Faith in Trump and the willingness to punish white-collar crime: Chinese Americans as an out-group.

Objectives: The first goal of the study was to investigate the willingness of former President Trump's supporters to punish a particular form of white-collar crime (i.e., bank fraud). The second objective was to test whether the race of the person who committed the bank fraud influenced Trump supporters' willingness to punish. Methods: This study used data from factorial vignettes that were administered to a national sample of adults in 2021 (N = 1509). A 2 (race of the individual who committed bank fraud) × 2 (prior criminal record) × 2 (COVID-19 related fraud) between-subject experimental design was used. Multivariate techniques were used to regress the dependent variables (e.g., length of prison sentence) onto the faith in Trump scale, the experimental conditions, and other variables. Results: Participants who expressed a strong faith in Trump were less likely to support sending an adult male who committed bank fraud to prison, but they were more supportive of deporting the individual to another country. The effect of faith in Trump changed when the race of the person who committed bank fraud was manipulated. Specifically, participants who expressed greater faith in Trump were more likely to view bank fraud as harmful and wrong, more likely to support the use of prison and recommend longer prison sentences, and expressed greater support for deporting the individual when he was depicted as Chinese American. Conclusions: Allegiance to the former president likely increased the targeting of Chinese Americans as out-group members in need of greater social control. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11292-022-09528-8.

Procedural injustice, police legitimacy, and officer gender: A vignette-based test of the invariance thesis.

Role congruity theory suggests that gender-based stereotypes can result in female police officers paying a higher price (i.e., viewed as less legitimate) relative to male officers for mistreating people. The invariance thesis posits that the effect of (un)fair treatment by legal authorities on legal attitudes and beliefs is stable across situations, time, and space. This study tested the invariance thesis by assessing whether the effect of procedural injustice on police legitimacy differed across officer gender. A factorial vignette survey that consisted of two types of citizen-initiated police encounters was administered to a university-based sample (N = 525). The results showed that the effect of procedural injustice had a powerful and significant influence on participants' legitimacy perceptions. These effects were consistent regardless of whether the treatment was doled out by a male or a female police officer. The findings provide support for the invariance thesis.

A multidimensional model of legal cynicism.

Legal socialization researchers have been paying more attention to legal cynicism, but the manner in which the concept was operationalized varied greatly and measurement properties of existing scales did not always meet traditional thresholds. The objective of this study was to construct and test a multidimensional legal cynicism scale with strong psychometric properties. We conducted 2 independent studies. In Study 1, we used survey data from a university-based sample (N = 502) to estimate a promax-rotated exploratory factor model. In Study 2, we used survey data from a second university-based sample (N = 587) in a confirmatory factor model to replicate the findings from Study 1. Results from both studies indicated that legal cynicism possessed a 3-dimensional structure (i.e., legal antipathy, low legal legitimacy, and legal corruption) and was correlated with criminal offending. The new legal cynicism scale possessed strong psychometric properties and predictive validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Violent Victimization and Low Self-Control: The Mediating Effect of Risky Lifestyles.

This study advances a multidimensional risky lifestyles scale (i.e., casual sex, drug involvement, active nightlife, peer deviance affiliation, and conflict escalation) and tests whether behaviors that bring people into contact with motivated offenders in the absence of capable guardianship mediates the relationship between low self-control and violent victimization. Using cross-sectional survey data from a university-based sample (N = 554), a second-order confirmatory factor model for risky lifestyles is estimated. Multivariate regression equations are used to test the effect of low self-control on violent victimization, and also to determine whether risky lifestyles acts as a mediator variable. The results show that the risky lifestyles scale fully mediates the relationship between low self-control and violent victimization. This observation holds across different measurement approaches and modeling strategies. Additional tests reveal that, when the scale is disaggregated, the effects of the individual dimensions of risky lifestyle vary in terms of effect size and level of statistical significance. While the multidimensional scale has sound psychometric properties, possesses robust directional accuracy, and reflects a broad array of risky behaviors, further refinement is necessary.

The victim-offender overlap in late adulthood.

This study contributes to the general knowledge of the victim-offender overlap by determining whether the phenomenon exists among older adults and whether known correlates of crime and victimization explain the relationship. Cross-sectional survey data from telephone interviews conducted with individuals 60 years and older (N = 2,000) residing in Arizona and Florida are used to estimate confirmatory factor models for both victimization and criminal offending. The results from a series of multivariate regression models show that victimization is associated with criminal offending. While factors such as low self-control, depression, and spending time in commercial drinking establishments partially attenuate the victimization-crime link, the statistically significant relationship persists in a multivariate context. Further testing indicates that the observed findings are robust across measurement and modeling strategies. Coupled with prior research, the results support the argument that the victim-offender overlap exists (and is difficult to explain) over the life course.

Depression and infrequent participation in social activities among older adults: the moderating role of high-quality familial ties.

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study is to investigate whether depression is associated with reduced participation in social activities among older adults. Additionally, this study assesses whether high-quality familial ties diminish the negative association between depression and social activities. METHODS: Using cross-sectional telephone interview data from a sample of individuals 60 years of age and older in Arizona and Florida (N = 2000), this study estimates a series of linear regression models to assess the relationship between depression and social activities, and test whether this association is conditioned by high-quality familial ties using multiplicative interaction terms. RESULTS: As expected, an inverse relationship between depression and social activities is observed. Delving deeper, the regression models reveal that the depression-inactivity association is weaker among older individuals with strong, positive ties to spouses and children. Additional tests demonstrate the mere of existence of familial bonds provides no meaningful benefit - the quality of such ties matters. CONCLUSION: Findings support the theoretical argument that high-quality familial ties provide supportive coping resources that buffer individuals from the undesirable consequences associated with depression. Moving forward, longitudinal research on the causal links between depression and infrequent participation in social and leisure activities among older adults is warranted.

A multidimensional model of police legitimacy: A cross-cultural assessment.

This study used survey data from cross-sectional, university-based samples of young adults in different cultural settings (i.e., the United States and Ghana) to accomplish 2 main objectives: (1) to construct a 4-dimensional police legitimacy scale, and (2) to assess the relationship that police legitimacy and feelings of obligation to obey the police have with 2 outcome measures. The fit statistics for the second-order confirmatory factor models indicated that the 4-dimensional police legitimacy model is reasonably consistent with the data in both samples. Results from the linear regression analyses showed that the police legitimacy scale is related to cooperation with the police, and that the observed association is attenuated when the obligation to obey scale is included in the model specification in both the United States and Ghana data. A similar pattern emerged in the U.S. sample when estimating compliance with the law models. However, although police legitimacy was associated with compliance in the Ghana sample, this relationship along with the test statistic for the sense of obligation to obey estimate were both null in the fully saturated equation. The findings provide support for the Bottoms and Tankebe's (2012) argument that legitimacy is multidimensional, comprising police lawfulness, distributive fairness, procedural fairness, and effectiveness. However, the link between police legitimacy and social order appears to be culturally variable.

The effects of low familial support and depressive symptomatology on suicide attempt among adolescents: A sex-based assessment.

INTRODUCTION: Researchers have traditionally tested the benefits of social support, showing that it promotes positive health outcomes. There is a lack of research assessing the deleterious impact of poor social support. Low familial support can serve as a stressor in the lives of adolescents, ultimately fostering negative emotions and maladaptive coping, such as attempted suicide. METHODS: Guided by general strain theory, this study uses two waves of data from the National Study of Adolescence to Adult Health (N = 13,827; n = 7105 for females, n = 6722 for males) to test the effect of low familial support on depressive symptomatology and whether the latter mediates the effect of low familial support on suicide attempt for both males and females. RESULTS: The analyses reveal that low familial support is positively and significantly associated with depressive symptomatology for male and female adolescents. Regarding suicide attempt, adolescents with lower levels of familial support and higher depressive symptomatology were likely to report attempting suicide. Contrary to theoretical expectations, depressive symptomatology did not mediate the relationship between low familial support and suicide attempt. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the results provide justification for efforts to provide resources to adolescents who lack familial support.

Toward the development of a perceived IRB violation scale.

This study introduces survey items that can be used to assess the perceived prevalence of specific IRB violations by researchers or to gauge the perceived seriousness of such infractions. Using survey data from tenured and tenure-track faculty at research-intensive universities, the descriptive findings showed that the failure to properly store data and neglecting to maintain project records were perceived to be the most widespread violations by sample members. Although comparatively less definitive, the results also showed that problems with data storage and record keeping were perceived to be relatively serious violations. As for scaling, the results from the exploratory factor analyses showed that the prevalence and seriousness scales were unidimensional. These findings support the practice of providing researchers with services for storing project data and records. Finally, the IRB violation scale developed in this study can be used by research integrity professionals to assess faculty perceptions at their universities.

Assessing the perceived prevalence of research fraud among faculty at research-intensive universities in the USA.

Survey-based studies on research fraud often feature narrow operationalizations of misbehavior and use limited samples. Such factors potentially hinder the development of strategies aimed at reducing the frequency of wrongdoing among researchers. This study asked full-time faculty members in the natural, social, and applied sciences how frequently six types of research fraud (i.e., data fabrication, plagiarism, data falsification, authorship fraud, publication fraud, and grant fraud) occur in their field of study. These data come from mail and online surveys that were administered to a stratified random sample of tenured and tenure-track faculty members (N = 613) at the top 100 research universities in the United States. Factor-analytic modeling demonstrated that the survey items load on the hypothesized latent constructs and also confirmed the presence of a second-order factor. A specific type of authorship fraud - gift authorship - was perceived to be the most prevalent overall. The least common fraud was a form of data fabrication (i.e., creating data from a study that was never actually conducted). The results were largely consistent with previous studies indicating that serious forms of fraud like data fabrication are relatively rare. Future survey-based studies should pay careful attention to the multidimensional nature of research fraud.

Low Self-Control and Crime in Late Adulthood.

This study investigates whether low self-control theory explains self-reported criminal activity in late adulthood. Cross-sectional survey data from telephone interviews conducted with individuals aged 60 years and older in Arizona and Florida (N = 2,000) are used. Regression analyses show that low self-control is related to criminal offending. The relationship between low self-control and offending persists after the introduction of potential mediators (e.g., unstructured socializing, negative emotions, and familial ties) and is even observed across different stages of late adulthood (i.e., young-old, old-old, and oldest-old) characterized by declining physical and cognitive abilities. Robustness checks using alternative measurement and modeling strategies also provide empirical support. Although strong causal inferences are limited by the nature of the data, the findings generally support the notion that low self-control theory partially explains criminal offending in late adulthood.