Unrepresentative Information: The Case of Newspaper Reporting on Campaign Finance

This article examines evidence of sampling or statistical biasin newspaper reporting on campaign finance. We compile all storiesfrom the five largest circulation newspapers in the United Statesthat mention a dollar amount for campaign expenditures, contributions,or receipts from 1996 to 2000. We compare these figures to thoserecorded by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The averagefigures reported in newspapers exceed the figures from the FECby as much as eightfold. Press reports also focus excessivelyon corporate contributions and soft money, rather than on themore common types of donors—individual—and typesof contributions—hard money. We further find that thesebiases are reflected in public perceptions of money in elections.Survey respondents overstate the amount of money raised andthe share from different groups by roughly the amount foundin newspapers, and better-educated people (those most likelyto read newspapers) showed the greatest discrepancy betweentheir beliefs and the facts.     

Faculty Support of Student Dissent

This paper replicates an earlier study of faculty status and tolerance of political dissent by Abramson and Wences. The data support the hypothesis that length of residence on a university campus is inversely related to faculty tolerance of student dissent. The expected relationship between academic rank and tolerance was eliminated by controlling for longevity, but the predicted relationship between academic field and tolerance was unaffected. The effect of longevity appears to be independent of political orientations, and the data suggest that peer group influence is operative among faculty members.     

MARRIAGE, DEPRESSION, AND COGNITION: UNRAVELING THE GORDIAN KNOT-REPLY TO ETTINGER ET AL.

Heim and Snyder (1991) explicitly applied a multidimensional assessment and data-analytic strategy to predict husbands' and wives' depressive symptoms from measures of marital disaffection, overt marital conflict, appraisals of relationship prognosis, characterizations of the spouse, and causal attributions. For both genders, the best single predictor of depression was a measure of marital disaffection—accounting by itself for approximately one third of the variance in subjects' depressive symptoms. Additional attributional predictors of depression for married women indicated the need for therapists to support wives' assertive expression of relationship concerns and confrontation of husbands' behaviors contributing to their distress. We reiterate the complex and recursive relationships among marital difficulties, depression, congnitive processes, and their antecedents and consequences and encourage focused research on components of this intricate puzzle.     

Child Abuse and Family Stress

Child abuse is one example of violence in the family. This paper reviews sources of stress on the family, and especially considers infants as specific sources of stress within the family system. The problems of unrealistic expectations, use of physical punishment for child training and discipline, and the escalation from punishment to abuse are explored. Abuse cases are currently managed through mandatory reporting, official investigation, and disposition by authoritative bodies. This system of management appears both inadequate and inappropriate. Effective prevention programs are needed. This paper reviews current prevention efforts using three criteria of assessment. The mass media are presented as an important untapped resource for prevention efforts. Attractive media programs can address parents' feelings as well as provide information and advice.     

Baseball's emotion work: Getting psyched to play

The problematic nature of sport contests creates a variety of emotions—anxiety, fear, sadness, joy, anger, disgust, frustration, compassion, and embarrassment. The present study uses an interactionist/interpretive investigation of baseball hitters and pitchers (N=21). Data were gathered by analysis of in-depth semistructured interviews with members of a college baseball team. A photo-elicitation interviewing technique was used with videotapes of the players in game situations. Players were asked to respond to the experience of hitting and pitching while observing the videotapes of themselves. The emotional experiences that emerged from the interviews focused on managing and maintaining their emotions within an optimal level of arousal. The players perceive the optimal level of arousal is necessary for a desirable performance.     

VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE AND EARNINGS EXPECTATIONS IN MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING

Multi-level marketing (MLM) firms recruit individuals into a business opportunity but are not required to disclose the earnings of past participants. Some MLMs voluntarily create income disclosures, which may serve both marketing and risk-management functions. We create an economic experiment to explore the impact of MLM income disclosure on consumer interest and expectations. Results suggest that disclosure does not significantly alter interest in the business opportunity but does reduce expectations, on average, when subjects are asked to estimate annual income in a lab environment. We discuss findings in the context of current regulatory policy. (JEL D18, D82, M38)     

“Big Brother’s Bigger Brother”: The Visual Politics of (Counter) Surveillance in Baltimore

In 2016, without the knowledge of its citizens, Baltimore City Police deployed a military aerial surveillance technology called Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI), which can track the movements of every person in public view over the entire city. Though the trial of the “spy plane,” as the program was dubbed, quickly ended in scandal, organizers from Baltimore’s low-income minority neighborhoods successfully rebooted the program in 2020, this time framing WAMI partly as a tool of “sousveillance” (watching “from below”) that can track the movements of police officers. The paper shows how organizers “rebranded” WAMI around two conceptions of sousveillance—“citizen-centered” and “state-centered”—creating an unlikely coalition of supporters from both pro- and anti-policing sides of the criminal justice reform debate. But while the renewed program has vowed to be a “Big Brother” to the state, it will continue to be used for traditional surveillance, raising troubling questions about privacy. The article sheds light on the politics of watching and being watched in the era of technology-driven criminal justice reform.     

Alcohol and Substance Use in Adolescence and Young Adulthood: The Role of Siblings

Interpersonal relationships within and outside the family have been a central part of alcohol and substance use research. Many studies have focused on the role of parents and peers; fewer studies have focused on siblings. This article examines siblings’ roles in alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use patterns and trajectories in the context of familial and nonfamilial factors across time. First, intraclass correlations were used to examine the degree to which older siblings’ ATOD use was associated with younger siblings’ ATOD use. Second, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the degree to which individual, parent, sibling, and peer factors over time were associated with adolescents’ and young adults’ ATOD use. It should be noted that developmentally proximal predictors were utilized in these models and within-family replication was also examined. Results demonstrate strong associations between older and younger siblings’ ATOD use. Moreover, the developmentally proximal sibling variables were predictive of younger sibling ATOD use in the context of other variables across all substances. Study findings are discussed in terms of identifying promising and potentially malleable points of intervention for future investigators.