American Criminology Meets Collins: Global Theory of Intellectual Change and a Policy‐Oriented Field1

Ideas from Randall Collins’s Sociology of Philosophies are applied to U.S. criminology, a policy‐oriented field and one case of differentiation out of a fragmented sociological discipline. Building on previous quantitative work, in‐depth interviews with eight prominent scholars provide the empirical material. As in philosophy, vertical network ties are important. Yet, they may take different forms, with consequences for the shape of horizontal networks and the nature of scholarship. Comparable to philosophy, horizontal network ties provide social capital and opportunities for interaction rituals that generate collective effervescence and emotional energy. Further, the nature of these interactions is dependent on the changing institutional environment in which they are embedded. Such institutional settings, themselves affected by changes in the political economy, also provide material resources, constituting dependencies that produce mediated effects and, in this policy‐oriented field, also direct effects on the nature of scholarship.     

CEO successor compensation: outside versus inside successions

We propose that outside CEO candidates will have greater bargaining power than insiders. As a result, outside CEO successors will likely receive greater total compensation than inside CEO successors. Outside successors, meantime, pose more risk to the hiring firm than inside successors due to higher information asymmetry. As a result, outside successor compensation packages are tilted towards more performance-related pay-at-risk, while inside successor packages have a higher percentage in salary. In addition, outside successors may want to utilize the structure of their compensation at their previous firm in their new contracts. Using a sample of 99 firms with outside successors who were not CEO in their prior firms, matched by industry and size to firms that hired inside candidates, we find evidence supporting these hypotheses.     

Zelda Foster and her contributions to social work in end-of-life care

This article is both a memoir of one social worker's professional collaboration with Zelda Foster and a tribute to Zelda's legacy in the form of an educational resource on end-of-life care. It reviews achievements of Zelda Foster in social work practice and teaching related to death and dying. Resources presented in this article were supported by the Soros Foundation's Project on Death in America, a funded grant project to which Zelda contributed. The end-of-life care education, training and informational tools discussed in this article are examples of ongoing efforts in the social work profession to improve the lives of the dying and bereaved.     

Ecological validity of laboratory studies of videopoker gaming

This study compared the cognitive and behavioral components of videopoker players under laboratory and natural settings. Twenty regular gamblers (19 men and 1 woman) were matched into two groups on age and on frequency of gambling. Irrational verbalizations during gambling, monetary risk (number of bets doubled and number of tokens bet), and motivation served as dependent variables. Results showed no significant differences between laboratory and natural settings for the number of inadequate verbalizations, bets doubled, and motivation. The amount of money gambled was greater in the laboratory than in the natural setting. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed according to the ecological validity of gambling studies conducted in laboratory settings.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Conseil de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines du Canada (410-88-0676) and from the Conseil Québécois de la Recherche Sociale (RS-1280).     

Why People Believe They Were Exposed to Biological or Chemical Warfare: A Survey of Gulf War Veterans

The study sought to understand better how people come to believe they have been exposed to biological and chemical warfare. We conducted telephone interviews with 1,009 American veterans (65% response rate) deployed and not deployed to the Gulf War, a conflict during which there were credible threats that such warfare could be used. Only 6% of non-Gulf War veterans reported exposure to biological or chemical warfare, but most of Gulf War veterans reported exposure (64%). The majority of these were unsure whether the exposure was chemical or biological in nature. The most commonly reported exposure indicators were receiving an alert from the military and having physical symptoms. Veterans who were certain of the type of exposure (biological or chemical) were more likely to recall having been told by the military and to recall physical symptoms. Future communications with soldiers and the general public about biological and chemical warfare may need to emphasize the uncertain nature of such risk information. Evaluations of exposure diagnostic technologies should take into account the problem of people initially believing, but not later discounting, false positive results.     

Assessing Perceptions of Synergistic Health Risk: A Comparison of Two Scales

Two approaches to measuring perceptions of synergistic risk were compared, one using the traditional Likert scale, the other using an anchored, relative scale. Perception of synergistic risk was defined as rating the combined hazard as more risky than each of its constituent single hazards. In a within-subjects design, a convenience sample from the community (N= 604) rated three hazard combinations and their constituents: Driving while Intoxicated (familiar, high synergy), Radon and Smoking (unfamiliar, high synergy), and Smoking and Driving (familiar, low synergy), on both scales. The relative scale was expected to be a more sensitive measure of synergy than the Likert scale. The effects of item order (single hazards rated first versus combined hazards rated first) were examined between subjects. Driving while Intoxicated was perceived by the large majority of participants as a synergistic risk on both scales, but neither of the other two combined hazards were rated synergistically on either scale. The relative scale demonstrated a slight advantage over the Likert scale, and presenting the single hazards first for the relative scale produced more synergistic ratings. It is recommended that anchored, relative scales be used to measure synergy and that single hazards be presented prior to the combined hazards when using relative scales.     

Anger Perception, Caregivers' Use of Physical Discipline, and Aggression in Children at Risk

We analyzed the relations between teacher reports of aggressive behaviors, caregiver reports of their use of physical discipline, anger perception accuracy, and anger perception bias in middle childhood and teacher reports of aggressive behaviors two years later in a sample of children from economically disadvantaged families (n =152). Fisher r‐to‐z analyses showed a gender difference in the relation between anger perception accuracy and aggressive behavior in third grade. For girls, anger perception accuracy was significantly negatively related to aggression, and for boys, there was no relation between anger perception accuracy and aggression. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that third grade aggressive behavior, caregivers’ reports of their use of physical discipline, and anger perception bias were significantly positively related to teacher reports of aggressive behavior two years later after controlling for gender and anger perception accuracy.     

Infants' Behavioral Strategies for Emotion Regulation With Fathers and Mothers: Associations With Emotional Expressions and Attachment Quality

This study examined 12‐ and 13‐month‐old infants' behavioral strategies for emotion regulation, emotional expressions, regulatory styles, and attachment quality with fathers and mothers. Eighty‐five infants participated in the Strange Situation procedure to assess attachment quality with mothers and fathers. Infants' behavioral strategies for emotion regulation were examined with each parent during a competing demands task. Emotion regulation styles were meaningfully related to infant‐father attachment quality. Although expressions of distress and positive affect were not consistent across mothers and fathers, there was consistency in infant strategy use, emotion regulation style, and attachment quality with mothers and fathers. Furthermore, infants who were securely attached to both parents showed greater consistency in parent‐oriented strategies than infants who were insecurely attached to one or both parents. Limitations of this study include the constrained laboratory setting, potential carryover effects, and a homogeneous, middle‐class sample.