Completing the Circuit: Routine,Reflection, and Ethical Consumption

Efforts to explain why some people incorporate ethical concerns into everyday shopping for food and household goods, while many do not, have so far left significant variation in “ethical consumption” unexplained. Seeking to move beyond explanations that rely mainly on differences in consumers' social class, gender, and political engagement, I draw on concepts associated with “practice theory” to argue that ethical consumption is closely tied to people's willingness and ability to spend time, while shopping, on distinct activities associated with breaking old routines and establishing new ones. The central insight of practice theory is that most consumption is the product of unconscious routine. And it is precisely because consciously departing from routine is, according to my study, a fundamentally time‐consuming process, that lack of time emerges as a crucial obstacle to translating abstract ethical concerns into concrete action as a consumer.     

Strange passages: carceral mobility and the liminal in the catastrophic history of American deportation

In the early twentieth century, the United States developed an integrated, continental deportation network based on rail travel. This new state apparatus would enable the restrictionists’ dream of immigration control and speed the elimination of those they deemed unfit for American life. It set a template for mass removal that would expand in the century to come. Scholars of immigrant detention and removal commonly employ Victor Turner’s concept of liminality to understand migrant experiences, but this paper suggests the need for an expanded theorization of the liminal as manifold rather than singular. Drawing on deportee case files and literature from the early twentieth century, this paper explores the complex, variegated and painful liminalities of the deportation journey. It argues that power affected deportees’ experience of space and time across different liminal zones and interprets the embodied catastrophe of deportation for migrant communities. If traumatic experiences reconfigure the meaning of time into a ‘before’ and ‘after’, deportation was an ongoing catastrophe that offered little sense of completion.     

Rent Control: An Economic Abomination

Rent control is a public policy which fails on both normative and positive economic grounds. In the former case, it violates all canons of equity, of both right (private property rights are sacrosanct) and left (it does not promote egalitarianism, rather, often, it enriches rich tenants and impoverishes poor landlords). In the latter, it leads to inefficiency, deterioration of rental housing, reduces incentives for upkeep and maintenance, reduces labor mobility, exacerbates landlord tenant relations, promotes housing abandonment and homelessness, and misallocates resources away from residential rental units. This sovietization of housing has effects similar to the sovietization of anything else: farming, factories, industry, forestry, whatever. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Two-dimensional density estimation using smooth invertible transformations

We investigate the problem of estimating a smooth invertible transformation f when observing independent samples X₁,…,X_n∼P°f where P is a known measure. We focus on the two-dimensional case where P and f are defined on R². We present a flexible class of smooth invertible transformations in two dimensions with variational equations for optimizing over the classes, then study the problem of estimating the transformation f by penalized maximum likelihood estimation. We apply our methodology to the case when P°f has a density with respect to Lebesgue measure on R² and demonstrate improvements over kernel density estimation on three examples.     

Differential Behavioral and Neural Profiles in Youth With Conduct Problems During Risky Decision‐Making

Neuroimaging work has examined neural processes underlying risk taking in adolescence, yet predominantly in low‐risk youth. To determine whether we can extrapolate from current neurobiological models, this functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigated risk taking and peer effects in youth with conduct problems (CP; N = 19) and typically developing youth (TD; N = 25). Results revealed higher real‐life risk taking, lower risky decisions, and no peer effects on a risk‐taking task in CP youth. CP youth showed greater ventral striatum (VS) activity during safe than risky decisions, whereas TD youth showed greater VS activation during risky decisions. Differential VS activity explained higher real‐life risk taking in CP youth. Findings provide preliminary evidence that risk‐taking behavior in youth with CD problems is characterized by differential neural patterns.     

Gambling and the Reasoned Action Model: Predicting Past Behavior,Intentions, and Future Behavior

Gambling is a serious concern for society because it is highly addictive and is associated with a myriad of negative outcomes. The current study applied the Reasoned Action Model (RAM) to understand and predict gambling intentions and behavior. Although prior studies have taken a reasoned action approach to understand gambling, no prior study has fully applied the RAM or used the RAM to predict future gambling. Across two studies the RAM was used to predict intentions to gamble, past gambling behavior, and future gambling behavior. In study 1 the model significantly predicted intentions and past behavior in both a college student and Amazon Mechanical Turk sample. In study 2 the model predicted future gambling behavior, measured 2 weeks after initial measurement of the RAM constructs. This study stands as the first to show the utility of the RAM in predicting future gambling behavior. Across both studies, attitudes and perceived normative pressure were the strongest predictors of intentions to gamble. These findings provide increased understanding of gambling and inform the development of gambling interventions based on the RAM.     

Neural Correlates of Conflicting Social Influence on Adolescent Risk Taking

Adolescence is often characterized by heightened risk‐taking behaviors, which are shaped by social influence from parents and peers. However, little is understood about how adolescents make risky decisions under conflicting influence. The valuation system in the brain may elucidate how adolescents differentially integrate conflicting social information. Twenty‐eight adolescents (M_age = 12.7 years) completed a social influence task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Behaviorally, adolescents took more risks only when their parent endorsed risky decisions but not when their peers endorsed risky decisions. At the neural level, adolescents showed enhanced vmPFC–striatum functional connectivity when they made risky decisions that followed their parents’ risky decisions. Results suggest that parents’ decisions may guide youths’ risk‐taking behavior under conflicting influence.     

Situational Factors Related to Childhood Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community Among Adult and Juvenile Offenders

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to situational factors associated with childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to explain incidence of CSA, as well as to provide potential targets for prevention efforts. However, very few studies have examined situational factors associated with juvenile perpetration, despite juveniles composing a substantial proportion of offenders. In addition, no studies to our knowledge have applied a situational framework to CSA research in the Orthodox Jewish community (OJC). In the present study, we obtained data from therapists regarding 80 victims of CSA in the OJC from both the United States and Israel. We hypothesized that (a) more abusers’ first perpetration would be between ages 12 and 17 than between any other age range, which corresponds to increased sexual urges, as well as increased unsupervised access to minors; (b) among juvenile offenders, the time of day of the abuse would depend on the relationship of the offender to the victim; and (c) age of the victim and grooming strategies would be associated with the frequency of abuse. Our first two hypotheses were confirmed, and our third hypothesis was partially confirmed, as younger victims tended to have higher frequency of abuse. Additionally, we discuss possible implications of significant correlations found during exploratory analyses. Our results generally support the importance of considering culturally specific situational factors when studying or developing prevention efforts for CSA.