Racial conflict and the malignancy of identity

This paper demonstrates how our sense of identity can emerge out of mere markers of social distinction that may have no innate significance, but, nevertheless, spread to various aspects of our lives and be the root of conflict. The basis of such conflicts could arise from the use of race to form conditional judgments about people's behavior. Moreover, there are contexts where racial conflict is inevitable even though, if individuals had common knowledge of one another's preferences, there would be no conflict. It is argued that this kind of conflict, where many individuals have no innate aggressive preference, is widespread and understanding the process that gives rise to such conflict is the key to crafting effective policy that contains it.     

Business strategy and the social norm of tipping

Tipping is an important economic phenomenon, involving about $47 billion a year in the US food industry alone, and trillions of dollars across different occupations and countries over the years. Moreover, tipping is a major source of income for millions of workers. This article discusses the implications of tipping for business strategy in the relevant industries. For example, firms can choose to impose a compulsory service charge in lieu of tipping - what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so? How does tipping change the profit-maximizing level of investing in screening job applicants, training workers, monitoring them, and providing performance-based incentives by the firm? Can industries such as the music industry use tips (i.e., prices being voluntary and determined by the customers) as an alternative business model?     

The effect of education,income inequality and merit on inequality acceptance

A large number of observational and experimental studies have explored the determinants of individual preferences for redistribution. In general, inequalities are more likely to be accepted by people of higher socioeconomic status, in richer societies and when inequalities are perceived as justifiable owing to differences in productivity. Almås et al. (2020) show that in a relatively unequal society (the United States), the highly educated accept inequality significantly more than the less educated, whereas, in a relatively equal society (Norway), the less educated accept inequality more, but not significantly more, than the highly educated. Here, we replicate this finding using data from experiments conducted in four locations across three countries all distinct from the ones studied by Almås et al. However, a closer look at the data indicates that the origin of the interaction effect varies depending on which societies one compares. Data for Norway and the United States indicate that meritocratic values among the highly educated are less prevalent in more equal societies and that this is the driver of the triple interaction effect. In contrast, in our data the interaction effects have multiple drivers.     

Context and interpretation in laboratory experiments: The case of reciprocity

The existing literature acknowledges that a mismatch between the experimenter’s and the subjects’ models of an experimental task can adversely affect the interpretation of data from laboratory experiments. We primarily focus on experiments designed to test a hypothesis by comparing behavior across two or more games and highlight the drawbacks of using a between-subjects design or a within subjects design. An alternative design for laboratory experiments is proposed which may alleviate this concern especially in studies of social preferences. We argue that the proposed design does not introduce any conceptual problems in addition to those that are already present in the between and within subjects designs and may alleviate some of the problems inherent to these designs in certain cases. We also use the proposed design to answer some questions that have attracted continued attention in the literature on social preferences in general and reciprocity in particular.     

Identities, conflicting behavioural norms and the importance of job attributes

The paper empirically expounds the richness of the identity approach to labour-market behaviour by allowing individuals to experience identity conflict. Specifically, it investigates the relationship between the importance individuals attach to labour-market activities - which is influenced by the identity to which they adhere - and their preferences for job attributes. The analysis shows that individuals who consider labour-market success as instrumental for achieving their life goals tend to attach importance to job characteristics such as pay level and career and training opportunities. Individuals for whom non-labour-market activities are important and in conflict with labour-market activities are found to attach importance to the possibility of working on a convenient time schedule. Moreover, consistently with the identity approach to labour-market behaviour, men appear to resolve the conflict between career and non-work activities in favor of the former.Finally, unobserved factors that increase the desire to work part-time have a negative impact on the likelihood of attaching importance to the training and career opportunities offered by the job.     

The triumph of hope over disappointment: A note on the utility value of good health expectations

In this paper, we present and test the empirical implications of competing theories about how expectations of outcomes affect utility. In the first utility formulation, which is consistent with particular interpretations of disappointment, prospect theory and regret theory, individuals receive negative utility from outcomes that were worse than expected. This directly implies that expectations themselves enter utility negatively. The second utility formulation incorporates anticipatory savoring, where positive expectations about the future directly lead to more utility today. We test which of these formulations best explains actual connections between health and welfare over time, using data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. Estimated coefficients from fixed-effects ordered logit models support a strong positive utility impact of positive expectations: expecting good health in the future increases happiness now. Our results are one argument for benevolent health care providers to allow individuals to maintain unrealistically positive expectations about the future.     

The logic of bio-meritocracy in the promotion of higher education equity

Abstract

This article argues that there is incomplete acknowledgment of the historically racist and ableist meaning of merit in the promotion of higher education equity. Consequently, a masquerade of merit positions mechanisms of standardization – including physical environment, classroom norms, and co-curricular activities in addition to admissions criteria – as seemingly neutral practices in the academy because they construct able-bodiedness/mindedness as naturally occurring and empirically measurable. Thus, merit-based decisions are afforded the status of simply making sense. Individuals are understood to succeed because of their natural talents and hard work, rather than because they resemble the normed archetype of higher education fitness. We call this the logic of bio-meritocracy, and argue that it operates pervasively, yet paradoxically, within systems of higher education. The continual marginalization of individuals labeled with disabilities within the academy is therefore not arbitrary, unintended, or accidental, but rather tied to the maintenance of able-bodied/minded supremacy.     

Goal orientation and variety seeking behavior: The role of decision task

This research conducted two experiments to examine the interaction effect of decision task (sequential choices vs. simultaneous choices) and goal orientation (prevention focus vs. promotion focus) on variety-seeking behavior. In the sequential choices for sequential consumption condition (consumers buy one item at a time for each consumption occasion), promotion-focused consumers tend to select a greater variety of items (a higher extent of variety-seeking) than prevention-focused consumers. In contrast, in the simultaneous choices for sequential consumption condition (consumers buy several items at a time for each following consumption occasion), prevention-focused consumers tend to select a greater variety of items (a higher extent of variety-seeking) than promotion-focused consumers.     

Inverted U-shaped conformism: An economic model of endogenous responses to the Joneses

Based on sociologists’ findings, it is more likely that middle-status people are “keeping up with the Joneses” while both the highest-status and lowest-status people are “running away from the Joneses”. Existing economic models fail to reproduce this inverted-U shaped (IUS) curve. In my model, response to the Joneses is endogenized and is related to one's status position. Under some reasonable assumptions, an IUS pattern will appear. A comparison with a sociological explanation of the same phenomenon and further implications will also be discussed.     

The established and the outsiders: legitimacy and economic niches of the four generations of Saint Petersburg cultural organizations

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the post-Soviet evolution of the sector of cultural organizations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The study relies on a combination of qualitative (semi-structured interviews with employees of 34 cultural organizations of St. Petersburg) and quantitative (pile sorting) methods of data treatment, as well as synthesizes approaches from theories of organizations (organizational ecology, neo-institutionalism) and cultural studies and sociology of culture (Bourdieu, DiMaggio) to analyse the successively emerging waves of organizations. We show that the organizations can be divided into four waves, with the oldest ones existing from Soviet (and sometimes Imperial) times and the newest emerging during the economic boom of the early 2000s. The waves differ primarily in the degree of legitimacy resulting from their abstaining from or participating in a wide range of market activities. The aristocratic establishment extracting resources from ‘pure’ sources enjoys much greater prestige and, ultimately, economic security, than those who have to use less approved sources. Our general conclusion is that the ‘birth order’ is primarily responsible for the ability of an organization to occupy a desirable economic niche. Thus, the oldest wave occupies the most favourable niche, possessing the greatest legitimacy and receiving generous support from public and private foundations, while later waves had either to restrict their economic activities to prove their belonging to artistic field (second and, partially, third waves) or to combine different artistic (exhibitions, performances, and film screening), academic (lectures and seminars) and commercial (café and shops) activities within one public space, which, however, greatly undermines their legitimacy and deprives them of most sources of public funding. Ironically, the newer organizations embrace and translate the opposition between ‘pure art’ and ‘commerce’, which dooms them to suffering in a vicious circle of illegitimacy.     

美国高校教育捐赠制度的成功对中国的启示

近年来,我国高等教育快速发展,但同时也面临着很多问题,其中一个就是经费不足的问题。社会捐赠,作为高校资金运转的一个部分,扮演着越来越重要的角色。美国在高等教育捐赠方面积累了许多宝贵的成功经验,深入分析和探讨其捐赠的现状与成功因素,对于我国高等教育的发展无疑具有非常重要的作用,并对我国开展符合国情的捐赠具有重大的启示意义。     

Consumer bankruptcy and default: The role of individual social capital

In this paper, we empirically assess the role of individual social capital on personal bankruptcy and default outcomes in the consumer credit market. After controlling for a borrower’s risk score, debt, income, wealth, and legal and economic environments, we find that default/bankruptcy risk rises and then falls over the lifecycle, while a borrower who owns a home or is married has a lower risk of default/bankruptcy. Moreover, a borrower who migrates 190 miles from his “state of birth” is 17% more likely to default and 15% more likely to file for bankruptcy, while a borrower who continues to live in his state of birth is 14% and 10% less likely to default and file for bankruptcy, respectively. A borrower who moves to a rural area is 9% and 7% less likely to default and declare bankruptcy, respectively. We also find that measures of social networks, norms, and cooperation and trust (i.e., aggregate social capital) are inversely related to consumer bankruptcy.     

The Dutch people and the euro: A structural equations analysis relating national identity and economic expectations to attitude towards the euro

National identity, macro and micro economic expectations affect the attitude toward the euro. In a study in The Netherlands, data were collected and relationships between the latent concepts were modelled with LISREL. In the best fitting model, national identity has a direct and an indirect effect on attitude, respectively, an unstructured and a structured effect. The indirect effect is mediated by macro and micro expectations. Macro expectations also have a direct and an indirect effect. The indirect effect is mediated by micro expectations. On one hand, macro expectations form a strong link between national identity and attitude. On the other hand, macro expectations have a strong direct effect on attitudes. The euro is mainly perceived and evaluated in a macro-economic perspective.PsycINFO classification: 2229; 3920     

Concepts of choice and motivation in the discourse on the globalization of higher education

This paper reviews the findings of a participatory research project conducted with Nepali high school and university students. It examines the feelings and motivations of those students who leave the country in pursuit of higher education, and those who intentionally, or due to circumstances, stay in Nepal. An analysis of the latter is particularly important to the shifting discourse on higher education to the global South. This study promotes the inclusion of those students, and institutions, of higher education in developing nations who have been excluded from the discourse on globalization.     

Discourse and the containment of disability in higher education: an institutional analysis

We use a social model of disability to examine disability discourse at a regional university in the mid-western United States. Using an institutional unit of analysis and several different information sources (e.g. interviews, federal regulations, syllabus texts, surveys), we illustrate the ways in which disability-as-difference is governed by an architecture of containment at the university.     

Critical aspects of cultural diversity in music education: examining the established practices and cultural forms in minority language schools in Finland

This article addresses the role of general music education within the framework of cultural diversity. The empirical part of the article focuses on teachers in Swedish-speaking minority schools in Finland and their perceptions of the relationship between music and multicultural perspectives. The results showed that in some instances it took some time for teachers to discuss, define and grasp the concepts of multiculturalism and cultural diversity in relation to their teaching activities. While much was discussed on a theoretical and/or political level, it was not necessarily something that they would connect to their own practice.     

Crisis communication in higher education: The use of “negotiation” as a strategy to manage crisis

This case study examined the crisis response strategies of Louisiana State University after its women's head basketball coach resigned amid charges of inappropriate conduct with former basketball players. This case study draws on relationship management and negotiation as the theoretical lens to examine the efforts of the University in managing relationships and restoring its image. Data for this study was collected through opened-ended questionnaires from students, faculty, and staff at the University. The findings from this study indicate that the good reputation of the University was responsible for the positive evaluation of the crisis management. In addition, results from this study suggest that “negotiation” can play an important role in managing a crisis when the conflicting parties are not willing to participate in a dialogue.