Citizen Involvement & Quality of Life: Exit, Voice and Loyalty in a Time of Direct Democracy

This paper explores the connection between quality of life and direct democracy. Using state level data for participation and quality of life, we find that those states with a high quality of life see higher participation in direct democracy than those with lower quality of life. However, the passage of direct democracy measures has the inverse relationship indicating the importance of maintaining the status quo for states with higher quality of life measurements.     

Salience, relevance, and firing: a priority map for target selection

The salience map is a crucial concept for many theories of visual attention. On this map, each object in the scene competes for selection - the more conspicuous the object, the greater its representation, and the more likely it will be chosen. In recent years, the firing patterns of single neurons have been interpreted using this framework. Here, we review evidence showing that the expression of salience is remarkably similar across structures, remarkably different across tasks, and modified in important ways when the salient object is consistent with the goals of the participant. These observations have important ramifications for theories of attention. We conclude that priority--the combined representation of salience and relevance--best describes the firing properties of neurons.     

Law Without Legitimacy or Justification? The Flawed Foundations of Philosophical Anarchism

In this article, I examine A. John Simmons’s philosophical anarchism, and specifically, the problems that result from the combination of its three foundational principles: the strong correlativity of legitimacy rights and political obligations; the strict distinction between justified existence and legitimate authority; and the doctrine of personal consent, more precisely, its supporting assumptions about the natural freedom of individuals and the non-natural states into which individuals are born. As I argue, these assumptions, when combined with the strong correlativity and strict distinction theses, undermine Simmons’s claim, which is central to his philosophical anarchism, that a state may be justified in enforcing the law, even if illegitimate or unjustified in existing.     

The relationship between psychosocial developmental and the sports climate experienced by underserved youth

Objectives

This study was designed to assess developmental outcomes underserved youth report from their sports participation; identify perceptions of the sports climate their coaches create; and, measure the relationships between participants reported gains and perceptions of the psychosocial sports climate.

Method

Participants were 239 urban youth sports participants from an underserved community who completed the Youth Experiences Scale (YES-2), Sport Motivational Climate Scale, Caring Climate Scale and measures of the importance their coaches placed on life skills.

Results

Multivariate analyses revealed a number of significant relationships between YES-2 outcomes and motivation and caring climate predictor variables, which clearly show that the more coaches create caring, mastery-oriented environments, the more likely positive developmental gains result.

Conclusion

These findings are consistent with the previous motivational (Smith, Smoll, & Cumming, 2007) and caring climate (Fry & Gano-Overway, 2010) research and shows that coaching actions and climates have an important influence on personal and social development of young people.     

Don't tread on me: masculine honor ideology in the U.S. and militant responses to terrorism

Using both college students and a national sample of adults, the authors report evidence linking the ideology of masculine honor in the U.S. with militant responses to terrorism. In Study 1, individuals' honor ideology endorsement predicted, among other outcomes, open-ended hostile responses to a fictitious attack on the Statue of Liberty and support for the use of extreme counterterrorism measures (e.g., severe interrogations), controlling for right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and other covariates. In Study 2, the authors used a regional classification to distinguish honor state respondents from nonhonor state respondents, as has traditionally been done in the literature, and showed that students attending a southwestern university desired the death of the terrorists responsible for 9/11 more than did their northern counterparts. These studies are the first to show that masculine honor ideology in the U.S. has implications for the intergroup phenomenon of people's responses to terrorism.     

Enhancing Social Justice by Promoting Prosocial Values in Career Development Interventions

In career counseling, social justice is typically integrated by helping oppressed groups navigate their way around obstacles of injustice while also working to dislodge the oppressive conditions from society. The authors affirm both of these courses of action while also advocating a third strategy: inviting clients to serve as agents of change by introducing and incorporating prosocial values into career development interventions. This article makes the case that this strategy may enhance client well‐being while simultaneously promoting harmony among organizations and society. Support for this strategy comes from theory, research, and the ethical approaches for working with values in counseling.     

Social Cognition in Paediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Recent evidence suggests social cognitive deficits may be among the most profound and disabling consequences of childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI); however, it is only...     

Delay Discounting,Dating Applications,and Risky Sexual Behavior: An Exploratory Study

The Psychological Record - Research on delay discounting and sex suggests that discounting measures correlate to risky sexual behavior. Dating applications are a growing trend in sexual partner...