Are people overoptimistic about the effects of heavy drinking?

We test whether heavy or binge drinkers are overly optimistic about probabilities of adverse consequences from these activities or are relatively accurate about these probabilities. Using data from a survey in eight cities, we evaluate the relationship between subjective beliefs and drinking. We assess accuracy of beliefs about several outcomes of heavy/binge drinking: reduced longevity, liver disease onset, link between alcohol consumption and Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), probability of an accident after drinking, accuracy of beliefs about encountering intoxicated drivers on the road, and legal consequences of DWI—ranging from being stopped to receiving fines and jail terms. Overall, there is no empirical support for the optimism bias hypothesis. We do find that persons consuming a lot of alcohol tend to be more overconfident about their driving abilities and ability to handle alcohol. However, such overconfidence does not translate into over-optimism about consequences of high levels of alcohol consumption.     

Who Believes in the Storybook Image of the Scientist?

Do lay people and scientists themselves recognize that scientists are human and therefore prone to human fallibilities such as error, bias, and even dishonesty? In a series of three experimental studies and one correlational study (total N = 3,278) we found that the “storybook image of the scientist” is pervasive: American lay people and scientists from over 60 countries attributed considerably more objectivity, rationality, open-mindedness, intelligence, integrity, and communality to scientists than to other highly-educated people. Moreover, scientists perceived even larger differences than lay people did. Some groups of scientists also differentiated between different categories of scientists: established scientists attributed higher levels of the scientific traits to established scientists than to early-career scientists and Ph.D. students, and higher levels to Ph.D. students than to early-career scientists. Female scientists attributed considerably higher levels of the scientific traits to female scientists than to male scientists. A strong belief in the storybook image and the (human) tendency to attribute higher levels of desirable traits to people in one’s own group than to people in other groups may decrease scientists’ willingness to adopt recently proposed practices to reduce error, bias and dishonesty in science.     

Who Cares about Consent Requirements for Sourcing Human Embryonic Stem Cells? Are Errors In the Past Really Errors Of the Past?

Through an Access to Information Act request, we have obtained the consent forms used by the providers of every human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line approved for use by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and examined them to verify whether or not they meet the consent requirements established by Canadian law and regulations. Our findings show that at least seven out of ten consent forms studied did not satisfy these minimum requirements. We then outline various options for responding to this situation in terms of: (i) remedial measures for dealing with executive problems with regulatory oversight procedures; and (ii) remedial measures for dealing with the impugned lines.     

Who cares about Reddit? Historical institutionalism and the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act

In May 2011, the PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) was introduced to the United States Senate boasting 31 sponsors from both the Democratic and Republican Party. By January 2012 PIPA, along with counterpart in the House of Representatives known as the Stop Online Piracy Act was indefinitely shelved. Many have attributed this dramatic shift to the widespread backlash against the bills from online activists. The case thus suggests that the Internet has emerged as a powerful tool in allowing ordinary citizens to displace the entrenched power of special interests groups. However, given the role of activists and their rhetorical framing strategies in the defeat of the bills, the case also has theoretical implications for historical institutionalism. Namely, how can historical institutionalism, which favours institutions over agency, especially when explaining continuity, account for this? Can historical institutionalism account for agency, institutions, continuity and change in a unified way? This article responds in two ways. First, it argues that internet companies, not activists, were crucial in explaining the defeat of the bills. Second, it argues, it proposes a unified historical institutionalist approach to research, capable of explaining agency within institutions in institutional continuity and change.     

Are there differences in standard of care for the elderly? A comparative study of assistance decisions in Stockholm

According to Swedish law, an elderly dependent person is entitled to public services in the form of home help in ordinary housing or a place in special housing — i.e. sheltered housing, a residential home or a nursing home. There are no explicit rules for how much home help a person is entitled to given dependency and other factors, nor are there any explicit criteria to guide the admission to special housing. A study was performed in ten districts in Stockholm in order to determine whether there were systematic differences between the districts with regard to the allotment of care and services to the elderly. It was found that there were in fact significant differences that could not be explained by variations in dependency or other factors of importance for the allotment decision. A minor part of these differences was connected to the different background and experience of the assessing person.     

The Dilemma of Ethnic Political Theory in Huntington’s Who Are We?

Samuel P. Huntington published his new book Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity in 2004. This may be called a miniature version of his "Clash of Civilizations," i.e., the "clash of cultures" in America. The earlier work tries to answer the question of "who are we" and how we should respond to challenges against the background of Western civilization,     

Clarifying the concept of the “Social” in risk assessments for human subjects research

International guidelines for the conduct of research with human participants, such as those put forth by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS, 2002), recommend that research review committees account for social risk and benefits to society in their review of proposed research. What do the concepts of the “social” and “society” mean in the context of the review of human participants research? Here we analyze concepts of social and society to define the terms: social harm, social risk, social benefit, and benefits to society. We argue that use of these terms invite more questions than answers and beg for difficult empirical research to determine the nature, likelihood, and magnitude of this category of risk and benefit. Until more research is done and these questions are answered, we advise reviewers to adopt an attitude of provisionalism and caution in their review of specifically “social” risks and benefits and “benefits to society.”     

Who Institutionalizes Institutions? The Case of Paternity Establishment in the United States

Objective . Many researchers have cited the importance of institutional legacies to explain why legislators resist transferring tasks from one agency to another but leave undefined exactly what constitutes these legacies. This analysis concretely defines institutional legacies as organized interests who shape the range of options available for programmatic implementation. Methods . Using a pooled, time-series ordered probit model for the U.S. states from 1988 to 1995, this article focuses on the transition from court-based systems to administrative agencies in making paternity determinations. Results . Lawmakers are less likely to move to administrative systems in states where there are family courts, elected judges, and a large number of lawyers organized into the American Bar Association. The presence of women legislators, however, can mitigate these legacy effects and move the process of innovation onward. Conclusions . Institutional legacies are best conceptualized as strong, organized interests who resist relinquishing any part of their authority, even when confronted with more effective ways of achieving policy goals.     

Are official forecasts of output growth in the EU still biased?

An effective budgetary process requires accurate forecasts of future economic activity. Using data from Stability and Convergence Programmes and the European Commission’s Spring Forecasts, evidence is presented here which indicates deficiencies in official forecasting in the EU arising under the enhanced EU fiscal framework. Forecasts of output growth are unduly pessimistic, irrational, and influenced by recent economic activity. The article considers the reasons for and implications of such biases and proposes improvements to forecasting processes that could address these issues.     

The impact of place? A reassessment of the importance of the South in affecting beliefs about racial inequality

Research shows that individuals living in the southern part of the United States express more negative racial attitudes than those living outside the South. Using data from The American National Election Study (NES), the purpose of this paper is to assess whether key factors often associated with the Southern attitude distinction are indeed more potent in the South than elsewhere. Drawing data from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, we further assess whether the impact of the South has increased or decreased over time. Results indicate that the impact of the South is negligible at best. Findings do show that place does matter for conservatives. However, in this case, non-South location matters more than the South. Relative to their liberal counterparts, conservatives in the non-South espouse more individualistic beliefs than do their Southern counterparts. These findings are discussed within the dominant theoretical framework in this area.     

Are there monetary clusters in the Eurozone? The impact of ECB policy

This paper analyses what effects the monetary policy of the European Central Bank have on the economic activity of Eurozone countries. We identify groups of countries which exhibit different economic responses to monetary policy and the factors driving such spatial differences. We distinguish three periods, spanning from 2001 to 2017 and examine conventional as well as unconventional monetary policies in different economic backgrounds of expansion and crisis. We find problems of spatially asymmetric transmission of monetary policy in the period 2008M10–2014M12 and note that different spatial responses might operate in favour of monetary policy or be indifferent to this policy.     

Concern about the rise of lazy welfare queens? An empirical explanation of the underdevelopment of the redistributive welfare system in South Korea

This study investigates why South Korea has maintained a minimalist welfare state with little redistribution of income. Inspired by the behavioral/attitudinal approach of Alesina and his colleagues, this study focuses on the perception that people who do not work become lazy. This belief is related to the anti-welfare sentiment that non-working benefits encourage laziness. This study shows that perceptions of work and laziness are associated with preferences for redistribution, not only among South Koreans, but also among individuals in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries. Further, such perceptions are also associated with the redistribution policies chosen in a country. This study provides evidence that societal beliefs about work and laziness, along with several other political and economic factors, such as pre-tax income inequality, political institutions, and union density, may explain the small-scale redistribution in South Korea.     

Are More Alternatives Better for Decision-Makers? A Note on the Role of Decision Cost

While the traditional economic wisdom believes that an individual will become better off by being given a larger opportunity set to choose from, in this paper we question this belief and build a formal theoretical model that introduces decision costs into the rational decision process. We show, under some reasonable conditions, that a larger feasible set may actually lower an individual’s level of satisfaction. This provides a solid economic underpinning for the Simon prediction.     

Who were his peers? The social and professional milieu of the provincial surgeon-apothecary in the late-eighteenth century

The social standing of the surgeon-apothecary cannot be determined by reference to professional life alone, yet few such men left social documents. The lower middling sort was typically reticent about evaluations of their own social position in any source genre. This article uses a unique archive, and the concept of community connectedness, to investigate the status of Thomas Higgins, surgeon-apothecary and man-midwife of north Shropshire. Higgins embodied the traditional practitioner who relied on local knowledge and his 'friends' for advancement, in contrast to alternative modes of rising professionalism. He was demonstrably a trusted man at the heart of his home town, but his reliance on the 'partiality' of his neighbors brought him into conflict with his colleagues.     

Who Owns the Group? The Role of Worker Control in the Development of a Group: A Qualitative Research Study of Practice

This paper presents an application of the qualitative research methodology of ethnographic content analysis as a means to discover the salient features and nature of a social work group. Observational data from process recordings of a thirty-week group of mothers at a child guidance center are systematically analyzed. This paper addresses a number of issues: (1) the need to explore and further articulate the role of worker vis-à-vis the dynamic of mutual aid in social work groups, particularly in regard to the concept of exercising 'control;' (2) the applicability of qualitative research methodology as a means of conceptualizing aspects of group work practice, thus contributing to our theory base and knowledge and tools for practice; and (3) the wealth of data for such research lying available in the written recordings of every group practitioner, and the natural logic that the development of theory in social work with groups comes most aptly from the practice domain.     

Who is my family?: A comparative study of the family boundary in East Asia

Most Asian countries are regarded as Confucian countries although each has its own historical and cultural background. Little is known about how people in different Asian countries perceive their family boundaries. This study is an attempt to compare the perception of the family in China, Japan, and Korea. We examined the family perception and found substantial differences among the three. Chinese people showed the widest and paternally extended perception of family. Data from people in Korea nearly matched data from China, but family perception developed bilaterally. People in Japan, however, perceived only blood-tied, intimate relations as family members. In addition, the perception of the family was not substantially different between the genders in Japan and China, but in South Korea, men perceived family boundaries more widely than women, implying that women have a greater family burden than men in Korea. Considering the heterogeneity in family perceptions in these countries, this paper tries to explain how social institutions interact with individuals and impact the perception of family. Finally, this paper concludes that it is inappropriate to tie the three East Asian countries as ‘Confucian civilizations’ in terms of family perception.     

What Makes for Successful Groupwork? A Survey of Agencies in the UK

Summary This paper reports the findings of a survey of Social ServicesDepartments, Probation Services and the major voluntary agenciesin the UK. The survey aimed to shed light on the factors whichpromote successful groups in social work and probation agencies.The survey did not attempt to map the extent of current groupwork.A questionnaire was piloted in a Social Services Departmentin northern England with social work and social care practitionersparticipating in ‘The Groupwork Project’, a trainingand development programme which continues to have as its aimthe establishment of a groupwork service in a mainstream socialservices agency. The survey was designed to be illuminativeand exploratory rather than conclusive. In this paper, the authorsreflect on the research process and on the findings of the survey.These findings point to the complexity of factors consideredsignificant to the success of a group, and to the importanceof contextual factors in establishing and sustaining a groupworkservice.