Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University. / Reproduction of original from Yale Law School Library. Bibliography: p. 5-8.

<p> Police officers decide to detain and search civilians under uncertainty and risk, and both false positive and false negative errors can be costly. The courts apply the <i>reasonable suspicion</i> standard of proof to evaluate the constitutionality of nonconsensual stops and searches, placing an ambiguous and subjective assessment of a poorly understood psychological state at the center of laws, policies, and trainings on police-civilian contact. The law and psychology of suspicion may have important effects on the frequency, accuracy, and reporting of policing decisions. Investigating those effects requires an understanding of the policy landscape of police decision-making and the basic psychology of suspicion. </p><p> In this dissertation, I explore suspicion as a legal concept and as a psychological experience. I describe the role of the reasonable suspicion standard in judicial evaluations of the constitutionality of police practices, and the implications for the guidelines and trainings that agencies provide to officers. I contend that legal and quantitative analyses of policing practices should incorporate an understanding of the psychology of individual decision-making and the incentives created by the regulatory environment. The constitutional analysis assumes that civilian behavior, situational circumstances, and prior knowledge all affect an officer&rsquo;s experience of suspicion and subsequent actions. Very little is known, however, about the basic psychology of suspicion and how it might affect judgment and decision-making. </p><p> I investigate the psychological properties and covariates of interpersonal suspicion as reported by lay participants in a series of studies, establishing a baseline to which I will compare the effects of training and professional experience in future research. Using latent variable models and automated text analyses, I find that during experiences of interpersonal suspicion of a stranger, people tend to question the stranger&rsquo;s intentions and experience intuition, attentiveness, and wariness. In these situations, distrust is more closely associated with emotional arousal than interpersonal suspicion. On average, female participants report slightly higher situational interpersonal suspicion relative to male participants, and participants who identify as Black or African American report lower suspicion relative to those who identify as White, Latino, or Hispanic. </p><p> Relative to participants, the people who are targets of situational suspicion are more often described as male, Black, and Latino. On average, participants report a similar degree of suspicion across perceived target gender and racial categories, but there are significant differences among the associated emotions, inferences, and behavioral responses. Participants describing male and Black targets report experiencing greater fear and believing that the target&rsquo;s behavior was dangerous. Participants describing male targets are more likely to report inferring that the target&rsquo;s behavior was criminal, relative to participants describing female targets. </p><p> The dispositional tendency toward interpersonal suspicion is associated with neuroticism and low agreeableness in two samples of university students, and these findings are insensitive to variations in measurement instruments. In a simulation where university students take on the role of a police officer and report their suspicion in response to either Black or White male targets, I find that aggregate measures of dispositional interpersonal suspicion are uncorrelated with ratings of situational suspicion in response to the stimuli, which do not differ significantly by race of the target. An exploratory analysis suggests that dispositional suspicion, as measured by a single item, is associated with higher ratings of situational suspicion in response to White targets only. </p><p> My findings suggest that during experiences of interpersonal suspicion of strangers, people tend to question the stranger&rsquo;s intentions and experience intuition, attentiveness, and wariness, and that the type of cognitive arousal associated with suspicion may be context-specific. In the concluding discussion, I also identify findings that could be particularly relevant in the legal context, including the salience of intuition in experiences of suspicion and the variation associated with target race in the correlates of suspicion. I aim to advance the current understanding of suspicion and establish a foundation for future research on its role in legal decision-making.</p><p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 1982. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-153).

<p> Attorneys in the United States suffer from higher-than-average rates of depression, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation. Although these facts are widely accepted, at the time of the study, there was no consensus in the legal or research communities as to the cause of these alarming statistics. The combination of behavioral and psychological distress experienced by attorneys may suggest that burnout is a contributing factor. This study examined the relationship between workplace stressors and professional burnout. The literature review summarized recent and landmark studies in the field, as well as explored characteristics unique to the legal profession that were putting attorneys at risk. In an effort to understand the best practices that reduced instances of burnout in practicing attorneys, the phenomenological study asked participants about their experiences as an attorney, as well as the practices they employed to mitigate professional stress. The research findings supported the literature review and resulted in important implications for law firms, bar associations, law schools, and practitioners.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine moral disengagement strategies, such as dehumanization, responsibility displacement, and victim blame, in mock juror decision making in a case involving the gay panic defense. Mock jurors with high levels of moral disengagement were expected to find the defendant guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter more often than mock jurors with low levels of moral disengagement. Mock jurors read one of two vignettes that outlined a murder case in which the defendant claimed he was provoked either by an unwanted homosexual advanced from the victim, or an attempted robbery and assault by the victim. They were then asked choose between the charges of manslaughter and murder for the defendant. It was hypothesized that the defendant using the gay panic defense would receive more findings of manslaughter than the defendant in the robbery and assault vignette. This hypothesis was not supported, as the defendant in the robbery and assault vignette received more verdicts finding him guilty of manslaughter than the defendant in the gay panic vignette. However, 57% of mock jurors still supported the use of the gay panic defense. Moral disengagement did not have a significant effect on mock juror decision making in either vignette. Mock jurors with high levels of victim blame found the defendant guilty of manslaughter more often than those with low levels of victim blame. Limitations of this study and implications for society and the legal system are discussed, and future directions for research are offered.</p>

Thesis (M A(Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Criminal Justice, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 14, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4866. Adviser: Marla R. Sandys.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Ted Chiricos, Florida State University, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 21, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 257 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Misleading post-event information--Cognitive processing differences.