Understanding Bias toward Latinos: Discrimination, Dimensions of Difference, and Experience of Exclusion

White–Black relations have historically been the defining form of intergroup relations in the study of prejudice and discrimination. The present article suggests that there are limitations to applying this model to understanding bias toward other groups and proposes that a comprehensive view of the dynamics of the Anglos' bias toward Latinos requires consideration of the distinctive elements of this form of intergroup relations. In four empirical studies, we experimentally document discrimination against Latinos (Study 1), explore the potential dimensions that underlie bias against Latinos (Study 2), and examine the effect of a particular social identity cue, accentedness, on perceptions of acceptance and belongingness of Latinos and members of other groups (Studies 3 and 4). These studies consider general processes of prejudice and identify how particular facets of bias against Latinos can shape their experiences and, taken together, illustrate how understanding bias against Latinos can reciprocally inform contemporary theories of prejudice.     

Cobra Kai Never Dies! Generational seriality and revived legacies of The Karate Kid

This article investigates the hallmarks of generational seriality—the term coined by Matt Hills—using Cobra Kai, and its predecessor, The Karate Kid trilogy, as case studies. It combines textual analysis of overarching themes of these texts, such as the portrayal of white masculinity, and aligned conceptualizations of class, with the examination of televisual nostalgia. It draws on existing scholarship on TV returns and revivals, exploring how Cobra Kai enters a dialogue with the fans of the franchise, and how that dialogue is articulated. While building upon the iconography familiar to The Karate Kid fans, Cobra Kai contains a great degree of self-reflexivity, with dialogue or entire plot lines that parody regressive gender politics of the 1980s. The series brings together the generic conventions of the teen film and ample opportunities for nostalgia in its original fan base; thus, it significantly expands its appeal to two distinctive demographics.     

Measures of freedom

According to the capability approach and more orthodox theories of individual well-being, freedom is an important ingredient of individual welfare. In operationalising these theories, therefore, it is crucial to have a practical measure of freedom. This paper analyses the measures of freedom proposed by Pattanaik and Xu, Steiner and Carter, Kramer, and Rosenbaum. We provide two interpretations of the first three measures. It is shown that one of these interpretations can be useful in empirical applications, while the other, together with additional arguments, considerably weakens Kramer's measure of freedom. Finally, it is shown that Rosenbaum's measure is not satisfactory as well because it yields counterintuitive results.     

Hysteresis,academic biography,and political field in the People’s Republic of Poland

Theory and Society - I enter a debate about state-socialism elite’s reproduction and higher education to propose an implementation of Bourdieu’s hysteresis effect. I argue that the...     

Spillover effects of taxes on government debt: a spatial panel approach

It is claimed that tax policy is neither time- nor space-independent due to cross-border tax base mobility, which induces spillovers. Specifically, fiscal shocks in one country are supposed to have an impact on fiscal policies in other countries. Different types of taxes influence economies differently. This paper addresses the question of their impact on government debt. Within a framework of spatial econometric modeling, we evaluate the impact of capital, labor and consumption taxes on public debt in 34 European countries in 2002–2011, and find strong spatial spillovers. We show that a consumption tax and, to a lesser degree, a capital tax significantly affect the sovereign debt, and that the global relations play a leading role (i.e. dominate the local ones) in shaping fiscal policy.     

The thanatic strain. Kojève and Rosenzweig as two readers of Hegel

In my essay, I focus on Alexandre Kojève’s lectures on Phenomenology of Spirit as a peculiar thanatic interpretation of Hegel. Kojève’s apology of death is so powerful that it can only suggest a new form of a religious cult, a new philosophical theology which, because of its semi-secular appearance, we should rather call a cryptotheology. I want to demonstrate that, indeed, we deal here with a cryptotheological divinisation of Thanatos where the so-called ‘frontier experience of death’ replaces the Judeo-Christian revelation. Kojève claims that this tendency already begins in Hegel in whom revelation, albeit a central notion of phenomenology, is given a characteristic, thanatico-immanentist twist. In the first part, I concentrate on Hegel and his interpretation given by Kojève; then, I present a brief overview of the thanatic strain in Kojève’s French pupils; and finally, in the second part, I return to Hegel, but his time read through the lenses of Franz Rosenzweig who dared to oppose the thanatic tendency of twentieth century philosophy. The Star of Redemption inaugurates this opposition – a distinctly modern Jewish ‘vitalistic strain’ – by returning to the original idiom of revelation and offering us a neues Denken, a ‘new thinking.’ But this new vitalism, grown out of the polemic with the ‘thanatic strain,’ does not constitute a simple repetition of the nineteenth century Lebensphilosophie; equally critical of the Kojèvian ‘overestimation of death’ and of the old forms of vitalistic thinking, it paves the way to a highly innovative late-modern philosophy of finite life which – as I will argue here – is something we very badly need today.     

Exact optimal experimental designs with constraints

The experimental design literature has produced a wide range of algorithms optimizing estimator variance for linear models where the design-space is finite or a convex polytope. But these methods have problems handling nonlinear constraints or constraints over multiple treatments. This paper presents Newton-type algorithms to compute exact optimal designs in models with continuous and/or discrete regressors, where the set of feasible treatments is defined by nonlinear constraints. We carry out numerical comparisons with other state-of-art methods to show the performance of this approach.     

Measuring feelings about choices and risks: The Berlin Emotional Responses to Risk Instrument (BERRI)

We introduce a brief instrument specifically validated for measuring positive and negative feelings about risks—the Berlin Emotional Responses to Risk Instrument (BERRI). Based on seven studies involving diverse adults from three countries (n = 2120), the BERRI was found to robustly estimate anticipatory affective reactions derived from subjective evaluations of positive (i.e., assured, hopeful, and relieved) and negative emotions (i.e., anxious, afraid, and worried). The brief BERRI outperformed a 14-item assessment, uniquely tracking costs/benefits associated with cancer screening among men and women (Studies 1 and 2). Predictive validity was further documented in paradigmatic risky choice studies wherein options varied over probabilities and severities across six contexts (health, social, financial, technological, ethical, and environmental; Study 3). Studies 4–6, conducted during the Ebola epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic, indicated BERRI responses were sensitive to subtle effects caused by emotion-related framing manipulations presented in different cultures and languages (the United States, Spain, and Poland). Study 7 indicated BERRI responses remained stable for 2 weeks. Although the BERRI can provide an estimate of overall affect, choices were generally better explained by the unique influences of positive and negative affect. Overall, results suggest the novel, brief instrument can be an efficient tool for high-stakes research on decision making and risk communication.