Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of Richmond

Series

2007

Discipline
Keyword
Publication

Articles 1 - 29 of 29

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Rise Of Agricultural Animal Welfare Standards As Understood Through A Neo-Institutional Lens, Elizabeth Ransom Dec 2007

The Rise Of Agricultural Animal Welfare Standards As Understood Through A Neo-Institutional Lens, Elizabeth Ransom

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In recent years agricultural animal welfare standards have increasingly been placed on the agenda of international, regional, and national governance bodies, as well as private agrifood organizations. Standards, long the domain of economists, are now recognized as one of the most significant emerging practices for governing food, and as such, a growing number of scholars have focused on the role that powerful actors have in setting standards and the distributional benefits of standards implementation. However, much of the existing literature relies on consumer-demand arguments for explaining the rise of animal welfare standards. This article uses sociological neo-institutionalism, specifically institutional isomorphism, …

Go to article

An Alternative Strategy For Building Sales Of Computers: Generic Advertising, Min Lu, Steven M. Thompson, Yanbin Tu Nov 2007

An Alternative Strategy For Building Sales Of Computers: Generic Advertising, Min Lu, Steven M. Thompson, Yanbin Tu

Management Faculty Publications

Frequent upgrading and aggressive price-cutting have become standard practice in the computer sector. While necessitated in part by declining production costs and a highly competitive market, these strategies have also served to make computers more affordable, growing the size of the overall market. Recently downturns in the sales of computers motivate us to examine the impact of these strategies on overall sales growth. We find evidence to suggest that excessive upgrading and overly aggressive price-cutting can be detrimental to overall sales growth. We also find that the computer sector exhibits characteristics that suggest that generic advertising would be an effective …

Go to article

The Purpose Of Our Efforts, Donelson R. Forsyth Nov 2007

The Purpose Of Our Efforts, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This year’s APA Convention in San Francisco was something of a homecoming for the division, for it was in that same city, some 18 years ago, that group psychology and group psychotherapy first took the stage as a newly founded division within APA. Only a few months earlier this fledgling coalition of dedicated supporters of group approaches had successfully petitioned APA for official divisional recognition. As that petition explained, it was time for psychologists to focus on groups and group-based approaches to adjustment, arguing that there “are two basic psychological approaches to human life and to mental health; one through …

Go to article

Perspectives: Entrepreneurship Training Can Empower Students Being Left Behind, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, Catherine S. Fisher, Michael J. Caslin Oct 2007

Perspectives: Entrepreneurship Training Can Empower Students Being Left Behind, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, Catherine S. Fisher, Michael J. Caslin

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Entrepreneurial self-employment, however, would hold great promise for business-minded students, if they learn entrepreneurship in high school and can test out their innovative business plans on consumers in their own neighborhoods and beyond — especially Internet start-up ideas. The social and community networking success of MySpace opens a wide door for anyone to market a new idea or product to a myriad of potential customers instantly.

Go to article

Simmons’ Critique Of Natural Duty Approaches To The Duty To Obey The Law, David Lefkowitz Oct 2007

Simmons’ Critique Of Natural Duty Approaches To The Duty To Obey The Law, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In his most recent book on the moral duty to obey the law, A. John Simmons considers and rejects a number of natural duty approaches to justifying political authority. Among the targets of Simmons’ criticism is the account defended by the book’s co-author, Christopher Heath Wellman. In this essay, I evaluate the force of Simmons’ objections to Wellman’s account of political obligation. As will become clear below, I think Wellman’s defense of the duty to obey the law defective in certain ways—but not in all of the ways that Simmons argues it is. By rebutting some of Simmons’ criticisms and …

Go to article

The Reagan Standard, Gary L. Mcdowell Sep 2007

The Reagan Standard, Gary L. Mcdowell

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

After much hemming and hawing, former U.S. Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson has made it official: He will seek the Republican nomination for the presidency. His official announcement, it has long been rumored, will cause a collective sigh of relief from a great many conservatives in the party. He is, after all, in their view, one of them. The question is, what does that mean?

Go to article

Seeing Groups, Donelson R. Forsyth Jul 2007

Seeing Groups, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Sometimes I think that only a select few of us—members of Division 49, for example— really understand groups and group approaches to treatment. Last week in class a student, and a particularly bright one at that, looked puzzled when I spoke about group psychotherapy: Is that a method used to treat crazy groups, he asked? Later that same week I was meeting with a professor in the school of business and I mentioned group psychotherapy. He was equally bewildered. Is that a team-building intervention for poorly functioning groups, he suggested? Then, while reading the brand-new APA Dictionary of Psychology (2007) …

Go to article

Filming Eugenics: Teaching The History Of Eugenics Through Film, Melissa Ooten, Sarah Trembanis Jul 2007

Filming Eugenics: Teaching The History Of Eugenics Through Film, Melissa Ooten, Sarah Trembanis

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

In teaching eugenics to undergraduate students and general public audiences, film should be considered as a provocative and fruitful medium that can generate important discussions about the intersections among eugenics, gender, class, race, and sexuality. This paper considers the use of two films, A Bill of Divorcement and The Lynchburg Story, as pedagogical tools for the history of eugenics. The authors provide background information on the films and suggestions for using the films to foster an active engagement with the historical eugenics movement.

Go to article

A Theory Of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, And The Bonds Of Society By Margaret Gilbert (Book Review), David Lefkowitz Jun 2007

A Theory Of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, And The Bonds Of Society By Margaret Gilbert (Book Review), David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Does membership in a political society, in and of itself, involve obligations to uphold that society’s political institutions? Margaret Gilbert offers a novel argument in defense of an affirmative answer to this question, which she labels the membership problem. Given a plausible construal of the concepts obligation, political society, and membership in a political society, Gilbert argues that it follows analytically that to be a member of a political society just is to have an obligation to uphold and support that society’s political institutions. The key to Gilbert’s argument is the idea of a joint commitment; those …

Go to article

Theorizing The Post-Soul Aesthetic: An Introduction, Bertram D. Ashe Jan 2007

Theorizing The Post-Soul Aesthetic: An Introduction, Bertram D. Ashe

English Faculty Publications

It's time. Clearly, it's time. As I begin this introduction, in the spring of 2006, landmark anniversaries press in on me from every side: 20 years ago, Greg Tate wrote "Cult-Nats Meet Freaky-Deke: the Return of the Black Aesthetic" for the Village Voice in the fall of 1986. And Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It - that totemic post-soul anthem - was released in the summer of 1986, as well. More personally, I first taught Trey Ellis's essay "The New Black Aesthetic" in 1991,15 years ago, and I inaugurated my post-soul aesthetic course in the Spring semester of 1996 - …

Go to article

Adam Smith And Poverty, Jonathan B. Wight Jan 2007

Adam Smith And Poverty, Jonathan B. Wight

English Faculty Publications

Can we end poverty in America? Does economic theory offer a solution? Humility would be a good starting place, because systemic problems like generational poverty rarely stem from single causes. Putting the broken pieces together is difficult when some edges are sharp, some are shattered, and others missing. This essay draws on insights from Adam Smith in order to examine the problem of poverty. It focuses on a case study involving Serena Robins (the real names have been altered).

Go to article

Turbio Fondeadero: Política E Ideología En La Poética Neobarrosa De Osvaldo Lamborghini Y Néstor Perlongher, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez Jan 2007

Turbio Fondeadero: Política E Ideología En La Poética Neobarrosa De Osvaldo Lamborghini Y Néstor Perlongher, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En la poética de Osvaldo Lamborghini y Néstor Perlongher no son los barcos, como dice el tango, los que van a recalar en el fangoso y turbio Río de la Plata, sino cuerpos que, arrastrados, tapados y penetrados por las corrientes arcillosas, no pueden escapar a las transformaciones que les inflige una marea oscura, desconocida. Esta metáfora podría referirse al destino de las miles de víctimas del terrorismo de estado practicado por la última dictadura militar argentina (1976-1983); podría explicar el uso del lenguaje en la poesía de ambos escritores, o aludir a un modo de entender el sujeto que, …

Go to article

Association For Political And Legal Anthropology, Jan Hoffman French Jan 2007

Association For Political And Legal Anthropology, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) is a division of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) dedicated to studying and promoting anthropological approaches to law, political systems, and governmental authority. As anthropological subdisciplines, legal and political anthropology have promoted ethnographic research and theoretical contributions to understanding law's relationship to culture and power. They are also concerned with the cultures of legal and political institutions.

Go to article

A Tale Of Two Priests And Two Struggles: Liberation Theology From Dictatorship To Democracy In The Brazilian Northeast, Jan Hoffman French Jan 2007

A Tale Of Two Priests And Two Struggles: Liberation Theology From Dictatorship To Democracy In The Brazilian Northeast, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Land for the landless, food for the hungry, literacy for the uneducated— not through charitable works, but by forcing the state to take seriously its responsibilities to its poorest citizens. This was integral to the theology of liberation as it was practiced by bishops, priests, and nuns in Brazil beginning shortly after the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Important sectors of the Brazilian Catholic Church were “opting for the poor” at a time when economic development, modernization, and democracy were not considered appropriate or meaningful partners in the repressive environment characterized by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Go to article

Consumers And Citizens In The Global Agrifood System: The Cases Of New Zealand And South Africa In The Global Red Meat Chain, Keiko Tanaka, Elizabeth Ransom Jan 2007

Consumers And Citizens In The Global Agrifood System: The Cases Of New Zealand And South Africa In The Global Red Meat Chain, Keiko Tanaka, Elizabeth Ransom

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This chapter aims to show that the process of changing rules within the capitalist market system, specifically meat safety governance reform in New Zealand and South Africa, raises profound obstacles for human agency, yet opens new spaces for conceptualizing who participates in promoting change. Agency and structure are complex concepts with dueling tensions that alter the form and substance (as Wright and Middendorf argue in their Introduction to this volume) of individual and collective action in the red meat commodity chains of these two countries. We show that, far from being monolithic, the ways in which capitalism and a changing …

Go to article

Sotsiologicheskii Neoinstitutsionalizm I Analiz Organizatsii (Predislovie K Razdelu), Jeffrey K. Hass Jan 2007

Sotsiologicheskii Neoinstitutsionalizm I Analiz Organizatsii (Predislovie K Razdelu), Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Доминирующей парадигмой в экономической социологии, распространившейся также в другие разделы социальных наук и политологию, является неоинсмимуционализм (neoinstitutionalism), который иногда ошибочно ассоциируют с новым институционализмом (нев institutionalism) в экономической теории. Подобно друтим социологам, неоинституционалисты удаляют большое внимание власти, культуре и исторической выгоды рассматривают не как аксиомы, а как гипотезы, подлежащие эмпирической проверке. Появившись в ответ на развитие микроэкономической теории, неоинституционализм оказался ее серьезным оппонентом, задающим и обсуждающим вопросы, которые ставят экономистов в тупик (если, конечно, последние вообще осознают их значимость).

Go to article

Pro Teams Should Reward Good Off-Field Behavior, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, David R. Maraghy Jan 2007

Pro Teams Should Reward Good Off-Field Behavior, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, David R. Maraghy

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Professional sports—particularly the NFL and NBA, whose players clearly are behavioral models for kids and even young adults—should join the cash-for-performance movement by rewarding players for their exemplary good citizenship off the field. Why not reward integrity-passionate athletes like Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks or Willie McGinest of the Cleveland Browns with annual bonuses of $100,000 each—or donate that amount to their favorite charities? Such a bonus program would require more than being scandal-or police-blotter-free for a year. To qualify, players would have to travel at the highest moral altitude of sports ambassadorship and citizenship. Character counts and should …

Go to article

Clery Act Needs Whistleblower Protection, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, Beth Anne Simonds Jan 2007

Clery Act Needs Whistleblower Protection, Porcher L. Taylor Iii, Beth Anne Simonds

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

In light of the apparent cover-up by the leadership at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) of a student rape and murder on campus, Congress should amend the Jeanne Clery Act. Specifically, a whistleblower protection section needs to be added to this landmark "sunshine" law.

Go to article

Enforcing New Property Rights In Sub-Saharan Africa: The Ugandan Constitution And The 1998 Land Act, Sandra F. Joireman Jan 2007

Enforcing New Property Rights In Sub-Saharan Africa: The Ugandan Constitution And The 1998 Land Act, Sandra F. Joireman

Political Science Faculty Publications

A convincing case has been made in both academic studies and policy circles for clearly defined private property rights as a means to economic development. Perhaps best characterized by the recent work of Hernando De Soto, well-defined private property rights are thought to be critical not just for economic growth, but also as tool to alleviate poverty. The argument that the poor have capital that need only be put to efficient use through the creation of institutional structures that will allow them to access it is compelling. De Soto's work follows decades of policy advice provided by the international financial …

Go to article

Mccarthy Hearings, Paul Achter Jan 2007

Mccarthy Hearings, Paul Achter

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

What have become known as the “McCarthy hearings” refer to 36 days of televised investigative hearings led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. After first calling hearings to investigate possible espionage at the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, the junior senator turned his communist-chasing committee’s attention to an altogether different matter, the question of whether the Army had promoted a dentist who had refused to answer questions for the Loyalty and Security Board. The hearings reached their climax when McCarthy suggested that the Army’s lawyer, Joseph Welch, had employed a man who at one time …

Go to article

Can Organizations Meet Thetest Of Transforming Leadership?, Gill Robinson Hickman Jan 2007

Can Organizations Meet Thetest Of Transforming Leadership?, Gill Robinson Hickman

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

My subsequent writing in this area takes his definition of transforming leadership from the political context and applies it to formal organizations. Transforming organizational leaders shape collective purpose and developmental processes within the organization that adapt to some social changes and promote others. Though leadership scholars have previously adapted Burns's concept and incorporated it in leader-follower relationships (Bass 1985; Bennis and Nanus 1985; Tichy and Devanna 1986; Bass, Avolio, and Goodheim 1987; Bass, Waldman, Avolio, and Bebb 1987), my work attempts to infuse organizations with Burns's imperative to link leadership with "collective purpose and social change (Burns 1978:3).

Go to article

Instead Of Erklären And Verstehen: William James On Human Understanding, David E. Leary Jan 2007

Instead Of Erklären And Verstehen: William James On Human Understanding, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

Perhaps more than any other American psychologist and philosopher, William James (1842-1910) was intimately familiar with contemporary European thought and debate, including the discussion of Erklären and Verstehen advanced by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and others around the turn of the twentieth century. Even before this discussion was initiated, James had been dealing with related issues, pondering alternative solutions, and formulating his own original views on human understanding. These views coalesced in a distinctive approach to cognition. Fundamental to this approach was a belief in possibility and probability as innate features of the physical as well as mental manifestations of the …

Go to article

Language, Racism, And Ethnicity, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio Jan 2007

Language, Racism, And Ethnicity, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

While ethnic prejudices can be expressed in and through language, they are not, however, intrinsically linguistic in nature. They are, instead, supralinguistic concepts that become disguised as linguistic ones and imported into the theater of language. The pathways that facilitate this importation have been made by the repeated interconnections between the concept of language and the concept of race. In other words, language in the service of racism and ethnocentrism cannot occur without conceptualizing language and race in similar ways. Accordingly, the identification of language with race is not possible without the genetic misprisions that create the myth of race …

Go to article

Counterfeiting Truth: Statistical Reporting On The Basis Of Trust, Sandra J. Peart, David M. Levy Jan 2007

Counterfeiting Truth: Statistical Reporting On The Basis Of Trust, Sandra J. Peart, David M. Levy

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

There are two parts of our chapter. First, we review Adam Smith's argument that the evolution of monetary institutions is tied up in the problem of detecting deceitful metal offered in exchange. Smith points to no such comparable institution by which deceitful policy advocacy is detected and severely punished.5 Yet his recommendation for caution in the evaluation of policy advocacy points to the caution that routinely prevailed in monetary matters before public safeguards evolved to make the metallic content of the medium of exchange transparent and to preserve its quality. Second, we tum to a different sort of deceit, …

Go to article

Counterfeiting Truth: Statistical Reporting On The Basis Of Trust, David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart Jan 2007

Counterfeiting Truth: Statistical Reporting On The Basis Of Trust, David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Semantics and game theory offer modern approaches to very old problems.1 David Lewis introduced game theoretic concepts into the study of language in his examination of conventions.2 In this chapter we study the language of a specific sort of conventions: statistical estimators. Such estimators have the important property of being both well-defined mathematical objects and devices that form the basis of factual claims asserted and, perhaps, believed by rational agents.3 The convention we analyze allows econometric reporting to proceed on the basis of trust.4 In contrast with Lewis, we shall demonstrate that such a convention is …

Go to article

Attempting To Improve The Academic Performance Of Struggling College Students By Bolstering Their Self-Esteem: An Intervention That Backfired, Donelson R. Forsyth, Natalie K. Lawrence, Jeni L. Burnette, Roy F. Baumeister Jan 2007

Attempting To Improve The Academic Performance Of Struggling College Students By Bolstering Their Self-Esteem: An Intervention That Backfired, Donelson R. Forsyth, Natalie K. Lawrence, Jeni L. Burnette, Roy F. Baumeister

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Theory and prior research suggest that (a) a positive sense of self–worth and (b) perceived control over one’s outcomes facilitate constructive responses to negative outcomes. We therefore predicted that encouraging students to maintain their sense of self–worth and/or construe their academic outcomes as controllable would promote achievement. In a field experiment, low–performing students in a psychology class were randomly assigned to receive, each week, review questions, review questions plus self–esteem bolstering, or review questions plus exhortations to assume responsibility and control. Contrary to predictions, the D and F students got worse as a result of self–esteem bolstering and students in …

Go to article

Group Dynamics, Donelson R. Forsyth Jan 2007

Group Dynamics, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Group dynamics are the influential actions, processes, and changes that take place in groups. Individuals often seek personal objectives independently of others, but across a wide range of settings and situations, they join with others in groups. The processes that take place within these groups--such as pressures to conform, the development of norms and roles, differentiation of leaders from followers, collective goal-strivings, and conflict-substantially influence members' emotions, actions, and thoughts. Kurt Lewin, widely recognized as the founding theorist of the field, used the term group dynamics to describe these group processes, as well as the scientific discipline devoted to their …

Go to article

Leadership And The Vox Populi, J. Thomas Wren Jan 2007

Leadership And The Vox Populi, J. Thomas Wren

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

James MacGregor Burns’s Leadership is one of those marvelous books with the power to comfort and afflict simultaneously. It has had precisely that impact upon me as I have labored in the vineyards of the study of leadership: comforting me with its substance, analytical power, and moral compass; afflicting me with the central leadership issues it poses so well, yet leaves others tantalizingly unresolved. Much of my research in the field of leadership seeks to pursue the implications of these core issues: the role of values in leadership; the elusive concept and function of the common good; and, perhaps most …

Go to article

These - Are - The "Breaks": A Roundtable Discussion On Teaching The Post-Soul Aesthetic, Bertram D. Ashe, Crystal Anderson, Mark Anthony Neal, Evie Shockley, Alexander Weheliye Jan 2007

These - Are - The "Breaks": A Roundtable Discussion On Teaching The Post-Soul Aesthetic, Bertram D. Ashe, Crystal Anderson, Mark Anthony Neal, Evie Shockley, Alexander Weheliye

English Faculty Publications

We met at Duke University - mid-summer, in the mid Atlantic, at mid-campus - to talk about teaching courses that focused on the post-soul aesthetic. We met outside the John Hope Franklin Center, and soon enough we five youngish black professors were walking a hallway towards a conference room near the African and African American Studies program. Not at all surprisingly, the walls of the hallway were lined with framed photographs of the esteemed John Hope Franklin at various stages throughout his long and storied career. For me, given the topic I was about to raise among these professional colleagues, …

Go to article