The utility maximizing government economic adviser: A comment

The author, drawing on his experience as a Chief Economic Adviser (Deputy Secretary) in the UK Government (1973–76) and occasional adviser in the 1980s, denies that his previous economic analyses of advice-giving support the thesis that government economic advisers become the slaves of politicians in power.     

Cognitive tempo,violent video games,and aggressive behavior in young boys

In a factorial design, impulsive and reflective children played video games with aggressive or nonaggressive themes. Interpersonal aggression and aggression toward inanimate objects were assessed in a free-play setting and interpersonal aggression was assessed during a frustrating situation. Results indicated that subjects who played the video game with aggressive content exhibited significantly more object aggression during free-play and more interpersonal aggression during the frustrating situation than youngsters who played nonaggressive video games. Aggressive behavior was unaffected by cognitive tempo.     

Bicameralism and majoritarian equilibrium

Recent papers have established that bicameralism can support a non-empty core in majority voting games in two dimensional policy spaces. We generalise this result to the n-dimensional case, and provide a discussion of multi-cameralism. Bicameralism generates a core of potentially stable equilibria by institutionalising opposition between mutually oriented median voters, this provides a clear link with the standard median voter model and with more traditional analyses of bicameralism.An earlier version of this paper (Brennan and Hamlin, 1990), written in ignorance of the work of Hammond and Miller (1987, 1990), benefited from comments at the Public Choice Society meetings, Tucson; the European Public Choice Society meetings, Meersburg; the Center for Study of Public Choice, and the Universities of Chicago and Oxford. Hamlin is grateful for the support of visiting fellowships at ANU and All Souls College, Oxford.     

The male experience of pubertal change

Adolescent boys' psychological experience of the first ejaculation was examined with regard to emotional reactions to the event, feelings of preparedness prior to the event, informational sources, and extent of peer discussions following the event. Thirteen boys who ranged in age from 13 1/2 to 15 1/2 years were interviewed. Eleven of the boys had experienced an ejaculation; 55% felt they were well informed prior to the first ejaculation. However, only three had had ejaculation explained to them by another person, in all cases an adult male. The primary information source was reading material aquired from friends. The majority of the boys reported experiencing strong positive feelings at spermarche, and few had strong negative feelings. No one was upset or ashamed, and only two were very scared. The only boys who had discussed the experience were the three who received their initial information from adult males. No one had discussed the experience with peers. Differences and similarities in boys' experience of ejaculation and girls' experience of menarche are discussed.The research was supported by the W. T. Grant Foundation.The first author conducted this research as an undergraduate senior thesis in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University.