Biased lineups have been shown to increase significantly false, but not correct, identification rates (Lindsay, Wallbridge, & Drennan, 1987; Lindsay & Wells, 1980; Malpass & Devine, 1981). Lindsay and Wells (1985) found that sequential lineup presentation reduced false identification rates, presumably by reducing reliance on relative judgment processes. Five staged-crime experiments were conducted to examine the effect of lineup biases and sequential presentation on eyewitness recognition accuracy. Sequential lineup presentation significantly reduced false identification rates from fair lineups as well as from lineups biased with regard to foil similarity, instructions, or witness attire, and from lineups biased in all of these ways. The results support recommendations that police present lineups sequentially.
Two studies examined the relationship between religious orthodoxy and the complexity of thinking about religious and nonreligious issues. In both studies, participants who were high or low in religious orthodoxy wrote a paragraph outlining their thoughts about a religious issue (life after death in Study 1; existence of God in Study 2) and/or a nonreligious issue (capital punishment in Study 1; free trade between Canada and the U.S. in Study 2). The results of both studies indicated that participants who were high in religious orthodoxy were less complex in their thinking about religious issues than those low in religious orthodoxy, but did not differ in the complexity of their thinking about nonreligious issues. These results do not support the notion that orthodoxly religious individuals are dispositionally inclined to think in simpler or more rigid ways overall, but they do suggest a tendency to think less complexly about religious issues.
Research on white opinions of such compensatory policies as busing and affirmative action has suggested that prejudice is the primary determinant of policy attitudes (Jacobson, 1985;McConahay, 1982). Often, however, racism is measured in a manner that confounds prejudice with values and concerns about justice. A study was conducted in which undergraduates ( N = 185) were told that one of four affirmative-action programs for black students would be implemented at their university either in the following year or in 5 years. We found that: (a) support varied considerably across programs and was greater when implementation was imminent; (b) separate operationalizations of race prejudice and dispositional justice beliefs accounted for equal, and at times greater, variance in affirmative action opinions relative to a measure of symbolic racism; and (c) correlates of policy endorsement, including dispositional justice beliefs but not racial affect, varied from program to program. It is suggested that future research should explicitly distinguish race prejudice from values as predictors. It is also suggested that justice concerns, particularly regarding policy specifics, are important predictors of affirmative action attitudes that to date have largely been overlooked.
Two studies are reported which assess the proclivity of itidividuals to increase the integrative cotnplexity of social, tnoral, or religious thinking when protnpted to do so. We also examined the influence on complexity of topic area and respotidetits' religiosity. Iti both studies significant increases iti complexity were obtained when participants were prompted to differentiate and integrate material, suggesting that an important distinction needs to be made between competence and performance with respect to complexity. However, there was some evidence that prompting complexity was more effective in eliciting differentiation than integration. Both studies indicated that overall, religious orientation was not a significant predictor of integrative complexity, nor did it interact with other factors (including religious vs. nonreligious content of stimulus materials). Finally, there was some evidence that complexity may vary across diiferent content areas, and this variation may be differentially affected by prompting for complexity.Fundamental to social cognitive analyses of human behavior is the assumption that the social perceiver engages in an active process of sim-
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