Too Good to be False: An Essay in the Folklore of Social Science

In 1939, Carl Hovland and Robert R. Sears presented data that they believed linked fluctuations in the price of cotton to lynchings in the South, a linkage first suggested six years earlier by Arthur Raper. This correlation quickly became a popular illustration of frustration-aggression theory. A few years later, a statistical critique by Alexander Mintz cast the reality of the association into doubt, but a sample survey of members of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues reveals that Howland and Sears's "finding" is still widely, if imprecisely, known and accepted. Their article continues to be cited in the social-psychological literature and in many introductory textbooks. The failure of Mintz's critique to catch up with the striking but flawed, original report illustrates a structured impediment to reliable knowledge in the social sciences.     

Poetic Labors and Challenging Political Science: An Epistolary Poem

ABSTRACT

The author, a political theorist, uses poetry to reflect on and spur structural change in admissions committees, hiring committees, funding decisions, curriculum development, and the institutionalized awards-making structure regarding African Politics in the American Political Science Association. This poem, delivered and performed at the American Political Science Association 2018 meeting in Boston, provides empirical and verifiable data about how scholarly awards are distributed in the discipline. The analysis of this process reflects on a long history of erasing, minimizing, and tokenizing the scholarship of African political scientists in the discipline of political science. Written as an epistolary poem, the author explains how #MeToo accounts for complex and interrelated forms of exclusion from the production of knowledge and uses the history of Black women in politics associations, writings by Patricia J. Williams, Pearl T. Robinson, Darlene Miller, and poetry by June Jordan (1936–2002) and Sweet Honey in the Rock (f. 1973).     

Trust Me,Trust Me Not: An Experimental Analysis of the Effect of Transparency on Organizations

Seen as a solution to lapses of organizational ethics and misdeeds, transparency helps to restore trust and diminish reputational risk or damage. Research has identified 2 types of transparency: (a) an organization's reputation for transparency and (b) its efforts to communicate transparently. Using experimental design, this study examined the relationship between the 2 types of transparency on trust and behavioral intentions of stakeholders in a crisis situation. Results determined that organizations demonstrating both types of transparency achieved more than twice the levels of trust and positive behavioral intentions than organizations that demonstrated neither type of transparency.     

Political Science Perspectives on Poverty

ABSTRACT

The social science discipline of political science focuses on the study of political systems and political behavior. While political science has not developed a comprehensive theory of poverty, this article reviews political science perspectives related to the causes of poverty (culture of poverty and neo-Marxist theories of class), the role of government in addressing poverty (theories of distributive justice and public support for antipoverty policies), and political participation. The article concludes with recommendations for future research and implications for Human Behavior and the Social Environment curriculum.