“Phil's Calling Grandma… ”: The Role of External Support in Human–Companion Animal Identity Pairings

This exploratory paper deals with human–animal role identity pairings such as parent–child or sibling–sibling and the necessity of support from other actors both for the formation of these idiosyncratic identities, as well as for their situational placement in social environments not limited to the nonhuman animal. Taken from a qualitative study examining identity formation counter to the nonhuman animal, I use in‐depth interviews of both people with and without human children to demonstrate how human‐to‐human relationships are formed by categorizing the companion animal as a “child” of sorts within the family structure. These relationships prove integral to the continued development and enactment of identities such as the animal “parent” or the animal “sibling” via three different groups: their own parents, partners, and, in one case, adult siblings. This creates positive affect and commitment to the identity across other social situations. Implications of these findings for identity theory and family research are discussed.     

Stock investors’ preference for short-term vs. long-term bonuses

Bonuses in the finance sector may be based on too short time intervals for environmental and social factors to be taken into account in investment decisions. We report two experiments to investigate whether investors prefer short-term to long-term bonuses. In Experiment 1 employing 27 undergraduates, preferences were measured for four short-term certain bonuses, evenly distributed across a time interval, and one certain long-term bonus at the end of the time interval. A majority chose the short-term bonuses, and in order for the long-term bonus to be equally preferred it had to be about 40% higher than the four added short-term bonuses. Experiment 2 employing another 36 undergraduates introduced outcome uncertainty that more accurately reflects the choices stock investors face. The participants again choose between a long-term bonus and four distributed short-term bonuses. It was shown that uncertainty made more participants prefer the long-term bonus to the added short-term bonuses than when the outcome was certain. A smaller increase of the long-term bonus of about 20% was now required to make it equally attractive as the four added short-term bonuses.     

Can Psychosocial Intervention Improve Peer and Sibling Relations Among War‐affected Children? Impact and Mediating Analyses in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Social resources are considered important protectors in traumatic conditions, but few studies have analyzed their role in psychosocial interventions among war‐affected children. We examined (1) whether a psychosocial intervention (teaching recovery techniques, TRT) is effective in improving peer and sibling relations, and (2) whether these potentially improved relations mediate the intervention's impacts on children's mental health. Participants were 428 Palestinian children [10–13 (mean = 11.29, standard deviation SD = .68)‐year‐old girls (49.4 percent) and boys (50.6 percent)], who were cluster‐randomized into the TRT and wait‐list control groups. They reported the quality of peer (friendship and loneliness) and sibling (intimacy, warmth, conflict, and rivalry) relations, and posttraumatic stress, depressive and psychological distress symptoms, as well as psychosocial well‐being at baseline (T1), postintervention (T2), and six month follow‐up (T3). Results showed gender‐specific TRT intervention effects: Loneliness in peer relations reduced among boys and sibling rivalry reduced among girls. The TRT prevented the increase in sibling conflict that happened in the control group. The mediating hypothesis was partially substantiated for improved peer relations, and beneficial changes in sibling relations were generally associated with improved mental health.     

The Determinants of Human Trafficking: A US Case Study

Human trafficking is a global problem. In this paper, I seek to find the determinants of international human trafficking by using the US as a case study. Previous studies have drawn primarily from the migration literature, proposing hypotheses that focus on economic factors, the level of democracy and other “push” factors in the countries of origin that create incentives for individuals to migrate. However, we know that international human trafficking is an involuntary form of migration and may be influenced by additional factors. I hypothesize that factors that influence the cost–benefit calculation of the trafficker determine the volume of human trafficking, in addition to the factors that affect the size of the pool of trafficking victims. I test my theory using the negative binomial regression model. My results indicate that while income inequality within a country and poor protection of women's rights are likely to produce a specific pool of victims, it is the reduction of operational costs for the trafficker that increases the number of individuals who are trafficked.     

Taken in by the numbers game: the globalization of a religious ‘illusio’ and ‘doxa’ in nineteenth-century evangelical missions to India

While the Bourdieusian concepts of capital and relational configurations of positions and position-takings have recently been fruitfully employed to theorize global fields, this paper argues that the concepts of illusio and doxa are especially conducive to analyzing the globalization of a field as an expansion into and transformation of formerly independent national arenas. In deploying the concept of illusio as a (quasi-libidinous) investment in the game, globalization is here first and foremost framed as a process in which more and more actors in various contexts ‘succumb’ to specific field logics that orient them to transnational structures. By emphasizing the concept of doxa as the taken-for-granted fundamentals of a field, the paper furthermore calls attention to the mechanisms that help forge and globalize the tacit presuppositions and shared ontologies on which such logics build. Focusing on a field of global Christian missions that emerged during the nineteenth century, the paper illustrates how its competitive logic of proselytization was introduced into the religious arena of India. It highlights how Western notions of religion gained ground among local traditions and pulled them into a game in which numerical relations of adherents mattered.