Strategic voting in the 1984 democratic presidential primaries

When casting their ballots in primary elections, voters usually vote in a straight-forward manner for the candidate of their preference. But sometimes sophisticated voters vote for a second or third choice who has a better chance of winning in the general election or even cross over to the opposition party to vote for a candidate who will be easier to defeat in the general election. This article assesses the amount and importance of such strategic voting in Democratic presidential primaries in 1984 using discriminate analysis.     

Parental attitudes regarding the integration of children living with HIV/AIDS into public schools in Hanoi,Vietnam

In some areas of Vietnam, stigmatisation of HIV-infected children by parents in the community represents a major barrier to integration of such youth into public schools. To investigate parental perceptions of integration, researchers interviewed a total of 60 parents from one rural and one urban school district within Hanoi, Vietnam. Resistance to integration stemmed largely from misinformation about disease transmission and worry about protecting HIV-negative children. Educational campaigns targeted at parents, combined with higher levels of trust in the preparedness of teachers to handle situations involving HIV-positive children, could decrease current stigma and opposition to integration into public primary schools.     

What you really want: Two-year-olds prioritise ultimate goals when helping

Toddlers are motivated to help others achieve their goals, but providing effective help also requires toddlers to consider what will be most helpful to another individual. Sometimes, helping requests provide conflicting information about an individual's goals, so we need to decide which information to prioritise in order to decide how is best to help. The current studies investigate how toddlers prioritise conflicting information about immediate and ultimate goals when helping. In Study 1, 2-year-olds were shown an opaque container of blocks (hidden blocks), a transparent container of blocks (visible blocks), and a colourful tube that plays music when a block is dropped inside. For half of the participants, both hidden and visible blocks played music but, for the other half, only the hidden blocks worked. A naïve experimenter asked for a block (immediate goal) to play music with (ultimate goal), and when both blocks were equally functional, we found that toddlers prioritised fulfilling the immediate request by providing a visible block; but when only the hidden block was functional, toddlers prioritising fulfilling the ultimate goal and helped by providing the functional but hidden block. Study 2 demonstrated that toddlers considered the experimenter's goal when helping, and not just their own attraction to the musical toy. This work adds to a growing body of literature investigating not only whether young children help, but also how young children reason when engaging in helping behaviour.     

Strategic Government Spending in South Korea and Taiwan: Lessons for Emergent Democracies*

Objectives. How is government spending used strategically in South Korea and Taiwan? As nations generally considered to have weathered democratization, government allocations in South Korea and Taiwan are instructive on how spending may be used strategically without undermining democratization. Methods. The similar sociocultural, historical, political, and economic experiences of the two nations underlie a most‐similar‐systems approach to study how their differences influence diversity in strategic spending and, correspondingly, political outcomes such as size of the government party in the legislature. This article evaluates defense and civilian expenditures for South Korea and Taiwan from 1975 to 2006. Results. Three results are interesting. First, different elections—legislative elections in South Korea, presidential elections in Taiwan—lead to increases in spending. Second, in both nations, defense spending increases in election years but not social spending; however, defense spending benefits the government‐party in the legislature in South Korea but not in Taiwan. Third, when the strategic uses of spending are accounted for, democratization does not directly affect allocations. Conclusions. These results explicate that government spending is a viable resource for party building in new democracies; however, the results also underscore that governing parties in new democracies benefit from spending only insofar as it is used to build the nation's or party's strengths—not undermine the opposition—under competitive elections.     

Gender, Self-Esteem, and Focus of Interest in the Use of Power Strategies by Adolescents in Conflict Situations Schwarzwald and Koslowsky

Considerable evidence indicates that an individual's preference of power strategies for gaining compliance is associated with personal and social variables that may affect the quality of the relationship between the parties involved. This study examined how adolescents manage conflict situations and tested the importance of personal and situational characteristics in choosing power strategies for influencing others. Using Raven's (1992, 1993) power interaction model of interpersonal influence, hypotheses regarding the relationship between gender, self-esteem, and focus of interest (self versus group), on the one hand, and power choice, on the other hand, were formulated. Eighth graders (N = 356) were given scenarios of conflict situations and were asked to indicate the extent to which they would resort to each of the power strategies listed in the questionnaire to influence the other party in the scenario. Gender and focus of interest explained most of the observed variance. Boys, as compared to girls, indicated greater influence attempts regardless of strategy type. Adolescents with a self-interest focus, as compared to those with a group interest focus, resorted more to coercion and less to dependence. Low-self-esteem adolescents preferred reciprocity when compared with high-self-esteem ones. Because gender differences explained the bulk of the variance, the discussion emphasized social ramifications concerning cross-cultural differences and gender role development as they relate to power strategy preferences.     

Loss Aversion and Bargaining

We consider bargaining situations where two players evaluate outcomes with reference-dependent utility functions, analyzing the effect of differing levels of loss aversion on bargaining outcomes. We find that as with risk aversion, increasing loss aversion for a player leads to worse outcomes for that player in bargaining situations. An extension of Nash's axioms is used to define a solution for bargaining problems with exogenous reference points. Using this solution concept we endogenize the reference points into the model and find a unique solution giving reference points and outcomes that satisfy two reasonable properties, which we predict would be observed in a steady state. The resulting solution also emerges in two other approaches, a strategic (non-cooperative) approach using Rubinstein's (1982) alternating offers model and a dynamic approach in which we find that even under weak assumptions, outcomes and reference points converge to the steady state solution from any non-equilibrium state.     

When punishment is emotion‐driven: Children's,adolescents', and adults' costly punishment of unfair allocations

When do children, adolescents, and adults decide to punish fairness violations? Two studies with 9‐year‐old children, 13‐year‐old adolescents, and adults investigated whether the link between unfairness and punishment was mediated by negative emotional reactions (measured through galvanic skin responses and emotion ratings). Study 1 (N = 117) examined this question in the context of second‐party punishment, where the punisher is a direct victim of the violation. Study 2 (N = 119) assessed third‐party punishment, where the punisher is an observer, unaffected by the violation. In each study, participants were presented with seven distributions of points, which differed in how fairly the points were allocated between a proposer and receiver, and had to decide whether to punish these distributions. Although the unfairness of the distribution strongly influenced second‐ and third‐party punishment in all age groups, the mediating role of emotional appraisals (i.e., galvanic skin responses vs. emotion ratings) depended on whether or not the punisher was personally affected by the violation and age. Thus, negative emotions primarily motivate costly punishment when the punisher is affected by the violation or when an unaffected third‐party punisher takes the perspective of the victim of a violation, an ability that develops between childhood and adolescence.     

Toddler Inhibitory Control,Bold Response to Novelty,and Positive Affect Predict Externalizing Symptoms in Kindergarten

Poor inhibitory control and bold approach have been found to predict the development of externalizing behavior problems in young children. Less research has examined how positive affect may influence the development of externalizing behavior in the context of low inhibitory control and high approach. We used a multi‐method approach to examine how observed toddler inhibitory control, bold approach, and positive affect predicted externalizing outcomes (observed, adult‐, and self‐reported) in additive and interactive ways at the beginning of kindergarten. Children who were 24‐month‐olds (N = 110) participated in a laboratory visit and 84 were followed up in kindergarten for externalizing behaviors. Overall, children who were low in inhibitory control, high in bold approach, and low in positive affect at 24 months of age were at greater risk for externalizing behaviors during kindergarten.     

Tell the Teacher or Tell the Bully off: Children's Strategy Production for Bystanders to Bullying

Although children's reticence to intervene as bystanders to bullying is well established, the reasons for their inaction remain unclear. One possibility is that they are incapable of generating appropriate response strategies in these situations. This study examined the number and type of strategies children (N = 104, 6–11 years) could generate for bystanders to a variety of bullying situations. Across bullying situations, older children generated more strategies than did younger children. Children most often suggested that the bystander confront the bully directly, followed by the suggestion that the bystander find a teacher for help or comfort the victim. An exclusion incident prompted more frequent proposals that the bystander help by comforting the victim while a pushing incident prompted more frequent appeals to a teacher. A priming story about a peer bystander intervening successfully in a bullying incident boosted strategy production in girls but did not affect boys.     

Opposition in Social Interaction amongst Children: Why Intellectual Benefits Do Not Mean Social Costs

Occasions where children oppose each other have been claimed to convey intellectual benefits through their association with justification and resolution. They have been claimed to promote social rejection through their association with aggression. Because it is inconceivable that intellectual benefits imply social costs, either the relation amongst opposition, justification, resolution, and aggression is weaker than claimed, or children differ in their use of justification, resolution, and aggression during opposition. To explore these possibilities, 49 triads, comprising children aged 4 to 7 years, were videotaped while they engaged in free play and structured activities. The children varied in gender and temperament, and the triads varied in gender composition. Justification, resolution, and aggression were all relatively frequent in oppositional contexts. However, the use of justification and resolution during opposition was clearly separated from the use of aggression. Gender, temperament, age, and gender composition of triad were all relevant to the oppositional behaviour that children displayed.     

The conversational skills of school-aged children

Differences associated with age and with language background were assessed in performance on a task thin taps conversational skill, a ‘TV talk show’ interview task administered to 98 second through fifth graders, including many nonnative speakers of English. Surprisingly, holistic ratings of the childrenapos;s skills as conversationalists were not related at all to gender, and only moderately to age or status as a native speaker of English. A set of 29 specific interactive and language behaviors were analyzed, to determine which of these were related to holistic ratings of conversational skill. Variables reflected strategies for eliciting information and for maintaining topic, indicators of disfluency, ami indicators of how the adult was contributing to the conversation. Children who had received higher ratings on conversational skill produced more topic continuations, a higher proportion of more sophisticated noncontingent responses, and fewer simple yes/no topic initiations and continuations. Age, gender, and language status related only minimally to the specific interactive or language behaviors associated with success as a conversationalist, although children from homes where English was spoken did tend to receive higher holistic ratings of conversational skill.     

Grandparent Caregivers

Abstract

Currently, one-fifth of Americans over age 65 have no children. Demographic predictions estimate that almost one-third of the baby-boom generation, when they reach age 65, will have no children. Given the extensive supportive roles played by adult children, this increase in adults without children has implications for social policy and social work practice. Social integration patterns are examined among four groups: no children (N = 237), no proximal children (N = 436), one proximal child (N = 701), and two or more proximal children (N = 531). Findings show elders without children are older, female, black, unmarried, living alone with lower incomes and more physical health problems than their counterparts. Differences between groups were found in family, confidant and mutual support dimensions of social networks.     

Moderators of the Relation between Shyness and Behavior with Peers: Cortisol Dysregulation and Maternal Emotion Socialization

This study investigated the relations among shyness, physiological dysregulation, and maternal emotion socialization in predicting children's social behavior with peers during the kindergarten year (N = 66; 29 girls). For shy children, interactions with peers represent potential stressors that can elicit negative emotion and physiological reactions. Behavior during these contexts can be viewed as adaptive (e.g., playing alone) or maladaptive (e.g., watching other children play without joining in) attempts to regulate the ensuing distress. Whether shy children employ adaptive or maladaptive regulatory behaviors was expected to depend on two aspects of emotion regulatory skill: (1) children's physiological regulation, and (2) maternal emotion socialization. Findings supported the hypotheses. Specifically, shy children with poorer cortisol regulation or have mothers who endorsed a higher level of non‐supportive emotion reactions engaged in more maladaptive play behaviors whereas shy children with better cortisol regulation or a high level of supportive maternal emotion reactions engaged in more adaptive play behaviors.     

Children's Reasoning about Lie-telling and Truth-telling in Politeness Contexts

Children's reasoning about lying and truth-telling was examined among participants ages 7–11 (total N  =  181) with reference to conflicts between being honest and protecting the feelings of others. In Study 1, participants showed different patterns of evaluation and motivational inference in politeness contexts vs. transgression contexts: in politeness contexts, they rated lie-telling more favorably and were far more likely to assume that motives were prosocial. In Study 2, participants evaluated lie-telling more positively and truth-telling more negatively in politeness contexts, especially when they focused on the implications of the statements for others instead of whether the statements were true or false.     

‘She is looking at me! Shall I share?’ How Chinese and American preschoolers respond to eye gaze during sharing

Previous research shows that the recipient's verbal communication about desires increases young children's sharing behavior. The current study examined how an adult partner's non‐verbal communication through eye gaze influenced sharing behavior in children from different cultures. We presented one hundred forty‐six 3‐ to 5‐year‐old American and Chinese children with a Dictator Game, in which they were asked to distribute resources between themselves and an experimenter. Children were randomly assigned to three conditions, in which the experimenter alternated her gaze between the child and the items that she wanted, or looked randomly around the room, or left when the child made decisions about sharing but claimed to come back later. Results showed that Chinese children shared more than American children did in the alternating‐gaze condition, but not in the other two conditions; furthermore, the experimenter's alternating gaze influenced Chinese children to be more generous, but had no significant effect on American children. This suggests that compared to American children, Chinese children may be more compliant with others’ requests communicated through a subtle cue of eye gaze. The study demonstrates important differences in sharing behaviors between American and Chinese preschoolers, and these differences are consistent with the cultural constructs of individualism and collectivism.     

Compliance, Noncompliance Strategies, and the Correlates of Compliance in 5-year-old Japanese and American Children

The present study compared compliance, noncompliance strategies, and the correlates of compliance in 5-year old Japanese and American children. Forty-seven Japanese children and forty-six American children were observed during three standardized laboratory procedures. Compliance, noncompliance strategies, and negative affect were coded during a Toy Pick Up procedure. Maternal directiveness and mother-directed behaviors were coded during Mother-Child play and Free-play procedures, respectively. A baseline level of play was also obtained during the Free Play procedures to ensure that the childen's willingness to engage in the Toy Pick Up procedure would not be confounded with their level of involvement with the toys. Consistent with predictions derived from a review of cross-cultural research on socialization practices, Japanese children showed longer latencies to begin picking up toys in response to maternal requests and were also more likely to engage in the "less skilled" noncompliance strategies of direct defiance and passive noncompliance than American children. The two groups of children did not, however, differ in their level of negative affect during the Toy Pick Up procedure. Contrary to expectations, maternal directiveness was not associated with compliance in either group of children. However, approach behavior to mother during Free Play was inversely correlated with compliance in Japanese, but not American children.     

Strategic and Sincere Voting in a One‐Sided Election: The Canadian Federal Election of 1997*

Objective. We are interested in whether and how voters make strategic decisions in a race that is, according to the polls, expected to be very one sided. Looking specifically at the choices available to ideologically right‐of‐center voters in the 1997 Canadian federal election, we argue that strategic considerations will be filtered by voters' assessments of the competitiveness of the race both locally and nationally. Methods. We estimate logistic regression models measuring support for the two right‐of‐center Canadian political parties. Our models focus on the relationship between assessments of district‐ and national‐level party prospects on voting for the Progressive Conservative Party. Results. We find that voters who consider the race competitive emphasize district‐level data in their strategic calculations. However, those who consider the election to be all but over look more closely at national‐level concerns when deciding which right‐wing party to support. Conclusions. We conclude that earlier understandings of tactical voting should be updated to take into consideration the circumstances under which voters will use national‐level evaluations of relative party viability in casting their ballots.     

Gene‐environment correlations in the cross‐generational transmission of parenting: Grandparenting moderates the effect of child 5‐HTTLPR genotype on mothers' parenting

Evidence suggests that parenting is associated cross‐generationally and that children's genes may elicit specific parenting styles (evocative gene‐environment correlation). This study examined whether the effect of children's genotype, specifically 5‐HTTLPR, on mothers' parenting behaviors was moderated by her own parenting experiences from her mother. Two independent samples of three‐year‐olds (N = 476 and 405) were genotyped for the serotonin transporter gene, and observational measures of parenting were collected. Mothers completed measures of the parenting they received as children. The child having a short allele on 5‐HTTLPR was associated with more maternal hostility (Samples 1 and 2) and with less maternal support (Sample 1), but only if the mother reported lower quality grandmothers' parenting (abuse and indifference in Sample 1 and lower levels of grandmother care in Sample 2). Results support the possibility of a moderated evocative gene‐environment correlation.     

Parental advice to preadolescent bystanders about how to intervene during bullying differs by form of bullying

The current study examined parental advice given to fourth‐ and fifth‐grade preadolescents who imagined being bystanders to different forms of bullying (physical, verbal, property attack, social manipulation, exclusion). We assessed the frequency with which parents advised youth to follow specific intervention strategies (stop the bully, help/comfort the victim, tell adults), and we tested whether the frequency by which parents provided each kind of advice varied by the form of bullying described. One hundred and six fourth‐ and fifth‐grade preadolescents completed an interaction in which their parent gave them advice about how to respond if they were bystanders to five hypothetical bullying situations. Each situation described a different form of bullying. Across forms of bullying, parents most frequently told bystander children to intervene by telling an adult. However, advice differed based on the form of bullying presented. Parents most frequently advised children to “tell an adult” in response to physical bullying or property attacks, most frequently advised children to “help/comfort victims” in response to social exclusion and physical attacks, and most frequently advised children to “stop the bully” in response to verbal and social manipulation bullying.