Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing

A fundamental principle of psychophysics is that people's ability to discriminate change in a physical stimulus diminishes as the magnitude of the stimulus increases. We find that people also exhibit diminished sensitivity in valuing lifesaving interventions against a background of increasing numbers of lives at risk. We call this psychophysical numbing. Studies 1 and 2 found that an intervention saving a fixed number of lives was judged significantly more beneficial when fewer lives were at risk overall. Study 3 found that respondents wanted the minimum number of lives a medical treatment would have to save to merit a fixed amount of funding to be much greater for a disease with a larger number of potential victims than for a disease with a smaller number. The need to better understand the dynamics of psychophysical numbing and to determine its effects on decision making is discussed.     

Saving Lives in the Present Versus Saving Lives in the Future—Is There a Framing Effect?

This study considers how to compare programs which are designed to save lives. "To estimate the discount rate for lives saved in the future a number of studies have been carried out on the trade-off between saving lives now and in the future. A telephone survey is administered to about 1,700 individuals [in Sweden] to test if the framing of the question affects the estimated trade-off. In one sample the question is framed as saving 100 lives today versus saving x future lives and in one sample the question is framed as saving 100 future lives versus saving y lives today. The result shows that the framing has a major impact on the trade-off."     

Unemployment and the Downward Trail

This study reviews the evidence that unemployment sets its victims on a downward trail, or cycle, that will permanently blight their lives. The evidence suggests that such a downard trail may occur, but it is by no means inevitable. The variations in national and historical experience suggest that the crucial factor lies in the kinds of opportunity offered the former unemployed in their later lives.     

Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability

Although it has been claimed that people care more about identifiable than statistical victims, demonstrating this identifiable victim effect has proven difficult because identification usually provides information about a victim, and people may respond to the information rather than to identification per se. We show that a very weak form of identifiability—determining the victim without providing any personalizing information—increases caring. In the first, laboratory study, subjects were more willing to compensate others who lost money when the losers had already been determined than when they were about to be. In the second, field study, people contributed more to a charity when their contributions would benefit a family that had already been selected from a list than when told that the family would be selected from the same list.     

Saving Lives: A Review of the Record

I present evidence on the cost-effectiveness of 76 regulatory actions promulgated by the Federal government from 1967 to 2001 by updating similar work published by the author in 1986. The paper first responds to several critiques of the original article recently published in prominent law journals by showing that most of the specific criticism is based on misrepresentations and mistakes. Wide differences in cost-effectiveness indicate we could save lives more effectively. Regulations aimed at reducing safety and cardiovascular risks have been more cost-effective than regulations aimed at reducing cancer risks. I suggest several potential regulations that could save lives more cost-effectively than the vast majority of regulations issued to date.     

Personalization: From Story‐line to Practice

Personalization has become a unifying theme and a dominant narrative across public services in England. Key to understanding the dominance of personalization is the recognition that it is a story that is told about public services, their history and the roles and experiences of the people who use them and work in them. Like other stories it is compelling, emotionally resonant, but also multi‐interpretable. This article identifies five key themes which are central to the personalization story‐line, noting their reliance on a combination of formal evidence, personal narratives and common sense. These are: (1) personalization works, transforming people's lives for the better; (2) person‐centred approaches reflect the way people live their lives, rather than artificial departmental boundaries; (3) personalization is applicable to everyone, not just to people with social care needs; (4) people are experts on their own lives; (5) personalization will save money. The article goes on to examine some of the complexities that audiences face in translating a story‐line into policy programmes and frontline practice. Three aspects in particular are considered: the ambiguity of personalization as a guide to action; the tensions between user empowerment and user responsibility; and the extent to which personalization is used to legitimize other reforms, in particular budget cuts.     

Environmental issues affecting elder abuse victims in their reception of community based services

This study examined the dominant factors that predict the utilization of services by 129 identified elder abuse victims who reside in the community. Utilizing the Andersen Model, services accepted or rejected were analyzed from individual, family and environmental perspectives. Results indicated that service utilization is related to three "need" factors: (1) Victim has cognitive and ADL impairments, (2) Victim has poor health status (self rated), and (3) The abuser is financially dependent on the victim and is also the primary caregiver of the victim. "Enabling" factor (1) Victim lives alone. "Predisposing" factors (1) Abuser is substance abuser and (2) Abuser is female. A great proportion of the elder abuse victims in this study accepted services from an agency that provided a single entry point into the service system and had highly trained personnel utilizing a case management approach.     

Professionals' attitudes about victims of child sexual abuse: implications for collaborative child protection teams

In responding to victims of child sexual abuse, considerable attention has been given to multidisciplinary collaborative response teams. Recent evidence, however, suggests that team members may be divided by differences in attitudes towards victims and offenders and about the causes and consequences of abuse. This paper draws on a larger study of the various professionals who make up one child abuse response system in Newfoundland, Canada. In particular, the paper focuses on social workers, teachers and the police, and their views about the characteristics and credibility of sexual abuse victims, and the extent to which they attribute to the victim some responsibility for the abuse. Data for the study were collected in two stages: key informant interviews; and a survey of social workers, teachers and police. The analysis includes an interpretation of the role of gender, professional group membership and experience with cases. The most striking finding is the extent to which the child's age and behaviour appears to influence differentially attitudes about the victims' credibility. These differences complicate multidisciplinary collaborative initiatives since it would appear that those with the least real case experience, and the least knowledge about the relationship between abuse and behaviour, are the ones most likely to be the first point of contact for reports or disclosures.     

Moral judgments,gender, and antisocial preferences: an experimental study

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness.     

Consequences of Domestic Violence against Women: Some Reflections from Rural Bangladesh

The aim of this study was to explore the consequences of domestic violence against rural Bangladeshi women. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative phenomenological interviews with 39 female victims of domestic violence from 8 rural settings of the Netrokona and Mymensingh districts, it was found that domestic violence not only causes serious consequences to the overall health and wellbeing of victims, it also causes negative impacts to their children and family members. For victims, consequences were physical, sexual, reproductive, psychological, and economic. For the children of the victims, consequences were mostly behavioral and psychological, while for family members of the victims, consequences were mainly economic and psychological. This study has significant academic implications because it could trace the consequences of domestic violence in a three dimensional manner. Based on empirical findings, this study proposes policy recommendations, such as campaigning against domestic violence and the proper implementation of laws related to domestic violence.     

Study of the Criminal Personality from the Materials of Criminological Research

We are all aware of the vast practical and scientific significance of the problem of studying and preventing crime and of researching its causes and the conditions giving rising to it. That is why one of the principal provisions of Soviet criminal procedure is the demand that the reasons and conditions making possible the commission of the crime be determined in each criminal case, and that measures be taken to eliminate them. But if the most characteristic, the most typical features in the development of criminality are to be discovered, and if its essential causes and conditions are to be determined (and this is a most important task of criminology), we cannot rely upon the study of individual cases and persons. Because these typical, essential characteristics in the realm of criminality manifest themselves in the form of statistical regularities, criminology must therefore make use of the statistical method on the very largest scale, i.e., it must base its conclusions upon mass-scale observations.     

On Being Unemployed and Being a Victim of Crime

The results of the first Australian National Crime Victims Survey concerning the socio-economic status of victims of crime in Australia are discussed. While the findings on occupational status and household income are somewhat equivocal, the data show a strikingly higher rate of criminal victimization among the unemployed for a number of types of crime. The unemployed, spending a large proportion of their lives in public rather than private space, may paradoxically be more likely to be both victimized by criminals and victimized by the police.     

The unheard and forgotten warriors of pandemic in India

ABSTRACT

This narrative tells the story of two groups: Aanganwadi Group and the Nigrani Group. The former consists of women working under the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme), a flagship program of the Government of India. The latter consists of local youth. The groups’ efforts, during the COVID-19 pandemic, are to ensure food security to migrants and other marginalized people. Despite the high risk of them becoming infected with the coronavirus, the Aanganwadi Group and Nigrani Group are working against all the odds. They are risking their lives to save lives, during the total lockdown in India. My story highlights the value of coordinated efforts between groups to optimize relief efforts for migrant workers during this unprecedented time of forced, sudden lockdown.     

Unexpected Pathways Through Education: Why Do Some Students Not Succeed in School and What Helps Others Beat the Odds?

In this overview of Volume 64, Issue 1, of the Journal of Social Issues , we describe why it is important to consider the diversity of student pathways through time and in context and why it is important to focus particularly on youth who defy predictions. We describe the ways in which expectations are formed in statistical analysis and also in real-world education systems and how the structural rigidity inherent in such systems can lead to poor person–environment fit for young people in education or training and to misleading statistical analysis. Our intention is to move beyond analytic approaches that assume "one size fits all" while recognizing both that policy cannot provide fully individualized environments for everyone and that research cannot focus only on the unique characteristics of each individual. By focusing on individuals for whom our models typically do not apply, we highlight the value of research on complex but meaningful patterns of commonality among people, not in terms of the average person or effects, but in terms of coherent, distinct, and relatively homogenous subgroups of people experiencing systematic and consequential differences in their lives and lifepaths .     

Student,classroom, and teacher factors associated with teachers’ attunement to bullies and victims

Teachers are instrumental in antibullying efforts given their position of authority in the classroom context, yet teachers can only be effective at reducing victimization and bullying in their classrooms if they are aware of who is involved. Consequently, teachers’ attunement to bullies and victims is a critical component of social dynamics management and antibullying practices. Given the importance of teacher attunement, there is a pressing need to identify relevant factors related to the degree to which teachers are attuned to bullies and victims. The major objective of the current investigation was to examine student- (gender, popularity status), classroom- (average bullying, norm salience of bullying, popularity hierarchy, class size), and teacher-level (gender, teaching experience) factors associated with teachers’ attunement to bullies and victims. Using a sample of students in 5th-grade classrooms, we analyzed the likelihood of teachers being attuned to 267 bullies (76.8% boys) nested in 112 classrooms and 343 victims (55.1% boys) nested in 120 classrooms using multilevel mixed-effects generalized linear models. Results indicated that teachers were more likely to be attuned to boy bullies and victims but less likely to be attuned to bullies and victims with higher popularity status. No classroom or teacher level factors related significantly to the likelihood of teachers’ attunement. Implications for social dynamics management and bullying intervention efforts are discussed.     

Planning for natural disasters in a stochastic world

We examine the risks and management of natural disasters. A benefit-cost framework focuses attention on (1) designing control structures, such as dams and levees, and mitigation policies, such as construction standards, to protect lives and property against small and medium, rather than large sized natural disasters; and (2) warning and evacuation to save lives for large natural disasters. Providing information rather than command solutions generally enhances social benefits, if people understand the risks and bear the expected costs. Requiring actuarially fair insurance simultaneously provides information and has individuals bear the expected costs.     

The proximity filter: the effect of distance on media coverage of the Christchurch mosque attacks

ABSTRACT

The intense media coverage in New Zealand and Australia of the Christchurch mosque attacks exhibited significant disparity in editorial decision-making between the two countries. This research interrogates the different approaches taken in newsrooms and how these differences were manifested in broadcasts and publications. New Zealand media were focused largely on empathetic coverage of victims and resisted the alleged gunman's attempts to publicise his cause while their Australian counterparts showed no such reluctance and ran extended coverage of the alleged perpetrator, along with material ruled objectionable in New Zealand. It finds the editorial focus in each case exhibits the effect of proximity, identified in literature on empirical ethical decision-making as a factor in applied ethicality. The authors conclude that a proximity filter was used by New Zealand media who identified the victims as part of their own community, but the events of 15 March 2019 were seen as ‘foreign’ by Australian journalists who used perceived distance as justification for extremely graphic content.     

Mutual benefit societies in Indonesia

We do not know when or how mutual benefit societies first appeared in colonial Indonesia, but there is evidence that they were part of the lives of at least some of the ordinary people in the towns and cities by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By the 1910s they were common in workplaces and kampung, the often less than salubrious parts of the towns and cities where wage labourers and their families lived. Large numbers of people joined and some of them handled significant sums of money. For many people, they were an essential help in coping with daily life on small incomes with no capacity to save and with the ever-present threat of loss of work, sickness or death. The relationships between mutual benefit societies, labour unions political parties and other voluntary organizations which would contribute to Indonesian nationalism is of particular interest. Clearly, to be involved in, and to be seen to be involved in, mutual aid was important for all these urban organizations.¹     

Causes and Contexts of Domestic Violence: Tales of Help‐Seeking Married Women in Sylhet,Bangladesh

Domestic violence (DV) against married women is widely prevalent across Bangladesh and this merits nuanced attention. Multifarious factors are believed to perpetuate DV in different socioeconomic contexts within the country. This study aimed to understand the causes and contexts of DV in the Sylhet region (a distinct sub‐culture that carries Sylheti identity). This was a qualitative study based on the experiences of 42 victims of DV who sought help from two social welfare organizations, namely ‘Women Support Program (WSP)’ and ‘Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST)’, both located in Sylhet. Using in‐depth interviews, we tried to interact with the victims to retrieve the causes and contexts of DV in Sylhet. Findings revealed that a number of factors led to DV. These causal and contextual factors for DV were dowry practice, illiteracy, cultural approval of wife beating, women's silence, polygyny, socioeconomic dependency of the wife, conflicts related to extra‐ and premarital affairs, poverty, stigmatization, and drug addiction of the husband. The study concluded that all these factors could be brought under the umbrella of age‐old patriarchal cultural values that continue to create the contexts where DV takes place unabated.     

Statistical vs. identified lives in benefit-cost analysis

Evaluation of projects that affect mortality risk usually assumes that risk changes are small and similar across individuals. In reality, risks differ among individuals and information about risk heterogeneity determines the extent to which affected lives are “statistical” or “identified” and influences the outcome of benefit-cost analysis (BCA). The effects of information about risk heterogeneity on BCA depend on, inter alia, whether information concerns heterogeneity of baseline or change in risk and whether valuation uses compensating or equivalent variation. BCA does not systematically favor identified over statistical lives. We suggest some political factors that may explain the apparent public bias.