Antimicrobial and antiinsectan phenolic metabolites of Dalea searlsiae.

Continued interest in the chemistry of Dalea spp. led to investigation of Dalea searlsiae, a plant native to areas of the western United States. Methanol extractions of D.

A victim-centered approach to justice? Victim satisfaction effects on third-party punishments.

Three studies investigated whether victims' satisfaction with a restorative justice process influenced third-party assignments of punishment. Participants evaluated criminal offenses and victims' reactions to an initial restorative justice conference, and were later asked to indicate their support for additional punishment of the offender. Across the three studies, we found that victim satisfaction (relative to dissatisfaction) attenuates people's desire to seek offender punishment, regardless of offense severity (Study 2) or conflicting reports from a third-party observer (Study 3).

When the association between appearance and outcome contaminates social judgment: a bidirectional model linking group homogeneity and collective treatment.

Group formation is an inevitable consequence of social life, and the tendency to perceive people as a collective unit persists once they have been categorized as a group. Drawing on the concept of homogeneity, the authors propose a model suggesting that groups may endure in part because people who are perceived as homogeneous attract collective treatment (e.g.

The psychology of meta-ethics: exploring objectivism.

How do lay individuals think about the objectivity of their ethical beliefs? Do they regard them as factual and objective, or as more subjective and opinion-based, and what might predict such differences? In three experiments, we set out a methodology for assessing the perceived objectivity of ethical beliefs, and use it to document several novel findings. Experiment 1 showed that individuals tend to regard ethical statements as clearly more objective than social conventions and tastes, and almost as objective as scientific facts. Yet, there was considerable variation in objectivism, both across different ethical statements, and across individuals.

Transgression wrongfulness outweighs its harmfulness as a determinant of sentence severity.

When students suggest sentences for criminal offenders, do they rely more heavily on the harmfulness or on the wrongfulness of the offender's conduct? In Study 1, 116 Princeton University undergraduates rated the harmfulness and wrongfulness of, and suggested appropriate sentences for, a series of crimes. As expected, participants emphasized wrongfulness when choosing an appropriate criminal punishment. In Study 2, 33 Princeton undergraduates made similar ratings for violations of the University Honor Code, and rated their contempt for fabricated amendments to the Code that required sentencers to focus either only on harmfulness or only on wrongfulness.

Identification, situational constraint, and social cognition: studies in the attribution of moral responsibility.

In three experiments we studied lay observers' attributions of responsibility for an antisocial act (homicide). We systematically varied both the degree to which the action was coerced by external circumstances and the degree to which the actor endorsed and accepted ownership of the act, a psychological state that philosophers have termed "identification." Our findings with respect to identification were highly consistent.

Methods for the study of evil-doing actions.

For obvious ethical reasons, experimental studies of severe harm-doing actions are precluded. What methods are available to experimental social psychologists for the study of harm- and evil-doing activities? Three are suggested: experiments that may have a component of role-playing but still can illuminate nodes in the socialization into harm-doing process, probes into the conceptual world of individuals who are enlisted into real-world harm-doing socialization processes, and secondary analyses of case studies written by those who have been caught up in harm doing. The methodological limits of each activity are examined, and it is argued that an approach in which combinations of methods are employed to arrive at theoretical constructions can both support generalizations that provide insights into the socialization process and be sufficiently rigorous to support prudent social action recommendations.

Casuistry and social category bias.

This research explored cases where people are drawn to make judgments between individuals based on questionable criteria, in particular those individuals' social group memberships. We suggest that individuals engage in casuistry to mask biased decision making, by recruiting more acceptable criteria to justify such decisions. We present 6 studies that demonstrate how casuistry licenses people to judge on the basis of social category information but appear unbiased--to both others and themselves--while doing so.

The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment.

Traditional theories of moral psychology emphasize reasoning and "higher cognition," while more recent work emphasizes the role of emotion. The present fMRI data support a theory of moral judgment according to which both "cognitive" and emotional processes play crucial and sometimes mutually competitive roles. The present results indicate that brain regions associated with abstract reasoning and cognitive control (including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex) are recruited to resolve difficult personal moral dilemmas in which utilitarian values require "personal" moral violations, violations that have previously been associated with increased activity in emotion-related brain regions.

The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice.

How do observers respond when the actions of one individual inflict harm on another? The primary reaction to carelessly inflicted harm is to seek restitution; the offender is judged to owe compensation to the harmed individual. The primary reaction to harm inflicted intentionally is moral outrage producing a desire for retribution; the harm-doer must be punished. Reckless conduct, an intermediate case, provokes reactions that involve elements of both careless and intentional harm.

Clinical experience and pre-test probability scores in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.

Background: The Geneva and Wells pre-test probability scores are intended to replace empirical assessment of patients with suspected pulmonary embolism (PE). The effect of clinical experience on the inter-rater variability of these scores, and on empirical judgement, is unknown.

Aim: To determine whether medical staff appointment grade affects the inter-rater variability of these pre-test probability scores, or empirical assessment, in patients with suspected PE.

Crowded minds: the implicit bystander effect.

Five studies merged the priming methodology with the bystander apathy literature and demonstrate how merely priming a social context at Time 1 leads to less helping behavior on a subsequent, completely unrelated task at Time 2. In Study 1, participants who imagined being with a group at Time 1 pledged significantly fewer dollars on a charity-giving measure at Time 2 than did those who imagined being alone with one other person. Studies 2-5 build converging evidence with hypothetical and real helping behavior measures and demonstrate that participants who imagine the presence of others show facilitation to words associated with unaccountable on a lexical decision task.

Why do we punish? Deterrence and just deserts as motives for punishment.

One popular justification for punishment is the just deserts rationale: A person deserves punishment proportionate to the moral wrong committed. A competing justification is the deterrence rationale: Punishing an offender reduces the frequency and likelihood of future offenses. The authors examined the motivation underlying laypeople's use of punishment for prototypical wrongs.

An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment.

The long-standing rationalist tradition in moral psychology emphasizes the role of reason in moral judgment. A more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion. Although both reason and emotion are likely to play important roles in moral judgment, relatively little is known about their neural correlates, the nature of their interaction, and the factors that modulate their respective behavioral influences in the context of moral judgment.

Ambulatory estimates of maximal aerobic power from foot -ground contact times and heart rates in running humans.

Seeking to develop a simple ambulatory test of maximal aerobic power (VO(2 max)), we hypothesized that the ratio of inverse foot-ground contact time (1/t(c)) to heart rate (HR) during steady-speed running would accurately predict VO(2 max). Given the direct relationship between 1/t(c) and mass-specific O(2) uptake during running, the ratio 1/t(c). HR should reflect mass-specific O(2) pulse and, in turn, aerobic power.

Incapacitation and just deserts as motives for punishment.

What motivates a person's desire to punish actors who commit intentional, counternormative harms? Two possible answers are a just deserts motive or a desire to incarcerate the actor so that he cannot be a further danger to society. Research participants in two experiments assigned punishments to actors whose offenses were varied with respect to the moral seriousness of the offense and the likelihood that the perpetrator would commit similar future offenses. Respondents increased the punishment as the seriousness of the offense increased, but their sentences were not affected by variations in the likelihood of committing future offenses, suggesting that just deserts was the primary sentencing motive.

Erythropoiesis and renal transplant pregnancy.

Objective: To examine erythropoiesis in renal transplant pregnancies.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 30 renal transplant cases and 30 age, smoking and parity-matched healthy controls with normal index pregnancy. Retrospective chart review and assay of frozen antenatal serum (for serum erythropoietin concentration [serum EPO]), transferrin receptor protein [TfR], ferritin, folate and B12) were performed.

Community perceptions of allowable counterforce in self-defense and defense of property.

What level of force do people believe is appropriate to use in self-defense and defense of property? One answer is that a person may use only the bare minimum of force necessary to terminate the threat in self-defense and must retreat if it is possible. One may not use deadly force in defense of property since that would be disproportionate. This set of rules is in the Model Penal Code (MPC).

Genetic influences on F cells and other hematologic variables: a twin heritability study.

To assess the relative contribution of genetic factors in the variation of F cells (FC) and other hematologic variables, we conducted a classical twin study in unselected twins. The sample included 264 identical (monozygotic [MZ]) twin pairs and 511 nonidentical (dizygotic [DZ]) same-sex twin pairs (aged 20 to 80 years) from the St. Thomas' UK Adult Twin Register.

Community attitudes on the family of issues surrounding the death of terminal patients.

In two studies, respondents made recommendations for the medical treatment of a terminally ill elderly woman. The woman was or was not experiencing intractable pain, and had requested either heroic medical efforts or euthanasia. Respondents' recommendations were influenced by both the specific wishes of the patient and the pain the person was experiencing.

Folate and vitamin B12 concentrations in maternal and fetal blood, and amniotic fluid in second trimester pregnancies complicated by neural tube defects.

Objective: To investigate maternal and fetal folate and vitamin B12 concentrations in pregnancies affected by neural tube defects (NTD).

Design: Measurement of folate and vitamin B12 concentrations in amniotic fluid, fetal blood and maternal blood samples in midgestation.

Subjects: 32 women undergoing termination of pregnancy at 14-21 weeks gestation for social reasons (n = 24) or for fetuses with neural tube defects (n = 8).