Aesthetic taste versus utility: the emotional and rational of the individual

This article explores the development of an aesthetics framework that aims to provide designers with parameters to understand emotion, taste, and aesthetic judgment under their own cultural influence. This framework will equip designers with tangible criteria for judging cultural influences that have an impact on industrial design while preventing designers from adopting subjective options or being "followers of the current trend." To address the complexity of the topic, a systemic approach is taken so as to be able to capture its several elements. Therefore, the aesthetics framework adopts a systemic approach, which enables its constituents to be compared and the interplay or "links" between these different elements to be identified.     

Reversals of fortune: path dependency,problem solving,and temporal cases

Historical reversals highlight a basic methodological problem: is it possible to treat two successive periods both as independent cases to compare for causal analysis and as parts of a single historical sequence? I argue that one strategy for doing so, using models of path dependency, imposes serious limits on explanation. An alternative model which treats successive periods as contrasting solutions for recurrent problems offers two advantages. First, it more effectively combines analytical comparisons of different periods with narratives of causal sequences spanning two or more periods. Second, it better integrates scholarly accounts of historical reversals with actors’ own narratives of the past.     

Comparison of Deliberate and Spontaneous Facial Movement in Smiles and Eyebrow Raises

We investigated movement differences between deliberately posed and spontaneously occurring smiles and eyebrow raises during a videotaped interview that included a facial movement assessment. Using automated facial image analysis, we quantified lip corner and eyebrow movement during periods of visible smiles and eyebrow raises and compared facial movement within participants. As in an earlier study, maximum speed of movement onset was greater in deliberate smiles. Maximum speed and amplitude were greater and duration shorter in deliberate compared to spontaneous eyebrow raises. Asymmetry of movement did not differ within participants. Similar patterns contrasting deliberate and spontaneous movement in both smiles and eyebrow raises suggest a common pattern of signaling for spontaneous facial displays.

A differential assessment of the cumulative versus stabilizing effect of methadone maintenance treatment

Differential response effectiveness is examined for patients during multiple episodes of methadone maintenance (MM) treatment. Subjects were 251 narcotics addicts who were divided into three groups based on their daily narcotics use pattern during their first two MM treatment periods: (1) a "stabilizing group"--showing no daily use for both periods, (2) a "cumulative group"--showing a lower level of daily use during the second period compared to the first, and (3) a "deteriorating group"--showing higher daily use during the second period. Behavioral measures for various narcotics-related variables were plotted over 4 time periods (pre-MM, during first MM, between first and second episodes, and during second MM) were compared. Results indicated several individual differences related to patients' response to multiple episodes of MM. Clinical, research, and policy implications are discussed.     

Distorted Lorenz curves: models and comparisons

The economic literature contains many parametric models for the Lorenz curve. A number of these models can be obtained by distorting an original Lorenz curve $L$ by a function $h$ , giving rise to a distorted Lorenz curve ${\widetilde{L}}=h\circ L$ . In this paper, we study, in a unified framework, this family of curves. First, we explore the role of these curves in the context of the axiomatic structure of Aaberge (2001) for orderings on the set of Lorenz curves. Then, we describe some particular models and investigate how changes in the parameters in the baseline Lorenz curve $L$ affect the transformed curve ${\widetilde{L}}$ . Our results are stated in terms of preservation of some stochastic orders between two Lorenz curves when both are distorted by a common function.     

After the Assault: Cognitive Trauma Therapy with a Single Event Trauma Survivor

This article explores the specific context of a single event criminal assault, (i.e., a stranger non-sexual assault that occurred during a robbery) and shares the theoretical framework that successfully guided the clinician’s assessment, treatment planning, and interventions. Based on a literature review and employing a case study, this article presents the potential norms of trauma aftermath following a single event non-sexual criminal assault. It provides an overview of those theoretical frameworks that have consistently proven effective with this population; this article shares the rationale for selecting cognitive trauma therapy and illustrates its application to an assault survivor.

Israel's military public diplomacy evolution: Historical and conceptual dimensions

This study provides an historical overview of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit (ISU) from the early years of the State of Israel until 2009. Analyzing five periods during which the ISU played a key role in Israel's public diplomacy, this research sheds light on the challenges the ISU faced in different periods and circumstances and examines how the ISU tried to modify its methods and actions in response to geopolitical changes and media development, albeit not always successfully. The study suggests better understanding the adaptation process by applying a three-layer framework for analysis: the tactical layer, the strategic layer and the perceptional layer. The findings of this work demonstrate that in adapting to new circumstances, the ISU focused mainly on the tactical response level, with the result that it did not undertake any review or debate over the need for deeper perceptional changes in ISU policies.     

Did Growing Up in the 1960s Leave a Permanent Mark on Attitudes and Values?: Evidence from the General Social Survey

This paper explores the "tree ring" hypothesis that reachingyoung adulthood during certain historical periods raises orlowers attitudes above and beyond the contribution of demographicvariables and long-term cohort trends. It examines the deviationsfrom long-term, linear, cohort trends for twenty-eight NationalOpinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Survey (GSS) attitudeitems in birth cohorts reaching age 16 in the 1950s, 1960s,and post-1960s. Long-term cohort trends are estimated from regressionsof attitudes on cohorts reaching age 16 from 1917 to 1950 (netof year and five demographics). Popular impressions are supportedin that "rings" (residuals) are more liberal for Americans reachingage 16 in the 1960s. However, those reaching age 16 in the 1950sare more liberal than their immediate predecessors, not moreconservative. Furthermore, the three periods are not strikinglydistinctive as the items showing positive rings tend to be thesame in each period.     

Ideology,cultural frameworks,and the process of revolution

Conclusions: The varying role of culture The English and French revolutions were not the product of uniquely Western crises of capitalism or absolutism. They shared many elements with profoundly similar crises in the Eastern states of the Ottoman Empire and China. The divergence of Eastern and Western civilizations after the mid-seventeenth century thus cannot be simply attributed to a structural difference between Western revolutions and Eastern peasant rebellions or dynastic crises. In terms of institutional changes, particularly changes in local class structure, more extensive changes followed the seventeenth-century crises in Ottoman Turkey and Ming China than followed the English Revolution. The entire question of the divergence of Eastern and Western economic and political development, of Western dynamism and Eastern stagnation in the early modern period, therefore needs reexamination. In particular, the manner in which Western Europe forged ahead of the advanced Eastern civilizations of Islam and China needs to be explained in a way that accommodates the similarities of the seventeenth-century crises in each.Focusing on cultural frameworks and how they governed reactions to state crises and shaped state reconstruction provides an entry point for such an explanation. Different ideological legacies, embedded in state reconstruction after the seventeenth-century crises, profoundly influenced the later divergence of East and West.Discussions of culture and revolutions have been obfuscated by arguments over whether material or cultural and ideological factors are the primary agents of change. Clearly this false dilemma — asking whether history is governed by Marxist materialism or Hegelian idealism — fails to capture historical reality. A number of scholars have tried to overcome this dichotomy. Clifford Geertz, Natalie Davis, and Robert Darnton have turned to deep analysis of texts or events, analysis designed to illustrate the creativity of individuals and groups in producing symbols and actions that both express and shape their material conditions. Other authors — Giddens and Bourdieu — have put forth general theories of culture that stress the ability of individuals to appropriate cultural elements and use them to reconstruct or reinforce material and institutional structures. All of these approaches attempt to free individuals from the determinism of materialist constraints, and also from the mechanical reproduction of a dominant culture. These approaches therefore have the virtue of avoiding either a simple socioeconomic or cultural determination of individual action. Yet they also are almost useless for long-term, causal historical explanation, for they tend to reduce to a halfway house between materialism and idealism, blandly asserting that, in general, individuals respond to both their material and their cultural environments with (more or less) creative responses that both reproduce and alter those environments.But as we have just observed, the creative response to a changing environment is not constant. These theories of culture fail to appreciate temporal variation, that the role of culture may be quite different in particular concrete historical settings. At some times, as in politically stable periods, the level of cultural innovation may be low; at other times, as in prerevolutionary periods, ideological innovation may increase, but chiefly in response to material forces that create a social crisis. At still other times, as during state breakdown and the ensuing struggle for power, ideological creativity may rise to great heights and develop its own dynamics. And in the restabilization of authority after a breakdown, as the ideological creations of the power struggle become embedded in the postrevolutionary cultural framework, cultural patterns and ideologies may dominate the future possibilities for material as well as cultural change.Interestingly, it was precisely those revolutions that failed to overcome traditional rule fully but did experience a phase of creative, tradition-repudating ideology, namely England and France, that left a legacy of fruitful and dynamic tension in postbreakdown society. Although the Puritans and Jacobins faded after the revolutions, a part of their views remained in a rich stock of antitraditional symbols, institutions, and ideals. State reconstructions in those countries thus were continually challenged by claims to principles that hedged absolute authority. In contrast, the ideological response that occurred in tradition-reinforcing cases of state breakdown — as in the Ottoman Empire, China, and Hapsburg Spain — sought to purify and reaffirm traditional institutions. In these cases, the crisis was blamed on deviation from orthodoxy, and the new regimes sought to strip away variety in the extant cultural framework, purging elements perceived as heterodox. The reconstruction of state and social institutions allowed a recovery of traditional prosperity; but the impoverishing of the cultural framework of post-breakdown society reduced the basis for future dynamism and fundamental change. Meiji Japan was a hybrid case, as marginal elites did sweep away certain aspects of the traditional government and its status system, releasing resources for development and imperial expansion. But the Meiji Restoration still was framed in traditional and conservative ideology, which left a legacy of conservative and traditonal emphasis that continued to dominate much of political and social life.In short, theories of culture that simply describe the interaction of individuals with cultural elements in general terms are gravely incomplete. Cultural frameworks act with particular power at the times when states are rebuilt or revised in times of state breakdown or crisis. A more complete theory of culture — whose development has begun in the works of Wuthnow and Swidler — thus must recognize that cultural dynamics vary over time, becoming more fluid and more creative at some times, more rigid and more limiting at others.But in addition, these diverse outcomes suggest that macrosociology has unduly neglected the role of culture in constraining state structure and dynamics, particularly during periods of state crisis and reconstruction. Theories of social change must recognize that at some concrete historical junctures it is material forces, while at other such junctures it is cultural frameworks and ideologies, that play the dominant role in causing and directing change.This essay is an elaboration of chapter 5 of J. Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991).

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Rap Music and the Empowerment of Today’s Youth: Evidence in Everyday Music Listening, Music Therapy, and Commercial Rap Music

Pioneers of various elements of Hip-Hop culture have been empowered through the ability to voice their reality and find a meaningful identity alongside others who found purpose and function in embracing Hip-Hop culture (Chang, Can’t stop won’t stop: A history of the hip-hop generation, 2005). This empowerment persists in various reinventions of the culture within the United States and worldwide. The present study examines whether evidence exists in research to support the value of esteem, resilience, growth, community and change as empowering dimensions outlined in the individual and community empowerment framework. Research questions ask: (1) Does youth self-expression in rap music created within music therapy sessions reflect framework dimensions? (2) Does content in commercially recognizable rap music reflect framework dimensions? (3) How well does the framework align with a model of empowerment-based positive youth development? First, data collected to examine the validity of the framework were reviewed. Next, two peer-reviewed research studies published after articulation of the original framework, were examined to investigate commonality between themes and framework dimensions. One study was in a music therapy context and another explored themes in commercial Hip-Hop recordings. Original framework data supports theorizing that rap music content actually comprises developmental narratives (Travis and Deepak, 2011; Travis and Bowman, 2012). Data in the present study further suggest that these developmental narratives are relevant for Hip-Hop in every day music engagement, in therapeutic self-expression, and within commercially available musical content. Framework dimensions also aligned with a conceptual model of positive youth development that allows specification of intervention pathways and empirically testable outcomes for Hip-Hop integrated change strategies. Results suggest that rap music is a discourse in lifespan development. Rap music’s developmental narratives may be used by practitioners, parents and researchers. The narratives exist within a framework and model that (a) provides a template for better understanding these narratives and (b) positions this understanding for use as a tool to promote and research positive change strategies for individuals and the communities that they value.     

DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES: GOVERNMENT SPENDING MULTIPLIERS IN HARD TIMES

We investigate state-dependent effects of fiscal multipliers and allow for endogenous sample splitting to determine whether the U.S. economy is in a slack state. When the endogenized slack state is estimated as the period of the unemployment rate higher than about 12%, the estimated cumulative multipliers are significantly larger during slack periods than nonslack periods and are above unity. We also examine the possibility of time-varying regimes of slackness and find that our empirical results are robust under a more flexible framework. Our estimation results point out the importance of the heterogenous effects of fiscal policy and shed light on the prospect of fiscal policy in response to economic shocks from the current COVID-19 pandemic. (JEL C32, E62, H20, H62)     

Teaching Social Register and Code Switching in the Classroom

Children in poverty have been shown to master only the informal registers of the English language (Payne 1996 Payne, R. 1996. A framework for understanding poverty, Highlands, Texas: AHA Publications.  [Google Scholar]). Unable to understand the formal register used in schools and on standardized tests, students in poverty achieve at a lower rate in school (Hodgkinson 1995 Hodgkinson, H. L. 1995. What should we call people?: Race, class and the census of 2000. Phi Delta Kappa, 77(2): 173–79. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) and choose inappropriate behaviors as a result of misunderstandings that are attributed to the inability to understand the language used in the formal register (Payne 1996 Payne, R. 1996. A framework for understanding poverty, Highlands, Texas: AHA Publications.  [Google Scholar]). A school in Cincinnati, Ohio is teaching the skills necessary for these children to translate, understand, and use other registers and codes of the English language. This article describes this curriculum and suggests that this method assists young children in poverty to learn the language of formal register and consequently experience greater academic and affective success in school.     

COMPENSATING WAGE DIFFERENTIALS FOR MANDATORY OVERTIME?

This paper examines the extent to which individuals who are employed by firms that require mandatory overtime receive a compensating wage differential for this "distasteful" working condition. While the empirical results indicate that the average worker does not receive a positive differential for this working condition, the results do indicate that unionized workers and (perhaps) newly hired workers receive a positive differential. The paper then develops a framework to determine if any observed compensating differential is, in fact, fully compensating. The application of this framework to the mandatory overtime issue reveals that the fully compensating differential would be relatively small. The methodology developed in this paper should prove useful in a variety of other contexts.     

HIERARCHIES AND CONTROL

This article offers a reinterpretation of Oliver Williamson's transaction-cost efficiency approach to economic organizations. Asserted transaction-cost minimizations are found to be based on the exercise of social control power within hierarchical governance structures. Analysis of transaction-cost economics' "justification" of hierarchical employment relations shows the tenuous nature of Williamson's noncoercive conceptualization of control. His "rationale" for integrated firms, based on his assessment of the control efficiency properties of intrafirm governance structures, is also shown to be problematic. Finally, a network exchange framework is presented as an alternative approach for analyzing economic organizations. This framework builds upon, and moves beyond, insights developed in the "Markets and Hierarchies" story.     

Development of the Virginity Beliefs Scale

Past research on first sexual intercourse experiences and virginity has largely focused on using demographics such as age at first intercourse as predictors of future sexual behaviors and beliefs. Carpenter (2002 Carpenter , L. M. ( 2002 ). Gender and the meaning and experience of virginity loss in the contemporary United States . Gender and Society , 16 , 345 – 365 . doi: 10.1177/0891243202016003005 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2005 Carpenter , L. M. ( 2005 ). Virginity lost: An intimate portrait of first sexual experiences . New York , NY : New York University Press . [Google Scholar]) suggested a model of three virginity metaphors that describe how individuals perceive their virginity: gift, stigma, and process. Using Carpenter's framework as a starting point, scale items were developed based on the conceptual understanding of the three metaphors. In Study 1 (N = 223, mean age = 19.9, SD = 2.4), 50 items were factor analyzed, yielding 22 items found to be strong indicators of the three metaphors; ten items for gift, eight for stigma, and four for process. The three subscales were validated using measures of gender-role beliefs and affective reactions to first intercourse. In Study 2 (N = 359, mean age = 19.7, SD = 2.4), confirmatory factor analysis was used to confirm the 22-item factor breakdown. The resulting Virginity Beliefs Scale is discussed in terms of how it applies to Carpenter's original framework and its future research potential.     

The liberal paradox with fuzzy preferences

The present note reformulates Amartya Sen's (1970) result on the impossibility of a Paretian liberal in a collective choice framework in which both individual and social preferences are allowed to be fuzzy: the result of this exercise is not found to be encouraging in terms of escaping Sen's liberal paradox in the exact framework.     

THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY IN NAVIGATING POLITICAL INCORPORATION: Defining a Niche for Human Relations in Orange County, California, 1971–2000

Political incorporation represents an important and complex trajectory for social movements. Whether that trajectory leads to favorable substantive outcomes or merely to formalistic representation within the polity depends in part on the strategic decisions made by leaders. We have few frameworks, however, for understanding their role in navigating incorporation. This research presents a "niche definition" framework emphasizing strategic differentiation and articulation across political actors in distinct institutional locations sharing common goals. It focuses attention on leaders' efforts to identify and exploit unique resources and leverage made available through incorporation. Overall, the framework emphasizes the potential for collective strategy and cooperative interorganizational dynamics, thereby expanding possibilities for favorable outcomes of political incorporation. The framework is illustrated through a case study of the Orange County (California) Human Relations Commission from its creation in 1971 to 2001. I trace the long-term challenges and consequences of incorporation through leaders' definition of successive niches.     

Hierarchy of Gambling Choices: A Framework for Examining EGM Gambling Environment Preferences

This paper presents the Hierarchy of Gambling Choices (HGC), which is a consumer-oriented framework for understanding the key environmental and contextual features that influence peoples’ selections of online and venue-based electronic gaming machines (EGMs). The HGC framework proposes that EGM gamblers make choices in selection of EGM gambling experiences utilising Tversky’s (Psychol Rev 79(4):281–299, 1972). Elimination-by-Aspects model, and organise their choice in a hierarchical manner by virtue of EGMs being an “experience good” (Nelson in J Polit Econ 78(2):311–329, 1970). EGM features are divided into three levels: the platform—including, online, mobile or land-based; the provider or specific venue in which the gambling occurs; and the game or machine characteristics, such as graphical themes and bonus features. This framework will contribute to the gambling field by providing a manner in which to systematically explore the environment surrounding EGM gambling and how it affects behaviour.     

RECESSIONS AND RECOVERIES IN REAL BUSINESS CYCLE MODELS

We evaluate the ability of a simple real business cycle model to generate business cycles in the classical NBER sense of the term, where recessions are periods of absolute declines in economic activity. We use the "phase" classification of Burns and Mitchell [1946] to determine the "shape" of the business cycle and to look for asymmetries between expansions and contractions. We show that such a model can generate business cycles of plausible duration and depth, but cannot match the actual "Shape" of the business cycle. Nonlinear models, such as Friedman's [1993] "plucking" model may more closely match the observed shape.     

TACIT COLLUSION IN AUCTIONS AND CONDITIONS FOR ITS FACILITATION AND PREVENTION: EQUILIBRIUM SELECTION IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTAL MARKETS

The paper studies bidder behavior in simultaneous, continuous, ascending price auctions. We design and implement a "collusion incubator" environment based on a type of public, symmetrically "folded" and "item-aligned" preferences. Tacit collusion develops quickly and reliably within the environment. Once tacit collusion developed, it proved remarkably robust to institutional changes that weakened it as an equilibrium of a game-theoretic model. The only successful remedy was a non-public change in the preference of participants that destroyed the symmetrically, "folded" and "item aligned" patterns of preferences, creating head-to-head competition between two agents reminiscent of the concept of a "maverick." ( JEL L50, L94, D43)