 296) to engage in misconduct or not, thereby making them guilty or innocent. An experimenter then accused all participants of misconduct in either a threatening or nonthreatening way. High threat produced a broad pattern of mobilization entailing physiologic, cognitive, and behavioral components. Specifically, in comparison to the low threat accusation, the high threat accusation produced greater cardiovascular reactions, increased attentional bias and memory for accusation-relevant information, and strengthened resistance to self-incrimination. Furthermore, with the exception of physiologic reactions, these effects were similar for both guilty and innocent participants. Consistent with the phenomenology of innocence wherein the innocent perceive less threat from interrogation than do the guilty, the innocent evidenced smaller cardiovascular responses to high threat than did the guilty. Results suggest that the more threat that suspects experience, the more they will be mobilized to cope with interrogation demands and resist interpersonal pressure to self-incriminate, at least initially. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

An expected cost model of eyewitness identification.

This article presents an expected cost model for evaluating and comparing the performance of eyewitness identification procedures. The model estimates the expected cost of an identification procedure in order to quantify how well the procedure helps the police achieve the investigation goal of identifying and incriminating the culprit. We first apply the expected cost model to analyze five major procedural reforms, including showups versus lineups, filler similarity, administrator influence, lineup instruction, and presentation format. Our analysis reveals that when there is a trade-off between accurate and mistaken identifications, conclusions about procedural superiority depend on the prior probability of guilt and relative costs of different identification outcomes. We then conduct an additional analysis based on a simultaneous consideration of all identification outcomes (i.e., suspect identifications, filler identifications, and rejections). Our analysis shows that assuming different costs for filler identifications and rejections can change conclusions about procedural superiority. We conclude by discussing insights provided by the expected cost model regarding how the legal system can reduce expected costs of eyewitness identification-by changing the conditional probabilities, by reducing the costs of identification outcomes, or by increasing the prior probability of guilt. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).