Reinstituting the Economic Process: (Re)embedding the Economy in Society and Nature

Polanyi argued that the project of creating a fully self-regulating market was utopian, in the sense of impossible. However, movement towards this utopia, the ever greater but never completed process of disembedding the economy from both society and nature, creates growing dislocations and tensions which call forth a counter movement. This double movement may be thought of as successive changes in the way in which the economic process is instituted. The focus of the paper is on the meaning of embeddedness, the ways in which the economy was reinstituted during the Great Transformation and the subsequent counter movements, and alternative approaches to further reinstituting the economy in ways that disembed it further or (re)embed it more firmly in society and nature. It is argued that prior to the creation of the capitalist market the economy was organically embedded in society and nature. However, the creation of separate economic institutions, the institution of the economic process as a distinct system with its own laws of motion, severed these organic links and the economy came to dominate both society and nature. Here, however, the symmetry between society and nature ends. Society has the capacity for conscious, purposeful action; nature does not. For the economy to be reinstituted in ways that create a sustainable organic relationship with nature, it must first be reinstituted in ways that bring it under social control.     

Prejudice,internalization, and the accessibility of personal standards for responding to gay men

Heterosexual participants who were very low, moderately low, moderately high and very high in prejudice toward gay men reported their personal standards for responding to gay men (i.e., how they believed they should feel or think in an imagined scenario involving a gay man) via computer. As expected, the standards of very low-prejudice individuals were the least prejudiced, the most internalized (i.e., most important and central to the self), and the most accessible (i.e., reported most quickly). Regression analyses revealed the predicted relation between accessibility and internalization, such that the more internalized the standard the greater its accessibility. A significant quadratic trend for prejudice revealed that accessibility decreases with increasing prejudice, except that at very high levels of prejudice accessibility begins to increase. Implications for prejudice reduction for both low- and high-prejudice individuals are discussed.     

Recreational planning: an important component of career counseling for people with disabilities

Participation in recreational activities is a critical component of the career development process, providing opportunities for individuals to explore their interests and to develop work-related skills. Recreational participation also offers a healthy outlet for dealing with job-related and other life stressors. People with disabilities are often excluded from participation in recreational activities because of a multitude of barriers. This exclusion can seriously impede the career development of these individuals. This article explores the importance of recreational planning as part of the vocational rehabilitation process. The authors define inclusive recreation and discuss the implications of recreational planning in the various phases of rehabilitation.     

Timing Matters: Test Preparation,Race, and Grade Level1

This article explores which students engage in formal preparation for college entrance exams (e.g., SAT tutoring). Despite significant national attention to test prep, we know little about who participates—apart from emerging research supporting popular opinion about income inequalities in access to prep classes and tutors. Using data from the National Household Education Survey (2007), I evaluate the impact of general demographic, student‐level, and school variables on the likelihood of prep. A key finding of these analyses is that pooling high school students can obscure differences in participation in test prep by grade. The likelihood of prepping increases for each grade, with 42% of 12th graders but only 8% of 9th graders participating. Black non‐Hispanic students are more likely to participate in test prep, and there are also significant interaction effects of race and grade level on prep, with black 11th graders having the highest predicted probability of prep. Student and parent involvement are statistically significant across most models, but with relatively small substantive association. I argue that test prep is a time‐sensitive variable, and raise theoretical questions about similar variables in cross‐sectional data that represent time‐sensitive events or processes.     

Imagining their Future Selves: Children's Attitudes to Older People and their Expectations of Life at Age 70

Studies eliciting the views of children on ageing are rare, particularly those that focus on imagining a future self as an ‘old’ person and how this might be linked to current attitudes to older people. To address this gap, 2,365 children participated in an online survey which included questions on ageing. Findings suggest that children who hold negative views about old people visualise poorer outcomes for themselves at age 70. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of an ageing population and the need to develop strategies to prevent the formation of prejudices against older people from an early age.     

Mistakes that heterosexual people make when trying to appear non-prejudiced: the view from LGB people

In two studies, lesbians, gay men and bisexuals were queried concerning mistakes that well-meaning heterosexual people have made when interacting with them. In qualitative, open-ended research, we determined that the most common mistakes concerned heterosexuals' pointing out that they know someone who is gay, emphasizing their lack of prejudice, and relying on stereotypes about gays. Following up with a quantitative, close-ended questionnaire, we determined that the mistakes respondents experienced most often involved heterosexuals (a) relying on stereotypes and (b) ignoring gay issues; the most annoying mistakes were heterosexuals (a) using subtle prejudicial language and (b) not owning up to their discomfort with gay issues. We used two theoretical perspectives, shared reality theory and the contact hypothesis, to analyze the quantitative responses. Implications for intergroup relationships between heterosexual people and gay people are discussed.     

Ecological Invalidity of Existing Gaydar Research: In-Lab Accuracy Translates to Real-World Inaccuracy: Response to Rule,Johnson, & Freeman (2016)

In recent years, several empirical studies have claimed to provide evidence in support of the popular folk notion that people possess “gaydar” that enables them to accurately identify who is gay or lesbian (Rule, Johnson, & Freeman, 2016). This conclusion is limited to artificial lab settings, however, and when translated to real-world settings this work itself provides evidence that people’s judgments about who is gay/lesbian are not pragmatically accurate. We also briefly review evidence related to the consequences of perpetuating the idea of gaydar (i.e., “the gaydar myth”). Although past claims about accurate orientation perception are misleading, the work that gave rise to those claims can nevertheless inform the literature in meaningful ways. We offer some recommendations for how the evidence in past “gaydar” research can be reappraised to inform our understanding of social perception and group similarities/differences.