The Joint Effects of Offender Race/Ethnicity and Sex on Sentence Length Decisions in Federal Courts

The current study examined the main and interactive effects of offender race/ethnicity and sex on sentence length decisions for drug offenders convicted in three federal courts located in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska. The additive model showed that females received shorter prison sentences than similarly situated male offenders, but there were no differences between white offenders and minority offenders. However, when the data were partitioned by sex, black males were found to receive lengthier prison terms than white males. There were no differences between white males and Hispanic males, and white females were treated no differently than either black or Hispanic females. Moreover, when the data were partitioned by race/ethnicity, white females were treated no differently than white males. However, black females received shorter sentences than black males and Hispanic females received shorter sentences than Hispanic males. Further analyses showed that black and Hispanic males also received longer sentences than white females and that black males received longer sentences than all other offenders (with the exception of Hispanic male offenders). These findings mesh with those gleaned from other sentencing studies, although they are at odds with theoretical notions that leniency at the sentencing stage is reserved only for white women.     

Faktoren der Veränderung des Selbst bei computervermittelter Kommunikation

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) influences the users’ self. Different expectations are currently made towards how the self may arise in an ‘a-social’ setting during the use of modern “Information” and communication technologies. Some of these discourses even observe a new potential for self-constructions. The conceptual frame of the paper is delivered by the combination of different social scientific approaches coming from Social Psychology, Sociology and Communications Studies. Based upon a series of experiments the paper investigates how the social self develops in CMC. Overall the self is moderated by the characteristics of the channel, by psycho-social and finally by socialisation variables. The influence of the channel is marked by immediate effects of certain cues. The psycho-social variable is the individual versus joint usage of CMC. The sociological dimension is the familiarity with CMC. Finally a model is discussed that introduces the prototypical character of CMC for the development of the self in further forms of mediated interpersonal communication.     

Evaluating the Simplified Conjoint Expected Risk Model: Comparing the Use of Objective and Subjective Information

The simplified Conjoint Expected Risk (CER) model by Holtgrave and Weber posits that perceived risk is a linear combination of the subjective judgments of the probabilities of harm, benefit, and status quo, and the expected harm and benefit of an activity. It modifies Luce and Weber's original CER model—that uses objective information to evaluate financial gambles—to accommodate activities such as health/technology activities where values of the model variables are subjective. If the simplified model is a valid modification of the original model, its performance should not be sensitive to the use of subjective information. However, because people may evaluate information differently when objective information is provided to them than when they generate information on their own, the performance of the simplified CER model may not be robust to the source of model-variable information. We compared the use of objective and subjective information, and results indicate that the estimates of the simplified CER model parameters and the proportion of variance in risk judgments accounted for by the model are similar under these two conditions. Thus, the simplified CER model is viable with activities for which harm and benefit information is subjective.     

The relationship between employer‐provided training and the retention of older workers: Evidence from Germany

A substantial portion of Germany's workforce will soon retire, making it difficult for businesses to meet their human capital needs; training older workers may help to manage this demographic transition. The authors therefore examine the relationships between employer‐provided training programmes, wages and retirement among older workers. They find that when establishments offer special training programmes targeted at these workers, women – especially low‐paid women – are less likely to retire, possibly because of consequent wage growth. Their results suggest that such targeted training can indeed play an important role in retaining low‐wage older women and advancing their careers.     

Prosoziales Arbeitsverhalten: Entwicklung und Überprüfung eines Messinstruments zur Erfassung des freiwilligen Arbeitsengagements

A German version of the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire (GOCBQ) is developed and tested. Study 1 was conducted with 150 students working together in 39 project groups. The results show that the internal consistency and test-retest-reliability of the GOCBQ are good. Moreover, the GOCBQ measures a general altruism orientation which can be interpreted as a stable trait. The GOCBQ does neither correlate substantially with demographical variables nor with extroversion or neuroticism. Instead, substantial correlations are registered with mood and group atmosphere. In study 2 results from study 1 were cross-validated with data from 128 voluntary and professional helpers, in study 3 with data from 43 professionals. Implications for future research and applications in working life are discussed.     

Exact moments of the symmetric cubic assignment statistic

Hubert (1987Assignment Methods in Combinatorial Data Analysis) presented a class of permutation, or random assignment, techniques for assessing correspondence between general k-dimensional proximity measures on a set of “objects.” A major problem in higher-order assignment models is the prohibitive level of computation that is required. We present the first three exact moments of a test statistic for the symmetric cubic assignment model. Efficient computational formulas for the first three moments have been derived, thereby permitting approximation of the permutation distribution using well-known methods.     

Anreizsysteme und Unternehmensethik

The article analyses the structuring of incentive systems from a business ethics point of view. The focus is on examining the impact of different types of social preferences on wage compensation. Besides the structuring of incentive systems, especially the effects of different types of social preferences on firm profits are analyzed. The paper systematizes important determinants for the impact of social preferences on the structure of the incentive system as well as firm profitability and provides an overview over the literature employing formal models based on a possibly general modeling approach.     

明末清初松江府及其周边地区人口损失与历史人口估算

如果以松江府及其周边五州县的明初历史人口数据为计算原点,再以人口增长率3.4‰为基础,便有可能算出明清各时代自然增长下的人口数字。可是如此推算18世纪末的人口,较诸同时期准确的统计人口,竟高出达200多万之谱。要处理这庞大的人口差异,其实就是要说明这数以百万计的人口是如何消失的。我们采取的方法是针对1641年至1680年间四个天灾人祸设定级别而作出微调,从而估算明末该地区的人口损失及人口发展状况。若将有关估算结果继续上推至18世纪末,也与乾嘉时代的统计人口相当吻合。这种方法一如其他估算之道,虽非定论,但可为史无明文但处于非常重要时空的中国历史人口,提供一个新的推算方法。此外,以我们的方法计算,1640年左右松江府及周边州县的人口已达500万之谱,这与乾嘉盛世同地区的人口相比,可谓毫不逊色。     

Examining the Relationship between Domestic Violence and Depression among Koreans: The Role of Self‐esteem and Social Support as Mediators

Domestic violence is a prevalent social issue in Korea affecting a significant number of people every day. It is thus important to examine how the experience of domestic violence affects their mental health to better address their needs. Using stress‐coping theory as a theoretical framework, this study examines the domestic violence and depression relationship among Korean men and women. Two aspects of self‐esteem and informal and formal social support are examined as potential mediators of this relationship. The data was the first wave of Korean Welfare Panel Study data including 2477 individuals with experiences of abuse. Structural equation modeling procedures were used for analyses. Domestic violence was significantly associated with self‐worth, self‐deprecation, and depression. The experiences of violence eroded self‐worth while reinforcing self‐deprecation and those with more exposure to violence showed a higher level of depression. Self‐deprecation played a significant role in mediating the effect of domestic violence on depression. However, different findings were yielded for social support. While informal social support was significantly associated with domestic violence, formal social support was not associated with domestic violence. Findings suggest for mental health interventions targeting self‐esteem, particularly the diminution of self‐deprecation in working with the victims. Suggestions for future research and implications for social work are also discussed.