This chapter focuses on mimicry, that is, unconscious imitation of another person’s behaviors, and its role in enhancing communication between doctors and patients by fostering trust, rapport, and mutual understanding. Attention is paid to the context of vaccination, where mimicry is hypothesized as a potential technique for enhancing the quality of interaction and, consequently, promoting vaccine-related communication. Furthermore, the chapter introduces a novel mimicry research direction: recent findings show that persons who are being mimicked during an interaction are perceived by third-party observers as more effective in promoting vaccination than those who are mimicking others, regardless of vaccine type or third-party observers’ prior attitudes toward vaccination. Practical recommendations regarding the potential use of mimicry in medical practice and public health campaigns related to vaccination are discussed.
The aim of this study was to better understand juror decision-making in a less typical rape trial scenario where even prior acquaintance is disputed. Adopting an improved mock trial paradigm including a video-recorded recreation of a genuine rape allegation and jury-group deliberation, 156 jury-eligible participants took part in 1 of 13 identical 12-person mock trials. Pre-trial, a psychosocial questionnaire was conducted and post-trial, juries deliberated attempting to reach a unanimous verdict. Regression analyses revealed that male jurors, those with greater belief in rape myths and lower scores in interpersonal manipulation were most likely to return not guilty verdicts pre-deliberation. Post-deliberation, increased self-esteem and rape myth acceptance scores were associated with not guilty verdict selections. Female and Caucasian jurors were most likely to change their decision following group-deliberation. This research has important implications for understanding the role that juror biases can have on rape trial outcomes with jury reform initiatives discussed.
Introduction: Despite research highlighting the influence of rape attitudes and other juror traits on trial outcomes, few studies have examined such relationships within intimate partner rape trials, prioritising instead decision-making in so-called “date rape” cases. The current study, therefore, sought to investigate the relationship between juror demographic traits, their pre-trial legal attitudes, and rape myth beliefs, upon subsequent verdict decisions made in an intimate partner rape trial.
Methods: The study adopted a mock trial paradigm, with methodological enhancements aimed at increasing ecological validity. Mock jurors (N = 435) completed a series of attitudinal and demographic questions online before observing a recreation of a genuine intimate partner rape trial and subsequently rendering their verdict.
Results: Results revealed that ethnicity, educational attainment, and rape myth acceptance, though not varied legal attitudes, were all significant predictors of the verdict selections that jurors made. Caucasian, university-educated mock jurors and jurors who rejected rape myths to a greater extent were those most likely to find the defendant guilty. Female jurors were also significantly more likely to return a guilty verdict before, though not after, controlling for variation in rape myth beliefs.
Discussion: These findings offer further support to the wealth of existing literature that suggests jurors' pre-trial rape myth beliefs, alongside other demographic characteristics, appear to predispose juror judgements and decision-making, and extend upon past literature in identifying a similar trend within intimate partner rape trials. Findings highlight the need for targeted juror reforms, such as myth-debunking juror education, before such recommendations are made. Before such recommendations are made, further enhancements to mock-trial procedures to maximise ecological validity, alongside greater research among genuine trial jurors, are warranted.
This study investigates the critical role of social identity in leadership, specifically examining identity leadership (IL) and the unique contributions of its four subdimensions: identity prototypicality, identity advancement, identity entrepreneurship, and identity impresarioship. To date, research has largely focused on the global construct of identity leadership and shown that in organizational contexts, it is a predictor of a range of outcomes, including group members’ burnout and organizational citizenship. However, the distinct roles of the four subdimensions remain little understood. Extending earlier findings, we address this gap by testing the hypothesis that the four subdimensions are differentially implicated in two key mechanisms that underlie the relationship between IL and group outcomes: (a) trust in the leader and (b) team identification. The present study explores this proposition by using structural equation modeling with latent factors to test a mediation model in 2020–2021 data from the Global Identity Leadership Development project (GILD; N = 7,855). As hypothesized, we found that identity prototypicality and identity advancement predominantly predicted greater trust in the leader, whereas identity entrepreneurship primarily predicted greater team identification. Contrary to our hypothesis, identity impresarioship showed a negative relation with trust. In turn, both trust in the leader and team identification were positively associated with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and negatively with burnout. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of these findings for both the theory and practice of leadership.
