First responders are on the front line of patient care and service, but research has shown that they are also on the front line of exposure to violence. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based interventions that prepare first responders to handle violence on the job. With the increase in emergency medical services (EMS) call volume and reports of at least 57% of the EMS responders having experienced workplace violence, there is a need to develop scientifically systematic solutions to improve emergency responder safety. Using an adapted version of the hackathon method, academic scholars and practitioner conference attendees at the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research (INGRoup) Conference were deployed into three multidisciplinary teams to analyze the issue and develop specific solutions. These solutions offer unique interventions to improve first responder safety.

Felt understanding in intergroup context is the belief that members of an outgroup understand and accept ingroup members’ perspectives. A series of studies in Europe conducted by Livingstone, Fernández Rodríguez, and Rothers (2019) showed the unique effect of felt understanding in intergroup relations. The effects were apparent even when controlling for outgroup beliefs and metabeliefs. The present article reports a cross-cultural replication of the findings in the relations of Japanese and Chinese residents in Japan. As expected, felt understanding uniquely predicted intergroup relational outcomes (e.g., outgroup belief, action tendencies, and evaluation of ingroup-outgroup relations) in the relations. The authors’ findings have important implications for helping us improve the relations of Japanese and Chinese residents in Japan.

Felt understanding is linked to intergroup relations. However, almost all of the studies linking felt understanding to intergroup relations have been conducted in a relation where ingroups and outgroups cohabit within a community having a shared superordinate political structure/system (cohabitating target). It is unclear whether this association generaliddzes to another relation that ingroups and outgroups live in separate communities with different superordinate systems (separate target). The present work investigates whether the predictive role of felt understanding in intergroup relations differs across the two targets—Chinese people in Japan (CIJ) and Chinese people outside of Japan (COJ). Data were collected in Japan by two online surveys among 536 Japanese (189 females) in 2021. Multigroup analysis found that felt understanding was linked to positive intergroup outcomes (positive action tendencies, outgroup trust, intergroup orientation) for both cohabiting and separate target conditions. Also, post hoc mediation analysis suggested that the cohabiting/separate target condition was positively related to felt understanding, and higher felt understanding, in turn, results in the outcomes. These results indicate that felt understanding can be beneficial even in intergroup relations not involving a shared superordinate system and that the level (not the effect) of felt understanding may be influenced by cohabiting/separate targets. Implications for consolidating peace in Japan–China relations are discussed, which may be relevant to other international relations.

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There is a lack of understanding concerning the differences between laypeople’s and professional judges’ conceptions of justifications for sentencing. We conducted an online quasi-experimental study with 50 active judges and 200 laypeople. Participants were presented with a vignette describing severe child abuse leading to fatality and were asked to indicate a term of imprisonment for the father and the justification they would consider relevant when deciding on the sentence. A two-factor analysis of variance showed that laypeople disproportionately favored retribution compared to judges. This was reflected in the judges’ higher scores for the other three justifications (incapacitation, general deterrence, rehabilitation). The Likert scales failed to detect any such differences. Furthermore, imprisonment terms given by judges were shorter than those given by laypeople. These results support the hypotheses that judges balance multiple justifications and find a shorter sentence that is appropriate; their lesser bias toward retribution supports the notion that judges should be balanced and fair-minded.