Uncertain Numbers and Uncertainty in the Selection of Input Distributions—Consequences for a Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Contaminated Land

Risks from exposure to contaminated land are often assessed with the aid of mathematical models. The current probabilistic approach is a considerable improvement on previous deterministic risk assessment practices, in that it attempts to characterize uncertainty and variability. However, some inputs continue to be assigned as precise numbers, while others are characterized as precise probability distributions. Such precision is hard to justify, and we show in this article how rounding errors and distribution assumptions can affect an exposure assessment. The outcome of traditional deterministic point estimates and Monte Carlo simulations were compared to probability bounds analyses. Assigning all scalars as imprecise numbers (intervals prescribed by significant digits) added uncertainty to the deterministic point estimate of about one order of magnitude. Similarly, representing probability distributions as probability boxes added several orders of magnitude to the uncertainty of the probabilistic estimate. This indicates that the size of the uncertainty in such assessments is actually much greater than currently reported. The article suggests that full disclosure of the uncertainty may facilitate decision making in opening up a negotiation window. In the risk analysis process, it is also an ethical obligation to clarify the boundary between the scientific and social domains.     

Policy instrument affordances: a framework for analysis

The present study uses the concept of technological efficacy derived from ecological psychology and design studies to offer an alternative way of analyzing how policy instruments affect change. Reasoning from this, the paper outlines a framework for analyzing policy instruments in terms of their affordances. We define affordances as the means through which an instrument exerts influence on its intended target audience. Using this approach, we contend that policy instruments may be analyzed as interfaces that organize social relations and create structures of opportunity and/or restrict possibilities for action. We argue that explicating the pathways through which instruments afford or constrain action is a central task for policy analysis. Our proposed framework of analysis builds on the idea that instruments yield effects by facilitating action and learning. We further contend that the actions that an instrument can facilitate or inhibit are determined by specific affordance modalities of the instrument in conjunction with contingencies of the actor and the policy environment. Examples from research policy are used to illustrate some of these effects.     

Ethical living: relinking ethics and consumption through care in Chile and Brazil

Mainstream conceptualizations of ‘ethical consumption’ equate the notion with conscious, individual, market‐mediated choices motivated by ethical or political aims that transcend ordinary concerns. Drawing on recent sociology and anthropology of consumption literature on the links between ordinary ethics and ethical consumption, this article discusses some of the limitations of this conceptualization. Using data from 32 focus groups conducted in Chile and Brazil, we propose a conceptualization of ethical consumption that does not centre on individual, market‐mediated choices but understands it at the level of practical outcomes, which we refer to as different forms of ‘ethical living’. To do that, we argue, we need to depart from the deontological understanding of ethics that underpins mainstream approaches to ethical consumption and adopt a more consequentialist view focusing on ethical outcomes. We develop these points through describing one particular ordinary moral regime that seemed to be predominant in participants’ accounts of ethics and consumption in both Chile and Brazil: one that links consumption and ethics through care. We show that the moral regime of care leads to ‘ethical outcomes’, such as energy saving or limiting overconsumption, yet contrary to the mainstream view of ethical consumption emphasizing politicized choice expressed through markets, these result from following ordinary ethics, often through routines of practices.     

Religion and the Representative Anecdote: Replacement and Revenge in AMC’s The Walking Dead

The current study examines how the horror-based AMC television series The Walking Dead portrays religion in terms of a reframing of the role, if any, of faith in a higher power, and the portrayal of the faithful. The religious-themed discourse of this highly successful story about survivors of a zombie apocalypse as presented through dialogic and visual imagery serves as the text analyzed here; specifically, related episodes set in churches at two separate points in the series that combine to offer a metaphor of “structure” used to disassemble and reconstruct the role of religion. These episodes interlace religious themes to develop an overarching message that forms a representative anecdote of replacement in which the notion of “faith” becomes redefined.     

East Asian childbearing patterns and policy developments

Childbearing behavior in East Asian countries has changed rapidly during the past half century from an average of five to seven children per family, to replacement-level fertility, and subsequently to unprecedentedly low levels, the lowest in the world. This article analyzes fertility trends in Hong Kong, Japan, singapore, south Korea, and Taiwan using cohort fertility data and methods, then examines social and economic causes of the childbearing trends, and surveys policies pursued to reverse the fertility trends. Postponement of childbearing started in the 1970s with continuously fewer delayed births being "recuperated," which resulted in ultra-low fertility. A rapid expansion of education and employment among women in a patriarchal environment has generated a stark dilemma for women who would like to combine childbearing with a career. Policy responses have been slow, with a more serious attempt to address issues in recent years. Thus far public and private institutions are not devoting sufficient attention to generating broad social change supportive of parenting.     

Faking it: Personality and individual difference predictors of willingness to buy counterfeit goods

Counterfeiting is now widely regarded as a serious social, economic, and political issue. This study examined demographic, personality, and individual difference predictors of willingness to buy counterfeit goods (WBCG) in a community sample of British adults. Two-hundred and thirty-seven participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their willingness to buy 19 types of counterfeit goods, attitudes towards counterfeiting, material values, Big Five personality traits, and demographics. Structural equation modelling showed that attitudes towards counterfeiting were the strongest predictors of WBCG. In addition, material values predicted both WBCG directly and indirectly through attitudes towards counterfeiting. Older participants showed lower WBCG, although this effect was moderated by participants’ conscientiousness, material values, and attitudes towards counterfeiting. There were no sex differences in WBCG once participants’ age and conscientiousness had been taken into account. These results are discussed in relation to the extant literature on the profiles of consumers who buy counterfeit products.     

Author Index

Authors Index

Author Index