Individual Differences in Reactions to Peer Victimization: The Moderating Role of Temperament and Sex

This study examined whether temperamental traits and sex moderate the effects of peer victimization on children’s adjustment over a year to identify factors that put victimized children at heightened risk for adjustment difficulties. Children (N = 282; M age = 7.94 years, SD = 0.32) and teachers reported on exposure to peer victimization. Parents provided ratings of children’s temperament (i.e., inhibitory control and negative emotionality) and depressive symptoms, and teachers provided ratings of children’s aggression. Results revealed that overt victimization predicted aggression in girls with low levels of inhibitory control. Results also revealed that total victimization predicted depressive symptoms in girls with high levels of negative emotionality and in boys with low levels of negative emotionality. This research identifies temperament and sex as contributors to individual differences in children’s reactions to peer victimization. The findings are discussed in the context of temperament x environment and diathesis-stress frameworks.

Financial stocks and political bonds: stock market participation and political behavior in the United States and Britain

This dissertation investigates the effect of stock market participation on political behavior. Some observers claim that financial assets—stocks and mutual funds—have a causal effect on political behavior. The “investor class theory” asserts that as people invest in the stock market their partisan attachments shift rightward. The “asset effect theory” claims that financial investments increase political interest and participation. I examine these claims with longitudinal data from the United States and Great Britain covering a twenty-year period from the early 1980s through the mid-2000’s. I also examine the effect of financial asset ownership on political attitudes in the United States during the 2008 stock market crash. I find no evidence to support the argument that stock market participation has any causal effect on partisanship, participation, or political attitudes.