“Pay it forward” and Altruistic Responses to Disasters in Japan: Latent Class Analysis of Support Following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Since the emergence of borantia (volunteers) in 1995, Japanese society has developed disaster volunteerism to enable citizens to help one another. Survivors from areas affected by disasters over the past two decades have returned to assist survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011 Tohoku Earthquake) through volunteering. This chain of support is known as a “pay it forward” network. Using latent class analysis, this article statistically demonstrates that different patterns of support behavior appeared after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and that people who were supported by others following disasters were more likely to help (e.g., through volunteering, donating goods, etc.). The class characterized as “pay it forward” was found to display high-support behaviors, and this was not only explained by traditional theory (i.e., dominant status model, resource model), but also by theories related to economic status and educational background. Results indicate that developing volunteerism in Japan accelerates network support.     

Early warning of disastrous population movement

"This article undertakes to analyze existing and potential early warning facilities in man-made disasters which induce forced movement of people. It sets out some possible forms of early warning and the organizational options connected with them. It concludes that a mixed form of organization, combining some existing facilities and some modest new organization, could provide early warning, although this function would operate in a difficult and delicate political atmosphere that cannot be avoided."     

Community Relations and Risk Communication: A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Emergency Response Messages

This study replicates and extends Heath and Abel's (1996) quasi-longitudinal analysis of the long-term impact of risk communication and emergency response measures. This study confirms and disconfirms some of the 1996 Heath and Abel conclusions. We found that because concern remains high that risk events are likely to occur and harm community safety, citizens are willing to become knowledgeable of emergency response measures. Such knowledge gives citizens a greater sense of control, which may translate into trust for industry and city emergency response experts. Support for the industry is increased by effective improvements in its operations. Long-term, community-relations programs may empower citizens with knowledge of what to do in the event an emergency occurs.     

Narratives of risk communication: Nudging community residents to shelter-in-place

Community emergency response has received researcher’s attention within the academic and professional risk management and communication community. Such studies help residents to be as safe as sound science, professional emergency management (including risk migration), and public communication can accomplish. Once designed and implemented, emergency response campaigns are monitored to determine what strategies work best to inform, alert and motivate vulnerable populations to make wise preventive (precrisis) emergency responses. Framed as such, this study reports data from a quasi-longitudinal analysis of community emergency management communication in one of the USA communities most at risk for chemical release/exposure. It probes the protective action decision-making motivational efficacy of a spokes-character named Wally Wise Guy. Previous research has demonstrated that knowledge of Wally and its protective response (including shelter-in-place) messaging is a strong predictor of community members’ preferred protective action and willingness to engage in such action once alerted to do so. This current study uses narrative theory, augmented by nudge theory, to further examine why Wally’s advice is useful in community emergency response. In specific, it asks whether Wally, a turtle spokes-character, nudges citizens to know and comply with emergency management advisories to shelter-in-place as notified.     

Coping with Compassion: Role Transformation Amongst Oregon Food Pantry Directors

In stark contrast to the robust social safety nets found in many developed nations around the world, the modern American welfare state is increasingly operated by a variety of non-governmental actors and voluntary organizations. The operation of this welfare regime depends on the discretionary decisions of street-level bureaucrats. As street-level bureaucrats confront new circumstances, their discretionary decisions change. Normative institutionalism and the concept of bricolage are used to explore how discretionary decisions change within an organizational role in the context of a voluntary organization. Understanding this process of bricolage sheds light on the decision-making processes of street-level bureaucrats, explains how behavior in an organizational role shifts over time, and points to the dynamic nature of institutions. We present an in-depth qualitative study of the emergency food network in Oregon as a critical case to illustrate this argument.     

Who Cares What Others Think? the Indirect Effect of Others’ Attitudes on Condom Use Intentions

ABSTRACT

This qualitative exploratory research project was conducted to determine how women involve their sexual partners in decisions to obtain emergency contraception (EC) after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure. Using a grounded theory framework, I found that the most important determinant of partner inclusion in this decision was relationship status. More specifically, if the respondent was in a longer-term dating relationship at the time of the incident, she was more likely to involve her partner in the decision-making process compared with those respondents in casual relationships. The reason for being at risk for pregnancy (e.g., a broken condom vs. a missed birth control pill) also influenced partner inclusion. And finally, I found that often it was the men who initiated the conversation about obtaining EC originally. Overall, this research demonstrates that men do indeed have a part to play in EC decision making and need to be included in future research.     

The limits of participatory democracy and the inclusion of social movements in local government

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the decentralisation of decision-making processes in local government. Empirically, I analyse how Brazilian housing movements are included in participatory processes by examining the ways in which participatory models integrate social movements in spaces of decision-making. I argue that the rules and focus on incremental policy-making limits the participation of social movements. Findings suggests that unequal power structures at local councils, barriers to the participation of citizens, and the lack of transparency of government decisions all prevent social movements from having a more influential voice in decision-making. Although previous studies in Brazil examined the integration of citizens in government institutions, this paper contributes to the literature in two ways: firstly, it provides new evidence on the impact of decentralisation in local government. Secondly, by examining the attitudes of housing council members towards popular political participation, it provides new insights into the limits of decentralisation and participatory governance in contemporary Brazil.     

Media Uses in Disaster Situations: A New Focus on the Impact Phase

The media, in the sociology of natural disasters, are mainly viewed as management tools used to influence people's preparedness and response to natural disasters. As a consequence, research in this area has been limited to the warning, preparedness, and recovery phases. Through interviews with residents of eight communities in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, impacted by Hurricane Georges in 1998, this paper shows that through integrating mass communication research to disaster theory we can obtain a more accurate picture of the media–audience relationship during natural disasters. In addition to the manifest functions of providing information, the media also have latent functions in disasters, which consist of emotional support and companionship. The media also help isolated individuals to feel connected with the "outside world." These functions are most salient in the impact phase of disasters. These functions are also particularly crucial as they have been shown to reduce the negative effects of stressful life events.     

Modelling the interaction of economic and socio-behavioural factors in the prediction of farm adjustment

This paper describes a methodology for the representation of farm household decision-making under conditions of agricultural and rural policy change. The methodology employs a Geographic Information System (GIS) to integrate a range of spatially referenced data describing the internal and external decision environments of individual farmers, and model the interaction of these variables in conditioning adjustment in response to policy change. The difficulties in identifying and representing the detailed interaction of farm and farmer characteristics with the external environment of the household and business are reviewed. From a policy perspective it is, however, of considerable importance that models which are sensitive to the complexity of the farm decision-making process are developed and evaluated, for their potential contribution in supporting policy and resource allocation decisions is considerable. The methodology described here remains highly generalized, but it represents an advance on previous techniques through the representation of economic, social and behavioural factors which interact with farm resources and external constraints to predict the response of individual farm holdings to policy and market shifts.     

The consistency of fairness rules: An experimental study

This paper studies individual consistency in the use of fairness rules, together with the role of self-serving bias in decision-making. We likewise attempt to characterize the different decision-making processes associated with the two types of self-interested behavior (pure selfish and self-serving). We use a within-subject design, which allows us to compare individual behavior when the context changes. In line with the literature, we find a multiplicity of fairness rules. However, the set of fairness rules is considerably smaller when we control for consistency. Only selfishness and strict egalitarianism seem to survive the stricter consistency requirements. We observe that this result is mainly explained by a self-serving bias. Additionally, we observe that faster decisions are self-interested and decisions dealing with moral trade-off are slower.     

Citizenship and Minorities: A Historical Overview of Turkey's Jewish Minority

Abstract  Citizenship in Turkey is one of the major instruments of nation-building. The legal framework that Turkish citizenship rests on is universal and equal. The non-Muslim minorities – the Armenians, the Greeks and the Jews – however are granted special group rights in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Despite the protection of minorities and their rights in the treaty, the non-Muslim minorities, from time to time, had been superceded by the universal norms of citizenship in Turkey. This study discusses the history of the Jewish minority with a focus on the development of citizenship in Turkey. The history of the Jews as a minority group and as citizens is illustrated by way of a chronological methodology encompassing a broad range of events, laws, ideas and movements spanning Early Republican Period up to present-day Turkey. In line with the conventional classification utilized by many studies of Turkish politics, the historical projection developed on the citizenship and minority status of Jews in Turkey is categorized into three periods: the Early Republican Period (1923–1945), the Multi-Party Democracy Period (1945–1980) and the Post-1980 Period covering more recent developments.     

Harassment Due to Gender Nonconformity Mediates the Association Between Sexual Minority Identity and Depressive Symptoms

The visibility of a stigmatized identity is central in determining how individuals experience that identity. Sexual minority status (e.g., identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual) has traditionally been identified as a concealable stigma, compared with race/ethnicity or physical disability status. This conceptualization fails to recognize, however, the strong link between sexual minority status and a visible stigma: gender nonconformity. Gender nonconformity, or the perception that an individual fails to conform to gendered norms of behavior and appearance, is strongly stigmatized, and is popularly associated with sexual minority status. The hypothesis that harassment due to gender nonconformity mediates the association between sexual minority status and depressive symptoms was tested. Heterosexual and sexual minority–identified college and university students (N = 251) completed questionnaires regarding their sexual minority identity, experiences of harassment due to gender nonconformity, harassment due to sexual minority status, and depressive symptoms. A mediational model was supported, in which the association between sexual minority identity and depressive symptoms occurred via harassment due to gender nonconformity. Findings highlight harassment due to gender nonconformity as a possible mechanism for exploring variability in depressive symptoms among sexual minorities.     

Beyond the “Usual Suspects”? Reimagining Democracy With Participatory Budgeting in Chicago

This article examines whether democratic innovations in the United States attract citizens who are typically underrepresented within existing political institutions. We focus on participatory budgeting, an intervention where residents decide how to allocate a particular pot of public money. Taking “PB Chicago” as our case study, we use survey and interview data to examine whether organizers realized their stated goal of involving residents other than the “usual suspects.” We find that residents who voted in PB Chicago were more often white, college educated, and from higher‐income households relative to both the local population and politically active residents in Chicago. While these residents were not necessarily the most active across other stages of the PB Chicago process, we find little evidence that lower socioeconomic status and minority residents were accessing the civic learning and empowerment gains associated with participatory forms of democracy. Outreach made the process more inclusive but was insufficient to overcome several important structural constraints. Of particular note, the needs and interests of less privileged residents were not met by the narrow capital works focus of PB Chicago. We suggest that when implemented under such conditions, participatory budgeting risks deepening existing political and social inequalities.     

Integrating public relations and legal responses during a crisis: The case of Odwalla, Inc.

Crisis management is a form of issues management in which crisis managers attempt to control the terms used to describe corporate actions. In this sense, a crisis can be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate the organization's commitment to responsible behavior and to outline the steps being taken to eliminate the problem. The organization's decision-making process is evident in its communication response (public relations versus legal) strategies.This study examines the crisis communication strategies employed by Odwalla, Inc. during its juice contamination crisis, a crisis whose impact on public health and safety gave it the potential for developing into an issue that required public policy relief. An analysis of the content of published responses made by Odwalla officials showed that public relations response strategies dominated legal response strategies throughout the crisis, followed by mixed public relations and legal strategies. This case provides a clear example of the collaborative approach to crisis management in terms of legal versus public relations strategies. In addition, Odwalla exerted control over the crisis through its recall, the development of a process to eliminate the problem, and raising the issue of pasteurization.     

Fertility and fertility-related behavior among Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white female adolescents

Ethnic differences in fertility-related behavior are examined in a community-based probability sample of 706 Mexican-American and 317 non-Hispanic white females aged 13 through 19 years. Mexican-Americans are more likely than whites to have had a live birth, but are no more likely to have been pregnant and are less likely to have had sexual intercourse. Sexually experienced Mexican-Americans, however, are twice as likely as whites to have been pregnant. Among those ever pregnant, Mexican-Americans are more likely to have had a live birth, while whites are more likely to have had an abortion. Ethnic differences remain strong when socioeconomic status and indicators of social instability are controlled statistically, lending more support to the "minority status" hypothesis than to the "characteristics" hypothesis concerning the fertility-related behavior of minority group members.     

Siege Cultures and the Mythology of Nationhood: The implications for the maturation of education systems

This paper examines the notion of a siege culture in which a self-defined minority community comes to perceive itself as being under threat from the dominant group within the society in which it is located and, as a response, has developed a conservative ideology based upon a mythologised collectivity. Siege cultures will tend to manifest themselves in ethnocentric terms and may frequently incorporate anachronistic perspectives on social divisions. Siege cultures may therefore be said to be in a state of continual production and reproduction-indeed, of re-invention-and require the support of educational institutions organised along separatist lines. Inevitably, this will have ramifications for national education systems, which may need to respond to the pressures resulting from resistance from such cultures to the hegemony of the dominant group. Except where the central state is strong and is able to subordinate the demands of minority communities through the process of de-legitimisation or through expulsion, there will be a tendency towards unresolved tensions, conflicts and contradictions. A possible explanatory framework for this phenomenon may be derived from the metaphor of social maturation in which societies fail to change sufficiently to meet the demands of legitimate constituencies and thus inhibit the development of a properly functioning social system. This may suggest a paradigm drawn from modernist, positivistic or even Marxist traditions, and that while current trends, as viewed cross-nationally, seem to point to the rise of ‘ethnicism’, we should be alerted to the dangers of separatist schooling which reinforces the ethnocentrism of some minority communities.     

Group long-term care insurance: decision-making factors and implications for financing long-term care

This study proposes and tests a systemic family decision-making framework to understand group long-term care insurance (LTCI) enrollment decisions. A random sample of public employees who were offered group LTCI as a workplace benefit were examined. Findings reveal very good predictive efficacy for the overall conceptual framework with a pseudo R2 value of .687, and reinforced the contributions of factors within the family system. Enrollees were more likely to have discussed the decision with others, used information sources, and had prior experience when compared to non-enrollees. Perceived health status, financial knowledge, attitudes regarding the role of private insurance, risk taking, and coverage features were additional factors related to enrollment decisions. The findings help to inform policymakers about the potential of LTCI as one strategy for financing long-term care.     

Rational and behavioural predictors of pre-retirement cash-outs

Given the worldwide concern that individuals are not saving sufficiently for retirement, many governments are taking action to try and rectify this tendency. A key focus area is implementing policies to dissuade individuals from accessing accumulated retirement funds when changing jobs. While traditional economic theories assume that individuals act rationally and make optimal decisions without outside intervention, current policy interventions support behavioural theories of decision-making where sub-optimal choices occur due to limitations in human decision-making. Therefore, interventions are based on the assumption that individuals act irrationally. Despite these interventions, many individuals still access their funds suggesting that current interventions may not be sufficiently aligned with the factors influencing decision making in this environment.The main research objective of this study was to test empirically both rational and behavioural factors that could potentially influence retirement preservation decisions, to determine which factors were the best predictors of whether an individual preserved funds when changing jobs. A research instrument was designed using a combination of existing psychometric measures and customised questions to form an analytical survey. This was used to test the factors that predicted the preservation decisions of a sample of 256 academic and non-academic personnel at a tertiary education institution in South Africa.The study found that behavioural factors play an important role in predicting preservation decisions. In particular, behavioural factors related to bounded rationality, due to the computational complexity of the decision-making environment, emerged as important explanatory variables, indicating that interventions such as decision support and guidance may assist individuals in making optimal decisions.     

Forward-looking activities: incorporating citizens’ visions

Looking back on the many prophets who tried to predict the future as if it were predetermined, at first sight any forward-looking activity is reminiscent of making predictions with a crystal ball. In contrast to fortune tellers, today??s exercises do not predict, but try to show different paths that an open future could take. A key motivation to undertake forward-looking activities is broadening the information basis for decision-makers to help them actively shape the future in a desired way. Experts, laypeople, or stakeholders may have different sets of values and priorities with regard to pending decisions on any issue related to the future. Therefore, considering and incorporating their views can, in the best case scenario, lead to more robust decisions and strategies. However, transferring this plurality into a form that decision-makers can consider is a challenge in terms of both design and facilitation of participatory processes. In this paper, we will introduce and critically assess a new qualitative method for forward-looking activities, namely CIVISTI (Citizen Visions on Science, Technology and Innovation; www.civisti.org), which was developed during an EU project of the same name. Focussing strongly on participation, with clear roles for citizens and experts, the method combines expert, stakeholder and lay knowledge to elaborate recommendations for decision-making in issues related to today??s and tomorrow??s science, technology and innovation. Consisting of three steps, the process starts with citizens?? visions of a future 30?C40?years from now. Experts then translate these visions into practical recommendations which the same citizens then validate and prioritise to produce a final product. The following paper will highlight the added value as well as limits of the CIVISTI method and will illustrate potential for the improvement of future processes.     

Orientierungsprozesse im Vertrauensdilemma. Beziehungskonstruktionen in Beratungen zur privaten Altersvorsorge

Financial advice given by consultants is crucial for retirement saving decisions. We argue that those willing to save are facing a dilemma since there is a widespread mistrust towards the financial industry while financial advice is indispensable for coping with complexity in the decision process. Exploring the case of the state-subsidized Riester-pension in Germany, we show that savers construct personal relationships with the advisor to deal with this complex dilemma in terms of theories on trust. Using a mixed-method design embracing both quantitative techniques—cross-sectional as well as longitudinal (fixed-effects) approaches—and qualitative evidence, we shed new light on old age saving decisions. In detail, the exploitation of longitudinal surveys (of GSOEP and the German SAVE Panel 2004–2010) and of 18 problem-centred interviews provides the following findings: (1) Retirement saving decisions often rely on pre-existing relationships to financial advisors. (2) The less alternative resources available, the more savers rely on these relationships. (3) Financial advisors use their existing relationships to sell pensions. (4) The qualitative material unveils different patterns concerning the decision-making process which are trusteeship, strategic alliance, and acceptable ad-hoc collaboration. Altogether, the widespread idea of private retirement saving resulting from an atomistic and rational planning of the future is an illusion.