Suchergebnisse

This article begins with a definition of politics as a problem-solving process. Thus, to understand politics we need to understand how people solve problems. This research focuses on the ways individuals perceive, evaluate, and use a limited amount of informa tion in solving problems in a criminal justice context. An experiment was used to control information and assess performance levels. In the first wave of the experiment Ss read "criminal court transcripts" from an assault and battery case, in which characteristics of the information source were varied. In the second treatment Ss read excerpts of the Miranda case. The data analysis presented here examines the effects of information source, individual level of cognitive complexity, and decision making rules or logics on verdicts.

While poverty lifestyles continue to receive attention from policymakers, it is not yet possible to answer important questions about such matters as residential dispersal patterns & their effects on lifestyles. An attempt is made to assess the validity of competing models of behavioral effects related to the issue of residential dispersal, utilizing individual level data from 2,705 Rs to the U of Michigan Survey Research Center's 1972 American Election Study; attention is limited to 1,396 white Rs living within SMSAs. Regression analysis of factors affecting political participation, social participation, efficacy, & fatalism is used to compare the social contagion & relative status models of contextual effects. Neither model is supported; individual poverty, rather than social context, appears to be the major basis for feelings of powerlessness. 2 Tables. Modified HA.