Preschool children's self-reports of fruit and vegetable knowledge, preference, and messages encouraging consumption.

BACKGROUND: Fruit and vegetable consumption (FVC) is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Only one third of children aged 4-8years consume the recommended 5 servings a day. Studies involving school-aged children (6-11 years) demonstrate that positive outcome expectancies can mediate FVC. There is a lack of similar studies involving preschool-aged (<5 years) children. The purpose of this study was to assess preschool children's knowledge and preference of fruits and vegetables, messages they recall hearing related to FVC, and how they perceive these messages. METHODS: Children (N = 192) were individually interviewed with a play-based picture card game followed by a mealtime environment reenactment open-ended interview. Fruit and vegetable messages were operationalized using Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). Descriptive statistics and associations are reported. RESULTS: Each child recalled an average of 2.27 messages associated with FVC. Positive outcome expectancies, negative outcome expectancies, and prompts were most frequently recalled. Statistically significant differences in knowledge, preference, and messages were observed based on income. CONCLUSIONS: Children as young as age 4 years understand positive outcome expectancies. Experimental trials are warranted to determine if tailored expectancy messages mediate FVC among preschool children.

Reverse deterrence in racial profiling: increased transgressions by nonprofiled whites.

A controlled experiment tested the possibility that racial profiling-disproportionate scrutiny of a minority racial group by sanctioned authorities-would have a "reverse deterrent" effect on the illicit behavior of members of a nonprofiled majority group. Research participants given a task involving extremely difficult anagrams were given the opportunity to cheat. White participants randomly assigned to a condition in which two Black confederates were obtrusively singled out for scrutiny by the study administrator cheated more than Whites in a White-profiling condition and a no-profiling control condition, and more than Black participants in all three conditions. Black participants cheated at comparable levels across the three experimental conditions. The effect of the profiling of Blacks was consequently a net increase in cheating. The results indicate that racial profiling may be counterproductive.

The psychology of telling murder stories: do we think in scripts, exemplars, or prototypes?

According to the story model of Pennington and Hastie, jurors collect information at trial and modify it with general knowledge to create case stories. Schank and Ableson argue that human memory is organized to tell and understand stories. However, Finkel and Groscup questioned the use of manipulated, experimenter-constructed narratives to demonstrate the existence of multiple prototypical crime stories. We interviewed 76 jury eligible, death qualified citizens and asked them to imagine a first-degree murder scenario, describing the events that led to the killing. We coded the presence of dichotomous variables in the resulting stories and identified at least three shared story prototypes using cluster and profile analysis. We conclude that people do not store crime stories as simple prototypes and comment on the implications of this finding for legal decision-making.