Suchergebnisse

Objective: This study addresses a practical homeland security issue of considerable current concern: In a situation in which the opportunity exists to question or interview concurrently two or more suspects, how does one determine truth or deception at a social level? Background: Recent world events have led to an increased emphasis on the capacity to detect deception, especially in military, security, and law enforcement settings. In many screening or checkpoint situations, the opportunity exists to question two or more suspects regarding their involvement in some activity, yet investigators know very little regarding characteristics of speech or behavior that are exhibited between two suspects that indicate truth or deception. Method: We conducted an empirical study in which pairs of police officers and firefighters who had served together as partners took part. In the "truth" conditions, each dyad described a recent event in which they had actually taken part, and in the "deceptive" conditions, each dyad fabricated a story that did not take place. We expected that the officers in the truth-telling dyads would be able to draw on shared or transactive memory of the actual event they had participated in and would describe this event in a more interactive manner than would those in deceptive dyads. Results: Results indicated greater evidence of synchrony of behavior as well as more interactive behaviors, such as mutual gaze and speech transitions, in truthful dyads than in deceptive dyads. Conclusion: This research provides a unique perspective on detecting deception in a social context, and the results have both theoretical and practical value. Application: These results can inform training programs and refine strategies used by screeners in field settings.

The study of how people allocate their time can avoid the dilemma of choice between domain-specific and commensurable statistics. All activities are located in time; so observing how an appropriately chosen sample of people spend their time provides a comprehensive account of the distribution of all activites across the society. (SJK)

Researchers often use social indicators in their analysis of community problems and the subsequent proposals.However these researchers rarely consider the constraints placed on these indicators by construction and measurement problems. Some of these indicators are reviewed with particular reference to conceptualization of social phenomena and the intrusion of values. In the latter regard comment is made on the use of social indicators by political decision makers and policy planners.

The social indicators movement sought to establish a system of social accounting that was broader than the money-based national income accounts. Specialized studies of social trends in housing, health, crime, and so forth could be successful in illuminating a specific area of social life, but together they became obstacles to the achievement of the ideal of an integrated set of social accounts. Even if crime and housing have a relationship the statistics generated within each domain are together incommensurable.

Social indicators research developed in the United States at the end of the 1960s and the principal ideas and approaches were received by West German social scientists soon thereafter. It became common usage to speak of a social indicators movement, an expression which is rather unusual in regard to a scientific approach.

Argues that social indicators give a broader social view of development. The World Bank is now the only institution that regularly publishes, on an annual basis, detailed data on social conditions for all countries of the World. This information is contained in the Bank's Social Indicators of Development Report. (SJK)