Precedence,privilege, preferences,plus Pareto principle: Some examples on egalitarian ethics and economic efficiency

It is demonstrated how economic theory of justice as fairness, Pareto improvements on situations involving equity, can be used to analyze the ethics contents of distributions of rights and privileges. The analysis makes use of the concept of a veil of ignorance to define a status quo. A property right to an ability or a privilege is interpreted as a transparency in the veil in respect to this ability or privilege. Three different examples are investigated, focusing on rights as collective goods, non-transferable abilities, and privileges as inherent rights.Revised version of Presidential address to the annual meeting of the European Public-Choice Society in Linz, Austria, 29 March to 1 April, 1989. I thank Johann K. Brunner, Josef Falkinger, and Björn Sandvik for many helpful comments.     

Death from Nitrous Oxide

Nitrous oxide is an inflammable gas that gives no smell or taste. It has a history of abuse as long as its clinical use, and deaths, although rare, have been reported. We describe two cases of accidental deaths related to voluntary inhalation of nitrous oxide, both found dead with a gas mask covering the face. In an attempt to find an explanation to why the victims did not react properly to oncoming hypoxia, we performed experiments where a test person was allowed to breath in a closed system, with or without nitrous oxide added. Vital signs and gas concentrations as well as subjective symptoms were recorded. The experiments indicated that the explanation to the fact that neither of the descendents had reacted to oncoming hypoxia and hypercapnia was due to the inhalation of nitrous oxide. This study raises the question whether nitrous oxide really should be easily, commercially available.     

A case of disguised suicide

A case of disguised suicide is presented. A 77-year-old man had made technical arrangements so that the pistol with which he shot himself was thrown aside by the elasticity of a rubber band, to which it was tied, and was thereby hidden. After the shot the man fell and crushed his head, which initially concealed the bullet wound. A scrutinizing technical investigation at the scence of the death with close collaboration between the experts involved, revealed the true circumstances. No explanation for the attempt to conceal the suicide was found.     

Parental contexts of adolescent self-esteem: A developmental perspective

Relationships between parental behaviors and adolescent self-esteem were analyzed in a group of 95 early adolescents from multiple settings. The study was designed to investigate hypotheses regarding associations between observed parental interactions (e.g., accepting and devaluing) and adolescent self-esteem. Parents' verbal interactions with their adolescents were assessed through application of the constraining and enabling coding system to transcribed family discussions, generated through a revealed differences procedure. Adolescent self-esteem was measured with the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory. Parent interaction-self-esteem associations were examined in the pooled sample, as well as in specific sub-groups based on gender, health, and ego development (measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test). Boys had more numerous associations between their self-esteem and parental interactions than girls, and psychiatrically ill boys had particularly high associations. Parental interactions were found to be most strongly related to adolescent self-esteem for adolescents at the lowest levels of ego development. Our findings are consistent with the view that increasing individuation in self-esteem regulation occurs during adolescent development, such that adolescents at higher levels of ego development evaluate themselves more independently of parental feedback than do their less mature peers.This study was supported through a Research Training Grant No. MH16259 (Dr. Isberg) from the NIMH, a grant from the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD Grant No. 5 R01 HD18684-02), and a Research Scientis Development Award No. 5 K-02-MH-70178 (Dr. Hauser) from the NIMH.Received M.D. from Harvard University. Currently studying adolescent development and working with the school consultation program of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.Received M.D. from Yale University and Ph.D. from Harvard University (Psychology). Currently studying family contexts of adolescent development.Received M.D. from The University of Chicago. Currently studying psychological consequences of diabetes mellitus.Received Ed. D. from Harvard University (School of Education). Currently studying family coping processes in response to stressful events.Received Dipl. Psych. from Freie Universitat, Berlin (Clinical Psychology). Currently studying relationships between psychopathology and development among adolescent psychiatric patients.Received Ph.D. from Ohio State University (Psychology). Current interests in assessing ego development and family systems.Received Ph.D. from the University of Miami (Clinical Psychology). Research interests in family studies and adolescent development.     

Through the Party Lens: How Citizens Evaluate TV Electoral Spots

Party affiliation is considered one of the most important factors explaining voters' party choice, but also a strong intervening variable when it comes to the effectiveness of electoral advertising. The question raised in this study is to what extent party affiliation explains voters' judgments of electoral advertising, which was investigated by using data carried out during the Swedish general election campaign 2010. The results show that party affiliation still functions as a filter when voters are exposed to electoral advertising. The findings are suggested to be understood against the background of cognitive dissonance theory and selective exposure according to which people try to avoid a state of cognitive dissonance by avoiding information that conflicts with their attitudes.     

Trauma Resilience Training for Police: Psychophysiological and Performance Effects

The objective of this study is to test the effects of police trauma resilience training on stress and performance during a critical incident police work simulation. Rookie police officers (N = 18) participated in a randomized trial of a 10-week imagery and skills training program versus training as usual. Twelve months later, psychophysiological stress and police work performance were assessed during a live critical incident simulation. Training resulted in significantly less negative mood, less heart rate reactivity, a larger increase in antithrombin, and better police performance compared to controls. Trends for cortisol and self-reported stress also suggested benefits of training. This novel training program is a promising paradigm for improving police well-being, stress resiliency, and optimizing job performance.     

Crisis Management Europe: An Integrated Regional Research and Training Program

This article describes the Crisis Management (CM) Europe program that seeks to produce scientific knowledge that can be used also in order to train practitioners to cope more effectively with national and regional crises. Initiated in 1997 with a focus on the Baltic Sea area, the program has recently been broadened to cover all of Europe. The program documents and analyzes specific cases of national and regional crises. It relies upon a contextually grounded process tracing strategy for case reconstruction and dissection derived from relevant literatures in political science, psychology, and organizational sociology. To facilitate comparison and cumulation of case findings, a systematic four-step research procedure has been developed. Ten analytical themes of potential interest to both scholars and practitioners are identified as targets for structured focused comparison. More than a hundred cases have been studied by researchers working in research teams based in many European countries. Training tools have been successfully deployed in training practitioners from more than a dozen countries. An ongoing dialogue between academics and practitioners from across the Continent promises to make a contribution toward bridging the gap between these two different communities.     

Neo-liberalism and polycontextuality: banking crisis and re-regulation in Sweden

This article gives an account of the interpretative conflicts and re-regulative initiatives that followed the Swedish banking crisis in the 1990s. The analysis is based on systems theory and theories of governance conceptualizing steering and self-regulation. It shows the polycontextuality of the conflicts over the crisis, and how the re-regulation articulated central aspects of neo-liberal government, as conceptualized in terms of governance. The conclusion discusses two paradoxes. The first is that the enforced self-regulation of the re-regulative process 'frees' market actors by embedding them in new webs of governance. The second paradox is that every solution to a problematic event of this kind is at the same time seen as a new problem when observed with distinctions other than the one reduced by the solution.