Psychology

This paper describes an archival evaluation of the Juvenile Court Victim- Offender Mediation Program (VOMP) of the Utah State Courts in Salt Lake City. From 1997 to 2000, 147 victims and 330 offenders reported their attitudes towards their experiences in VOMP. Although victims were more satisfied than offenders for some outcomes, all participants reported exceptionally high satisfaction. These promising results are consistent with other published studies on the effectiveness of VOMP and other forms of restorative justice in demonstrating the promise of mediation in criminal justice.

Within the field of restorative justice, at least three voices may be heard: the voice of theory, the voice of practice, and the voice of research, which is the focus of this Article. Data from seven evaluation studies of restorative justice and court programs from around the world are combined on twelve psychological outcomes, such as judgments of fairness, accountability, increased respect, and reductions in fear. Despite substantial differences in the implementation of the restorative justice programs and the persons and cases included, the data were remarkably consistent: restorative justice outperformed court procedures on almost every variable for victims and offenders. In addition, connections between the benefits of restorative justice and recent psychiatric research on youth suicide are sketched, with the possible benefits of restorative justice (as compared to court) in saving lives. Overall, restorative justice emerged as a compelling and effective alternative to court in all measured outcomes.

Two experiments analyzed social conflicts based on A. P. Fiske's (1991, 1992) four relational models: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. Because each model has a distinct logical structure, it was hypothesized that social conflicts in which participants used incommensurate models would lead to more extreme reactions than would conflicts in which both participants used the same model. Participants (N = 178 for Study 1, N = 132 for Study 2) in both experiments read 16 interpersonal scenarios in which an expectation based on one of the four models was contradicted by a negative outcome based on one of the four models. In neither experiment was the incommensurability interaction hypothesis supported. However, exploratory analyses indicated a significant main effect for equality matching and a significant interaction for communal sharing. The results are interpreted as providing qualified support for the role of relationship structures in conflict.

In this study, former high school dance students evaluated their experiences in dance classes including academic, personal, and professional consequences. Overall, participants’ attitudes towards their dance classes were very positive. Their experiences in dance (e.g., years of dance in high school, number of genres studied, and participation in ballet and jazz) all contributed significantly to their self-reported levels of problem solving, professionalism, and academic performance; whereas, only participation in modern dance was positively and significantly associated with reported GPA. Dance also had generally positive effects on the students’ self-image but with some important negative effects, primarily concerning poor body image. The researchers discover results that provide promising support for the value of arts education, and specifically, dance in public education. They also argue for the need to go beyond standard academic outcomes, such as GPA, to include personal and social benefits.

Two studies evaluate the effects of participating in dance, as a form of visceral, engaged learning, on conceptions of the “American Idea” and on voting behavior. Dance for Walt Whitman by Helen Tamiris was recreated on a company of 22 dancers, who, in Study 1, read articles relating to the American Idea and kept guided journals.  Participants were very positive, indicating that the experience had given them a much better understanding of the American Idea and their roles as citizens, as well as increasing their motivation to actively participate in civic life. Study 2 complemented this finding by assessing a behavioral measure of civic engagement—voting—and by including respondents who did not perform in Whitman. While small sample sizes prevented the effects from reaching statistical significance, the results were generally positive: those who participated in the performance or viewed it were more likely to have voted than those who were not connected to the performance. In addition, there was suggestive evidence that dance participants who did not vote in earlier elections, despite being eligible, were more likely to vote in the most recent elections that were those who were not involved in the dance. Taken together, these 2 studies support the theory of dance as a powerful form of engaged learning that can contribute to civic involvement and understanding of the “American Idea.”

a "disaster," an "egregious overreach," and "a retreat from justice that may put the public's safety in jeopardy," portending "grave effects" on the prosecution of "drug trafficking, gangs, corporate fraud and terrorism offenses," and virtually guaranteeing that "chaos will reign in federal courthouses." 5 With the passage of time, however, the Supreme Court's decision has proven to be neither miraculous nor catastrophic, 6 although the jury is still out, so to speak, as the lower courts sort through lingering questions and various legislative "fixes" continue to be bandied about. 7 If nothing else, Booker has inspired a stream of scholarship in legal journals focusing on, among other things, the history of American sentencing law, the legitimacy of the Guidelines regime, the role of various criminal justice actors in setting punishment, the impact on charging and plea bargaining decisions, and, most importantly, the return of judicial discretion in sentencing.' These and other topics are all exceptionally important for the future of the federal system, and the scholarship to date has been rich and exciting. But Booker also provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at the very reasons for punishment and the methods used to determine and impose criminal penalties. As United States District Court Judge Nancy Gertner wrote a few years ago, "[a]ll experimentation with alternatives to incarceration and innovative approaches to sentencing, like restorative justice, was necessarily squelched" by the Guidelines regime. 9 Recently, however, she noted that "United States v. Booker could well herald a new era in American sentencing practices"'-and among these possibilities, we believe, is one Judge Gertner had expressly mentioned before: the idea of restorative justice in the federal system. Our symposium contribution hopes to begin this discussion, explaining what restorative justice is, how it might be implemented in United States district courts, and why criminal justice actors and others should support the concept of federal restorative justice.

Two experiments analyzed social conflicts based on A. P. Fiske's (1991, 1992) four relational models: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. Because each model has a distinct logical structure, it was hypothesized that social conflicts in which participants used incommensurate models would lead to more extreme reactions than would conflicts in which both participants used the same model. Participants (N = 178 for Study 1, N = 132 for Study 2) in both experiments read 16 interpersonal scenarios in which an expectation based on one of the four models was contradicted by a negative outcome based on one of the four models. In neither experiment was the incommensurability interaction hypothesis supported. However, exploratory analyses indicated a significant main effect for equality matching and a significant interaction for communal sharing. The results are interpreted as providing qualified support for the role of relationship structures in con...

The investigators examined the potential influence of social support on age-related differences in resting cardiovascular function and the potential mediators responsible for such associations in 67 normotensive women and men. Consistent with prior research, age predicted increased resting systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). More importantly, regression analyses revealed that social support moderated agerelated differences in resting SBP and DBP, as age predicted higher resting blood pressure for individuals low in social support, but was unrelated to blood pressure for individuals high in social support. An examination of potential pathways revealed that these results were not mediated by various health-related variables, personality factors, or psychological processes. Implications for the study of social support and health are discussed.

The Social Relationships Index (SRI) was designed to examine positivity and negativity in social relationships. Unique features of this scale include its brevity and the ability to examine relationship positivity and negativity at the level of the specific individual and social network. The SRI's psychometric properties were examined in three studies. The SRI demonstrated good psychometric properties, including test–retest reliability for the assessment of positivity and negativity, and of relationship classifications across social networks. Additionally, discriminant and convergent validity was established with existing social relationship and personality scales. Finally, the SRI showed some generalizability across different contexts. These studies suggest that the SRI is a reliable and valid alternative measure for use in health studies that require a shorter assessment of relationships. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Background: Social relationships are reliably related to rates of morbidity and mortality. One pathway by which social relationships may influence health is via the impact of relationship quality on cardiovascular reactivity during social interactions.Purpose and Method: This study examined the effects of the quality of a friendship on cardiovascular reactivity when speaking about positive or negative life events with an ambivalent or supportive friend. To examine this, 107 healthy male and female adults (and their same-sex friend) were recruited.Results: Results revealed that participants exhibited the greatest levels of systolic blood pressure reactivity when discussing a negative event with an ambivalent friend compared to a supportive friend. We also found higher resting levels of heart rate and lower respiratory sinus arrhythmia among those who brought in ambivalent friends than those who brought in supportive friends.Conclusion: Individuals may not be able to fully relax in the presence of ambivalent friends and may not benefit from support during stress. This research may help clarify the health-related consequences of differing types of social relationships.

We examined the utility of a broad conceptual framework that highlights the natural heterogeneity that exists in social networks. From this framework, we contrasted the positivity, negativity, outcome-specific, and ambivalence models in predicting psychological distress and well-being in 209 men and women using a cross-sectional design. Results revealed that the numbers of supportive and aversive ties were independent predictors of psychological distress and well-being. However, supportive ties were stronger predictors of psychological distress than aversive ties. The number of ambivalent ties was also an independent predictor of psychological distress compared to aversive ties. Consistent with our framework, failure to methodologically separate the co-occurring postivity and negativity in social relationships obscured associations between relationships and psychological outcomes. Conceptual and methodological implications of this general framework for the study of social networks and mental health are discussed.

Healthy normotensive men and women (N ϭ 102) underwent a 3-day ambulatory blood pressure (BP) assessment in which a BP reading was taken 5 min into each social interaction. After each interaction, participants completed a diary that included structural categorization of the relationship and ratings of the quality of the relationship with the interaction partner. Random regression analyses revealed that interactions with family members and spouses were associated with lower ambulatory BP. Interactions with ambivalent network members (characterized by both positive and negative feelings) were associated with the highest ambulatory systolic BP, an effect that was independent of the familial effects on BP. Although there were psychological correlates associated with both structural and functional aspects of relationships, no evidence was found that these mediated the primary findings involving ambulatory BP. These data highlight the influence of both structural and qualitative aspects of relationships on ambulatory BP and possibly health.

We examined the utility of a broad framework that separated positive, negative, and ambivalent social network members. One hundred thirty-three young and older participants completed the social relationships index, measures of mental health, and a cardiovascular reactivity protocol. Results replicated prior research on the beneficial influence of positive (supportive) ties on psychological outcomes. More important, analyses also revealed that the number of ambivalent network ties predicted age-related differences in depression and sympathetic control of heart rate reactivity during stress. The statistical interactions between age and ambivalent ties on cardiovascular responses during stress were not changed when statistically controlling for other social network categories, demographic variables, and various personality factors. These data suggest that social network ambivalence was a relatively unique predictor of cardiovascular reactivity and highlight the utility of separating the variance due to positive, negative, and ambivalent network ties. Implications for the study of social relationships, physiological processes, and health outcomes are also discussed.