What's the Problem? A Commentary on “Rationality for Economists?”

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty -     

Querying meanings of adolescent peer resistance: a school choice decision revisited

For more than three decades, adolescent research within psychology has addressed developmental questions regarding resistance to peer influences from a psychosocial perspective, emphasizing autonomy development. Inferences about development have been drawn from age-related differences on peer resistance/conformity questionnaires. In this paper, we illustrate an alternative sociocultural/dialogical person-in-context approach to the study of peer resistances and development. This approach directs attention to the meanings of resistant acts as arising from adolescents' transactions with immediate and larger sociocultural contexts, and to the evaluation of development as qualitative system transformation. Our study concerns voiced resistance by eighth-grade girls to peer labeling of their sexual orientation because of the girls' choice (3 years earlier) to attend an all-girl college-preparatory middle school. Resistances expressed in interviews are evaluated within the context of current and prior I-other positionings surrounding the school choice, and we highlight the importance of considering (1) multiple rather than singular peer relations in adolescents' lives associated with connecting as well as resisting positionings; (2) meanings of ‘what’ is being resisted; (3) distinctions in how resistances are expressed; (4) emergent abstractions supporting the resistances; and (5) developmental change as a systems phenomenon.     

Can We Use Human Judgments to Determine the Discount Rate?

It has been suggested that the long-term discount rate for environmental goods should decrease at longer delays. One justification for this suggestion is that human judgments support it. This article presents an experiment showing that judgments concerning discount rates are internally inconsistent. These results point to potential problems with the use of judgments referenda for determining discount rates in cost-benefit analyses.     

Quantized displays of human movement: A methodological alternative to the point-light display

In this paper, we describe a methodological alternative to the point-light display for the study of the impact of human movement on social perception. This quantization technique involves degrading standard videotapes via a special effects generator at the time of editing. As is the case with a point-light display, quantization disguises structural characteristics of videotaped stimulus persons, and highlights their patterns of movement. Because quantization requires no special procedures during videotaping, it is unobtrusive, and helps maintain the ecological validity of the original stimulus. We offer empirical support from two studies for our proposal that dynamic quantization is a valuable methodological approach to the study of nonverbal behavior.     

SATISFACTION?

This study analyzes 1973 Quality of Employment Survey data to examine how work-place gender composition affects women's work-related psychological well-being. With individual, job, and organizational characteristics controlled, women in predominantly-male work settings are the most satisfied with their jobs. This supports theories that women's intergroup relations improve as their relative numbers decline and previous accounts of women's social comparison processes. The least satisfied women are in "female-tilted" settings (15–30% male), apparently reflecting favored treatment of the male minority, to their female co-workers' frustration. Neither job-related depression nor job-related self-esteem relates to workplace gender composition. These results for women are compared to a recent study of men (Wharton and Baron 1987) that reports more substantial links between gender composition and psychological well-being.     

The reproduction of culture and personality: Critique of Christopher Lasch

Following in the theoretical tradition of the Frankfurt School, Christopher Lasch contends that the narcissistic personality has become the modal personality type in the United States. According to Lasch, the narcissistic personality is nurtured in the contemporary nuclear family and sustained by a culture that promotes immediate gratification and a preoccupation with the self.

The central aim of this paper is to critically analyze Lasch's argument. The paper will show that Lasch's perspective rests on the unfounded psychoanalytic assumption that the adult personality is crystallized during childhood socialization and remains largely resistant to change. It will further be shown that Lasch's Freudianism is at odds with his Marxist politics, and that his conceptualization of culture and personality rests upon a functionalist bias in his theoretical perspective. The conclusion of this paper is that Lasch does not provide any reliable evidence for the existence of a narcissistic personality type in contemporary America.