How mock jurors’ cognitive processing and defendants’ immigrant status and ethnicity relate to decisions in capital trials

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This study examined how defendants’ immigrant status and ethnicity interact with evidence strength and mock jurors’ cognitive processing traits to...     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Liberellas</Emphasis> Versus <Emphasis Type="Italic">Konservatives</Emphasis>: Social Status,Ideology, and Birth Names in the United States

Despite much public speculation, there is little scholarly research on whether or how ideology shapes American consumer behavior. Borrowing from previous studies, we theorize that ideology is associated with different forms of taste and conspicuous consumption: liberals are more drawn to indicators of “cultural capital” while conservatives favor more explicit signs of “economic capital”. These ideas are tested using birth certificate, U.S. Census, and voting records from California in 2004. We find strong differences in birth naming practices related to race, economic status, and ideology. Although higher status mothers of all races favor more popular birth names, higher status, white liberal mothers more often choose uncommon, culturally obscure birth names. White liberals also favor birth names with “softer, feminine” sounds while conservatives favor names with “harder, masculine” phonemes. These findings have significant implications for both studies of consumption and debates about ideology and political fragmentation in the United States.     

Driving Development from Below: The Advantages and Limitations of Vernacular Politics in the Bolivian Altiplano

Anthropologists studying the Andean community politics have increasingly emphasised the role of pragmatic, informal ‘vernacular’ political strategies in achieving material and political empowerment of the poor. However, while the concept of vernacular politics marks an advancement over binary and often polarised discussions of the role of local communities in development processes, studies have not fully explored the full range of implications of vernacular strategies on development processes. While researchers have demonstrated the substantial agency that local community actors have to influence development processes, the extent to which this influence effectively resists or reinforces the logic of public policy implementation has not been studied. This article explores the techniques used by rural communities in their interactions with public institutions in rural Bolivia. It shows that community organisations' vernacular political strategies have mixed outcomes: on the one hand, they allow the rural poor to assert their own agendas vis‐à‐vis the state so that they can benefit from public spending, while on the other hand, their tactics have the potential to entrench the influence of local power brokers and perpetuate inefficient uses of public funds. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors of child molestation: adult attachment, cognitive distortions, and empathy

A conceptual model derived from attachment theory was tested by examining adult attachment style, cognitive distortions, and both general and victim empathy in a sample of 61 paroled child molesters and 51 community controls. Results of logistic multiple regression showed that attachment anxiety, cognitive distortions, high general empathy but low victim empathy significantly increased the odds of child molester status. Findings supported theoretically based hypotheses, suggesting that attachment theory may be useful in the conceptualization and treatment of child molesters.     

The metagovernance of English devolution

Metagovernance refers to a theory of how governments steer decentralised networks by indirectly shaping the rules and norms of those networks. This article develops metagovernance conceptually and empirically by looking at the use of ‘hands-off’ metagovernance tools in the case of English devolution, which encompass the ‘designing’ and ‘framing’ of local governance networks in the process of their reconfiguration. These concepts provide insights into how a Conservative-led Coalition Government subtly centralised power in the process of devolution to city-regions. Our analysis shows how discursive framing, fiscal conditioning and the recomposition of local governance networks produced a reworking of centre-local and intra-local power relations in a way which allowed the Treasury to shape the priorities of a set of ‘devolution deals’ with regional authorities, emphasising boosting economic growth and improving public services.     

Toward Conflict or Compromise? How Violent Metaphors Polarize Partisan Issue Attitudes

We know much about how opinion leaders drive mass partisan polarization with position-taking cues but little on how different message types polarize citizens, and who responds most to those messages attributes. This article contributes new insights by investigating how exposure to common violent metaphors interacts with audience personality traits to polarize partisans on issues. Building from research on conflict orientations, we theorize that aggressive rhetoric primes aggression in aggressive partisans, motivating greater intransigence on party positions. As a consequence, aggressive partisans are pulled further apart on issues, thereby reducing prospects for compromise. We find support for our predictions in two large nationally diverse survey experiments conducted in very different political contexts. Our results demonstrate the subtle power of aggression in public opinion and highlight the important moderating role of individual differences in the communication of partisan conflict.     

Principles of Participatory Communication Reconceptualised for Instructional Corporate Social Responsibility Communication

One of the main aims of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is to contribute to sustainable development, and effective communication is imperative in reaching this goal. When the aim of communication is to contribute to sustainable development, it falls within the field of communication for social change, where the participatory approach is the norm. However, the context of instructional CSR communication poses challenges to the traditional conceptualisation of the participatory approach. This creates a need to reconceptualise the participatory approach for instructional CSR communication contexts. A literature review identified four main principles of the participatory approach (dialogue, participation, cultural identity, and empowerment) and illustrated how they are traditionally conceptualised. The empirical study focused on two companies’ CSR programmes where agriculturists were assisting emerging farmers with training, skills development and mentoring. Sixteen semi-structured interviews with farmers and agriculturists were conducted to determine the applicability of the theoretical principles as traditionally conceptualised for this context. We argue that beneficiaries may not be able to participate as equal partners in all aspects of the CSR initiative from the beginning (as traditionally assumed), but that they should, through their involvement, be empowered to participate more meaningfully in later stages even though power will remain largely with the company.