Breaking it is one thing,fixing it is another: Responsibility attributions and support for the U.S. Presidency,Congress, and the Supreme Court

When do attributions of responsibility predict support for governmental institutions? Data from an online survey of 508 United States citizens examining attributions for their most salient national problem revealed associations between attributions and evaluations of the Presidency, Supreme Court, and Congress. With respect to the Presidency, causal attributions were related to more negative evaluations, while resolution attributions were related to more positive evaluations. This was especially true for conservative participants. With respect to the Supreme Court, causal attributions were related to more negative evaluations. With respect to Congress, there was an association between causal attributions and negative evaluations, but only for those with a low level of resolution attributions. Results are discussed in terms of the political climate and differences in institutional expectations.     

All Politics is Not Local: National Forces in State Abortion Initiatives

Objective. Although research suggests that national forces can play a role in local and state elections, most of this work has only recently begun to examine the potential role of national forces in state or local ballot initiative or referenda elections. Methods. Our research addresses this gap in the literature by exploring the influence of national forces, such as the timing of elections, Supreme Court rulings, the activities of interest groups, and public opinion, on state direct legislation elections. We incorporate national forces into the morality politics framework and derive specific hypotheses. We then test these hypotheses by conducting a multivariate analysis of county–level voting patterns across 16 abortion–related direct legislation elections. Results. Our results confirm most of the hypotheses derived from the morality politics framework, including those concerning the role of national forces. Conclusions. Voting patterns on abortion tend to be influenced by the presence of presidential elections, Supreme Court rulings, interest–group activity, public opinion, partisanship, college education, and conservative religious forces. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on elections, abortion policy, and morality politics.     

Public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court: A new look at the impact of Court decisions

Judicial scholars have long debated the notion that Court decisions can influence the public's attitudes toward the U.S. Supreme Court. We engage this literature by introducing new dimensions to existing theory for predicting the impact of Court decisions on public confidence in the Court and by introducing innovative methods to test our hypotheses. We begin our analysis by examining the relationship between specific Court decisions and public confidence with aggregate time series data. Our analysis then shifts to an examination of individual-level survey data to examine the same hypotheses. Our results indicate that specific decisions can have a significant positive and negative impact on individual-level confidence in the Court. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for the theoretical and methodological debates over the influence of Court decisions on public confidence.     

Friends of the Circuits: Interest Group Influence on Decision Making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals*

Objective. Though there is an extensive literature focused on the participation and efficacy of interest group amici curiae in the U.S. Supreme Court, there is little rigorous analysis of amici curiae in the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Here, we systematically analyze the influence of amicus curiae briefs on U.S. Court of Appeals decision making to provide insights regarding both judicial decision making and the efficacy of interest groups. Methods. We use a probit model to capture influences on appellant success in the courts of appeals from 1997–2002. Results. We find that amicus briefs filed in support of the appellant enhance the likelihood of that litigant's probability of success, but that amicus briefs filed in support of the appellee have no effect on litigation outcomes. Conclusion. Amici can help level the playing field between appellants and appellees by serving to counter the propensity to affirm in the U.S. Courts of Appeals.     

Acclimation Effects on the Supreme Court of Canada: A Cross‐Cultural Examination of Judicial Folklore*

Objective. Few public law theories developed to understand the decision making of U.S. courts have been examined in different cultural settings. This study examines the applicability of the “freshman effects” theory in the context of the Canadian Supreme Court. Methods. The article uses analysis of variance tests to examine changes in the voting and authorship patterns of 15 Canadian Supreme Court Justices during the Laskin, Dickson, and Lamer Court periods (1973–1999). Results. We find very little evidence of acclimation effects on the Canadian Supreme Court. However, through the Chief Justice's power to compose decision panels, Canadian justices in their first full year of service are assigned significantly fewer cases than in subsequent years of their career. Thus, Canadian justices are given time to acclimate to the high court through a lower workload, a luxury not afforded to U.S. justices. Conclusions. Theories of public law adopted to understand U.S. courts may be limited in their generalizability beyond the U.S. setting because of the institutional and political forces that shape judicial decision making in other courts.     

"In My Opinion . . .": Justices' Opinion Writing in the U.S. Supreme Court, 1946–1997

Objectives . We develop hypotheses to explain the opinion writing by justices on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1946–1997. Methods . We use data from the U.S. Supreme Court Database, Phases I and II, to examine the proportion of cases in which a justice writes an opinion each term as well as the differences between writing majority, dissenting, and concurring opinions. OLS regression with robust standard errors is the estimation procedure. Results . We find that a justice's position as Chief Justice, professional and education background, reputation ranking, and tenure on the Court can explain a justice's opinion writing. At the same time, we discover that particular variables have different affects on writing majority, dissenting, or concurring opinions. Conclusions . This study demonstrates the importance of both structural and personal background variables in explaining judicial behavior. It also shows the importance of analyzing different kinds of judicial opinions when explaining the justices' opinion writing.     

Within‐ and between‐individual variation in fathers’ emotional expressivity in Chinese families: Contributions of children’s emotional expressivity and fathers’ emotion‐related beliefs and perceptions

Parental emotion socialization is a dynamic process encompassing moment‐to‐moment fluctuations in parents’ emotional displays and responsiveness. This study attempted to examine the within‐ and between‐individual variation in fathers’ emotional expressivity during a real‐time father–child interaction in Chinese families. Eighty‐five children (M_age = 7.58 years, SD = 0.50 years, 47.1% boys) from east China and their biological fathers participated in the study. Fathers’ and children’s emotional expressivity were observed during a problem‐solving interaction task. Fathers’ beliefs about children’s negative emotions and fathers’ perceptions of their children’s emotion regulation ability were assessed via self‐report questionnaires. Results showed that (1) At the within‐individual level, fathers’ and children’s emotional expressivity covariated with each other in concurrent intervals when controlling for their emotional expressivity in previous intervals; fathers’ emotional expressivity gradually became less positive over time whereas children’s emotional expressivity did not change significantly over time; (2) At the between‐individual level, fathers’ perceptions of children’s emotion regulation accounted for the between‐individual variance in the dynamics of fathers’ emotional expressivity. These findings chart the dynamics of paternal emotion expressivity during father–child interactions and shed light on the relevant roles of children’s emotional expressivity and fathers’ emotion‐related beliefs and perceptions.     

美国种族限制性契约的司法判决与种族隔离的松动

在20世纪前期,种族限制性契约是美国白人实行种族隔离最主要的制度性措施。在关于限制性契约的判决中,对"州政府行为"的解释是一个关键,因为联邦宪法第14条修正案的制约对象是各州政府,而不是私人行为。在1948年以前,大多数州法院将州法院的司法判决排除在州政府行为之外,从而便利了州法院对种族限制性契约的纵容。在黑人、民权组织和某些政府部门的斗争之下,1948年联邦最高法院将州法院的判决也包含在州政府行为之中,从而制止了州法院对限制性契约的纵容。此后,对州政府行为的解释日益扩大,对限制性契约的控制更严,从而在美国种族隔离的藩篱中打开了一个缺口。     

Changes in latitude,changes in attitude: Population movements and conservative shifts in congress

Migration from the Northeast and Midwest to the West and South over the past decade has been from politically liberal to conservative areas of the United States. Similarly, migration from central cities to suburbs has been from liberal to conservative areas within states. The Constitution and Supreme Court decisions require redistricting between states (reapportionment) and within states (redistricting) every ten years. This study examines whether reapportionment and redistricting has resulted in a more conservative House of Representatives as the number of representatives from these growing conservative districts has increased. It finds no nationwide evidence to support this proposition; instead, the effects of district reorganization appear to be specific to each district and time.     

Implementing affirmative action in higher education: University responses to Gratz and Grutter

In 2003, the Supreme Court handed down two landmark decisions regarding the use of affirmative action in higher education. In one case, Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court said it was constitutional to consider race in admissions decisions in order to achieve the educational benefits of a diverse student body. In stark contrast, the Court struck down in Gratz v. Bollinger the University of Michigan's undergraduate admissions policy on the grounds that too much of the decision was based on race. In this research note, we surveyed midwestern and southern institutions of higher education to see how college and university presidents in the Fifth and Sixth federal circuits have sought to implement Gratz and Grutter. We find schools in the Fifth Circuit (southern) do not consider race in admissions decisions and those in the Sixth Circuit (midwestern) utilize race to assemble a student body. We suggest that lower federal court precedent may explain why the midwestern schools consider race but the southern schools do not.     

Inheriting a political career: The justices of the United States and Louisiana Supreme Courts

Sixty-three percent of the members of the United States Supreme Court (1789–1988) and forty-four percent of the members of the Louisiana Supreme Court (1812–1988) came from politically active families. Inheritors on both courts were preceded in office by close relatives and usually by more than one kinsman. Inheriting a political career is not as common as it once was but the dramatic decline in that pattern with respect to the courts is unique to those institutions. The careers of followers and nonfollowers are different. A family political legacy, which includes knowledge, skills, contacts, and a greater sense of political efficacy, confers career advantages which can be observed and measured.     

Discounting and the evaluation of lifesaving programs

The evaluation of lifesaving programs whose benefits extend into the future involves two discounting issues. The intragenerational discounting problem is how to express, in age-j dollars, reductions in an individual's conditional probability of dying at some future age k. Having discounted future lifesaving benefits to the beginning of each individual's life, one is faced with the problem of discounting these benefits to the present—the intergenerational discounting problem. We discuss both problems from the perspectives of cost-benefit and costeffectiveness analyses. These principles are then applied to lifesaving programs that involve a latency period.The authors are, respectively, Associate Professor of Economics, Univesity of Maryland and Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future; and Senior Fellow and Vice President, Resources for the Future. We thank the National Science Foundation for their support under grant DIR-8711083.     

The interplay of friends and parents in adolescents’ daily lives: Towards a dynamic view of social support

This daily diary study investigated the interplay of perceived friend and parent support in adolescents’ everyday lives. Specifically, we tested the interactive effects of friend and parent support on adolescent well‐being at both the intra‐ and inter‐individual level. A diverse sample of 119 adolescents (M_age = 15.36) completed diary reports for 2 weeks. Multivariate multilevel models demonstrated that on days adolescents felt more supported by their friends or parents, they experienced increases in their happiness and social connectedness. Additionally, parent support emerged as a protective factor for youth lacking friend support, although patterns differed at the intra‐ vs. inter‐individual level. The findings underscore the dynamic nature of social support in adolescents’ daily lives and highlight the interactive roles of friends and parents in promoting youth well‐being.     

Networks for Welfare Provision: Getting a Grip on Processes of Social Exclusion by Evaluating Network Effectiveness

It has been repeatedly stated that the topic of network effectiveness has often been neglected. This has led to a situation of ‘network euphoria’ amongst practitioners and policymakers with regard to the creation of networks as a means to (re‐)organize welfare provision. Starting from a case study of networks for welfare provision in two Belgian cities, this article focuses on the effectiveness of service delivering networks at the client level, which is understood as the contribution of the network in improving the conditions of life of those being served or targeted by the network. Therefore, we focused on the collective efforts via these networks (e.g. by creating a night shelter or by conducting case consultations) to look after a population of homeless people who face multiple problems and are not able yet to benefit from welfare provision. Our findings revealed that these networks were able to realize a ‘collaborative advantage’ by filling in service gaps and by overcoming fragmentation of care. Nevertheless, these networks equally maintained criteria that restricted the accessibility or usefulness of welfare services provided to homeless people. In the concluding section, we highlight some of the factors that could help us to explain our findings and highlight the tension between the effectiveness of networks at the client level and the effectiveness at the organizational level.     

The Rights and Responsibilities of Gay and Lesbian Parents: Legal Developments, Psychological Research, and Policy Implications

With the growing number of same-sex unions, the legal system must determine the rights and responsibilities of gay parents who decide to end a relationship. In 2005, the California Supreme Court found that a child's lesbian caregiver was a legal "parent" despite having no biological or adoptive relationship, while the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2004 concluded the opposite. Psychologists can inform this debate by presenting research demonstrating that (a) children benefit from contact with two parents, and (b) children's well-being is unaffected by their parents' sexual orientation. Psychologists can further assist the legal system by conducting future research. In order for psychologists to impact laws and policies, legal actors must utilize this expertise .     

Religious freedom and gender equality in India

After India gained independence in 1947, the country's leaders promised its diverse constituents citizenship rights that extended across religion, gender, and caste. Distinct from its previous British rule, India's constitutional law guarantees citizens the right to religious freedom and associated cultural practices, and prohibits gender and caste‐based discrimination. However, in ensuring freedom of religion, the constitution also effectively affirms gender inequality through patriarchal religious and cultural practices. This article examines how the constitutional rights of religious freedom and gender equality have been negotiated among each other in contemporary Indian society. I draw upon three landmark Indian Supreme Court cases that navigate the terrain of affirming both women's civic rights and religious freedom. Findings suggest that the Supreme Court is working toward a more inclusive definition of citizenship, particularly one which supports women's civic rights within the context of religious personal law.     

Race and Redistricting: What the Print Media Conveys to the Public about the Role of Race

In a series of voting rights cases, the U.S. Supreme Court held that race-based redistricting, particularly the intentional formation of majority–minority districts (districts in which voters of color constitute a majority of eligible voters) may be unconstitutional if race was the predominant factor in the formation of the district. The Court stated that "redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is unexplainable on grounds other than race" may violate the Constitution because of the messages such districts send to the public ( Shaw v. Reno , 1993 ). Yet neither the Court nor social scientists have examined whether the existence of race-conscious majority–minority districts sends messages to voters and what the nature of these messages may be. This research begins to address this scientific issue. In a quantitative content analysis, we examined messages about racial redistricting conveyed to citizens via the print media. Our sample consisted of 355 newspaper articles about redistricting included in the Lexis–Nexis database between 1990 and 2005. We found that newspaper coverage of racial districting contains messages to citizens about the motives involved in redistricting, the individuals and groups who are responsible for it, and its actual and expected effects. This finding is consistent with the Supreme Court's assumption that districts, particularly bizarrely shaped ones, convey distinct messages to voters. The specific messages communicated varied in important ways across the articles. Newspapers in states subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because of their history of discrimination against voters of color covered racial redistricting differently than states not subject to Section 5. We discuss the legal and theoretical implications of these findings for understanding the role of race in legislative redistricting efforts.     

Integrating the Emic (Indigenous) with the Etic (Universal)—A Case of Squaring the Circle or for Adopting a Culture Inclusive Action Theory Perspective

The dualism of emic and etic plays a crucial role in the emergence of three culturally informed approaches of psychology: cross‐cultural psychology (CCP), cultural psychology (CP) and indigenous psychologies (IPs), a distinction largely accepted nowadays. Similarities and/or differences between these positions are usually discussed either on the level of phenomena (data) or theory. In this paper, however, the discussion takes place on a meta‐theoretical or epistemological level, which is also emerging elsewhere. In following several earlier papers of the author, first, four perspectives are distinguished that underlie present day psychology. Second, these are used as a framework for linking them to the three “camps”. This analysis will show that these perspectives are characterized by different underlying worldviews, interests as well as methodical preferences. Third, it is claimed that this level of discussion is quite fruitful for the ongoing discourse on the three camps, but also helps one to understand, why the duality between emic and etic approaches is—implicitly or explicitly—at the core of these discussions, because their relevance turns out to differ in the three camps. In that sense, the emic/etic duality is used here as a “litmus test” to exemplify these deeper differences between the camps, thereby highlighting them. Fourth, in order to overcome not only the dilemma between the unique and general in psychology, but also to clarify the relation between the individual and culture it is proposed that psychology should take human action as its unit of analysis, thereby connecting historically to the early beginnings of psychology at the end of the 19^th century. It will be argued that a culture inclusive action theory may overcome this tension and may help to integrate western and other indigenous psychologies, and hence it could be advantageous to integrate CP and IPs as well. This is possible because the proposed theory hopefully provides a universal framework for psychological concepts, yet allows for their culture specific expression.     

Human Motivation in Question: Discussing Emotions,Motives, and Subjectivity from a Cultural‐Historical Standpoint

Vygotsky, at the end of his life, advanced a new representation of a psychological system that was ruled by a cognitive‐emotional unity, a theorization that remains inconclusive due to Vygotsky's early death. This article discusses the advances made by Vygotsky in the comprehension of human motivation through his concepts of sense and perezhivanie at the end of his work. Through these concepts, he further advanced the discussion of motivation, despite the fact that these concepts have only very recently been considered a relevant part of his legacy in both Russian and Western psychology. This paper discusses the departure from and the historical presentations of the concept of motive in the following two main approaches of Soviet psychology that were mistakenly equated in Western interpretations: Vygotsky's approach, mainly at the first as last moment of his work, and Leontiev's Activity Theory. Based on the final theoretical positions of Vygotsky and of other Soviet authors, and further developing this legacy, this article proposes a new definition of motivation as a specific quality of subjectively configured systems and defines motive as intrinsic to the functioning of all psychological function defines subjective functions as subjectively configured processes. This new proposal of human motivation within a new way of defining subjectivity defines new categories as subjective senses and subjective configurations on which the author bases a specific approach for advancing the topic of subjectivity and motivation within a cultural‐historical framework.