Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Respectable Dignity Of Obergefell V. Hodges, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

In declaring state laws that restrict same-sex marriage unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy invoked “dignity” nine times—to no one’s surprise. References in Obergefell to “dignity” are in important respects the culmination of Justice Kennedy’s elevation of the concept, dating back to the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In Casey, “dignity” expressed respect for a woman’s freedom to make choices about her pregnancy. Casey laid the foundation for Lawrence v. Texas, which similarly respected the freedom of choice of homosexual persons. Yet, starting in United States v. Windsor and continuing in Obergefell, the narrative began to change. Dignity veered …

De-Colonizar A Platón: Una Relectura De La Alegoría De La Cueva En El Contexto De La Toma, Cauca (De-Colonizing Plato: Reinterpreting The Allegory Of The Cave In The Context Of La Toma, Cauca), Andrés Henao Castro

Andrés Fabián Henao-Castro

En este texto defiendo una interpretación política de la famosa alegoría de la cueva de Platón a partir de las experiencias de lucha de las comunidades negras contra la explotación minera en sus territorios ancestrales en La Toma, Cauca; interpretación que considero más adecuada a la hora de contemporaneizar la obra del filósofo griego para los proyectos emancipadores radicales de hoy, que aquella que defiende la filosofía política radical francesa.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Preserving New Media Art For Posterity, Jennifer Bonnet

Jen Bonnet

A Systemic Approach For Simulation-Based Team Training In Maritime Safety, Michael Baldauf, Birgit Nolte-Schuster, Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs

Michael Baldauf

No abstract provided.

“To Tackle Household Debt We Must Address Supply And Demand”, Basak Kus

BASAK KUS

No abstract provided.

Banking Sector Reform In Ethiopia, Admassu Bezabeh, Asayehgn Desta

Asayehgn Desta

The fragile and inefficient state-dominated banking sector that existed in Ethiopia during the military government (1974-1991) was a major hindrance to economic growth. Since it took power in 1991, the current government has implemented a number of reforms. For instance, in 1994, the government legalized domestic private investment in the banking industry. In addition, it restructured the two development banks as commercial banks, and introduced a new Banking and Monetary Proclamation that gave more autonomy and further clarified the National Bank of Ethiopia’s activities as the regulator and supervisor of the banking sector. Although these measures have led to marginal …

Promoting Retention Or Reemployment Of Workers After A Significant Injury Or Illness, Kevin Hollenbeck

Kevin Hollenbeck

This is one of three policy action papers prepared as part of the Stay-at-Work/Return-to-Work Policy Collaborative, an initiative funded by the Office of Disability Employment Policy in the U.S. Department of Labor. Each year, millions of workers in the United States lose their jobs or leave the workforce because of a medical condition. Keeping these workers in the labor force could help them stay productive, maintain their standard of living, and avoid dependency on government programs. In this paper, we suggest policies and practices that would encourage employers to retain or hire these workers, and we include specific recommendations for …

Using Priming To Study Social Categorization, Jerzy Karylowski, Harry Wallace, Michael Motes, Diana Liempd, Stephanie Eicher

Harry M. Wallace

Do people spontaneously categorize stereotypically masculine and stereotypically feminine trait and job labels according to gender? The present experiment provided a methodologically stringent test of automatic gender-based categorization using a modification of a semantic priming methodology. Subjects processing goals were manipulated by asking questions about primes that either did or did not require semantic processing. Results provide support for a spontaneous gender-based categorization of trait labels regardless of the processing goals. However, semantic processing goals appear to be necessary for a spontaneous gender-based categorization of job labels.

How Judgments Change Following Comparison Of Current And Prior Information, Dolores Albarracin, Harry Wallace, William Hart, Rick Brown

Harry M. Wallace

Although much observed judgment change is superficial and occurs without considering prior information, other forms of change also occur. Comparison between prior and new information about an issue may trigger change by influencing either or both the perceived strength and direction of the new information. In four experiments, participants formed and reported initial judgments of a policy based on favorable written information about it. Later, these participants read a second passage containing strong favorable or unfavorable information on the policy. Compared to control conditions, subtle and direct prompts to compare the initial and new information led to more judgment change …

When People Evaluate Others, The Level Of Others’ Narcissism Matters Less To Evaluators Who Are Narcissistic, Harry Wallace, Andrew Grotzinger, Tyler Howard, Nousha Parkhill

Harry M. Wallace

Prior studies have documented how people in general respond to others’ narcissism, but existing research offers few clues about whether and how evaluator narcissism influences judgments of traits associated with narcissism. Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and then evaluated hypothetical target persons. Target narcissism was conveyed through a single trait description (Study 1), a list of traits (Study 2), or Facebook content (Study 3). Narcissistic qualities were reliably viewed unfavorably, but narcissistic participants were comparatively less bothered by target narcissism and less positive in their judgments of targets without narcissistic qualities. In each study, symptoms of the presence or …

The Use Of Social Media For Citizen Engagement: The Case Of Sapas In La Paz, Mexico, Victoria Basolo, Anaid Yerena

Anaid Yerena

In this paper, we explore a local government water department's adoption of social media to engage with citizens. Specifically, we describe the use of a Facebook page, created by the Organismo Operador Municipal del Sistema de Agua Potable, Alcantarillado, y Saneamiento (SAPAS) in La Paz, B.C. Mexico, during its initial eighteen months of operation. Based on an analysis of the page posts, we note an increase in total posts over the study period. The dominant type of post (SAPAS and citizens combined) was announcement and this type of post was unevenly distributed with peaks at the beginning and end of …

Exploring Bridge-Engine Control Room Collaborative Team Communication, Aditi Kataria, Eric Holder, Gesa Praetorius, Michael Baldauf, Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs

Gesa Praetorius

The EC funded CyClaDes research project is designed to promote the increased impact of the human element in shipping across the design and operational lifecycle of ships. It addresses the design and operation of ships and ship systems. One of the CyClaDes’ tasks is to create a crew‐centered design case‐study examination of the information that is shared between the Bridge and Engine Control Room (ECR) that helps the crew coordinate to ensure understanding and complete interconnected tasks. This information can be provided in various ways, including communication devices or obtained from a common database, display, or even the ship environment …

Assessing The Intended Participation Of Young Adolescents As Future Citizens, John Ainley, Wolfram Schulz, Julian Fraillon

Dr Wolfram Schulz

In many Western countries there is concern about the level of participation of their citizens in civic life and the apparent lack of interest and involvement among young people in public and political life (Curtice & Seyd, 2003). The development of knowledge, understanding, skills, and dispositions that prepare young people to comprehend the world, hold productive employment, and be informed active citizens are among the characteristics that educational systems, schools, and teachers value and attempt to foster. However, countries vary in the status accorded to civic and citizenship education as part of school education and the relative importance of developing …

Study On Crime And Investment In Latin America And The Caribbean, Luisa Blanco, Christabel Dadzie, Coline Dony

Luisa Blanco

Investment is a key determinant of economic growth. This relationship underpins the growth diagnostic and constraints analysis methodology used by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and United States Government Partnership for Growth initiative with the purpose of identifying the binding constraints to growth in a given country. Recent growth diagnostics undertaken for El Salvador (2011), Guatemala (2013), and Honduras (2013) find crime and citizen insecurity to be binding constraints to growth and investment in those countries (Acevedo et al. 2011; World Bank, 2012). The approaches taken in these growth diagnostic analyses are based on indirect proxies and shadow prices of …

Clinical Data Warehousing For Evidence Based Decision Making, Lekha Narra, Tony Sahama, Peta Stapleton

Peta B. Stapleton

Large volumes of heterogeneous health data silos pose a big challenge when exploring for information to allow for evidence based decision making and ensuring quality outcomes. In this paper, we present a proof of concept for adopting data warehousing technology to aggregate and analyse disparate health data in order to understand the impact various lifestyle factors on obesity. We present a practical model for data warehousing with detailed explanation which can be adopted similarly for studying various other health issues.

Immigration Regulation, Luisa Blanco, Odinakachi Anyanwu

Luisa Blanco

Immigration regulation is defined here as any policy that has the objective of encouraging or discouraging immigration. There are two major categories of immigration regulation: those policies that directly affect the inflow of immigrants and those that influence the everyday lives of immigrants and processes related to the acquisition of legal permanent residency or citizenship. Immigration regulation is quite diverse across time and space; immigration policy is fluid and dynamic and is affected by socioeconomic, cultural, and political factors. Thus, immigration regulation evolves in response to current conditions in a specific country. The role of race in immigration regulation also …

The Impact Of Insecurity And Crime On Democracy And Trust In Institutions, Luisa Blanco, Isabel Ruiz

Luisa Blanco

This paper examines the impact of crime and insecurity on support for and satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions. We use survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) for Colombia during the 2004-2010 period. We find that perceptions of insecurity, crime victimization, being asked for a bribe and being affected by the armed conflict have a negative significant effect on satisfaction with democracy and trust in public institutions. Our findings show an important indirect channel through which crime can hinder development because distrust in institutions is associated with lower levels of social capital.

The Commons New Media Showcase, Vickie Karasic

Vickie M Karasic

A presentation by Vickie Karasic, Digital Projects Fellow at Penn Libraries, to announce the Commons New Media Showcase on ScholarlyCommons. Presentation originally given at the Penn Libraries Pecha Kucha on October 9, 2015.

Sovereignty And Democracy In Ethiopia: A Reflection On Gebru Asrat's Book, Asayehgn Desta

Asayehgn Desta

Over the past forty years, we have been hearing and reading a lot about the Tigrai People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which dismantled the inhuman and atrocious Military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. It was not only highly skilled in military operations but was visionary. The impression that was widely circulated was that when the TPLF came to power it would protect Ethiopia’s sovereignty, adhere to the rules of law and ensure that equity and social justice would prevail , and above all democracy would be the norm of Ethiopian society. Contrary to these assertions, Gebru Asrat (hereafter …

Thin Vs. Thick Morality: Ethics And Gender In International Development Programs, Richard Ghere

Richard K. Ghere

This study examines the ethical dimensions of gender-focused international development initiatives undertaken by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and similar agencies. Specifically, it presents three case studies that depict how specific development initiatives in, respectively, India, Tanzania, and Senegal address gender disparities and power relationships. These case studies support the general conclusion that ethically committed development NGOs find difficulty in encouraging women (and men) to reverse oppressive power status-quos in messy contexts.

The New Battleground For Same-Sex Couples Is Equal Rights For Their Kids, Tanya Washington

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

Certainty Categorization Model, Elizabeth Liddy, Noriko Kando, Victoria Rubin

Victoria Rubin

We present a theoretical framework and preliminary results for manual categorization of explicit certainty information in 32 English newspaper articles. The explicit certainty markers were identified and categorized according to the four hypothesized dimensions – perspective, focus, timeline, and level of certainty. One hundred twenty one sentences from sample news stories contained a significantly lower frequency of markers per sentence (M=0.46, SD =0.04) than 564 sentences from sample editorials (M=0.6, SD =0.23), p= 0.0056, two-tailed heteroscedastic t-test. Within each dimension, editorials had most numerous markers per sentence in high level of certainty, writer’s point of view, and future and present …

Discerning Emotions In Texts, Victoria Rubin, Jeffrey Stanton, Elizabeth Liddy

Victoria Rubin

We present an empirically verified model of discernable emotions, Watson and Tellegen’s Circumplex Theory of Affect from social and personality psychology, and suggest its usefulness in NLP as a potential model for an automation of an eight-fold categorization of emotions in written English texts. We developed a data collection tool based on the model, collected 287 responses from 110 non-expert informants based on 50 emotional excerpts (min=12, max=348, average=86 words), and analyzed the inter-coder agreement per category and per strength of ratings per sub-category. The respondents achieved an average 70.7% agreement in the most commonly identified emotion categories per text. …

Certainty Identification In Texts: Categorization Model And Manual Tagging Results, Elizabeth Liddy, Victoria Rubin, Noriko Kando

Victoria Rubin

This chapter presents a theoretical framework and preliminary results for manual categorization of explicit certainty information in 32 English newspaper articles. Our contribution is in a proposed categorization model and analytical framework for certainty identification. Certainty is presented as a type of subjective information available in texts. Statements with explicit certainty markers were identified and categorized according to four hypothesized dimensions – level, perspective, focus, and time of certainty. The preliminary results reveal an overall promising picture of the presence of certainty information in texts, and establish its susceptibility to manual identification within the proposed four-dimensional certainty categorization analytical framework. …

Reframing The Climate Change Debate To Better Leverage Policy Change: An Analysis Of Public Opinion And Political Psychology, Terrence O'Sullivan, Roger Emmelhainz

Terry O'Sullivan

U.S. climate change-related policy response is failing, despite scientific consensus on core realities, in part because of comprehensive, simultaneous, yet incommensurable doctrines and political biases. Climate disruption is a critically important agenda for homeland security and emergency management, yet as framed today, the policy communication regime frequently requires many skep-tics or deniers to abandon their opinions, cultural commitments and epistemic frameworks. Public opinion consensus would be optimal, but the traditional edu-cation/information approach is flawed, and continued delays in significant miti-gation and adaptation policy implementation will mean far larger future costs to protect civilian environmental security and national interests. Thus, effective …

Progress And Process: Accreditation For Gerontology, Harvey Sterns

Harvey L. Sterns

No abstract provided.

Caring More And Knowing More Reduces Age-Related Differences In Emotion Perception., Jennifer Stanley, Derek Isaacowitz

Jennifer T Stanley

Traditional emotion perception tasks show that older adults are less accurate than are young adults at recognizing facial expressions of emotion. Recently, we proposed that socioemotional factors might explain why older adults seem impaired in lab tasks but less so in everyday life (Isaacowitz & Stanley, 2011). Thus, in the present research we empirically tested whether socioemotional factors such as motivation and familiarity can alter this pattern of age effects. In 1 task, accountability instructions eliminated age differences in the traditional emotion perception task. Using a novel emotion perception paradigm featuring spontaneous dynamic facial expressions of a familiar romantic partner …

Age-Related Differences In Judgments Of Inappropriate Behavior Are Related To Humor Style Preferences, Jennifer Stanley, Monika Lohani, Derek Isaacowitz

Jennifer T Stanley

Identifying social gaffes is important for maintaining relationships. Older adults are less able than young to discriminate between socially appropriate and inappropriate behavior in video clips. One open question is how these social appropriateness ratings relate to potential age differences in the perception of what is actually funny or not. In the present study, young, middle-aged, and older adults were equally able to discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate social behavior in a diverse set of clips relevant across age groups. However, young and middle-aged adults rated the gaffe clips as funnier than control clips and young adults smiled more during …

Rethinking Criminal Law Theory: New Canadian Perspectives In The Philosophy Of Domestic, Transnational, And International Criminal Law, François Tanguay-Renaud, James Stribopoulos

François Tanguay-Renaud

In the last two decades, the philosophy of criminal law has undergone a vibrant revival in Canada. The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has given the Supreme Court of Canada unprecedented latitude to engage with principles of legal, moral, and political philosophy when elaborating its criminal law jurisprudence. Canadian scholars have followed suit by paying increased attention to the philosophical foundations of domestic criminal law. Because of Canada's leadership in international criminal law, both at the level of the International Criminal Court and of specific war crimes tribunals, they have also begun to turn their attention to …

Thinking Through Srivijaya: Polycentric Networks In Traditional Southeast Asia, Rosita Dellios, R. James Ferguson

R. James Ferguson

The story of Srivijaya begins with a geopolitical preface. Just as all roads once led to Rome, so too maritime trade in Asia converged on the narrow sea route that became known as the Strait of Malacca. Unlike ancient Rome, however, the Malacca Strait has retained its geographical salience at different times in history. One such era was well conveyed by the sixteenth century Portuguese adventurer, Tomé Pires, who wrote shortly after his country’s acquisition of the port city of Malacca: “Whoever is lord of Malacca has his hands on the throat of Venice” (Courtesao 1944). Five centuries later, similar …