Socialization and Individual Antecedents of Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Moral Motivation

Socialization and individual differences were examined as antecedents of moral motivation in representative samples of 15-year-old adolescents (N = 1,258; 54% female) and 21-year-old young adults (N = 584; 53% female). The adolescents’ primary caregivers (N = 1,056) also participated. The strength of moral motivation was rated by participants’ responses to two hypothetical moral dilemmas in terms of action decisions, emotion attributions, and justifications. Socialization was measured by the perceived quality of friendship, parent–child relationships, and educational background. The importance attached to social justice and various personality traits were also assessed. Adolescents’ moral motivation was positively associated with the quality of their parent–child relationship and the importance of social justice. Young adults’ moral motivation was predicted by the perceived quality of friendships, the importance of social justice, and agreeableness. For both groups, moral motivation was greater in females. The theoretical implications of the findings for the development of moral motivation are discussed.     

Too risk averse to stay honest?: Business corruption,uncertainty and attitudes toward risk

The presence of business-corruption provokes firms to make choices between legal business approaches and illegal bribery. The outcome of a chosen strategy will usually be uncertain at the time the decision is made, and a firm’s decision will depend partly on its attitude towards risk. Drawing on empirical results about business corruption, this paper describes the risks, uncertainties and benefits attached to bribery, and specifies their impact on firms’ propensity to offer bribes. It then demonstrates how risk averse firms can be more inclined to offer bribes than risk neutral and risk attracted firms.     

Challenges to democracy building and the role of civil society

This article addresses the issue of the challenges of democracy building and the role of civil society in this process by focusing on three countries in southeastern Europe, Albania, Bulgaria, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Since the 1990s, when these three post-communist states undertook the democratization process, formidable challenges and obstacles to the democratization process have been encountered by all three states which facilitates a comparative analysis, while differences remain as well, especially since Bulgaria became a member of the European Union in 2007. The development of an indigenous civil society is perceived as both a necessary prerequisite for a qualitative democracy to develop and be maintained in these societies, and as a project under construction that needs to be culturally contextualized to be relevant to the population it purports to serve.     

Diffusion of Compliance in the ‘Race towards Brussels?’ A Spatial Approach to EU Accession Conditionality

Previous studies identified several determinants that help explain candidate states’ compliance with EU accession conditionality. However, one influence has largely been neglected so far: states’ spatial dependency. Is it possible to observe diffusion to the extent that states’ interlinkages allow their compliance with the acquis communautaire to be assessed? Are candidate states more – or perhaps even less – likely to comply with EU law when other candidates do? The paper seeks to address these questions. By building on existing research on policy diffusion, it develops a theoretical framework for studying candidates’ compliance with EU law over the accession process according to their spatial dependence. The theoretical argument focuses on ‘competitive learning’ and is tested with quantitative data. The results suggest that candidates’ levels of compliance are indeed driven by spatial interlinkages; however, free riding seems more prevalent than enhanced compliance.     

A comparison of men who committed different types of sexual assault in a community sample

This study extends past research by examining predictors of different types of sexual assault perpetration in a community sample. Computer-assisted self-interviews were conducted with a representative sample of 163 men in one large urban community. As hypothesized, many variables that are significant predictors of sexual assault perpetration in college student samples were also significant predictors in this sample, including empathy, adult attachment, attitudes about casual sex, sexual dominance, alcohol consumption in sexual situations, and peer approval of forced sex. For most measures, the strongest differences were between nonassaulters and men who committed acts that met standard legal definitions of rape. Men who committed forced sexual contact and verbal coercion tended to have scores that fell in between those of the other two groups. The implications of these findings are discussed for community-based sexual assault prevention programs.     

Perpetration of Gay and Lesbian Partner Violence: A Disempowerment Perspective

Gay men and lesbians may experience domestic violence at rates as high as, or higher than heterosexuals, yet there is a noticeable absence of empirical research investigating this phenomenon. This study investigated same-sex partner violence from a disempowerment perspective to determine the influence of (a) individual characteristics, (b) family of origin factors, and (c) intimate relationship factors. A sample of 77 individuals in distressed relationships (40 gay men and 37 lesbians) were administered a series of quantitative measures in our project office. Data primarily were analyzed using two-way ANOVAs (gender×perpetrator of violence). The greatest number of differences between perpetrators and nonperpetrators was found in individual characteristics. Implications for practitioners working with gay men and lesbians experiencing partner violence are discussed.