Global perspectives on scientists’ roles in legislative policymaking

Policy Sciences - The question of how scientists should engage in policymaking has spurred both pragmatic and philosophical debates for decades. Scant empirical research addressing how experts...     

Rawls on agreeing to disagree: How democracies differ from non-democracies in justifying war

We use Rawls’s account of public reason and the Law of Peoples to test two hypotheses: democracies are more likely to invoke self-defense in justifications than non-democracies, and democracies are more likely to invoke human rights in justifications than non-democracies. Through an analysis of war justifications since 1875, we find that although democracies and non-democracies are similarly likely to use self-defense as a justification, democracies are more likely to justify war through human rights. Institutions and values centering on rights that promote domestic public justification also promote justifications compatible with those values and institutions at the international level.     

Street Ball,Swim Team and the Sour Cream Machine: A Cluster Analysis of Out of School Time Participation Portfolios

Adolescents spend only a fraction of their waking hours in school and what they do with the rest of their time varies dramatically. Despite this, research on out-of-school time has largely focused on structured programming. The authors analyzed data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) to examine the out-of-school time activity portfolios of 6,338 high school sophomores, accounting for time spent in school clubs and sports as well as 17 other activities. The analytical sample was balanced with respect to sex and racially and ethnically diverse: 49% female, 67% White, 10% Latino, 10% African American, and 6% Asian and Pacific Islander. Approximately 76% of the sample attended public schools, 30% were in the highest socioeconomic quartile, and 20% were in the lowest socioeconomic quartile. The authors identified five distinct out-of-school time activity portfolios based on a cluster analysis. The demographic profiles of students by portfolio type differed significantly with respect to sex, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, school type and location. Students by portfolio type also differed significantly in terms of measures of academic success, school behavior, victimization and perceptions of school climate, controlling for covariates. These findings underscore the importance of more complex considerations of adolescents’ out-of-school time.

More Than a Just a Game: Video Game and Internet Use During Emerging Adulthood

The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer understanding of the pattern of video game and internet use among college students and to examine how electronic leisure was related to risk behaviors (i.e., drinking, drug use, sex), perceptions of the self (i.e., self worth and social acceptance), and relationships with others (i.e., relationship quality with parents and friends). Participants included 813 undergraduate students (500 young women, 313 young men, M age = 20, SD = 1.87) who were mainly European American (79%), unmarried (100%) and living outside their parents’ home (90%). Results suggested that (a) video game use was linked to negative outcomes for men and women, (b) different patterns of video game and internet use existed for men and women and (c) there were different relations to risk behaviors, feelings about the self, and relationship quality based on the type of internet use, and based on gender. The discussion focuses on the implications of electronic leisure on the overall health and development of young people as they transition to adulthood.     

Vertical transfers and the appropriation of resources by the bureaucracy: the case of Brazilian state governments

The purpose of this study is to explore whether the transfers received by state governments in Brazil are being appropriated by the bureaucracy as wages. The wage differential between the public and private sectors was used as a measure of this appropriation, following the technique for wage decomposition proposed by Oaxaca. Our results show that transfers stimulate appropriation by the bureaucracy, but that private groups existing within the states contend for these resources. The results also indicate that the resources appropriated are distributed uniformly between the various groups composing the bureaucracy.     

Associations Between Violent Video Gaming,Empathic Concern,and Prosocial Behavior Toward Strangers,Friends, and Family Members

Exposure to media violence, including violent video gaming, can have a cognitive desensitization effect, lowering empathic concern for others in need. Since emerging adulthood offers increased opportunities to volunteer, strengthen relationships, and initiate new relationships, decreases in empathic concern and prosocial behavior may prove inhibitive to optimal development during this time. For these reasons, the current study investigated associations between violent video gaming, empathic responding, and prosocial behavior enacted toward strangers, friends, and family members. Participants consisted of 780 emerging adults (M age = 19.60, SD = 1.86, range = 18–29, 69% female, 69% Caucasian) from four universities in the United States. Results showed small to moderate effects between playing violent video gaming and lowered empathic concern for both males and females. In addition, lowered empathic concern partially mediated the pathways between violent video gaming and prosocial behavior toward all three targets (at the level of a trend for females), but was most strongly associated with lower prosocial behavior toward strangers. Discussion highlights how violent video gaming is associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior through the mechanism of decreased empathic concern, how this association can affect prosocial behavior differently across target, and finally what implications this might have for development during emerging adulthood.     

Will Medicare beneficiaries switch physicians? A test of economic competition.

We assess the potential of increased economic competition by examining whether Medicare beneficiaries are willing to switch to physicians who agree to accept all services on assignment. Data come from a survey of Medicare beneficiaries conducted in November 1988. Our principal finding is that beneficiaries are not sensitive to price when making decisions about whether or not to switch physicians. Less than one-half of 1 percent of the sample had switched physicians for economic reasons in the year prior to the survey. Furthermore, willingness to switch was not correlated with ability to pay. We conclude that policies aimed at altering consumer demand may not be the most effective way to control Medicare costs.     

An operational definition of prior criminal record

A variety of measures of prior criminal record is used to explain differences in incarceration for defendants arrested in New York State. The analysis suggests that (1) measures based upon arrest, conviction, or incarceration data are equally effective at explaining differences in incarceration percentages; (2) measures based upon counts do better in their logarithmic than in their arithmetic scales; (3) prior record is more closely related to incarceration for moderately serious than for serious or minor crimes; and (4) prior record is more closely related to incarceration for crimes that have a theft component than for crimes that do not. A composite prior record measure is developed that combines arrest and conviction data. It is easy to compute, yet it is as effective at explaining variation in incarceration as the most elaborate measures examined.