When Biased Language Use is Associated With Bullying and Dominance Behavior: The Moderating Effect of Prejudice

Biased language related to sexual orientation is used frequently among students and is related to prominent social concerns such as bullying. Prejudice toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals also has been examined among adolescents, but separately from these behaviors. This study tested whether biased language use was associated with bullying and dominance irrespective of sexual prejudice or if sexual prejudice moderated these associations among 290 high school students (50% female; 56% White). Sexual prejudice was associated with biased language use among boys only. Biased language was associated with bullying regardless of levels of sexual prejudice for boys. However, this association was dependent on sexual prejudice for girls. For dominance behavior, its association with biased language was moderated by sexual prejudice for boys, but not girls. However, girls’ engagement in all behaviors was significantly less than boys. These results indicate nuanced ways in which multiple factors contribute to the use of sexual orientation biased language. Also, they underscore the need to address biased language and prejudice as part of anti-bullying programs.     

Adolescents Online: The Importance of Internet Activity Choices to Salient Relationships

The purpose of this study was to determine whether using the Internet for different activities affects the quality of close adolescent relationships (i.e., best friendships and romantic relationships). In a one-year longitudinal study of 884 adolescents (Mean age = 15, 46% male), we examined whether visiting chat rooms, using ICQ, using the Internet for general entertainment, or participating in online gaming predicted changes in the quality of best friendships and romantic relationships. Multiple regression analyses indicated that Internet activity choice influenced later relationship quality in both best friendships and romantic relationships. Using instant messaging (ICQ) was positively associated with most aspects of romantic relationship and best friendship quality. In contrast, visiting chat rooms was negatively related to best friendship quality. Using the Internet to play games and for general entertainment predicted decreases in relationship quality with best friends and with romantic partners. These findings reflect the important and complex functions of online socialization for the development and maintenance of relationships in adolescence.

Understanding the Policy Process: The Work of Henry Mintzberg

Do Henry Mintzberg's writings make an enduring, invaluable contribution to our understanding of the contemporary public policy process? Mintzberg argues that organizations display eight structural configurations and corresponding coordinating mechanisms. Such structural configurations are shaped by a variety of contingency factors, especially power and environmental ones. Using Mintzberg's work, eight policy modes, corresponding to structural configurations within government organizations and political systems, are identified and placed on a matrix that comprises two dimensions: standardization and centralization. Six polarities in the policy process arise from this matrix. Mintzberg's work, the paper argues, remains of enduring value because it provides a seminal framework for a richer understanding of the current policy process, by offering a contingency theory of structures and policy modes, as well as by frank acknowledgment of the protean nature of the policy process.     

Sabotage! The Origins,Development and Impact of the IRA's Infrastructural Bombing Campaigns 1939–1997

At various moments in the twentieth century the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in its various incarnations have used the tactic of infrastructural bombing, notably in their 1939 attacks in England on electricity pylons and in the summer of 1971 in Northern Ireland on its electrical distribution network. In 1996 the British Security Service (MI5) foiled an attack by the IRA aimed at causing a total electrical blackout of the greater London area, a plan that would have seen major disruption in the capital for many weeks or months. Using recently declassified material this paper seeks to re-evaluate the impact of these IRA infrastructural sabotage campaigns that have until now either been ignored or judged to have been derisory or incongruous failures. This paper demonstrates the historical development of this tactic from both the IRA's perspective, and that of those who were tasked with hindering it, highlighting the devastating potential of such tactics in the future.     

The hero at the bar of eternity: the Bakhtin Circle's juridical theory of the novel

The work of the Bakhtin Circle has juridical foundations that derive from neo-Kantian philosophy. The work of Hermann Cohen, Max Scheler and Georg Simmel are of special importance. An examination of this intellectual tradition leads to an examination of some of the works of Voloshinov, Bakhtin, Pumpianskii and Kagan, highlighting the centrality of the juridical person and the structures of judgement in the now famous and influential Bakhtinian theory of the novel. Bakhtinian theory also has implications for social theory more widely, as recent work has shown. An analysis of the juridical foundations of the theory is important for understanding the nature of the theory and assessing its usefulness for contemporary theory.     

An empirical investigation of insanity defense attitudes: exploring factors related to bias

This study's primary aim was to evaluate factors that influence attitudes toward the insanity defense in a sample of 578 college undergraduates. In addition to a comprehensive demographics survey, participants completed the Insanity Defense Attitude Scale-Revised (IDAS-R) and the Attitude Toward the Death Penalty (ATDP) Scale. Favorable attitude toward capital punishment and misperceptions about overuse of the insanity defense were related to negative attitudes toward the insanity defense. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that possessing a favorable attitude toward capital punishment was the most robust predictor of a negative attitude toward the insanity defense. These findings provide valuable information about factors that create and maintain biases against the insanity defense and suggest areas of inquiry that could aid attorneys in selecting unbiased jurors.