Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2008. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

When do stereotypes and biases affect judgments of alibis and crime suspects? Two studies addressed this question. Undergraduates (N- 192 in Study 1, N= 339 in Study 2) listened to an audio-taped police interview with a suspect concerning his/her alibi. Participants then rated the believability of the alibi and the likelihood that the suspect was guilty. The impact of: (1) the strength of the evidence that supported the alibi; (2) characteristics of the suspect (e.g., gender, attractiveness, and prior convictions); (3) judge's instructions on prior conviction evidence; and (4) perceivers' motivation to process the alibi (using scores on the Need for Cognition Scale) on alibi believability and likelihood of suspect guilt ratings was studied. Other dependent measures were assessments of the suspect's character and participant-jurors' understanding of judicial instructions. It was found that the suspect's gender and level of physical attractiveness did not affect alibi believability and guilt ratings, but were important when it came to assessing the suspect's character. Participants took the defendant's prior record into consideration when assessing guilt: Defendants previously convicted of the same crime as the current charge were seen as more likely to be guilty than defendants previously convicted of a different crime. Judge's instructions did not affect guilt ratings, which suggests that participants did not use the prior conviction evidence as they had been instructed. In contrast to predictions, need for cognition played less of a role in terms of alibi believability ratings and guilt judgments. However, NFC did affect participants' understanding of judicial instructions and their recall of those instructions. The two studies suggest that alibi strength consistently influences believability and guilt ratings. Strong alibis were seen as more believable and led to lower guilt ratings than weak alibis. Limitations of this dissertation, legal implications, and future directions are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2009. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Hamilton’s Rule (1964) involves the notion that the likelihood of an altruistic act being performed is predicted by the degree of relatedness between the recipient and the donor. Therefore, the extent to which people would be willing to lie for a defendant is a function of the degree of biological relationship between the defendant and the alibi witness. The researchers of the current study presented participants with one murder and one burglary packet containing a police report summary and a hypothetical scenario. The summary police report detailed case facts, evidence collected, and witness statements. Following their reading of the police report summary participants made judgments on witness’ credibility, defendant’s guilt and types of evidence. In the hypothetical scenarios, participants were asked to imagine their father or male friend is pleading with them to act as an alibi witness. Participants then agreed or disagreed to serve as an alibi witness. Overall, the researchers found participants were unwilling to provide false alibis, however, when they were, participants gave false alibis for their father more often than for their friend. Limitations may be a restricted sample, evidence certainty, and the yes or no decision to providing a false alibi. Future research should include an examination of individual differences and moral development.

Masters of Art / The writing of history in postapartheid South Africa constitutes a crisis for the discipline of history as, I argue, it requires the discipline to confront its role in contributing towards the constitution of the condition of possibility of the discourse of apartheid. Stated differently, the relationship between the discipline of history and nationalist or identity politics, a relationship that is characterized by history performing the role of alibi, is highlighted as problematic within the question of the postapartheid. It is in this context that I want to broach the concept of the historical playas an antidisciplinary object that works to unsettle the discipline of history and thereby its role as alibi. Such an engagement with the historical play would, I argue, enable a progressive politics of the sort that Michel Foucault calls for. In his essay 'History, Discourse and Discontinuity' (1972) which he wrote in response to a question posed to him of the possibility of resistance within the corpus of his work, Foucault argues that a progressive politics would be one that takes into account a discourse's conditions of possibility - one that limits the claims of discourses on life through defining their grammars, as it were." While this current study does not seek to, and also does not claim to, subject the discourse of history to such a critique (I am not proposing to investigate the emergence of the discipline), Foucault's understanding of a progressive politics is especially significant to it. Particularly, rather than reading for the grammar of history - this has been done by others such as (but not limited to) Gayatri Spivak, Hayden White and Friederich Nietzsche and will be discussed later - this dissertation starts from the position that the discipline of history played (and plays) a fundamental role in establishing the conditions of possibility of the discourse of apartheid." This is not to argue that apartheid can be reduced to an outworking of nationalist history (apartheid as a discursive field).

Studien undersöker hur polismyndighetens medarbetare upplever organisationskulturen ur ett jämställdhetsperspektiv. I förstudien fann vi att det finns en norm inom den svenska polisen, som i många fall varit problematisk och exkluderande för de medarbetare som inte passat in. Studien har haft fokus på att definiera de bakomliggande mekanismer till varför denna norm produceras och reproduceras samt hur detta kan påverka polisens legitimitet. Genom att undersöka polisens organisationskultur ämnar vi att belysa en problematik som drabbar organisationens legitimitet och förtroende illa. Studien har genomförts med hjälp av en kvalitativ intervjustudie med nio poliser i olika positioner. Den metodologiska ansatsen var induktiv i sin karaktär. Det analyserade resultatet har lett till en teoretisk modell. Modellen visar på de mekanismer som är orsaken till varför denna organisationskultur och norm fortfarande reproduceras. Vårt fynd är att organisationen skyddar sig från ett institutionellt tryck/förändringskrav med hjälp av diverse alibi. Dessa alibin bygger en fasad för att skapa legitimitet. Vår slutsats är att polisens organisationskultur inte har förändrats lika mycket som organisationen vill tro. Vid flera fall har det under studien framkommit tydliga tecken på att polisen är en icke jämställd organisation. Det existerar fortfarande en organisationskultur där normen utgår från en manlig polis och där allt som går utanför normen stöts bort. Polisen söker legitimitet från sin omvärld genom sitt jämställdhetsarbete. Men det krävs mer än luftslott för att bli jämställd på riktigt. Vår forskning bekräftar den tidigare forskningen men utvecklar de bakomliggande mekanismer som reproducerar fenomenet.

Peter L. Berger's conception of agency in his earliest writings (c.1954-1960) is logically and empirically inadequate. At the root of this inadequacy is an idealism that prevents him from providing a compelling account of actual empirical agency. Chapter 1 asserts that Berger's earlier works warrant analysis. Chapter 2 discusses Berger's earliest influences, particularly Max Weber and The Swedish Lund School of motif research. Chapter 3 identifies a unique commitment to Christian Humanism at the base of Berger's conception of agency. Chapter 4 clarifies how Berger's Christian humanism interacts with his Weberian, and Parsonian-inspired functional analysis of the American religious establishment. The thesis concludes (Chapter 5) by identifying more specifically how and why Berger's Christian humanism undermines his attempt to empirically ground human agency.

My diploma thesis is instalation, which elements are based on principales of ready-made. Documentation of living performance. Site-specific charakter, objects, and documents are common, that are one from of physical, psychical, and social injuries. Trought the installation and added text with its full range of form I am changing the discurse.