Although most Americans support capital punishment, many people have misconceptions about its efficacy and administration (e.g., that capital punishment deters crime). Can correcting people’s inaccurate attitudes change their support for the death penalty? If not, are there other strategies that might shift people’s attitudes about the death penalty? Some research suggests that statistical information can correct misconceptions about polarizing topics. Yet, statistics might be irrelevant if people support capital punishment for purely retributive reasons, suggesting other argumentative strategies may be more effective. In Study 1, I compared how two different interventions shifted attitudes towards the death penalty. In Studies 2 - 4 I examined what other attitudes shape endorsement of capital punishment, and used these findings to develop and test an educational intervention aimed at providing information about errors in the implementation of the death penalty. Altogether, these findings suggest that attitudes about capital punishment are based on more than just retributive motives, and that correcting misconceptions related to its administration and other relevant factors reduces support for the death penalty.

The legal system relies heavily on the contribution of forensic psychologists. These psychologists give opinions on a defendant’s ability to stand trial, their legal sanity at the time of the crime, their future dangerousness, and their competency to be executed. However, we know little about what extrinsic factors bias these experts. I assessed the influence of gruesome photographs on forensic psychologists’ evaluations of competency and legal sanity. Previous research has demonstrated that these photographs influence lay judgments of guilt. I predicted that gruesome color photographs (versus the same photographs in black-and-white or a textual description of the photographs) would influence forensic psychologists to judge the defendant competent and sane (decisions that might ultimately lead to punishment). I also predicted that this effect would be greater for sanity judgments than for competency judgments. I asked laypeople to make the same decisions in order to compare expert and lay judgments. I predicted that impact of photograph type seen in experts would be greater in the lay sample. No differences in judgments of competence, sanity, or mental illness emerged as a function of the type of visual information, for either expert or lay participants. Experts relied on competency evidence to make competency judgments and insanity evidence to make insanity judgments. In contrast, lay people relied on various types of evidence to make their ultimate judgments. This research suggests that people making competency and sanity judgments might not be biased by gruesome photographs.

Police officers in America interact with civilians on a daily basis as function of their job, and the way people perceive police officers can either help or hurt officers in performance of their duties. I conducted an experiment to test whether people perceive a police officer’s use of force differently depending on the officer’s race and gender. First, when an officer uses force, I propose competing hypotheses that a female officer will be viewed as less favorable than a male officer; however, because female aggression is less expected, I also predict that they will be viewed as more favorable than male officers. Second, when an officer uses force, I predict that a Black officer will be viewed as more aggressive than a White Officer. Lastly, I predict that perceptions of the officer (i.e., perceived aggression and emotional reactivity) would mediate the relationship between officer gender and attitudes towards the officer. Using an experimental survey design with a video of a police-civilian interaction, I found support that female officers were viewed more favorably than male officers when force was used. I found no support that Black officers would be viewed as more aggressive than White officers. Lastly, I found partial support that perceptions of the officer mediated the relationship between officer gender and attitudes towards the officer.

Stress is an arguably universal phenomenon that has maladaptive effects on individuals’ mental health (i.e., depression). Individuals traditionally deal with stress through various coping strategies that fall under three coping styles: emotion-oriented coping, avoidance/disengagement coping, and problem-oriented coping. Furthermore, numerous studies have focused on the stress-reducing properties of music, but the literature lacks an examination of the use and effectiveness of music as a coping strategy. The current thesis examined the moderating role of music as a coping strategy in the link between stress and depression. Based on existing research, the author predicted that for participants who endorsed music coping as emotion-oriented or avoidance /disengagement-oriented, there would be an exacerbation of the stress-depression link. However, for participants who endorsed music coping as problem-oriented, there would be an attenuation of the stress-depression link. In an online survey-based study of 207 students attending Arizona State University, the author found that emotion-oriented music coping and avoidance/disengagement music coping exacerbated the relationship between stress and depression. The author, however, did not find support for the prediction that higher endorsement of problem-oriented music coping would buffer the effect of stress on depression. These results suggest that music coping may parallel alternative coping strategies in some respects but not others. Overall, the study findings support the further examination of music as a coping strategy in order to replicate emotion-oriented coping as the primary use of music.

This dissertation research investigates the social implications of computing artifacts that make use of sensor driven self-quantification to implicitly or explicitly direct user behaviors. These technologies are referred to here as self-sensoring prescriptive applications (SSPA’s). This genre of technological application has a strong presence in healthcare as a means to monitor health, modify behavior, improve health outcomes, and reduce medical costs. However, the commercial sector is quickly adopting SSPA’s as a means to monitor and/or modify consumer behaviors as well (Swan, 2013). These wearable devices typically monitor factors such as movement, heartrate, and respiration; ostensibly to guide the users to better or more informed choices about their physical fitness (Lee & Drake, 2013; Swan, 2012b). However, applications that claim to use biosensor data to assist in mood maintenance and control are entering the market (Bolluyt, 2015), and applications to aid in decision making about consumer products are on the horizon as well (Swan, 2012b). Interestingly, there is little existing research that investigates the direct impact biosensor data have on decision making, nor on the risks, benefits, or regulation of such technologies. The research presented here is inspired by a number of separate but related gaps in existing literature about the social implications of SSPA’s. First, how SSPA’s impact individual and group decision making and attitude formation within non-medical-care domains (e.g. will a message about what product to buy be more persuasive if it claims to have based the recommendation on your biometric information?). Second, how the design and designers of SSPA’s shape social behaviors and third, how these factors are or are not being considered in future design and public policy decisions.

Courthouse dogs (sometimes referred to as facility animals) are expertly trained canines which may be used to assist individuals with psychological, emotional, or physical difficulties in a myriad of courtroom situations. While these animals are increasingly used to assist young witness to court, the jury is still out on whether or not they are prejudicial to the defendant. No known research exists in this area, although research is necessary to determine the possibly prejudicial nature of these animals. Using a mock trial paradigm involving a child sexual abuse case, the current study employed a 2 (Witness type: victim vs. bystander) x 3 (Innovation type: courthouse dog vs. teddy bear vs. none) fully-crossed factorial design. It was hypothesized that witness type and innovation type would interact to differentially impact jurors' judgments about the trial, defendant, and child witness. In addition, it was posited that emotions, such as anger and disgust, would also affect judgments and decision-making. Results indicate that courthouse dogs and comfort toys did impact jurors' decision making in some ways. In addition, emotions and witness credibility predicted sentencing, verdict, and other trial judgments.

Very little experimental work has been done to investigate the psychological underpinnings of perceptions of privacy. This issue is especially pressing with the advent of powerful and inexpensive technologies that allow access to all but our most private thoughts -and these too are at risk (Farah, Smith, Gawuga, Lindsell, &Foster;, 2009). Recently the Supreme Court ruled that the use of a global positioning system (GPS) device to covertly follow a criminal suspect, without first obtaining a search warrant, is a violation of a suspect's fourth amendment right to protection from unlawful search and seizure (United States v. Jones, 2012). However, the Court has also ruled in the past that a law enforcement officer can covertly follow a suspect's vehicle and collect the same information without a search warrant and this is not considered a violation of the suspect's rights (Katz v. United States). In the case of GPS surveillance the Supreme Court Justices did not agree on whether the GPS device constituted a trespassing violation because it was placed on the suspect's vehicle (the majority) or if it violated a person's reasonable expectation of privacy. This incongruence is an example of how the absence of a clear and predictable model of privacy makes it difficult for even the country's highest moral authority to articulate when and why privacy has been violated. This research investigated whether public perceptions of support for the use of each surveillance technique also vary across different monitoring types that collect the same information and whether these differences are mediated by similar factors as argued by the Supreme Court. Results suggest that under some circumstances participants do demonstrate differential support and this is mediated by a general privacy concern. However, under other circumstances differential support is the result of an interaction between the type of monitoring and its cost to employ -not simply type; this differential support was mediated by both perceived violations of private-space and general privacy. Results are discussed in terms of how these findings might contribute to understanding the psychological foundation of perceived privacy violations and how they might inform policy decision.

The present study examined daily survey data collected from married couples over the course roughly 14 days. I investigated the relationships of the morning quality ratings of three distinct spousal interactions conversation (physical affection, and sexual activity) reported in mornings on later-day positive and negative affect, as well as next-day intensity of negative somatic symptoms (e.g. headaches, dizziness, aches and pains). Hierarchical linear modeling was used to estimate path models for both husbands and wives. Direct and indirect effects were observed. Results showed that quality of conversation and physical affection increased later-day positive mood for both husbands and wives; however, positive quality activity increased later-day positive affect for wives only. Quality of sexual activity decreased later-day negative affect for wives only. Less later-day negative affect decreased next-day intensity of symptoms for both husbands and wives. Lastly, quality of sexual activity decreased later-day negative affect, which decreased next-day somatic symptoms for wives. This was the only significant indirect effect. Implications are that high marital quality is important for maintaining psychological health for both spouses, and physical health, particularly for wives.