In a series of studies in the 1970s and ’80s, psychologists at the University of Washington put more than 300 students into a study room outfitted like a bar with mirrors, music and a stretch of polished pine. The researchers served alcoholic drinks, most often icy vodka tonics, to some of the students and nonalcoholic ones, usually icy tonic water, to others. The drinks looked and tasted the same, and the students typically drank five in an hour or two.Make-believe for grow'd ups. It's just one more convenient social myth we use to evade accountability for our own actions, like a little Monopoly get-out-of-jail-free card for the real world.
The studies found that people who thought they were drinking alcohol behaved exactly as aggressively, or as affectionately, or as merrily as they expected to when drunk. “No significant difference between those who got alcohol and those who didn’t,” Alan Marlatt, the senior author, said. “Their behavior was totally determined by their expectations of how they would behave.”
Most problematic is the question of the generalizability of these findings
from a single police agency handling a relatively small number of cases.
Certainly, our intent is not to suggest that the 41% incidence found hefe
be extrapolated to other populations, particularly in light of our ignorance
regarding the structural variables that might be influencing such behavior
and which could be responsible for wide variations among cities. But a far
greater obstacle to obtaining "true" incidence figures, especially for larger
cities, would be the extraordinary variations in police agency policies (see
Comment, 1968; Newsweek, 1983; Pepinsky and Jesilow, 1984); variations
so diverse, in fact, that some police agencies cannot find a single rape complaint
with merit, while others cannot find a single rape complaint without
merit. Similarly, some police agencies report all of their unfounded rape
cases to be due to false allegation, while other agencies report none of
their unfounded declarations to be based on false allegation (Kanin, 1985).
On the other hand, a degree of confidence exists that the findings reported here are not exaggerations produced by some sort of atypical population, that is, nothing peculiar exists about this city's population composition to suggest that an unusual incidence or patterning of false rape allegations would occur. This city is not a resort/reveling area or a center attracting a transient population of any kind, attributes that have been associated with false rape reporting (Wilson, 1978). The major culprit in this city may well be a police agency that seriously records and pursues to closure all rape complaints, regardless of their merits. We may well be faced with the fact that the most efficient police departments report the higher incidence of false rape allegations. In view of these factors, perhaps the most prudent summary statement that is appropriate from these data is that false rape accusations are not uncommon. Since this effort is the first at a systematic, long-term, on-site investigation of false rape allegations from a single city, future studies in other cities, with comparable policies, must assess the representativeness of these findings.The very next section of the paper is an Adenda, a follow-up analysis intended to gauge the replicability of the original findings. The data for the follow-up is from two large Midwestern Universities. Over a three year period it finds the false rape allegation rate is.... 50%. There have been a few more papers since that time, with similar findings. Until contrary evidence emerges, this approximate magnitude is the best empirical estimate we have of the false rape allegation rate.
While this research has been described as a ‘‘careful study’’,87"FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF RAPE" Rumney, Philip Cambridge Law Journal, 65(1), March 2006, pp. 128–158
Kanin also warns against generalising from his findings88 and
there are a number of reasons why its reliability might be
questioned. First, is the uniqueness of the finding that every
unfounded report resulted from a recantation by the
complainant.89 Kanin does not disclose how many complainants
in his study were in fact, polygraphed, which might have
provided an additional measure of reliability. Second, Kanin
claims that the police acted professionally and ‘‘recantations did
not follow prolonged periods of investigation and interrogation’’.90
However, while Kanin reports that the police in this study were
very co-operative in sharing information such as case files, it is
not at all apparent how he can be sure from paper records that
complainants were not subjected to pressure to withdraw. Nor
does he consider that the offer of a polygraph test might have
represented an underlying view by officers that rape complaints,
by their nature, were suspect—a view that might influence
subsequent recording practice, as noted in other research. The
third and perhaps most significant problem is that Kanin appears
to assume that police officers abided by departmental policy in
only labelling as false, those cases where the complainant admitted to fabrication. He does not consider that actual police
practice, as other studies have shown, might have departed from
guidelines.91
Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.That first sentence may be true enough (if slightly hyperbolic), but it would be no less true if the first W and the O were omitted. We know. Really, we do.
On two occasions around that time, I objected to the behavior of a man, only to be told that the incidents hadn't happened at all as I said, that I was subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest -- in a nutshell, female.Wow. Just... wow. So, first of all, a man who is critical of a woman's ideas is automatically sexist, since that is the only position from which he could possibly be critical of a woman's ideas? Yikes. And, secondly, "subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest" (which, if this article is any indication, seem to describe the author to a T)--each word and all combined--are code-words for female? Sorry, no. That is genuinely fucked up.
Anonymous, recognizing the intoxication, retired early to bed, presumably thinking it safe because he or she knew the host and the attendees. I don't find that "stupid" or "irresponsible". In fact, it was a sensible thing to do.
Her "partner" sought her out while she was asleep.
That you and Ironmouth want to make his or her alcohol intake the issue is sickening.
Also:
No crime has been committed. To suggest otherwise is also stupid and irresponsible.
No information w/r/t to state or even country has been presented here, so, you know, to state that no crime has been committed is stupid and irresponsible.
As to whether you confess to your error, that's completely up to you. I doubt it'll solve any problems and in fact suggest it will just create different problems.
"error"? Your answer here is really too much. Sickening.
posted by mlis at 10:26 PM on April 5, 2009