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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ecological Analysis Of A System Of Organized Interests, Paul E. Johnson
Ecological Analysis Of A System Of Organized Interests, Paul E. Johnson
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
This is a report on a long-term research project about the evolution of system of political organizations. An agent-based computer simulation model is developed with the aim of exploring the inter-connection between tools and concepts from the field of political science with the emerging field of complex systems analysis and the simulation of ecological processes. In political science, we can draw on the exchange theory of interest group formation as well as research on the so-called “ecology of organizations.” Many of the individual level premises that are implicit in the political models are made explicit by considering the interest group …
The Political Consequences Of Perceived Threat And Felt Insecurity, Leonie Huddy, Stanley Feldman, Christopher Weber
The Political Consequences Of Perceived Threat And Felt Insecurity, Leonie Huddy, Stanley Feldman, Christopher Weber
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
We draw on data from a national RDD telephone sample of 1549 adult Americans conducted between October 15, 2001 and March 2, 2002 to explore the impact of a need for security on support for national security policies in the aftermath of the 911 terrorist attacks. In past research, an external threat has been assumed to have uniform impact on an affected population, a claim that has met with growing research scrutiny. We advance research on threat through an examination of the political effects of individual differences in one’s ability to feel secure in the aftermath of terrorism, exploring the …
Empathy And Collective Action In The Prisoner's Dilemma, John A. Sautter
Empathy And Collective Action In The Prisoner's Dilemma, John A. Sautter
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Economists guided by evolutionary psychology have theorized that in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma reciprocal behavior is a product of evolutionary design, where individuals are guided by an innate sense of fairness for equal outcomes. Empathy as a pro-social emotion could be a key to understanding the psychological underpinnings of why and who tends to cooperate in a collective act. In short, why are some individuals more prone to participate in collective-action? The hypothesis that a pro-social psychological disposition stemming from self-reported empathy will lead to grouporiented behavior in an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game is tested. Results suggest that an empathetic …
Effects Of "In-Your-Face" Television Discourse On Perceptions Of A Legitimate Opposition, Diana C. Mutz
Effects Of "In-Your-Face" Television Discourse On Perceptions Of A Legitimate Opposition, Diana C. Mutz
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
How do Americans acquire the impression that their political foes have some understandable basis for their views, and thus represent a legitimate opposition? How do they come to believe that reasonable people may disagree on any given political controversy? Given that few people talk regularly to those of opposing perspectives, some theorize that mass media, and television in particular, serve as an important source of exposure to the rationales for oppositional views. A series of experimental studies suggests that television does, indeed, have the capacity to encourage greater awareness of oppositional perspectives. However, common characteristics of televised political discourse cause …
Judgments About Cooperators And Freeriders On A Shuar Work Team: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective, Michael E. Price
Judgments About Cooperators And Freeriders On A Shuar Work Team: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective, Michael E. Price
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Evolutionary biological theories of group cooperation predict that (1) group members will tend to judge cooperative co-members favorably, and freeriding co-members negatively and (2) members who themselves cooperate more frequently will be especially likely to make these social judgments. An experiment tested these predictions among Shuar hunter-horticulturalists. Subjects viewed depictions of pairs of workers who varied in the extent to which they had contributed to, and benefited from, a team project. Subjects were then asked to judge which worker deserved more respect, and which deserved more punishment. When judging between unequalcontributors, all subjects tended to favor more cooperative (i.e., higher-contributing) …
Personality And Emtional Response: Strategic And Tactical Responses To Changing Political Circumstances, Jennifer Wolak, George E. Marcus
Personality And Emtional Response: Strategic And Tactical Responses To Changing Political Circumstances, Jennifer Wolak, George E. Marcus
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Emotions help people navigate political environments, differentiating familiar situations where standard operating procedures are suitable from unfamiliar terrain when more attention is needed. While previous research identifies consequences of emotion, we know less about what triggers affective response. In this paper, we investigate what role personality has in the operation of the systems of affective intelligence. Using experimental data as well as responses from the 2000 and 2004 American National Election Studies, we first consider whether personality affects the activation of emotional response. Next, we explore the degree to which citizen attitudes like openness to information and compromise are explained …
The Neural Basis Of Representative Democracy, John R. Alford, John R. Hibbing
The Neural Basis Of Representative Democracy, John R. Alford, John R. Hibbing
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
In politics specifically and society generally people often make decisions on behalf of others or experience the results of decisions made on their behalf. In exactly what manner is this important class of decisions different from traditional situations in which people make decisions on their own behalf? How are people’s behavioral and thinking patterns altered by shifting from personal to representational decision-making? Empirical social science research has provided little information on these questions, so in this paper, we draw on evolutionary theory and current knowledge of neuroanatomy to formulate a set of expectations regarding the differences between the decisions and …
Balancing Ambition And Gender Among Decision Makers, Christopher W. Larimer, Rebecca Hannagan, Kevin B. Smith
Balancing Ambition And Gender Among Decision Makers, Christopher W. Larimer, Rebecca Hannagan, Kevin B. Smith
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Survey research from political science indicates that people are quite suspicious of ambitious decision makers; that people who desire power are self-serving and not to be trusted. In this paper, we use an original laboratory experiment to test not only whether people prefer nonambitious decision makers, but also whether people will seek to balance ambitious decision makers with non-ambitious decision makers, allowing for interactions with gender. In the experiment, participants are told two decision makers will be dividing some valuable resource on their behalf. One decision maker (either high or low in ambition) is “appointed.” Participants vote from a slate …
The Genetic Basics Of Political Cooperation, James H. Fowler, Laura A. Baker, Christopher T. Dawes
The Genetic Basics Of Political Cooperation, James H. Fowler, Laura A. Baker, Christopher T. Dawes
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Cooperation has been a focus of intense interest in the biological and social sciences. Yet in spite of a tremendous effort to develop evolutionary models and laboratory experiments that explain the existence of cooperation in humans, relatively little effort has been invested in documenting the prevalence of largescale cooperation in well-mixed populations and the extent to which it may be the result of biological or social forces. In this article we study voter behaviour as a form of cooperation that bears close resemblance to theoretical models in which individuals in a large population make anonymous decisions about whether or not …
The Neuroeconomics Of Trust, Paul J. Zak
The Neuroeconomics Of Trust, Paul J. Zak
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
A possible explanation for the substantial amount of “irrational” behavior observed in markets (and elsewhere) is that humans are a highly social species and to an extent value what other humans think of them. This behavior can be termed trustworthiness— cooperating when someone places trust in us. Indeed, we inculcate children nearly from birth to share and care about others. In economic nomenclature, reciprocating what others expect us to do may provide a utility flow itself (Frey ****). Loosely, it is possible that it “feels good” to fulfill others’ expectations in us. If such a cooperative instinct exists, it must …
'Heroism' In Warfare, Oleg Smirnov, Holly Arrow, Doug Kennet, John Orbell
'Heroism' In Warfare, Oleg Smirnov, Holly Arrow, Doug Kennet, John Orbell
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
The willingness of people to risk their lives fighting on behalf of their nation (which we call heroism) is a background assumption in the study of war, thus of international relations, but also an evolutionary puzzle. We use two computer simulations to explore the possibility that heroism could have evolved as a domain specific form of altruism, selected through humans’ ancient past as a consequence of warfare. In the first, “altruism” is modeled as a generalized disposition that promotes both heroism and other, non-military, forms of group-benefiting behaviors—which we call communitarianism. In the second, heroism and communitarianism are modeled …
When Can Politicians Scare Citizens Into Supporting Bad Policies? A Theory Of Incentives With Fear Based Content, Arthur Lupia, Jesse O. Mennng
When Can Politicians Scare Citizens Into Supporting Bad Policies? A Theory Of Incentives With Fear Based Content, Arthur Lupia, Jesse O. Mennng
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Analysts make competing claims about when and how politicians can use fear to gain support for suboptimal policies. Using a model, we clarify how common attributes of fear affect politicians’ abilities to achieve self-serving outcomes that are bad for voters. In it, a politician provides information about a threat. His statement need not be true. How citizens respond differs from most game-theoretic models – we proceed from more dynamic (and realistic) assumptions about how citizens think. Our conclusions counter popular claims about how easily politicians use fear to manipulate citizens, yield different policy advice than does recent scholarship on counterterrorism, …
Testosterone, Cortisol, And Aggression In A Simulated Crisis Game, Rose Mcdermott
Testosterone, Cortisol, And Aggression In A Simulated Crisis Game, Rose Mcdermott
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
This study investigated the impact of testosterone and cortisol on aggression in a crisis simulation game. We found a significant relationship between level of testosterone and aggression. Men were much more likely to engage in aggressive action than women. They were more likely to lose their fights as well. In addition, we found a significant inverse relationship between cortisol level and aggression. We end with some speculation about why we did not find victory effects in this population.
Evolutionary Model Of Racial Attitude Formation Socially Shared And Idiosyncratic Racial Attitudes, Thomas Craemer
Evolutionary Model Of Racial Attitude Formation Socially Shared And Idiosyncratic Racial Attitudes, Thomas Craemer
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
A growing body of research in political science has uncovered evidence of a “split personality” among Americans when it comes to racial attitudes, whereby people express different attitudes in public than they personally hold. A common assumption is that people adjust their personal attitudes to conform to dominant social norms. At present, however, there is no theoretical model that could account for the emergence of racial norms that are at odds with people’s personal attitudes. This paper proposes a simple neural model of racial attitude formation that makes an important distinction between socially shared and idiosyncratic racial attitudes. Socially shared …
Audience Effects On Moralistic Punishment, Robert Kurzban, Peter Descioli, Erin O'Brien
Audience Effects On Moralistic Punishment, Robert Kurzban, Peter Descioli, Erin O'Brien
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Punishment has been proposed as being central to two distinctively human phenomena: cooperation in groups and morality. Here we investigate moralistic punishment, a behavior designed to inflict costs on another individual in response to a perceived moral violation. There is currently no consensus on which evolutionary model best accounts for this phenomenon in humans. Models that turn on individuals’ cultivating reputations as moralistic punishers clearly predict that psychological systems should be designed to increase punishment in response to information that one’s decisions to punish will be known by others. We report two experiments in which we induce participants to commit …
Genetic Configurations Of Political Phenomena: New Theories, New Methods, Ira H. Carmen
Genetic Configurations Of Political Phenomena: New Theories, New Methods, Ira H. Carmen
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Recent research by E.O. Wilson, James Q. Wilson, Simon, Alford-Hibbing, Carmen and others indicates that the competing social science paradigms of behavioralism and rational choice are in their last throes. Their salient weakness is insensitivity, bordering on ignorance, to politics as a biologically-orchestrated phenomenon. More specifically, political scientists know precious little about either genetics or evolutionary dynamics.
In this paper, I present a new theory--sociogenomics--to replace the shopworn conceptions of yesterday’s political science. I then demonstrate how social scientists can employ the tools of molecular biology to flesh out the genes coding for baseline political attitudes and behaviors. The theory …
Minorities Within Minorities: Equality, Rights, & Diversity
Minorities Within Minorities: Equality, Rights, & Diversity
Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium
Schedule, agenda, and brochure for HENDRICKS SYMPOSIUM 2002
Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Rights & Diversity
This symposium has been made possible through the support of the University of Nebraska’s Hendricks Fund. Established through the generosity of Mr. G. E. Hendricks, this fund is dedicated to supporting the exploration of “current controversial political questions… in a nonpartisan, unbiased manner.” Mr. Hendricks, an alumnus of the University and later an attorney in Colorado, believed that a more intelligent examination and consideration of political questions would lead to better government.
The Hendricks Fund is administered by the Political Science Department. Additional support has …