Mock jurors viewed a videotape of a simulated child sexual abuse trial and then deliberated to a unanimous verdict. The complainant was described as either a 13-or 17-year-old female child. Jurors voted to convict more often when the younger complainant was seen, and the younger complainant was rated as more credible than the older complainant. Female jurors voted the defendant guilty more often and rated the complainant as being more credible than male jurors. Jurors voted to convict more often and rated the defendant as less credible when expert psychological testimony was specific to the case than when they were presented with either general expert testimony or no expert testimony. Jurors who saw a psychological expert testify became less accepting of child sexual abuse misconceptions than those in the no expert control condition. The implications of these findings are discussed.

In 4 studies. Ss received hypnotic suggestions to regress beyond birth to a previous life. In Study 1, the development of a past-life identity was unrelated to indexes of psychopathology. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that Ss developed past-life identities that reflected hypnotist-transmitted expectations. In Study 4 the credibility that Ss assigned to their past-life experiences was influenced by whether the hypnotist defined such experiences as reaiox imagined. Combined data from the first 3 studies indicated that hypnotizability predicted the subjective intensity of past-life experiences but not the credibility assigned to these experiences. Alternatively, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations concerning reincarnation predicted the degree of credibility assigned to these experiences. Implications of these findings are discussed.

No abstract

Despite evidence that the incidence of female-to-male intimate partner violence (IPV) in the general population is as high as that of male-tofemale intimate violence, until recently little attention has been devoted to understanding women perpetrators of partner violence or to the design of programs to address their violence. This study explored the characteristics of female perpetrators of IPV in an offender population and examined the context, consequences, and motives for their aggression. There were 897 women serving a federal sentence in the Correctional Service of Canada at the time of data extraction, of whom 15% (n 5 135) had a history of IPV. Results indicated that these offenders were most often classified as moderate criminal risk and high criminogenic need. Most had been victims of severe abuse during their youth and in adult relationships. Women's motives for violence were diverse. Although most women had a history of mutual violence with their partners, 64% were the primary perpetrators in at least 1 incident. Violence in self-defense or in defense of their children were the least frequently coded categories. Similar to a comparison group of male offenders, the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment tool indicated that the most common risk factors associated with women's IPV included past physical assault against intimate partners, substance abuse, and employment problems. These findings reinforce the need for a correctional programming

Two experiments examined the role of situational variables on responsiveness to hypnotizability and correlations between measures of hypnotizability. Experiment 1 found that the correlation between the Creative Imagination Scale (CIS) of Barber and Wilson (1979) and the Cartelon University Responsiveness to Suggestion Scale (CURSS) was significantly stronger when the CIS was defined as a test of hypnotizability rather than as a test of imagination. Experiment 2 informed Ss who had scored high or low on the CURSS that their CIS performance would either match their earlier hypnotic performance or that it would differ from their earlier performance. Ss' CIS performance was consistent with their administered instructions. These findings suggest that the high correlations typically obtained between different hypnotizability scales may be more strongly influenced by situationspecific attitudes and interpretational sets than is usually acknowledged.