Anthony N. Doob

Abstract: Previous findings have suggested that people who watch a lot of television are more likely to fear their environment than are those who report being less frequent viewers of television. From this simple correlation, previous authors have suggested that television causes people to overestimate the amount of danger that exists in their own neighborhoods. The present study attempted to replicate this finding and to determine if the apparent effect was due to a previously uncontrolled factor: the actual incidence of crime in the neighborhood. Respondents to a door-to-door survey indicated their media usage and estimated the likelihood of their being a victim of violence. Neighborhoods were chosen so as to include a high- and a low-crime area in downtown Toronto and a high- and a low-crime area in Toronto’s suburbs. Pooling across the four areas sampled, the previous findings were replicated. However, the average within-area correlation was insignificant, suggesting that when acicual incidence of crime is controlled for, there is no overall relationship between television viewing and fear of being a victim of crime. A multiple regression analysis and a canonical correlation analysis confirmed these findings.

Abstract: The literature on the effects of sentence severity on crime levels has been reviewed numerous times in the past twenty-five years. Most reviews conclude that there is little or no consistent evidence that harsher sanctions reduce crime rates in Western populations. Nevertheless, most reviewers have been reluctant to conclude that variation in the severity of sentence does not have differential deterrent impacts. A reasonable assessment of the research to date-with a particular focus on studies conducted in the past decade-is that sentence severity has no effect on the level of crime in society. It is time to accept the null hypothesis.

Abstract: Opinion polls in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and elsewhere suggest that most members of the public would like their criminal courts to be harsher. Does media coverage of criminal sentencing contribute to a preference for harsher sentencing? Most people derive their information about sentencing from the news media and content analyses of news stories in Canada and the United States demonstrate that crimes of violence and sentences of imprisonment are overrepresented. Moreover, the news media provide little systematic information about the sentencing process or its underlying principles. This article reports the results of three studies examining the effects of media coverage on public opinion about sentencing. Subjects who read actual newspaper stories about sentencing that appeared in Canadian newspapers rated most reported sentences as too lenient. However, the specific account they read influenced their leniency judgments. Furthermore, in one experiment, participants assigned to read a newspaper account of a sentencing decision supported harsher sentences than participants who read a summary of actual court documents from the sentencing hearing.

Abstract: It is a daunting honor to deliver the inaugural Pool Lecture. Ithiel de Sola Pool was a brilliant, broad-gauged scholar whose interests ranged from the Nazi elite to direct satellite broadcasting, from the first rigorous computer simulation of electoral behavior to the development of network theory, from which he invented "small world" research. He helped found the field of political communications. A graduate of the University of Chicago's political science department during its classic golden age, and first chair of the MIT political science department, Pool must also have been a remarkable teacher, for his students continue to contribute to our understanding of technology, communications, and political behavior. When I accepted this honor, I did not guess how close my own inquiry would lead me to Pool's own professional turf. I shall return to the contemporary relevance of Pool's insights at the conclusion of this talk.

Abstract: Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

Abstract: Objective: To identify methods to increase response to postal questionnaires. Design: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials of any method to influence response to postal questionnaires. Studies reviewed: 292 randomised controlled trials including 258 315 participants Intervention reviewed: 75 strategies for influencing response to postal questionnaires. Main outcome measure: The proportion of completed or partially completed questionnaires returned. Results: The odds of response were more than doubled when a monetary incentive was used (odds ratio 2.02; 95% confidence interval 1.79 to 2.27) and almost doubled when incentives were not conditional on response (1.71; 1.29 to 2.26). Response was more likely when short questionnaires were used (1.86; 1.55 to 2.24). Personalised questionnaires and letters increased response (1.16; 1.06 to 1.28), as did the use of coloured ink (1.39; 1.16 to 1.67). The odds of response were more than doubled when the questionnaires were sent by recorded delivery (2.21; 1.51 to 3.25) and increased when stamped return envelopes were used (1.26; 1.13 to 1.41) and questionnaires were sent by first class post (1.12; 1.02 to 1.23). Contacting participants before sending questionnaires increased response (1.54; 1.24 to 1.92), as did follow up contact (1.44; 1.22 to 1.70) and providing non-respondents with a second copy of the questionnaire (1.41; 1.02 to 1.94). Questionnaires designed to be of more interest to participants were more likely to be returned (2.44; 1.99 to 3.01), but questionnaires containing questions of a sensitive nature were less likely to be returned (0.92; 0.87 to 0.98). Questionnaires originating from universities were more likely to be returned than were questionnaires from other sources, such as commercial organisations (1.31; 1.11 to 1.54). Conclusions: Health researchers using postal questionnaires can improve the quality of their research by using the strategies shown to be effective in this systematic review. What is already known on this topic Postal questionnaires are widely used in the collection of data in epidemiological studies and health research Non-response to postal questionnaires reduces the effective sample size and can introduce bias What this study adds This systematic review includes more randomised controlled trials than any previously published review or meta-analysis no questionnaire response The review has identified effective ways to increase response to postal questionnaires The review will be updated regularly in the Cochrane Library

Abstract: Examines the Dollard et al. (1939) frustration-aggression hypothesis. The original formulation's main proposition is limited to interference with an expected attainment of a desired goal on hostile (emotional) aggression. Although some studies have yielded negative results, others support the core proposition. Frustrations can create aggressive inclinations even when they are not arbitrary or aimed at the subject personally. Interpretations and attributions can be understood partly in terms of the original analysis but they can also influence the unpleasantness of the thwarting. A proposed revision of the 1939 model holds that frustrations generate aggressive inclinations to the degree that they arouse negative affect. Evidence regarding the aggressive consequences of aversive events is reviewed, and Berkowitz's cognitive-neoassociationistic model is summarized. In 1939, researchers at the Yale University Institute of Human Relations published a small monograph that has had a tremendous impact, directly or indirectly, on almost all of the behavioral sciences. Led by,John Dollard, Leonard Doob, Neal Miller, O. H. Mowrer, and Robert Sears (1939), the group attempted to account for virtually all of human aggression with a few basic ideas. Their book, Frustration and Aggression, quickly attracted considerable attention. Seven articles in one 1941 issue of Psychological Review were devoted to the controversy generated by the monograph, and excerpts from these papers as well as from other related articles were reprinted in a major section of the classic Readings in Social Psychology (Newcomb & Hartley, 1947). Most of the studies investigating the causes and consequences of aggression in the immediately following decades were oriented, to some extent at least, toward issues raised by the Yale group's analysis (see Berkowitz, 1958, 1962; Buss, 1961).

Abstract: Research on gaze and eye contact was organized within the framework of Patterson's (1982) sequential functional model of nonverbal exchange. Studies were reviewed showing how gaze functions to (a) provide information, (b) regulate interaction, (c) express intimacy, (d) exercise social control, and (