Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington,D.C.: Results of the National Demonstration Project,June--July 1993

This paper reports the results of a prospective experiment in which a group of approximately 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi assembled in Washington, D.C., from June 7 to July 30, 1993. It was hypothesized that levels of violent crime in the District of Columbia would fall substantially during the Demonstration Project, as a result of the group's effect of increasing coherence and reducing stress in the collective consciousness of the District. A 27-member Project Review Board comprising independent scientists and leading citizens approved the research protocol and monitored the research process. Weekly crime data was derived from database records provided by the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (DCMPD), which are used in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Statistical analysis considered the effect of weather variables, daylight, historical crime trends and annual patterns in the District of Columbia, as well as trends in neighboring cities. Consistent with previous research, levels of homicides, rapes and assaults (HRA crimes) correlated with average weekly temperature. Robberies approximately followed an annually recurring cycle. Time series analysis of 1993 data, controlling for temperature, showed that HRA crimes dropped significantly during the Demonstration Project, corresponding with increases in the size of the group; the maximum decrease was 23.3% (p < 2 × 10–9) [24.6% using a longer baseline, with 1988--1993 data (p < 3 × 10–5)], coincident with the peak number of participants in the group during the final week of the assembly. When the same period in each of the five previous years was examined, no significant decreases in HRA crimes were found. Robberies did not decrease significantly. However, a model that jointly estimated the effect of the Demonstration Project on both HRA crimes and robberies showed a significant reduction in violent crimes overall of 15.6% (p = 0.0008). Further analysis showed that the effect of the coherence-creating group on reducing HRA crimes could not be accounted for by additional police staffing. The time series analysis for HRA crimes gave results that are highly robust to alternative model specifications, and showed that the effect of the group size was cumulative and persisted after the Demonstration Project ended. Also, calculation of the steady state gain based on the time series model predicted that a permanent group of 4,000 coherence-creating experts in the District would have a long-term effect of reducing HRA crimes by 48%.     

Dynamic models and attainment in the workplace

The two most marked trends in recent stratification studies are: (1) the shift away from a statical approach to attainment and toward a dynamical representation of achievement, and (2) the shift away from the assumption that achievement is largely a matter of individual characteristics, and toward the view that achievement is the outcome of an employer-employee exchange of productive resources for earnings and status. This paper forges a link between these parallel trends by elaborating on previous formulations of dynamic models of achievement and applying the results to the analysis of earnings attainment in an internal labor market. The modeling section of the paper joins within a single framework the growing interest in ascertaining how a given structure of opportunity shapes achievement and in determining the different points in the career line at which individual background and resource variables impact attainment. Special attention is devoted to the problems facing researchers who wish to bring a dynamic conceptualization of achievement to cross-sectional or otherwise deficient data. Although the empirical application of the various models is largely meant to be illustrative, it is of interest in its own right because it goes substantially beyond previous efforts in this area.     

Congestion,quality deterioration,and optimal use: Wilderness recreation in the Spanish peaks primitive area

With increasing demand for low-density recreational services and limited supply of facilities to provide them, congestion is becoming an important management problem. The purpose of this paper is to outline a model of congestion, estimate the effect of it upon individual willingness to pay for wilderness experiences, and illustrate how these results might be used for efficient management. A survey of users of the Spanish Peaks Primitive Area indicates that their revealed willingness to pay is significantly affected by encroachments upon the solitude they experience during their trip. Consequently, congestion effects for such services can be measured and used in the formation of administrative policy.     

Powerblindness

In the land of the blind, the one‐eyed man may be king. But positions of power may produce their own forms of blindness. This paper reviews multiple theoretical approaches to the concept of powerblindness and categorizes these literatures into five forms through which powerblindness operates: powerblind identity (failure to notice that one belongs to a privileged group), powerblind egalitarianism (belief that all groups are equal in power), powerblind hierarchy (emphasis on one's own subordinate position), powerblind exception (the claim that one is less privileged than others in one's group), and powerblind justification (belief that present‐day hierarchy is merited or inevitable). The paper identifies studies offering evidence for each, drawing on social‐psychological experiments, survey data, and qualitative research, suggesting that power and knowledge do not necessarily go hand in hand – some forms of knowledge about the social order may be more visible to people with less power than to people with more.     

Evaluating the Impact of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) Perspective in Social Work Curriculum

A trauma-informed care (TIC) curriculum was integrated into a school of social work master’s level program. Measures assessed the impact of the curriculum on first and advanced-year students’ knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention at the beginning and end of a semester. Initial comparisons show advanced-year students as having more knowledge about TIC, more positive attitudes toward TIC, higher levels of self-efficacy to use TIC approaches, and greater likelihood to engage in TIC behaviors than first-year students. However, by the end of the semester, the latter were equivalent with advanced students on all measures. Results suggest the first-year curriculum provides sufficient background in TIC approaches to allow for significant gains across all areas assessed. However, integration of the TIC perspective within advanced courses needs further assessment.     

Effects of Alternative Policies on Income Redistribution: Evidence from Brazil

Despite recent successes, Brazilian income (cash) transfer policies remain controversial, and alternative approaches to income redistribution are being actively considered. This article contributes to this debate, analysing the effects of several alternative policies for income redistribution in the Brazilian economy using a computable general equilibrium model. Simulations were conducted consistent with the following policies: direct transfer of income, reduction of taxes, and incentives to agricultural exports. The results suggest that transfer of income is the most effective in promoting redistribution of income, with a positive impact on the level of welfare of the poorest households.     

Caregiver Emotional Expressiveness,Child Emotion Regulation,and Child Behavior Problems among Head Start Families

The present study examined the relationships between caregivers' self‐reported positive and negative emotional expressiveness, observer assessments of children's emotion regulation, and teachers' reports of children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors in a sample of 97 primarily African American and Hispanic Head Start families. Results indicated that higher caregiver negativity and lower child emotion regulation independently predicted more internalizing behavior problems in children. Additionally, children's externalizing behavior problems were negatively predicted by caregivers' self‐reports of positive emotional expressiveness. Importantly, results also suggested that caregivers' emotional expressiveness and children's behavioral problems may be non‐linearly related, and that child gender may play an important moderating role. These results emphasize the importance of family emotional climate and child emotion regulation in the behavioral development of preschool‐age children, and highlight the need for improved theoretical and practical understanding of socioemotional development in diverse populations.     

SELF-CONTROL,POLITICAL IDEOLOGY,AND MISBEHAVIOR: UNPACKING THE EFFECTS OF CONSERVATIVE IDENTITY

Survey data collected from a southwestern metropolitan area indicate that self-defined politically conservative individuals are less inclined to commit criminal or deviant acts than their liberal or moderate counterparts; however, results from multivariate analyses indicate that measures of self-control and pressure to conform all reduce the effects of political conservatism to nonsignificance. In general, the relationship between political ideology and misbehavior appears to be partly spurious and partly indirectly attributable to the effects of other social and situational factors. Moreover, responsiveness to pressures to conform is not due to self-control. The results provide some challenge to traditional interpretations of misbehavior but they also confirm an important part played by structural/contextual variables.     

Recent Happenings in the Social Studies

This article details the “journey box” project process enacted by two elementary preservice teacher cohorts. Engaging in activities and projects that promote a sense of investment in not only consuming but producing historical narratives, preservice teachers potentially become interested in sharing this type of learning with their students.