The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: a basis for jus cogens prohibition of juvenile capital punishment in the United States

This article supports the position that the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) articulates a prohibition of capital punishment of juveniles that now must be considered a norm of jus cogens. The article provides statistics and trends regarding juveniles who commit capital crimes and describes how the U.S. justice system handles such juveniles, including Eighth Amendment analyses of juvenile executions under the U.S. Constitution. The article also discusses community consensus regarding evolving standards of decency, describes international law on the capital punishment of juveniles, and outlines worldwide trends in juvenile executions. It then defines and describes the concepts of customary international law and jus cogens, applying these concepts to the problem of the execution of juveniles in the United States. The article concludes by suggesting that there is a moral imperative for universal prohibition of juvenile capital punishment and by speculating about the domestic effects of applying such a jus cogens norm in the United States.     

朝向正义与德性——反恐战略的最终选择

恐怖实际上是人类历史上一种被普遍使用并且适用的政治手段,但在美国基本掌握了恐怖主义话语权的背景下,反恐战争积聚着越来越大的仇恨。正义与德性成为反恐战略的最终选择是一个符合逻辑的命题,如果国际社会要想从根本上消灭恐怖主义,那就必须建立一种“道义相归服”的“人类关系趋同”走向,美国也应该从根本上摒弃道德优越感和全球使命感,并以包容的心态和宽容的精神对待异质明。     

Educational attainment, intelligence, interstate migration, and suicide rates in the United States: rejoinder to Abel and Kruger (2005)

Abel and Kruger (2005) reported a negative association of educational attainment and suicide rate across the United States. Given strong links between intelligence and educational attainment, this appears to be inconsistent with positive associations of intelligence and suicide rate reported in several other geographical studies. However, the apparent inconsistencies may reflect interstate migration within the U.S. adult population. Testing this hypothesis showed that interstate migration was more strongly related to state suicide rates than educational attainment. Thus, the different results obtained by Abel and Kruger could reflect migration effects, which for the U.S. might render adult-age indicators of educational attainment inappropriate to reflect regional variation in intelligence by place of birth.     

Misreading Islamist Terrorism: The "War Against Terrorism" and Just-War Theory

Abstract: The Bush administration's military war on terrorism is a blunt, ineffective, and unjust response to the threat posed to innocent civilians by terrorism. Decentralized terrorist networks can only be effectively fought by international cooperation among police and intelligence agencies representing diverse nation‐states, including ones with predominantly Islamic populations. The Bush administration's allegations of a global Islamist terrorist threat to the national interests of the United States misread the decentralized and complex nature of Islamist politics. Undoubtedly there exists a “combat fundamentalist” element within Islamism. But the threat posed to U.S. citizens by Islamist terrorism neither necessitates nor justifies as a response massive military invasions of other nations. Not only does the Bush administration's war on alleged “terrorist states” violate the doctrine of just war, but in addition these wars arise from a new, unilateral, imperial foreign‐policy doctrine of “preventive wars.” Such a doctrine will isolate the United States from international institutions and long‐standing allies. The weakening of these institutions and alliances will only weaken the ability of the international community to deter terrorism.     

Intelligence and physical attractiveness

This brief research note aims to estimate the magnitude of the association between general intelligence and physical attractiveness with large nationally representative samples from two nations. In the United Kingdom, attractive children are more intelligent by 12.4 IQ points (r = .381), whereas in the United States, the correlation between intelligence and physical attractiveness is somewhat smaller (r = .126). The association between intelligence and physical attractiveness is stronger among men than among women in both nations. The association remains significant net of a large number of control variables for social class, body size, and health.     

Computational and reasoning abilities in arithmetic: Cross-generational change in China and the United States

A Chinese advantage over Americans was found for economically relevant computational and reasoning abilities in arithmetic for groups of 6th- and 12th-grade students matched or equated on general intelligence. No cross-national difference for computational or reasoning abilities was found for samples of older (60- to 80-year-old) Chinese and American adults equated on general intelligence. The pattern of change in arithmetical competencies across cohorts suggests that the Chinese advantage in 6th and 12th grade is due to a cross-generational decline in competencies in the United States and a cross-generational improvement in China.     

A Vision for the Future of Community Psychology Education and Training

As we reflect on the founding vision of the field of community psychology in the United States, we assess our progress toward achieving, building upon, and refining this vision. We review early literature regarding the US vision of the field, provide a historical overview of education and training within the field, and provide recommendations to guide and strengthen our approach to education. Our recommendations include the following: 1) serve as a resource to communities, 2) promote a sense of community within our field, 3) diversify students, faculty, and leadership, 4) evaluate our efforts, 5) be current and relevant, 6) enhance the visibility and growth of our field, and 7) create globally minded and innovative CPists. We provide strategies for programs, faculty, linkages between researchers and practitioners, and the Society for Community Research and Action. We conclude that community psychology education and training continues to reflect the early vision; however, we believe we must make more intentional efforts to align with the mission and values of the field, and to engage in a critical analysis of our pedagogy. Enhancing and growing undergraduate and graduate education can facilitate the achievement of our goals to promote social justice, prevent and address social problems, and build community connections to become more effective, impactful, and global social change agents.     

The social environments of early infancy in Japan and the United States

The social environments of early infancy in Japan and the United States were compared in terms of the context of caregiving and the quality of the month-infant interaction. Mothers of 17 Japanese infants and 17 infants in the United States were interviewed in their homes about the experiences that they provided for their 4-month-old infants, and mother-infant interactions were recorded on videotape. Levels of parents' education were similar in both countries. The context of the infant's development varied substantially with culture. Mothers in the United States provided a greater variety of experiences on the HOME and care of Japanese infants tended to be more exclusively provided by mothers whereas care of infants in the United States was shared by fathers and other caregivers to a greater extent. Examination of behaviour frequencies during mother-infant interaction indicated that mothers in Japan provided their infants with more vocal input and more physical play than mothers in the United States and Japanese mothers were more vocally responsive to their infants' vocalizations.     

Test of Nyborg's General Trait Covariance (GTC) model for hormonally guided development by means of structural equation modeling

Nyborg's General Trait Covariance (GTC) model for hormonally guided development investigates the influence of gonadal hormones and fluid intelligence on body build, achievement, and socioeconomic variables. According to the model, testosterone should be negatively related to height, fat/muscle ratio, intelligence, income, and education. It is conceived that this influence should be determined to a great extent by mutual relationships between these variables. The model was tested by means of structural equation modeling (SEM) in a sample of 4375 males who had served in the United States Armed Forces. The results largely confirm Nyborg's androtype model but in addition reflect the relationships between the variables included in a quantitative causal manner. It could be shown that testosterone has a negative influence on crystallized intelligence and that this effect is mainly mediated by the negative influence of testosterone on education. An additional multiple group analysis testing for structural invariance across age groups revealed that the mediating role of education is more pronounced in old veterans. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Economic Evaluation of the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Suicide Prevention Program

For more than a decade, the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention Program has provided funding for community‐based suicide prevention programs to states, tribes, and colleges across the United States. Recent studies provided evidence of the program's effectiveness in reducing suicide mortality and suicide attempts among youth. This study compares the cost of implementing the program with the estimated savings resulting from avoided hospitalization and emergency department visits associated with the averted suicide attempts. The findings suggest that the cost of implementing multifaceted community‐based suicide prevention strategies may be more than outweighed by savings in the health sector.     

Self-evaluations of male and female managers

Two separate samples of males and females holding first-level management positions in United States organizations completed questionnaires which asked for self-evaluation on a number of job-related characteristics and for attributions of causality for successful and unsuccessful job experiences. In support of previous research, results indicated that males evaluated their performance more favorably than did women, and rated themselves as having more ability and greater intelligence. Men also saw ability as more responsible for their success than did women, but the sexes did not differ in attributions to luck, effort, or task. Implications for equal opportunity and potential for change are considered.     

The Influence of External Recruitment Practices on Job Search Practices Across Domestic Labor Markets: A comparison of the United States and China

Job search theories traditionally assume that job seekers have open access to information about employment opportunities. This may be moderated by the degree that labor markets rely on external recruitment to convey information about employment opportunities. In particular, external recruitment may be more widely used in some countries than other countries. Accordingly, this paper hypothesizes that job search practices that rely on external recruitment and information sharing with potential recruits are more likely to be widely used in the United States than in China and that job search practices are more likely to influence starting wages in the United States than in China. Using samples of graduating undergraduate college students in both the United States and China, this study suggests that job seekers gather more information about employment opportunities in the United States than in China, and that job search effort is more likely to influence starting wages in the United States than in China. The research suggests that job search theories need to consider job seeker access to information as a significant moderating variable in job search theory.     

Utopian Vision: A Grand Solution for a Scholarly Dilemma

Reconciling the Zen‐like paradox on the back of every red penny—“out of many, one”—is not for the faint of heart. It is a diversity motto, and a lofty desire that the United States claims to covet. But can its citizens, undocumented or otherwise, even agree on what it is? Is not the desire to maintain a strong sense of community in conflict with a Noah's Ark conception of diversity? Using my personal experience in an intentional community determined to foster racial integration, I explore the complicated possibility of having it both ways. To do so, however, we must construct a notion of community, diversity, and The Good Life that will make us believe and work for this synthesis. Our reactions to the word “utopia” offer a glimpse of the challenges ahead.     

A secular decline in the strength of Spearman’s g in Japan

It has been found in the United States and in Scotland that the subtests of the WISC-R and WAIS-R are more highly intercorrelated among low-intelligence groups than among high. The value of the intercorrelations is a measure of the strength of Spearman’s g, and hence Spearman’s g is apparently stronger among populations with low intelligence. Since intelligence has been increasing over time, it should follow that the strength of g has shown a corresponding decline. Evidence from the standardization samples of the WISC and WISC-R in Japan shows that this is the case.     

Criterion Validity of the Rorschach Developmental Index With Children

The Rorschach Developmental Index (DI) is a composite measure of psychological development. The aim of this study was to examine the criterion validity of the DI by investigating its relationship with age, nonverbal intelligence, and the impact of institutionalization in a sample of Brazilian children. The sample included 231 children, ages 7 to 11, who were either living with their families or in an institutionalized setting. The results indicated that the DI is strongly associated with nonverbal intelligence. Multiple regression analysis revealed that 71% of the variability in the DI was associated with nonverbal intelligence, whereas age explained only 2%. Moreover, the DI scores and nonverbal intelligence scores were significantly lower for children living in institutionalized settings. The DI appears to be effective in assessing various levels of psychological development, especially when expressed in cognitive ability. The DI was developed in the United States, and this study suggests that the DI can be adapted to diverse cultures, regions, or languages.     

Bringing the Public Health Approach to the Problem of Suicide

Suicide and suicidal behavior are public health problems that should be addressed through a systematic public health approach. The need for such an approach can be found, for example, in Pierre, SD, where the suicide rate is 13 times the national rate; in the African American community, where the suicide rate among Black youths more than doubled between 1980 and 1995; and across the United States, where suicides outnumbered homicides in 1995. The U.S. Public Health Service is applying the public health approach to suicide by preparing the first-ever Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health, and by holding an October conference in Reno aimed at advancing a national strategy for suicide prevention.     

Internationalizing professional codes in engineering

Professional engineering societies which are based in the United States, such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME, now ASME International) are recognizing that their codes of ethics must apply to engineers working throughout the world. An examination of the ethical code of the ASME International shows that its provisions pose many problems of application, especially in societies outside the United States. In applying the codes effectively in the international environment, two principal issues must be addressed. First, some Culture Transcending Guidelines must be identified and justified. Nine such guidelines are identified Second, some methods for applying the codes to particular situations must be identified Three such methods are specification, balancing, and finding a creative middle way.     

Rethinking Secularism,edited by Craig Calhoun,Mark Juergensmeyer and Jonathan VanAntwerpen,Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 2011, vii + 311 pp. ISBN 978 019979667-0, US$99.00 (hbk); ISBN 978 019979668 7, US$24.95 (pbk)

Neo-monasticism, including the desire to live in Christian intentional community, is increasingly popular in the United States. Communities are structured around a rule or shared covenant that outlines the parameters of living in community. Daily prayer is often a central feature to neo-monastic life as is an emphasis on socio-ecological justice. Drawing on recent Christian theology about gardens, a popular neo-monastic book of common prayer, interviews with practitioners of neo-monasticism, and fieldwork conducted with a nascent neo-monastic community in the southeastern United States, this article argues that prayer acts as a religious technology of the self for socio-ecological change. Through prayer, participants of intentional communities change, and this in turn leads to acts that alter the socio-ecological worlds around them.