Arbitrage,rationality, and equilibrium

No-arbitrage is the fundamental principle of economic rationality which unifies normative decision theory, game theory, and market theory. In economic environments where money is available as a medium of measurement and exchange, no-arbitrage is synonymous with subjective expected utility maximization in personal decisions, competitive equilibria in capital markets and exchange economies, and correlated equilibria in noncooperative games. The arbitrage principle directly characterizes rationality at the market level; the appearance of deliberate optimization by individual agents is a consequence of their adaptation to the market. Concepts of equilibrium behavior in games and markets can thus be reconciled with the ideas that individual rationality is bounded, that agents use evolutionarily-shaped decision rules rather than numerical optimization algorithms, and that personal probabilities and utilities are inseparable and to some extent indeterminate. Risk-neutral probability distributions, interpretable as products of probabilities and marginal utilities, play a central role as observable quantities in economic systems.     

Gender, Values, and Environmentalism

Objective . The social psychological values altruism, self-interest, traditionalism, and openness to change are key correlates of environmental concern and proenvironmental behavior. We investigate the relationship between gender and these values to better understand gender differences in environmentalism. We consider both gender differences in value priorities (differences in mean response on value scales) and differences in the meaning of values (differences in the factor structure of values) as well. Methods . Our analysis is based on data from a random-digit dialed national telephone survey of U.S. adults conducted in 1994. We examine differences in factor structure of values for a group of 145 white men and 200 white women using confirmatory factor analysis and differences in mean value scores using multivariate analysis of variance. Results . We find no substantial differences in value factor structure, but differences in value priorities, with women ranking altruism as more important than men. Conclusions . Our analysis supports work that focuses on mean differences in environmentalism across genders without examining gender differences in factor structure, although further examination of gender differences in factor structure is warranted. Our results also highlight the importance of gender differences in altruism as a basis for gender differences in environmentalism.     

The therapeutic misconception,beneficence, and respect

In order to provide benefits to society, human medical trials must place subjects at risk of harm. This activity is thought to be justified in part by the consent of the subjects involved. But, studies have shown that most such consents are based on a therapeutic misconception (TM); the false belief of subjects that their researchers will act as their personal physicians (seeking their benefit and protecting them from harm), rather than placing them at risk of harm for the good of others. Toleration by researchers of the TM in their subjects is a form of "informational manipulation" that renders consent procedures disrespectful to subject autonomy. Consent obtained from subjects who labor under a TM is neither voluntary nor informed; as long as they have not been disabused of the TM, the action they take in enrolling in a trial is not the one they intend nor is it autonomously chosen. Changes in consent procedures should be adopted to ensure that all subjects are aware inter alia that (a) the health interests of future patients (as well as the researchers' and their sponsors' financial interests) may be more important to researchers than the interest of a subject in his or her health, and (b) normal subjects neither understand nor believe this when told. Close attention to the response of prospective subjects to this information should allow for the exclusion of all but the truly altruistic. However, the result of conscientious implementation of such policies would likely be that human medical research could no longer be conducted on more than a minimal level.     

The therapeutic misconception,beneficence, and respect

In order to provide benefits to society, human medical trials must place subjects at risk of harm. This activity is thought to be justified in part by the consent of the subjects involved. But, studies have shown that most such consents are based on a therapeutic misconception (TM); the false belief of subjects that their researchers will act as their personal physicians (seeking their benefit and protecting them from harm), rather than placing them at risk of harm for the good of others. Toleration by researchers of the TM in their subjects is a form of “informational manipulation”; that renders consent procedures disrespectful to subject autonomy. Consent obtained from subjects who labor under a TM is neither voluntary nor informed; as long as they have not been disabused of the TM, the action they take in enrolling in a trial is not the one they intend nor is it autonomously chosen. Changes in consent procedures should be adopted to ensure that all subjects are aware inter alia that (a) the health interests of future patients (as well as the researchers’ and their sponsors’ financial interests) may be more important to researchers than the interest of a subject in his or her health, and (b) normal subjects neither understand nor believe this when told. Close attention to the response of prospective subjects to this information should allow for the exclusion of all but the truly altruistic. However, the result of conscientious implementation of such policies would likely be that human medical research could no longer be conducted on more than a minimal level.     

Interspousal Empathy,Marital Satisfaction,and Marriage Counseling

Interspousal empathy is conceived as a fundamental part of the structure of the marital relationship along with other elements of a couple's communication, role, and value systems. In a study of 25 couples receiving marriage counseling, it was found that improvement in interspousal empathy was associated with improvement in marital satisfaction. This finding has implications for approaches to marriage counseling and is supportive of those approaches that attempt to influence directly the empathic exchanges of the couple as well as other communication elements.     

Race,Color, Ethnicity,and Class

The issues of race, color, ethnicity, and class present many challenges for goup workers leading adolescent counseling groups in culturally muted urban areas. These issues are examined in detail in the context of a school-based group work program for middle school teenagers. The role of the group leader in working with this population is discussed, and guidelines are offered for developing biculturalism in group members and for addressing race, color, ethnicity, and class as they arise in bicultural group processes.     

中国的制度变迁、阶级结构转型和收入不平等：1978-2005

本文结合制度主义理论与新马克思主义的阶级分析方法,提出在中国社会分层研究中“把阶级带回来”的观点。根据户口制度、单位制度、干部身份制和私有产权等造成转型时期中国不平等的重要制度性因素,建立一个以对不同形式生产性资产的占有为基础的即新马克思主义取向的中国阶级分类方式,并在经验层面展示了其较之于其他分类法的优越性。研究认为,中国正在发生的制度转型对社会不平等秩序的重塑表现为不同形式的生产性资产,即劳动力、资本、组织、技术/权威等四种所有权作用的相对转变,从而导致阶级结构的转型和贫富差距的拉大。     

Hospital Patient Behavior: Reactance, Helplessness, or Control?

Hospitals are commonly regarded as unpleasant places to be. The reason is that, as a total institution, the hospital creates a depersonalizing environment that forces the patient to relinquish control over his or her daily existence. It is suggested that patients cope with depersonalizing loss of control by assuming "good patient" behavior or "bad patient" behavior. Predictions are offered as to who will show which behavior pattern under which circumstances. However, a review of these patterns suggests that some "good patients" may actually be in a state of anxious or depressed helplessness, whereas "bad patients" are exhibiting anger and reactance against the perceived arbitrary removal of freedoms. An analysis of the behavioral, cognitive, affective and physiological correlates of these patterns, as well as the behaviors they elicit in staff, suggests that both the "good patient" and the "bad patient" sustain health risks. It is argued that a more informed and participative role for the hospital patient can eliminate or offset many of these risks and actually improve the level of physical and psychological health in the hospital setting.     

Unemployment,Legitimation, and Property Crime

Within recent years several economists have suggested that sociological and psychological concepts are not necessary in explaining criminal behavior. They contend that deviant behavior can best be understood as a type of economic activity resulting from the rational analysis of the rewards and costs associated with legitimate and illegitimate means. The sociologist would contend that such a perspective ignores the fact that people internalize the social norms of a society, and that it is only when they perceive the social system as unjust that they challenge the legitimacy of its rules and begin to consider the rewards and costs associated with deviant means. Data are presented which support this position. The differing policy implications of the two perspectives are briefly discussed.     

Dollar appreciation,deficit stimulation,and the new protectionism

This article probes whether contemporary U.S. protectionism arises from an appreciating dollar. It concludes that (a) an enrich-thy-neighbor policy of upvaluation has transformed the current U.S. economic recovery into an engine of global recovery; (b) flexible exchange rates continually equilibrate the balance of payments as evidenced in changed domestic—relative to foreign—prices, as well as in capital movements induced by interest-rate differentials resulting from exchange-rate shifts; and (c) flexible exchange rates automatically alter so as to maintain a country's competitive position in the world economy even when facing deficits at home and abroad.     

Government size,factor accumulation,and economic growth: evidence from OECD countries

This study examines the role of government size in explaining the differences in economic growth rates of the 19 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries over the 1971–1999 period using a random coefficients model. Our results indicate that, on average, total factor productivity growth, as well as the productivity of capital, are weaker in countries where government size is larger. The advantage of a small government sector, in general, likely reflects the greater efficiencies resulting from fewer policy-induced distortions (such as the burden of taxation), the greater discipline of market forces which fosters efficiency of resource use, and the absence of crowding-out effects that weaken the incentives to create new capital which embodies new technologies. From a policy perspective, this does not mean that the optimal policy is one that minimizes the size of government. Rather, a small as opposed to a large government could potentially be as effective in providing the legal, administrative, and governance infrastructure critical for growth, as well as for offsetting market failures. At the same time, the country-specific results indicate that the nature of country-specific institutions as well as the mix of government activities are as important for growth performance as the aggregate size of government.     

Marie Rozette and her world: class, ethnicity, gender, and race in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Mauritius

In 1790, Marie Rozette, a freedwoman of Indian origin on Mauritius, executed a series of notarial acts which revealed that she possessed a small fortune in cash assets as well as slaves and substantial landed property in one of the island’s rural districts. The life of this former slave between 1776, when she first appears in the archival record, and her death in 1804 provides a vantage point from which to gain a subaltern perspective on aspects of Mascarene social and economic history, as well as developments in the wider Indian Ocean world during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Marie Rozette’s life history challenges the notion that free persons of color in Mauritius were little more than an “unappropriated” people, and invites us to consider how supposedly marginalized individuals were able to cross various socio-economic and cultural boundaries. More specifically, her life affords an opportunity to consider the ways in which class, ethnicity, and gender, as well as race, interacted to create a distinctive Creole society in Mauritius, the nature and dynamics of which bear directly on our knowledge and understanding of the free colored experience elsewhere in the European colonial slave plantation world.     

Psychological issues in euthanasia, suicide, and assisted suicide

This paper reviews various life-ending techniques such as euthanasia, suicide, and assisted suicide in order to better address the psychological issues related to these actions. Specific attention is paid to investigating when a death is deemed to be appropriate and the role that the level of appropriateness should play in the decisions of individuals to terminate a life. In addition, a number of additional psychological concepts such as locus of control and subjective norms are examined in terms of their importance for decisions regarding euthanasia and suicide.     

Re-Thinking Illegality as a Violence Against, not by Mexican Immigrants, Children, and Youth

Sociohistorical theory was used to examine illegality as a form of state violence that bears upon the formation of undocumented Mexican immigrants. This article proposes a theory of dialectical violence that integrates societal with personal enactments of violence through case illustrations of Mexican youth. In a grassroots association defending immigrants' rights, youth develop within conflicting discourses about undocumented immigrants proposed by society, family, and community. Methods included ethnographic analysis of the association's documents, a workshop in which five participants authored a booklet with texts and illustrations about their lives in the city, and an interview with their mothers. Findings illustrate how Mexican youth enter a cycle of violence as a result of their undocumented status, socioeconomic class, language and ethnic-racial memberships.     

Open Access,Open Business,Closed Fairness!

A strong trend to move from print to online publication is largely perceived in scientific and nonscientific fields. A growing number of publishers increasingly opt for online publication as an option or a compulsory alternative. From readers’ perspective, this is a highly appreciated facility, but from the author’s, things are different mainly because of excessive article processing charges (APC) that make the open access system sometimes as a hindrance for many authors but a lucrative enterprise for many shareholders, enticing the most traditional and conservative publishers.     

Resilience and Thriving: Issues, Models, and Linkages

This article addresses distinctions underlying concepts of resilience and thriving and issues in conceptualizing thriving. Thriving (physical or psychological) may reflect decreased reactivity to subsequent stressors, faster recovery from subsequent stressors, or a consistently higher level of functioning. Psychological thriving may reflect gains in skill, knowledge, confidence, or a sense of security in personal relationships. Psychological thriving resembles other instances of growth. It probably does not depend on the occurrence of a discrete traumatic event or longer term trauma, though such events may elicit it. An important question is why some people thrive, whereas others are impaired, given the same event. A potential answer rests on the idea that differences in confidence and mastery are self-perpetuating and self-intensifying. This idea suggests a number of variables whose role in thriving is worth closer study, including personality variables such as optimism, contextual variables such as social support, and situational variables such as the coping reactions elicited by the adverse event.     

Beyond Women,Children, and Families: Gender,Representation, and Public Funding for the Arts*

Objectives. Research on the impact of female legislators has found that in their voting records women in elective office tend to be more liberal and more supportive of issues of concern to women, children, and families than are men, differences that conform to gender stereotypes held by voters. This article examines another well‐established gender stereotype that is not linked to the traditional concerns of women as conventionally defined by scholars: that women in public office will be more supportive of the arts. Method. The 40 votes taken on arts legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1983–2002, are examined using negative binomial regression in a model that includes district and personal characteristics. Results. Democratic Party membership and support, citizen ideology, urban residence, and gender are significant factors in explaining support for public funding for the arts. Female representatives are more likely than their male colleagues to support the arts, a finding that primarily reflects the greater support of Republican women for the arts in comparison with their male counterparts. Conclusion. This study suggests that substantive representation of women by female elected officials may extend to more policy issues than previous research has documented. Research on issues that are recognized as gendered (e.g., arts policy) but are not traditionally defined as women's issues is an area for further exploration.     

Beliefs, death, anxiety, denial, and treatment preferences in end-of-life care: a comparison of social work students, community residents, and medical students

This study examined cultural and religious beliefs, death anxiety, denial, and medical treatment preferences in end-of-life care in a sample of social work students, community residents, and medical students in a mid-western city of 49,000. Results indicated that most social work students, community residents, and medical students preferred palliative as opposed to life-prolonging care during terminal illness. The three groups differed in cultural and religious beliefs and all three reported a moderate amount of death anxiety. Students reported less denial of terminality than community residents. Implications for personal and professional preparation to provide end-of-life care are discussed.     

Altruism,Social Responsibility,and Government Support For Social Welfare

The study concerns altruistic behaviour in Hong Kong and its relation to social responsibility and support of government responsibility for social welfare. The findings indicated that the community as a whole is likely to engage in altruistic acts. The responses reflect a sense of social responsibility as the most important factor contributing to the explanation of altruism. Independent of other characteristics, those respondents who were more socially responsible were more altruistic. These findings suggest that the people's willingness to help others is largely independent of concern about the interests of society as a priority of responsibility. The general finding is that people are more concerned with individual or familial interests and would sacrifice the interests of society in situations where the two are in conflict.     

Opinion leaders,independence, and Condorcet's Jury Theorem

Condorcet's Jury Theorem shows that on a dichotomous choice, individuals who all have the same competence above 0.5, can make collective decisions under majority rule with a competence that approaches 1 as either the size of the group or the individual competence goes up. The theorem assumes that the probability of each voter's being correct is independent of the probability of any other voter being correct. Contrary to several authors, the presence of mutual or common influences such as opinion leaders does not easily rule independence either in or out. Indeed, and this ought to be surprising,under certain conditions deference to opinion leaders can improve individual competence without violating independence, and so can raise group competence as well.