Does generosity generate generosity? An experimental study of reputation effects in a dictator game

Previous experimental literature on reputation studies its effects in environments where they are often confounded with strategic behavior. This paper explores how information about the paired subject’s previous action affects one’s own behavior in a non-strategic environment of a dictator game. The experiment consists of two treatments in which dictators can give money to the paired player: one where the recipient is a stranger and the other where the dictator has information on the recipient’s reputation. The data provide evidence that on average the dictators send more money to recipients with a reputation for being generous than to recipients with no reputation. The results contribute to our understanding of how impulses towards generous (or selfish) behavior might arise.     

To age or not to age--what is the question?

Over the past 50 years, a generally accepted theory about the evolution of aging has been developed. One common conclusion that has been deduced from this theory is that aging is inevitable in organisms in which there is a difference between offspring and parents. A recent paper by Sozou and Seymour questions this prediction using a mathematical model, but it remains to be seen whether their new results stand up to more general analysis.     

To stay or to return? Return migration intentions of Moroccans in Italy

Using data from the Statistics on Income and living conditions of families with migrants carried out by ISTAT in 2009, we empirically examine the effect of micro level determinants on Moroccans’ return migration intentions. Although Moroccans living in Italy do not have a clear aspiration to return, the socio‐economic and work conditions in Italy determine their migration intentions. Furthermore, our research led us to argue that macro‐level determinants should also be considered. In particular, emigration, immigration and integration policies represent key elements in the analysis of the dilemma between to stay or to return. Therefore, the promotion of long‐term immigration policies, which allow the achievement of a permanent residence in the host country, combined with institutional reforms, which make the origin country socially, economically and politically more attractive for migrants are essential to complete the debate about to stay or to return.     

To risk or derisk the soul of the university? The peril in educational globalization

Educational globalization is taking place amid the competing narratives of hyperglobalization and deglobalization. This article shows that these narratives fail to capture what is really happening. Aggregate empirical data for the period since the 2008 financial crisis evidence neither an appreciable rise nor a substantial decline in the overall level of globalization. Against this backdrop, a grid of risks that market-based university reforms pose to the soul of the university can be garnered from five scholars’ comments on the author of this article’s book Implausible Dream: The World-Class University and Repurposing Higher Education. The risk factors are bracketed under the following headings: control mechanisms and diminishing reflexivity, misrule, numerical governance, the ethos of competitiveness, and the conventional organization of knowledge. This calculus of risks has important implications for crafting strategies for derisking the core purposes of higher education institutions. They revolve around a central motif: strengthening the democratic tradition at universities.     

To click or not to click? A study of the innovation resistance of political emails

As a novel technology in the age of information, the Internet has become a fancy vehicle through which campaign messages can be delivered to prospective voters via multiple paths such as websites and emails. However, despite the effort put into making campaign messages as appealing as possible, studies show that the click-through rate of campaign emails remains relatively low. In the past, many studies concerning technology adaptation have focused on the aspect of “innovation diffusion” rather than “innovation resistance”. The aim of this study is to integrate ideas derived from the Technology Acceptance Model, the concepts of innovation resistance and the theory of ad avoidance to find the factors that influence voters' resistance of reading political emails. An online survey was conducted, in which a sample of 1012 voters in the 2009 local election in Taiwan was studied. The results showed that negative impression and perceived interruption were the factors behind people's resistance of politically-related emails. In addition, both of the above factors affected people's attitudes toward opening future political emails.     

To meet or not to meet? Measuring motivations and risks as predictors of outcomes in the use of mobile dating applications in China

Mobile dating applications (MDAs), such as Momo and Tinder, allow mobile phone owners to meet potential mates through social media, thus contributing to the radicalization of Chinese attitudes toward sex. Although these applications may gratify the needs of users for love and sex, the potential of risk is often overlooked. However, it should be considered in their decision regarding whether to meet a stranger or not. This study investigated the motivations and risks involved in the use of MDAs to meet strangers and the outcomes of using this technology. The results showed that sexuality was the only predictor of the reasons that people use MDAs to meet people offline for dates and casual sex. Among the perceived risks of mobile dating, only the fear of self-exposure to friends, professional networks, and the community significantly explained why users would not meet people offline for casual sex.     

Fatter or fitter? On rewarding and training in a contest

Competition between heterogeneous participants leads to low-effort provision in contests. A principal can divide her fixed budget between skill-enhancing training and the contest prize. Training can reduce heterogeneity, increasing effort. It also reduces the contest prize, making effort fall. We set up an incomplete-information contest with heterogeneous players and show how this trade-off is related to the size of the budget of an effort-maximizing principal. A selection problem arises implying a cost associated with a win by the inferior player. The principal has a larger incentive to train the laggard, reducing the prize on offer.     

To Integrate or Not to Integrate Dialectical Behaviour Therapy with Other Therapy Approaches?

With mounting evidence for its efficacy in the treatment of borderline personality disorder and related problems and increasing dissemination nationally and internationally, front line clinicians in practice settings are increasingly aware of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Indeed, it is likely that this treatment is reaching individuals who practice from a variety of theoretical frameworks, such as psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive, or some combination thereof. Therefore, this paper considers the ways in which DBT is an integrative approach, as well as the issues that may arise in the integration of DBT with other theoretical frameworks or with practices spawned by these alternative frameworks. We recommend that therapists practicing DBT adhere to the behavioral and dialectical theoretical foundations of the approach, in order to provide therapy that is effective, coherent, and consistent.     

Is it possible to create a politically engaged,contextual psychology of disability?

Until recently disability studies has ignored questions regarding the psychological nature of oppression. Proponents of the social model have viewed such concerns as diversionary, diluting their emphasis on material and economic barriers to inclusion. This paper argues that the discipline’s role of reflecting and interrogating disablism will remain incomplete and lacking in transformative power without undertaking a psychological conceptualisation of disabled personhood. Some prior attempts at elaborating the social model to include the psychological realm have been presented; these are critiqued, and argued to lack truly psychological conceptualisation. Preliminary ideas regarding a proposed psychology of disablism are presented. The focus of this work will be the exploration of bi-directional links between disablist ideology and disabled subjectivity, operationalised through interpersonal and institutional processes of lifelong socialisation. Reflections towards development of the under-theorised notion of internalised oppression are presented. Conclusions are that a combination of critical psychoanalytic insights and the participatory methods of liberatory and feminist psychology hold promise in driving disability transformation.     

Inclusion or outcomes? Tensions in the involvement of people with learning disabilities in strategic planning

Social inclusion is a key principle that underpins the provision of services for people with learning disabilities in England. Learning Disability Partnership Boards, which are responsible for local strategic planning of learning disability services, hold a particular role in promoting inclusion since they are required both to operate inclusively and to achieve inclusive outcomes. This study sought to explore the extent to which these ambitions for inclusion were being achieved. It consisted of three phases: a scoping exercise to elicit the views of key stakeholders; a postal survey of Partnership Boards (response rate 51%); and semi-structured interviews with Partnership Boards members in six local authorities. Findings suggest that Partnership Boards are struggling to fulfil their dual role, with tensions emerging between the desire to operate in fully inclusive ways and the ability to affect strategic change within local services.     

Preserving or escaping? On the welfare effects of environmental self-protective choices

In modern societies individuals often try to alleviate their personal damages from environmental degradation by increasing their consumption of private goods. Although this “self-protective” behavior is very frequent in industrial economies, insufficient attention has been paid to its economic and environmental consequences. In this paper we show that such a behavior can make everyone worse-off. For this purpose, using as paradigmatic case a two-islands evolutionary model, we prove analytically that environmental “self-protection” may trap the system into an undesirable (Pareto-dominated) situation and discuss a few real-life examples in which this mechanism may have actually occurred. Although the proposed model is deliberately extremely simple, it may provide some interesting insights on an aspect that has been mainly ignored in the literature so far.     

Variations of the same? A sectoral analysis of the gender pay gap in Germany and Austria

Germany and Austria are two countries with a comparably and persistently high gender pay gap. Further, both countries are classified as conservative welfare states where the male breadwinner model has been only partly modernized and strong corporatist structures shape working conditions. At the same time, welfare policy and provision are not only based on but also shape gender‐related norms, beliefs and assumptions that are virulent for job valuation and collective bargaining. Against this background the article analyses similarities and differences regarding the gender pay gap in Germany and Austria. While both countries show significant similarities regarding the causes for the gender pay gap, there are some differences regarding legislation and further policies with which the gender pay gap could be reduced. Arguing that the institutional framework strongly influences income opportunities for women and men, the article provides a sectoral analysis of the financial and insurance sector and the human health sector in both countries. Using qualitative data from a recent research project, it is argued that in the classification of a sector as ‘female’, the sectoral income level combined with different wage‐setting mechanisms have a crucial impact on wage inequalities between women and men.     

What is the right way to protest? On the process of justification of protest,and its relationship to the propensity to participate in different types of protest

This study explores how citizens in Spain perceive different tactics employed in anti-austerity protests in 2011–2013, and tests the model of the process of justification of protest. This model combines the elements of Gamson’s collective action frames theory (effectiveness, anger and grievances, operationalized as appraisal of harm) with the concept of legitimacy. It also links justification to the intention to participate. We empirically differentiate between three protest tactics: normative demonstrations, non-normative peaceful strategies, and non-normative violent actions. We find that demonstrations are perceived to be more legitimate, but less effective than non-normative peaceful protests. Violent strategies, on the other hand, are seen to be more effective than legitimate. We postulate and find that legitimacy and effectiveness partially or fully mediate the impact of political ideology, anger, and appraisal of harm on the probability of participation in non-normative protest. Finally, we establish meaningful differences in the predictors of the likelihood of joining normative, non-normative peaceful, or non-normative violent protests. Overall, our results suggest that the study of justification of collective action and especially, the inclusion of the notion of legitimacy, enriches our understanding of the popular approval of and propensity to participate in different forms of collective protest.     

Taken in by the numbers game: the globalization of a religious ‘illusio’ and ‘doxa’ in nineteenth-century evangelical missions to India

While the Bourdieusian concepts of capital and relational configurations of positions and position-takings have recently been fruitfully employed to theorize global fields, this paper argues that the concepts of illusio and doxa are especially conducive to analyzing the globalization of a field as an expansion into and transformation of formerly independent national arenas. In deploying the concept of illusio as a (quasi-libidinous) investment in the game, globalization is here first and foremost framed as a process in which more and more actors in various contexts ‘succumb’ to specific field logics that orient them to transnational structures. By emphasizing the concept of doxa as the taken-for-granted fundamentals of a field, the paper furthermore calls attention to the mechanisms that help forge and globalize the tacit presuppositions and shared ontologies on which such logics build. Focusing on a field of global Christian missions that emerged during the nineteenth century, the paper illustrates how its competitive logic of proselytization was introduced into the religious arena of India. It highlights how Western notions of religion gained ground among local traditions and pulled them into a game in which numerical relations of adherents mattered.     

Veiling in Fear or in Faith? Meanings of the Hijab to Practicing Muslim Wives and Husbands in USA

This article examines the Muslim practice of wearing the hijab—the veiling and covering of a woman’s head and body. More specifically, this study aims to present insiders’ perspectives regarding the personal understandings of the hijab among 20 wives and 20 husbands (n?=?40) in religious Shia and Sunni Muslim families living in USA. Qualitative analysis yielded three emergent themes: (1) The hijab as a symbol of religious commitment; (2) the hijab as a tool of protection, rather than oppression, for women and families; and (3) two different views of Muslims’ reasoning behind the hijab. These data suggest that, as perceived by “insider” participants, the hijab has perceived benefits for religious Muslim families, although counterexamples and concerns are also expressed.     

Towards a 'Movement Society'? On the possibilities of institutionalizing social movements

Social movements come into existence only on the basis of certain preconditions. The concurrence of distinct factors on the levels of individual experience, collective framing and societal structure favour the emergence and stabilization of social movements. Drawing on a model that links these three levels with aspects of problematization, mobilization and stabilization, we argue that there is a growing probability for social movements to come into existence. This probability stems mainly from a set of macro-structural trends and their problematic effects that can be interpreted in terms of differentiation theory. Instead of encompassing and stable class movements as represented, for example, by the labour movement, we expect a multitude of more situationally bound movements that vary considerably in their themes, social bases and forms. It is precisely this heterogeneity of movements that is an enduring feature of contemporary Western societies.