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This study tested factors influencing verdicts in legal cases involving battered women who kill their husbands. A total of 388 college students (213 females and 175 males) read a fictitious but prototypical legal case. Subjects received one of three stories varying the level of force used by the husband against the wife before she killed him. Half of the subjects received courtroom testimony regarding the Battered Woman Syndrome. One-half received judge's instructions of not guilty by reason of selfdefense (NGRSD), and the other half received not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) instructions. Subjects decided on a verdict and completed a questionnaire including demographics, reasons for their verdicts, and relevant attitudinal measures. Judge's instructions were most predictive of verdicts, with NGRSD being more likely to produce not guilty verdicts. Verdicts were also influenced by the subject's view of the severity of the past beatings, the testimony of the expert witness, the subject's feelings about the woman using a weapon, race of the subject, the subject's own history of abuse, attitudes toward abuse in relationships, and the subject's belief that people are responsible even if provoked. The preference the subjects showed for NGRSD belies the commonly held belief that impaired mental defenses in these cases would be more likely to yield not guilty verdicts. Situational aspects of the case rather than long-standing attitudes of subjects appeared to be better predictors of verdicts.

This research assessed whether males and females differ in their group task performance. Participants worked individually or in three-person same-sex groups on a production task, which required the generation of ideas, or on a discussion task, which required group members to reach consensus concerning their evaluation of an issue. Because the content of the tasks was carefully selected not to favor the interests and expertise of one sex over the other, no sex differences were expected when subjects worked individually. Indeed, no gender differences were obtained in individual production performance and only the creativity of the discussion problems was affected by gender, such that males working individually generated more creative solutions than did females. In addition, consistent with prior research, men in groups generated more solutions to the production problems than did women, and women in groups generated higher quality solutions to the discussion problems than did men.

Abused women (N = 234) were interviewed using a structured questionnaire to determine whether violence increases during the course of an abusive relationship. Comparisons were made between women with short-term violence and long-term abusive relationships to assess whether strategies used by victims during early incidents affected the duration of the violence. Women out of the relationship were also contrasted with women still in the relationship. The data supported the picture of increasing abuse for 18 months with a relatively stable rate from then on. The number of forms of abuse and the severity of them tended to quickly increase over early events. Women with short-term violence were more likely to make plans following early incidents, typically involving changing the marital situation. Whether experiencing short-term or long-term abuse, battered women perceived their own sanctions on the abusers as responsible for the cessation of the violence. Continued investigation is necessary to replicate these findings and to identify strategies for reducing violence while women are in the relationship.