Politics and Scientific Expertise: Scientists, Risk Perception, and Nuclear Waste Policy

To study the homogeneity and influences on scientists'perspectives of environmental risks, we have examined similarities and differences in risk perceptions, particularly regarding nuclear wastes, and policy preferences among 1011 scientists and engineers. We found significant differences ( p 0.05)in the patterns of beliefs among scientists from different fields of research. In contrast to physicists, chemists, and engineers, life scientists tend to: (a)perceive the greatest risks from nuclear energy and nuclear waste management; (b)perceive higher levels of overall environmental risk; (c)strongly oppose imposing risks on unconsenting individuals; and (d)prefer stronger requirements for environmental management. On some issues related to priorities among public problems and calls for government action, there are significant variations among life scientists or physical scientists. We also found that–independently of field of research–perceptions of risk and its correlates are significantly associated with the type of institution in which the scientist is employed. Scientists in universities or state and local governments tend to see the risks of nuclear energy and wastes as greater than scientists who work as business consultants, for federal organizations, or for private research laboratories. Significant differences also are found in priority given to environmental risks, the perceived proximity of environmental disaster, willingness to impose risks on an unconsenting population, and the necessity of accepting risks and sacrifices.     

GENDER AND RACE PATTERNS IN THE PATHWAYS FROM SPORTS PARTICIPATION TO SELF-ESTEEM

Athletics is the most prominent extracurricular activity in U.S. secondary schools in terms of student participation and school budgets. The latter is often justified on the grounds that healthy bodies produce healthy minds, that school sports boost school spirit, and that participation in school-based sports increases students' self-esteem. In this article we examine the interrelationships among participation in a school-based sport and the benefits assumed to be associated with it. Specifically, we test a model that postulates that school spirit, operationalized as attachment to school, and healthy bodies, operationalized as a sense of physical well-being, mediate the relationship between school sports and self-esteem. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on Caucasian and African American girls and boys were employed to test the model. School attachment and physical well-being absorbed the statistical effect of participating in a sport for all four gender-by-race groups. Among Caucasian girls a negative residual effect of sports participation was observed, which suggests that sports participation encapsulates multiple effects with contradictory influences. For African American girls school attachment by itself was not a significant mediator of the effect of sports participation on self-esteem. For all groups a sense of physical well-being was the more powerful mediator.     

The Relationship Between Sense of Coherence and Career Thoughts

The authors examined the impact of sense of coherence on the career thought processes of a sample of college students. A. Antonovsky (1987) defined sense of coherence as the global orientation that the world is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. Study participants completed the Sense of Coherence Scale (A. Antonovsky, 1987) and the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1996). Multivariate tests indicated a medium relationship between sense of coherence and CTI Total and subscale scores; sense of coherence accounted for 14% of the variance. Univariate tests also indicated a medium relationship between sense of coherence and each subscale.     

Child Characteristics,Parenting Stress,and Parental Involvement: Fathers Versus Mothers

This study examined variations in the relationships among child characteristics, parenting stress, and parental involvement. Participants were 100 two‐parent families with preschool‐aged children. Self‐report and interview data were collected to measure parental involvement, as well as perceptions of child temperament and parental stress. Analyses revealed significant, yet somewhat different, associations between child temperament and parental stress for mothers and fathers. More significant associations were found between perceptions of child temperament and involvement for fathers than for mothers. The associations between child temperament and parental stress and involvement differed on the basis of child and parent gender. Results are discussed in terms of future research on father involvement, as well as programs designed to encourage fathers to assume more active parental roles.     

A critical evaluation of the commodification thesis

A recurring theme across the social sciences is that non‐capitalist production is disappearing albeit slowly and unevenly, and is being replaced by a commodified economy in which goods and services are produced by capitalist firms for a profit under conditions of market exchange. In this paper, however, I evaluate critically this commodification thesis. Even in the heartland of commoditisation ‐ the advanced economies. Large economic spaces are identified where alternative economic relations and motives prevail. Rather than view them as leftovers of pre‐capitalist formations, this paper argues that they are the result of both the contradictions inherent in the structural shifts associated with the pursuit of commodification as well as the existence of‘cultures of resistance’, As such, they are viewed as 'spaces of hope’which highlight the demonstrable construction and practice of alternative social relations and logic's of work outside profit‐motivated market‐oriented exchange.     

Peer Crowd Affiliation and Internalizing Distress in Childhood and Adolescence: A Longitudinal Follow‐Back Study

Concurrent and longitudinal associations between peer crowd affiliation and internalized distress were examined in a sample of 246 youth (148 girls, 98 boys). Children completed measures of depression, social anxiety, loneliness, and self‐esteem when they were in grades 4 to 6 (Time 1), and again 6 years later during adolescence (grades 10 – 12; Time 2). At Time 2, adolescents also reported their self‐concept and their identification with reputation‐based peer crowds, including Populars, Jocks, Brains, Burnouts, Non‐Conformists, and None/Average crowds. Results indicated that adolescents' report of peer crowd affiliation was concurrently associated with self‐concept and levels of internalizing distress. Follow‐back analyses of internalizing trajectories revealed that Populars/Jocks had experienced significant declines in internalizing distress across development, whereas Brains exhibited some increases in internalizing distress between childhood and adolescence.     

THE EAST END, THE WEST END, AND KING'S CROSS: ON CLUSTERING IN THE FOUR-PLAYER HOTELLING GAME

We study experimentally a standard four-player Hotelling location game with a uniform density of consumers and inelastic demand. The pure strategy Nash equilibrium configuration consists of two firms located at one quarter of the "linear city," and the other two at three quarters. We do not observe convergence to such an equilibrium. In our experimental data we find three clusters. Besides the direct proximity of the two equilibrium locations, this concerns the focal midpoint. Moreover, we observe that whereas this midpoint appears to become more notable over time, other focal points fade away. We explain how these observations are related to best-response dynamics, and to the fact that the players rely on best-responses in particular when they are close to the equilibrium configuration.