The consequences of social intolerance on non-violent protest behavior

This paper scrutinizes the impact of intolerance toward diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups on an individuals willingness to actively engage in non-violent protest. Following new insights, we examine the individual as well as the ecological effect of social intolerance on protest behavior. Drawing from insights of social psychology and communication science, we expect that the prevalence of intolerance reinforces the positive effect of individual-level intolerance on protest participation. From a rational choice perspective, however, a negative moderating effect is expected, as the expression of opinions becomes redundant for intolerant individuals in an intolerant society. We base our multilevel analyses on data from the World Values Surveys covering 32 established democracies. Our results reveal that intolerance leads to more non-violent protest participation. This relationship, however, is strongly influenced by the prevalence of intolerance in a country.

Relating one's social support network to one's mid term grade

Much has been written about the relation of social support to health outcomes. Support networks were found to be predictive of health status. Not so clear was the manner in which social support helped the individual to avoid health complications. Whereas some aspects of the support network were protective, others were burdensome. Duties to one's network could serve as a stressor and duties outside one's network might stress the support system itself. Exposure to one's network was associated with certain health risks while disruption in one's social support network was associated with other health risks.^ Many factors contributed to the impact of a social support network upon the individual member: the characteristics of the individual, the individual's role or position within the network, qualities of the network and duties or indebtedness of the individual to the network. This investigation considered the possibility that performance could serve as a stressor in a fashion similar to an exposure to a health hazard.^ Because the literature includes many examples of studies in which the subjects were college students, academic progress is a performance common to most subjects. A profile of the support networks of successful students was contrasted with those of less successful students in this correlational study.^ What was uncovered in this investigation was a very complex web of interrelated constructs. Most aspects of the social support network did not significantly predict academic performance. Only a limited number of characteristics were associated with academic success: the frequency of support, student age, the existence of a 'mentor' within one' s network, and the extent to which one received a predominant source of support. Other factors had a tendency to be negatively correlated with midterm grade, suggesting those factors may impede academic performance.^ Medical status did not predict grades, but was correlated with many aspects of the network. Disruptions in particular parts of one's network were correlated with particular health categories. In fact, disruption in social support was more predictive of academic outcomes than medical complications. Whereas the individual's values were related to the contributing factors, only the individual's satisfaction with certain aspects of the support network were predictive of higher midterm grades in a psychology class. Dissatisfaction was associated with lower grades, suggesting a disruptive effect within the network. Associations among the features of support networks which predicted academic progress were considered. ^

Assessment methodology applied to demand measures to change urban mobility behavior

In order to minimize car-based trips, transport planners have been particularly interested in understanding the factors that explain modal choices. Transport modelling literature has been increasingly aware that socioeconomic attributes and quantitative variables are not sufficient to characterize travelers and forecast their travel behavior. Recent studies have also recognized that users’ social interactions and land use patterns influence travel behavior, especially when changes to transport systems are introduced; but links between international and Spanish perspectives are rarely dealt with. The overall objective of the thesis is to develop a stepped methodology that integrate diverse perspectives to evaluate the willingness to change patterns of urban mobility in Madrid, based on four steps: (1st) analysis of causal relationships between both objective and subjective personal variables, and travel behavior to capture pro-car and pro-public transport intentions; (2nd) exploring the potential influence of individual trip characteristics and social influence variables on transport mode choice; (3rd) identifying built environment dimensions on travel behavior; and (4th) exploring the potential influence on transport mode choice of extrinsic characteristics of individual trip using panel data, land use variables using spatial characteristics and social influence variables. The data used for this thesis have been collected from a two panel smartphone-based survey (n=255 and 190 respondents, respectively) carried out in Madrid. Although the steps above are mainly methodological, the application to the area of Madrid allows deriving important results that can be directly used to forecast travel demand and to evaluate the benefits of specific policies that might be implemented in the area. The results demonstrated, respectively: (1st) transport policy actions are more likely to be effective when pro-car intention has been disrupted first; (2nd) the consideration of “helped” and “voluntary” users as tested here could have a positive and negative impact, respectively, on the use of public transport; (3rd) the importance of density, design, diversity and accessibility underlying dimensions responsible for land use variables; and (4th) there are clearly different types of combinations of social interactions, land use and time frame on travel behavior studies. Finally, with the objective to study the impact of demand measures to change urban mobility behavior, those previous results have been considered in a unique way, a hybrid discrete choice model has been used on a 5th step. Then it can be concluded that urban mobility behavior is not only ruled by the maximum utility criterion, but also by a strong psychological-environment concept, developed without the mediation of cognitive processes during choice, i.e., many people using public transport on their way to work do not do it for utilitarian reasons, but because no other choice is available. Regarding built environment dimensions, the more diversity place of residence, the more difficult the use of public transport or walking.

Letter from James Otis, Jr. to James Otis, Sr., and portrait print of James Otis Jr., 1743 June 17

Letter from Otis in Boston to his father, James Otis Sr. on June 17, 1743. In the short, half-page letter, Otis asks his father for money to pay for expenses relating to Commencement including the printing of theses, shoes, buckles, and any entertainment. He mentions that he will share entertainment expenses with his classmate Lothrop Russell.

Letter from Lemuel Shaw to Susanna Shaw, January 3, 1797

This single page handwritten letter was sent from Lemuel Shaw to his mother, Susanna, during his freshman year at Harvard. In the letter, he requested that his mother wash and return his dirty laundry and send him clothes, including a pair of overalls, some neck-handkerchiefs, and a new hat. Shaw also asked for money to be sent to pay off his debt of $21.25 to Mr. Richard Hunnewell for board and rent, $18.93 for the previous quarter’s bill, and $1.15 for Mr. Timothy Alden, the College Butler.

Ideas and Policy: The European Union considers social policy futures. ACES Cases No. 2010.2

The European Union’s social policy perspectives have changed quite dramatically over the last several decades. Now EU’s social policy discourse often promises to “invest in people,” sometimes “to invest in children,” and always to pay particular attention to youth. This paper argues that the tools of historical institutionalism can lead to understanding the ideational roots of this social investment perspective so distant from the “European social model.” Coming out of social movements, and with collective identities shaped both by those movement roots and national experiences, activists have effectively focused their practices on altering the social representations of European social solidarity through their interest group interventions, their participation in policy forums, and their mobilization within civil society at the European and sub-European levels. They have been able to make common cause with several epistemic communities that themselves revamped their ideas in the face of new institutional constraints, in order to advance their interests in promoting particular directions for social policy. The paper documents that “ideas” are not a variable and discourse “sometimes important” but that the ideas carried by movements and in epistemic communities are integral to the very definition of their interests that they promote within and with institutions.

Promoting the agenda for a social Economic and Monetary Union: Attention, credibility and coalition-building. Bruges Political Research Paper No. 37, November 2014

In the aftermath of the crisis, new instruments of economic governance have been adopted at the EU level. Until recently, these have been strongly dominated by what I assume to be the ECFIN coalition. However, at least since 2011, this coalition’s supremacy has been challenged by the competing coalition’s (EPSCO) willingness to rebalance the economic governance so that social concerns are better taken into account. Hence, drawing on the agenda-setting literature in the EU context, this working paper aims at retracing the process that has led to put this issue of the social dimension of the EMU on to the EU political agenda. Three hypotheses are made concerning the rise of this issue, the strategies employed by agenda-setters, and the policy subsystem of the economic governance. First, this study shows that the interest in this issue has been gradually fostered ‘from below’, at the level of the European Parliament and the European Commission. Second, due to its ‘high politics’ nature, this issue could only be initiated ‘from above’ (European Council) and then expanded to lower levels of decision-making (Commission). Specifically, DG EMPL has managed to attract attention to this issue and to build its credibility in dealing with it by strategically framing the issue and directing it towards the EPSCO venue. Finally, I analyze the outcome of this agenda-setting process by assessing to what extent the two new social scoreboards which form part of this social dimension have been taken into account during the 2014 European semester. The result of this analysis is that the new economic governance has not been genuinely rebalanced insofar as its dominant policy core remains that of the ECFIN coalition.

Roles of social pain and defense mechanisms in response to social exclusion: Reply to Panksepp (2005) and Coff (2005)

In comments on G. MacDonald and M. R. Leary (2005), J. Panksepp (2005) argued for more emphasis on social pain mechanisms, whereas P. J. Corr (2005) argued for more emphasis on physical defense mechanisms. In response to the former, the authors clarify their positions on the topics of anger, the usefulness of rat models, the role of analgesic mechanisms, and basic motivational processes. In response to the latter, the authors clarify their positions on the topics of the relation of social exclusion to fear, the value of the pain affect construct, and the nature of the social pain experience. The authors conclude that consideration of the roles of both social pain and defense mechanisms is essential to best understand human response to social exclusion.

The importance of the relevance of the issue to the group in voting intentions: The case of the Australian republic referendum

A questionnaire was distributed on the Australian republic issue to examine the interplay between norms and relevance of the issue to the group on voting intentions. Supporters of an Australian republic (N = 188) indicated the level of support for a republic within their peer Group, the relevance of the republic issue to the group, and measures designed to assess voting intentions and other attitude outcomes. Analysis revealed an interaction between normative support and relevance of the issue to the group. On the measure of intention, increasing normative support was associated with increased intention to vote in an attitude-consistent way at both relevance levels, but the effect was heightened when the issue was highly relevant to the group. On the outcomes of willingness to express opinion and perceived personal importance of the republic issue, normative support had a positive effect only when the issue was highly relevant to the group. Mediation analyses revealed that the impact of normative support and group relevance on intention were mediated through perceived personal importance of the republic issue.

Identity barriers to engaging in proenvironmental behaviour

Previous research has shown that engaging in proenvironmental behaviours can have a stygmatising effect for those who take part in those activities. This suggests that the identity consequences of proenvironmental behaviours may act as a barrier to engaging in these types of actions. This idea was investigated in a study assessing whether university students’ preferences for status-related or proenvironmental actions was influenced by prevailing group norms. Participants in the control condition and the status norm condition were equally willing to selfpresent as high status and pro-environment, however, participants in the environmental norm condition were more willing to self-present as pro-environment than status concerned. These results suggest that willingness to engage in pro-environmental behaviours may be higher in contexts where the identity consequences of these actions are positive. Preliminary results from a second study investigating identity consequences of pro-environmental behaviour will also be presented. Implications of the findings for strategies or campaigns aimed at increasing environmentally sustainable behaviour will be discussed.

Dissidents with an innovation cause? Non-institutionalized actors’ online social knowledge sharing, solution-finding tensions and technology management innovation

Purpose – Traditionally, most studies focus on institutionalized management-driven actors to understand technology management innovation. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there is a need for research to study the nature and role of dissident non-institutionalized actors’ (i.e. outsourced web designers and rapid application software developers). The authors propose that through online social knowledge sharing, non-institutionalized actors’ solution-finding tensions enable technology management innovation. Design/methodology/approach – A synthesis of the literature and an analysis of the data (21 interviews) provided insights in three areas of solution-finding tensions enabling management innovation. The authors frame the analysis on the peripherally deviant work and the nature of the ways that dissident non-institutionalized actors deviate from their clients (understood as the firm) original contracted objectives. Findings – The findings provide insights into the productive role of solution-finding tensions in enabling opportunities for management service innovation. Furthermore, deviant practices that leverage non-institutionalized actors’ online social knowledge to fulfill customers’ requirements are not interpreted negatively, but as a positive willingness to proactively explore alternative paths. Research limitations/implications – The findings demonstrate the importance of dissident non-institutionalized actors in technology management innovation. However, this work is based on a single country (USA) and additional research is needed to validate and generalize the findings in other cultural and institutional settings. Originality/value – This paper provides new insights into the perceptions of dissident non-institutionalized actors in the practice of IT managerial decision making. The work departs from, but also extends, the previous literature, demonstrating that peripherally deviant work in solution-finding practice creates tensions, enabling management innovation between IT providers and users.

Social movements theory: A Burkean approach to the rhetoric of abolition

Inspired by Kenneth Burke's dramatism, this thesis examined the viability of social movements rhetorical theory in its application to literature by focusing on the 19th century abolitionist movement in the United States and moving from the analysis of public speeches to fictional works. ^ Chapter one applied the rhetorical analysis of social movements to noteworthy speeches by William Lloyd Garrison and Francis Maria W. Stewart. Chapter two examined social movements rhetoric in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Chapter three considered Uncle Tom's Cabin and determined whether social movements rhetorical theory could illuminate this persuasive work of fiction. ^ Dramatistically speaking, each of these works attempted to persuade the reader or auditor to join the abolitionist cause through symbolic action in their rhetoric. This thesis concluded that the social movements approach derived from Burkean dramatism is indeed powerful in its application to literature as it unpacks the rhetoric of abolition. ^

Operant and respondent procedures to establish social stimuli as reinforcers in children with autism

According to the DSM-IV- TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), one of the core deficits in autism is in the impairment of social interaction. Some have suggested that underlying these deficits is the reality that individuals with autism do not find social stimuli to be as reinforcing as other types of stimuli (Dawson, 2008). An interesting and growing body of literature supports the notion that symptoms in autism may be caused by a general reduction in social motivation (Chevallier et al., 2012). A review of the literature suggests that social orienting and social motivation are low in individuals with autism, and including social motivation as a target for therapeutic intervention should be pursued (Helt et al., 2008). Through our understanding of learning processes, researchers in behavior analysis and related fields have been able to use conditioning procedures to change the function of neutral or ineffective stimuli, including tokens (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968), facial expressions (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992) and praise (Dozier et al., 2012). The current study aimed to use operant and respondent procedures to condition social stimuli that were empirically shown to not be reinforcing prior to conditioning. Further, this study aimed to compare the two procedures in their effectiveness to condition social stimuli to function as reinforcers, and in their maintenance of effects over time. Using a multiple-baseline, multi-element design, one social stimulus was conditioned under each procedure to compare the different response rates following conditioning. Finally, the study sought to determine if conditioning social stimuli to function as reinforcers had any effect on the social functioning of young children with autism. Six children diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18 months and 3 years participated. Results show that the respondent procedure (pairing) resulted in more robust and enduring effects than the operant procedure (Sd procedure). Results of a social communication assessment (ESCS, Mundy et al., 2003) before and after conditioning demonstrate gains in all areas of social communication, particularly in the areas of initiating and responding to joint attention.^

From labelling to social aid for immigrants in the 21st Century

Migration is as old as humanity, but since the 1990s migration flows in Western Europe have led to societies that are not just multicultural but so-called «super-diverse». As a result, Western towns now have very complex social structures, with amongst others large amounts of small immigrant communities that are in constant change. In this paper we argue that for social workers to be able to offer adequate professional help to non-native residents in town, they will need balanced view of ‘culture’ and of the role culture plays in social aid. Culture is never static, but is continually changing. By teaching social workers about how to look at cultural backgrounds of immigrant groups and about the limitations of then role that culture plays in communication, they will be better equipped to provide adequate aid and will contribute to making various groups grow towards each other and to avoid people thinking in terms of ‘out-group-homogeneity’. Nowadays, inclusion is a priority in social work that almost every social worker supports. Social workers should have an open attitude to allow them to approach every individual as a unique person. They will see the other person as the person they are, and not as a part of a specific cultural group. Knowledge about the others makes them see the cultural heterogeneity in every group. The social sector, though, must be aware not to fall into the trap of the ‘inclusion mania’! This will cause the social deprivation of a particular group to be forgotten. An inclusive policy requires an inclusive society. Otherwise, this could result in even more deprivation of other groups, already discriminated against. Emancipation of deprived people demands a certain target-group policymaking. Categorized aid will raise efficiency of working with immigrants and of acknowledging the cultural identity of the non-natives group. It will also create the possibility to work on fighting social deprivation, in which most immigrants can be found.

Effect of reading sport chronicles on the perception of justice and the predisposition to protest actions in soccer

In this study three chronicles from national newspapers (one generalist and two sport press) were analyzed. The chronicles belong to Spain’s soccer final of the King’s Cup in 2014. The aim of the study was to know if there was any influence on the readers’ perception of justice and consequently if this influence could cause a particular predisposition to participate in acts of protest. 462 university students participated. The results showed that different chronicles caused differences in the perception of justice depending on the chronicle read. However, a clear influence on the willingness to participate in acts of protest was not obtained. These results should make us think about the impact of sport press and its influence, and to be aware of the indirect responsibility of every sector on the antisocial behaviors generated by soccer in our country.