When and why does education matter? Motivation and resource effects in political efficacy

Education increases political engagement because it bolsters motivations and cognition on the one hand, and relative resources on the other. However, personality traits have recently been found to partially confound the education effect. Focusing on internal and external political efficacy allows us to disentangle the different effects of education. It is argued in this article (a) that personal dispositions confound the cognitive and motivational effect of education, which is the predominant effect of education on internal efficacy, but not resource effects which are important for external but not internal efficacy; and (b) that resource effects are context‐dependent whereas cognitive and motivational effects are not. Accordingly, the article shows that the competitive context in which individuals find themselves conditions the effect of education on external, but not on internal, efficacy.     

Nonmetric Cranial Trait Variation and Ancestry Estimation in Asian and Asian-Derived Groups

Traditionally, precontact Native Americans and Asian groups have been conflated for aspects of the biological profile due to their distantly shared genetic history, although this grouping remains largely unexplored. This study examines craniomorphic variability to ascertain whether Asian groups can be differentiated from each other and from Asian-derived groups using more fine-tuned models. Cranial and mandibular data for 35 nonmetric traits were recorded on precontact Native Americans (n = 150) and modern Japanese (n = 150) and Thai (n = 150) individuals. Chi-square analyses indicate that all groups exhibit statistically significant differences in most traits. Additionally, cross-validated binary logistic regression equations resulted in correct classification rates in the range of 65.0–93.3% and demonstrate that sex does not contribute to statistical models. Therefore, numerous traits provide discriminatory resolution that detects differences between the samples, thus highlighting the potential utility of nonmetric traits in identifying individuals beyond the traditional African, European, and Asian forensic ancestry groupings.     

Collaborative Crisis Management and Leadership in the Public Sector

The goal of this article is to discover how leadership competencies affect the perceived effectiveness of crisis management. The study, based on a self-reported survey of executive public leaders in Turkey, found that the core leadership competencies have a positive relationship with the effectiveness of crisis management. Among task–oriented, people–oriented, and organization-oriented categories of leadership behaviors, task-oriented leadership behaviors were found with the highest level of impact on the effectiveness of crisis management. The study demonstrated the importance of the core leadership competencies in the effectiveness of crisis leadership. The hypothesis testing with the covariance structure model supported the positive impact of the core leadership competencies on the effectiveness of crisis management. This study contributes to the literature on leadership during crisis situations, and also provides proposals for public managers and practitioners to increase their effectiveness in leading their organizations during crises.     

Has Television Personalized Voting Behavior?

Scholars and political observers have suggested that television has “personalized” voting behavior in American presidential elections by encouraging citizens to cast ballots on the basis of candidate image and personality. Though an oft-heard assertion, little solid evidence exists that this is true, and the reinvigoration of partisanship and the persistence of ideological conflict suggest personalization may be less pervasive than supposed. In this paper, I use National Election Studies data to examine whether voters are more concerned with candidates’ personal characteristics now than they were at the outset of the television era. I find, however, that voters are no more likely today to mention candidate personality as a reason for their vote choice than they were in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, while personality affects voting behavior, its influence on candidate choice is not significantly larger than it was a half-century ago. The results are not contingent on exposure to television or political awareness and are insensitive to different measures of perceptions of candidate image. The findings are consistent with the resurgence of partisan voting in American elections and suggest that some concerns about TV’s effects on political judgment are exaggerated.

Ancestry Estimation Using Cranial and Postcranial Macromorphoscopic Traits

Ancestry estimation methods using macromorphoscopic (MMS) traits commonly focus exclusively on cranial morphology. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the value of postcranial MMS traits, highlighting a combined cranial/postcranial trait approach to ancestry estimation using quadratic discriminant function and a variety of machine learning classification models including artificial neural networks (aNN), random forest models, and support vector machine. Eight cranial and eleven postcranial MMS traits were collected from the Terry and Bass Skeletal Collections (American Black = 81; American White = 173). Our classification models using cranial and postcranial traits correctly classified 88–92% of the sample, improving classification accuracies by nearly fifteen percent over models relying exclusively on cranial data. These same results demonstrate the importance of a multivariate statistical framework incorporating cranial and postcranial data and the nearly unlimited potential of machine learning models to improve the accuracy of ancestry estimates over traditional methods of analysis. To facilitate implementation in casework, one of the more robust models (aNN) is incorporated into a web-based application, ComboMaMD Analytical, to facilitate cranial and postcranial MMS traits analysis for ancestry estimation.     

Distal Humerus Morphological Variation and Sex Estimation in Modern Thai Individuals,

Due to differential preservation, it is necessary to develop sex estimation methods on varied anatomical regions, including the distal humerus. Sexually dimorphic differences of the medial epicondyle angle, olecranon fossa shape, trochlear extension, and trochlear constriction have been documented in several non-Asian groups. This study examines distal humerus morphological variation in 616 modern Thai individuals (f = 198; m = 418) 18–96 years old and tests the methods on a hold-out sample of 152 individuals (f = 91; m = 61). The results indicate that population-specific binary probit regression performs the best (74.1–100%), followed by composite scoring (77.0–90.1%), binary logistic regression (63.3–92.2%), and univariate sectioning points (37.7–90.1%). Age minimally effects the expression of the medial epicondyle angle in males, and trait scoring is susceptible to high intra- and interobserver error. While demonstrating relatively high sex biases, distal humerus morphology can be used to estimate the sex of Thai individuals when more sexually dimorphic regions are absent.     

Leadership Traits and Ghana’s Foreign Policy: The Case of Jerry Rawlings’ Foreign Economic Policy of the 1980s

This article examines Ghana’s foreign policy-making with reference to internal and external determinants (structural/systemic). Besides these determinants, political actors (primarily, presidents/heads of state) have shaped the country’s foreign policy outcomes, but this field of enquiry (i.e. the individual-level analysis) has not, received much attention in the literature. To enhance the understanding of leadership and personality traits in foreign policy-making, this study draws on the theory of Leadership Trait Analysis to examine Jerry John Rawlings and Ghana’s foreign economic policy in the early 1980s. It argues that the leadership traits of Rawlings to some extent shaped Ghana’s foreign economic policy decisions in the early 1980s.     

Perceptions of police-juvenile contact predicts self-reported offending in adolescent males

ABSTRACT

Evidence suggests that positive experiences with the police can foster attitudes of respect towards the justice system that can reduce an adolescents’ propensity to commit later illegal behaviors. To advance prior work, we tested whether this association might be stronger for those adolescents who associate with deviant peers. Additionally, we tested whether the link between attitudes towards police and the justice system, and the influence of peer delinquency, would be weaker for those with elevated callous–unemotional (CU) traits. These predictions were examined in a prospective study using a sample (N?=?1,216) of adolescent males who were followed prospectively for 2 years following their first official contact with the juvenile justice system. Positive experiences with the police following the youth’s first arrest were associated with less self-reported delinquency 2 years later, which was partially mediated by reductions in adolescents’ cynicism about the legal system. However, this link was only significant for youth with low levels of peer delinquency. Although CU traits were related to less positive perceptions of experiences with the police and greater cynicism about the justice system, CU traits did not moderate the associations among experiences, attitudes, and later illegal behavior nor did they moderate the influence of peer delinquency.     

The Development of a Thurstone Scale for Identifying Desirable Police Officer Traits

Screening applicants for the position of peace officer is a very uncertain process. Concomitantly, trying to select applicants who will be successful throughout their careers adds another, important dimension. Unfortunately, the selection process has primarily been one of screening-out those who are for one reason or another unfit. This article used the Thurstone Scale as the methodological basis to identify those traits that experts agreed are the ones that are meaningful in predicting police officer career success.     

日本社会教育的发展特点及对中国的启示

日本的社会教育经历了以科技教育为主要形式的学校教育依属阶段、以职业技能拓展为主要形式的发展阶段以及以终身学习为愿景的社会教育完善阶段的发展历程，总结出了完善以企业内部培训为平台的社会教育发展模式、形成以“学社融合”的社会教育发展模式、完善的社会教育学科研究以及注重民生为本的教育模式。总结日本的经验，从中获得启示，对中国的社区教育的整体发展具有一定的参考作用。