Advice About Life Plans and Personal Problems in Late Adolescent Sibling Relationships

This study examined older adolescents' perceptions of the following sibling relationship characteristics: advice about life plans and personal problems, satisfaction with support, and sibling influence on interests and goals. Little is known about late adolescent sibling relationships and siblings' role in the identity formation process. Differences between first- and secondborns, males and females, and opposite- and same-gender sibling pairs were explored. Participants were 223 adolescents (M = 17.5 years old) who filled out a survey in their senior year of high school. All adolescents were from always-married families and had one sibling between the ages of 13 and 23. Analyses revealed that both secondborns and females reported receiving more advice, being more satisfied with sibling support, and being influenced more by their sibling than firstborns and males, respectively. In addition, those in female–female sibling pairs received more advice from their siblings than those in male–male and mixed gender pairs. Findings revealed that adolescents do sometimes rely on their siblings as a source of advice about life plans and personal problems.     

Reviews

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An experimental comparison of adversarial versus inquisitorial procedural regimes

This article reports the results of a multiyear series of economicexperiments comparing the two dominant types of legal proceduresused in adjudication: (1) the 'adversarial' model of party-controlledprocedure versus (2) the 'inquisitorial' model of judge-controlledprocedure. The principal finding is that the relative fact-findingefficiency of the two systems, in terms of both the 'revelation'of hidden facts and the 'accuracy' of decision, depends significantlyupon the information structure. Under a 'private' informationstructure, inquisitorial procedure is relatively more efficient,whereas under a 'correlated' information structure, adversarialprocedure is relatively more efficient.     

Interagency bargaining and international negotiation: Lessons from the open skies treaty talks

Internal bargaining among government agencies has a direct effect on the formal external negotiation, particularly with regard to the flexibility of the negotiators and their ability to reach agreements. This article illustrates how interagency bargaining within the U.S. and Soviet governments affected the negotiation of the 1992 Open Skies Treaty between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the former Warsaw Pact.He is currently directing a research project at the center on the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons.     

THE CUSTOMER IS SOMETIMES RIGHT: THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER VIEWS IN MERGER INVESTIGATIONS

Antitrust enforcement officials and practitioners generallyagree that customers should have a prominent role in the mergerreview process. The question of the appropriate level of reliancethat competition authorities and courts should give to customertestimony has been the subject of considerable debate sincethe Arch Coal and Oracle decisions. This paper contains a comprehensivediscussion of the use of customer testimony throughout the U.S.merger review process, from the initial merger notificationfiling to injunction proceedings in federal court. We discussthe benefits from and problems with the use of customer testimony,including how these problems have led to litigation losses forthe U.S. antitrust authorities. What is the appropriate roleof customer testimony and when is it most probative? We contendthat customers can provide investigators and judges with informationregarding several relevant issues in an acquisition, includingindustry structure, geographic and product demand substitution,and acceptance of potential market entrants. In contrast, customerswill have considerably less information relevant to the likelihoodof entry, the extent of any merger-specific efficiencies, andthe validity of a failing firm defense. They will almost neverbe qualified to offer legal conclusions, such as the propermarket definition or likely competitive effects of a proposedmerger. We conclude that courts have generally remained consistentin their reliance on customer testimony, including in the ArchCoal and Oracle cases, and that customer testimony, despiteits limitations, should and will continue to be important ateach stage of the merger review process.     

Police interviews with suspected child sex offenders: does use of empathy and question type influence the amount of investigation relevant information obtained?

The use of the criminal justice system to force offenders to receive psychological treatment is one of the most controversial aspects of service provision for offenders. Coerced treatment needs to be distinguished from pressured treatment, both having objective and subjective dimensions. In this paper some arguments for and against coerced offender rehabilitation are discussed. We suggest that coercing offenders into attending rehabilitation programmes (or placing legal pressure on them to attend) is unlikely by itself to lead to poorer outcomes. Rather, the individual's perception of coercion will be more influential in determining how an offender approaches treatment. Even when offenders perceive they are being coerced, it is likely that pre-treatment anti-therapeutic attitudes can change over the course of a programme, such that therapeutic gains (risk reduction) can occur. Coercion and its effects on treatment engagement and rehabilitation outcomes require further empirical research and conceptual analysis.     

Early Adolescent Sexual Initiation and Physical/Psychological Symptoms: A Comparative Analysis of Five Nations

Although most people in developed countries experience sexual initiation during adolescence, little is known about inter-country variability in the psychosocial correlates of early initiation. Population-based samples of 15-year-olds (n = 6,111, 52% female) who participated in the Health Behaviors in School-Aged Children Study (Finland, Scotland, France and Poland, 1997/1998) or the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (United States, 1996) self-reported sexual intercourse experience and physical (headaches, trouble sleeping) or psychological (unhappiness, loneliness, sadness, moodiness) symptoms. Analyses were conducted stratified by gender. Sexual initiation prevalence and symptoms scores varied significantly across nations. In adjusted models, sexual initiation was not related to symptoms among boys in any nation, but significantly positively related to symptoms among girls in Poland and the US. Results support variability by gender and nation in the relationship between adolescents’ sexual initiation and physical/psychological symptoms. Empirically investigating specific features of national contexts that generate these differences should be explored further.