The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of the type of crime (namely, its perceived immorality) a juvenile is suspected of on how juvenile suspects are perceived (in terms of moral character, immaturity, and suggestibility) and, in turn, interrogated. I expected act-person dissociation to influence that effect. To that end, perceptions of crime (i.e., immorality, seriousness) were also investigated. The study was first conducted with law enforcement officers (n = 55), then replicated with laypeople (n = 171). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three crime conditions: robbery, sexual assault, and murder. In each condition, participants read a probable cause statement involving a 15-year-old suspect. There were several key findings: (1) Murder was the most serious crime, whereas robbery and sexual assault were more immoral. (2) Act-person dissociation did not occur. (3) Participants were more likely to endorse the use of psychologically coercive tactics on the juvenile suspected of sexual assault than the juvenile suspected of murder. (4) The more favorably participants perceived a juvenile’s moral character, the less likely they were to endorse the use of psychologically coercive interrogation tactics. (4) Participants who more strongly agreed that juveniles are more immature and suggestible than adults were less likely to endorse the use of psychologically coercive tactics, more likely to endorse the use of tactics that encourage compliance with interrogators, and more likely to adhere to the PEACE model of juvenile interrogations. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed, along with potential directions for future research.

Sexual minorities use social media platforms at higher rates than heterosexual individuals, often to find and connect with other sexual minorities and the broader online LGBTQ+ community. These online connections may help normalize feelings and experiences as a sexual minority in a heterosexual-normed society by increasing exposure to more meaningful reference groups and helping to mitigate the negative impact of heterosexist norms. There has been relatively little research investigating online social connectedness (OSC) among sexual minority adults, the relation between OSC and positive psychological outcomes, and the role of OSC in lessening the impact of heterosexist norms. The goal of the present thesis was to examine the relation between OSC and positive psychological outcomes, and whether such a relation is mediated by compulsory heterosexuality (CH; i.e., heterosexist norms) and internalized heterosexism (IH; i.e., internalizing and accepting heterosexist norms). A sample of 298 sexual minority adults in the U.S. completed an online survey that included measures of OSC, CH, IH, and positive psychological outcomes including resilience, well-being, self-acceptance, and self-esteem. The hypothesized model, with CH and IH as serial mediators of the relation between OSC and positive psychological outcomes, along with a series of alternative models, were tested using structural equation modeling. Support was found for the hypothesized model, such that greater OSC predicted lower CH, which then predicted lower IH, which in turn predicted greater positive psychological outcomes. While several alternative models had adequate fit, the hypothesized model was best supported statistically and by previous literature. These findings provide insights into the psychological benefits of social media connections for sexual minorities and the potential for OSC to lessen the impact of heterosexist norms. This study also adds to the existing literature regarding OSC and sexual minority adults, expanding the literature from primarily focusing on sexual minority youth. Future studies should be more socio-demographically diverse and longitudinal in nature in order to help better understand the directionality of the relationship between CH and IH. The present findings may also inform the development of interventions aimed at decreasing CH and IH, which future studies should investigate more fully.

Past research has shown that serving on a jury can put the jurors under distress. Most research has shown that the nature of the trial (violent vs. non-violent) is a major factor in predicting distress. Though there is a lot of research identifying the distress, there is little research on how to resolve or prevent the distress from occurring in the first place. The purpose of this study is to examine what kinds of treatments prior jurors would have wanted, and to determine how this is related to the specific profiles of symptoms they experienced. To address these research questions, we screened for participants that have served on a violent trial (homicide, rape, child abuse, sexual offenses towards children, and torture) in the last 10 years. They were given the SCL-90 Checklist to measure their symptoms, if any, and then asked to rate a set of possible resources to cope with their stress as to how much they would have wanted the specific resource. Results of the study showed that participants experiencing more distress would have liked more efforts to alleviate that stress and resources afterward. Although these were not linked to any particular symptom profile, seven resources showed a significant relationship between the severity of symptoms and endorsement of those resources. The most desired resources were a thorough understanding of the laws pertaining to the crime; a thorough understanding of the punishments pertaining to the crime; and disclosure of the severity of the evidence to be presented in the trial before it begins. Limitations of this study and future directions are discussed.

Past research has shown that serving on a jury can put the jurors under distress. Most research has shown that the nature of the trial (violent vs. non-violent) is a major factor in predicting distress. Though there is a lot of research identifying the distress, there is little research on how to resolve or prevent the distress from occurring in the first place. The purpose of this study is to examine what kinds of treatments prior jurors would have wanted, and to determine how this is related to the specific profiles of symptoms they experienced. To address these research questions, we screened for participants that have served on a violent trial (homicide, rape, child abuse, sexual offenses towards children, and torture) in the last 10 years. They were given the SCL-90 Checklist to measure their symptoms, if any, and then asked to rate a set of possible resources to cope with their stress as to how much they would have wanted the specific resource. Results of the study showed that participants experiencing more distress would have liked more efforts to alleviate that stress and resources afterward. Although these were not linked to any particular symptom profile, seven resources showed a significant relationship between the severity of symptoms and endorsement of those resources. The most desired resources were a thorough understanding of the laws pertaining to the crime; a thorough understanding of the punishments pertaining to the crime; and disclosure of the severity of the evidence to be presented in the trial before it begins. Limitations of this study and future directions are discussed.

Individuals are often susceptible to bias in their given fields; however, they may not acknowledge nor be aware of this phenomenon. Moreover, people typically can recognize bias in others yet fail to realize that they themselves are susceptible to their own bias. This is referred to as the bias blind spot, an unconscious meta-cognitive bias. Unconscious bias can lead to impaired decisions and can cause problems in the field, especially if professionals are defensive about bias mitigation procedures if they see them as unnecessary and threatening. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and examine the perceptions that professional forensic psychologists have about bias in themselves and bias in their colleagues. Eighty-four professional forensic psychologists were surveyed and asked about their perception of bias in themselves, their colleagues, an average adult, and experts in another domain: forensic science. For this study, these forensic psychologists were asked to predict the bias that they themselves might have in their judgment, that forensic scientists might have in their judgment, and that the average adult would have. As hypothesized, and consistent with the bias blind spot, professional forensic psychologists rated their peers in the same field as having a higher amount of bias in their decisions than they themselves. Moreover, they also rated other professionals in similar fields (forensic science) as having a higher bias rate than themselves. In addition, participants rated bias mitigating procedures as being a higher threat to their field than a different domain (i.e., forensic science) – consistent with hypotheses. These results suggest that professional forensic psychologists are susceptible to the bias blind spot and its consequences.
Keywords: implicit bias, bias blind spot, perceptions, judgment, mitigating procedures

Mood disorders are highly prevalent, especially in adolescent populations. One potential cause of the widespread nature of these disorders is the formation of stigma around emotionality. Emotion research, while extensive, has not expanded to capture how a parent’s emotion regulation and expression may lead to stigmatized behaviors in their child affecting that child’s mental health into adulthood. The current thesis aimed to investigate the relevance of this novel concept – emotionality stigma – in the relationship between parental emotionality and adult-child mental health. Using social learning theory, parental emotionality was predicted to influence a child’s emotionality into adulthood. Specifically, this thesis investigated if parental emotion over- and under-expression (dysregulation) would influence adult-children to perceive a stigma around emotionality leading to worse mental health, whereas well-regulated parental emotion expression would relate to adult-child emotional intelligence, leading to better mental health. Moreover, it was predicted that these relationships would differ depending on parent and child gender. To examine these ideas, data was collected from 1,136 college and community individuals through a university survey system and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Using a combination of linear regression, PROCESS, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) models, the results supported the proposed hypotheses. As predicted, parental dysregulation in childhood predicted impaired adult-child mental health, whereas parental regulation in childhood predicted lower levels of adult-child depression and anxiety. Additionally, emotionality stigma and emotional intelligence partially mediated the relationship between parental emotionality and adult-child mental health. Furthermore, results showed interesting gender differences; male participants were more impacted by both maternal and paternal emotionality as compared to female participants. These findings not only build on emotion research, but also have numerous applications in practice including improving parenting classes and family therapy interventions. This study is the first to explore the role of parental emotionality on adult-child mental health through stigma and emotional intelligence.

This work aims to provide a review of the literature on the concept of organizational culture, and apply that knowledge to four companies: Salesforce, Adobe, Facebook, and Twitter. Organizational culture is the shared learning any group goes through over time that guides future thoughts and behaviors. Culture can be influenced and created by leaders in specific ways, as well as by the members of the organization in how they communicate and behave with each other. The focus of this thesis is to analyze recent earnings calls for the values communicated by CEOs of the companies in question. The earnings calls were conducted by the companies, and in them, senior leaders inform shareholders and analysts on financial updates and other pertinent information about the performance of the company. Those four companies were chosen because they are popularly known to have effective and successful cultures. By understanding the foundation of organizational culture and how it might apply to such companies, people who are interested in the concept of organizational culture, and leaders in particular, may stand to learn of an aspect of business where an untapped advantage can be gained.

Cultivation theory states that consuming television cultivates a social reality in the real world which aligns with the reality present in television. When the television show CSI was released, researchers studied a form of cultivation stemming from the show titled the "CSI Effect." One of the components of the CSI Effect is the tendency of those who watch CSI to be more likely to overestimate the presence of forensic evidence present in a trial and place more trust in such evidence. In recent years, several true crime documentaries that examined controversial cases have been released. In a similar vein of research conducted on CSI, the current study examines true crime documentaries and their possible impacts on viewers’ judgments and beliefs about the criminal justice system. In the current study, participants were provided with a mock case and asked about their perceptions of the case along with their viewership habits. While overall true crime documentary viewership did not influence judgments of evidence manipulation or perceptions of police, findings point to viewership of the targeted documentaries being associated with feelings of mistrust towards the criminal justice system overall, while the lesser-viewed documentaries correlated with judgments of strength and responsibility of the defendant in the case. One possible explanation is that individual characteristics may serve as the driving factor in how individuals choose what to watch when the popularity of the show is not as well-known.

The purpose of this study was to examine mock jurors’ decision making in insanity cases. Specific instructions (vs. typical) juror instructions were tested to increase jurors’ comprehension of verdict options and reduce the effects of preexisting attitudes and reliance on cognitively biased thought processes in their legal decision making.

The specific instructions in this study were inspired by Fuzzy Trace Theory, which holds that simple language and visual aids that convey the ‘gist’ of complex information can help people make better decisions (Reyna & Brainerd, 1995). Participants (N= 496) were randomly assigned to one of two juror instruction conditions (specific vs. typical). All participants read a 10-page insanity defense case vignette, and were tasked with reaching a verdict. They were provided with 5 verdict options: Not Guilty, Guilty, and three different insanity options (Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, Guilty but Mentally Ill, Guilty Except Insane). Results supported the hypothesis that jurors who received specific (vs. typical) instructions would comprehend more information about the available verdicts, and would be more likely to choose an insanity defense verdict. As expected, jurors’ preexisting attitudes toward the insanity defense influenced their verdicts. Although it was hypothesized that increasing jurors’ understanding would result in them relying less on their attitudes and motivated reasoning processes in reaching their legal judgments, the evidence did not support this. Results suggest more specific instructions that includes information about outcomes is preferred by jurors, and that they are better able to understand and perform their duties when provided with more useful information. However, further research is needed to identify methods for helping jurors rely less on biased reasoning processes in their legal judgments.