Racial justice in psycholegal research and forensic psychology practice: Current advances and a framework for future progress.

Police killings of Black civilians have brought unprecedented attention to racial and ethnic discrimination in the criminal justice and legal systems. However, these topics have been underexamined in the field of law-psychology, both in research and forensic-clinical practice. We discuss how a racial justice framework can provide guidance for advancing psycholegal research and forensic-clinical practice related to race, ethnicity, culture, and their intersections. A racial justice framework centers the goal of increasing fair and responsive treatment and just outcomes for the most vulnerable populations involved with the criminal justice, legal, and carceral systems and ending existing disparities. We argue that the framework should include the use of transparent nonobjectivity, in which racial justice is an explicit and acknowledged goal of research and practice that exists alongside a commitment to open and rigorous science and evidence-based practice. We then use the racial justice framework as a backdrop for discussing the articles and broader themes that appear in the special issue, which include racial biases in policing, public views of the police and use of force, expanding research on racial bias in lay judgments, understanding disparities in sentencing and corrections, and improving forensic practice. Finally, we look to the future, discussing practices and perspectives that can facilitate a racial justice approach in psycholegal research and forensic-clinical practice. Our recommendations include engaging in reflexivity and addressing positionality; expanding research questions and methods, especially qualitative and community-based participatory action research; centering and engaging with communities of color; greater emphasis on intersectionality; shifting toward structural and adaptive interventions; and greater integration of work from other fields. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Further action toward valid science in Law and Human Behavior: Requiring open data, analytic code, and research materials.

In 2019, the inaugural editorial of Law and Human Behavior promised a measured approach to increasing transparency, openness, and replicability practices in the journal. Now, 3 years later, and on the brink of the present authors' last year as the editorial team, it seems only fitting that they take further action to bolster the validity of science published in the journal by requiring that authors openly report data, analytic code, and research materials. The purpose of this editorial is to briefly outline Law and Human Behavior's new requirements. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Taking the next steps: Promoting open science and expanding diversity in Law and Human Behavior.

In this editorial, the authors note that steady submission rate and a rejection rate that hovers at 80%, indicates the journal is flourishing and provides them with the fortunate opportunity to make an excellent journal even better. To that end, they describe three initiatives they are working on and explain the changes readers can expect as they begin to implement them in the journal. Specifically, these initiatives include: (1) promoting transparency, openness, and reproducibility in published research; (2) improving author-reviewer fit; and (3) expanding the diversity of journal content and decision makers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Talking about a black man: the influence of defendant and character witness race on jurors' use of character evidence.

To determine whether anti-Black bias influences mock jurors' use of character evidence (i.e., information about a defendant's personality), this study manipulated the race (Black, White) of the defendant and character witness and the type of character evidence presented in a fictitious criminal trial. Two hundred six predominantly White participants read a trial transcript, then made verdicts and trial judgments. Results confirm previous findings that positive character evidence has a limited impact on jurors' judgments, but negative character evidence is misused to evaluate the defendant's guilt. However, participants were more influenced by character evidence that was inconsistent with racial stereotypes. Specifically, positive character evidence had a stronger effect for Black defendants, whereas negative rebuttal evidence had a stronger influence for White defendants. The race of the character witness did not affect judgments. Thus, defendant race may provide a framework that influences how mock jurors process character evidence.

Considering her circumstances: how ethnicity and cultural relativist arguments affect sexual harassment judgments by undergraduate and community mock jurors.

Most research on sexual harassment has involved undergraduate students and European Americans, whose perspectives may not be representative of the broader population. This study investigated whether judgments of a sexual harassment trial vary by plaintiff ethnicity (European American or Latin American), type of sample (undergraduates or community members) and mock juror ethnicity (European American or Latin American). We also tested the effects of a cultural relativist argument about Latin American cultural values influencing the plaintiff. Results indicated that community and Latin American mock jurors rendered more pro-plaintiff verdicts, particularly when the case did not include a cultural relativist argument. Although the cultural relativist argument did not affect undergraduates' judgments, it caused a backlash among community members, leading to more pro-defendant verdicts. Judgments across type of sample and mock juror ethnicity were partially mediated by self-referencing and hostile sexism; affiliation with Latin American culture also predicted judgments of the Latina American plaintiff.

College students' mental models for recognizing anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

Knowledge about eating disorders influences lay people's ability to recognize individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) and refer them to professional treatment. We assessed mental models (stored knowledge) of AN and BN in 106 college students. Results indicated that most students have general, but not specific, information about AN and BN's symptoms, consequences, causes, duration, and cures. They also believe that people with eating disorders tend to be young, White women. These findings suggest that lay recognition of eating disorders may be based primarily on observations of dysfunctional eating behaviors and therefore facilitated by additional knowledge.

How jurors use and misuse character evidence.

The Federal Rules of Evidence allow defendants to offer testimony about their good character, but that testimony can be impeached with cross-examination or a rebuttal witness. It is assumed that jurors use the defense's character evidence (CE) to form guilt and conviction judgments but use impeachment evidence only to assess the character witness's credibility. Two experiments tested these assumptions by presenting mock jurors with various forms of CE and impeachment. Participants made trait ratings for the character witness and defendant and guilt and conviction judgments. Positive CE did not affect guilt or conviction judgments, but cross-examination caused a backlash in which judgments were harsher than when no CE was given. Using path analysis, the authors tested a model of the process by which CE and impeachment affect defendant and witness impressions and guilt and conviction judgments. Implications for juror decision making are discussed.