The (Anti)Social Network: Egocentric Friendship Networks of Incarcerated Youth

The present study uses egocentric networks collected from youth (aged 14–24) incarcerated with California’s Division of Juvenile Justice to examine the composition and structure of youth’s friendship networks during periods of incarceration and to test the relationship between friendship and institutional misconduct. Tests of network homophily reveal that youth networks report more diversity across both racial/ethnic categories and gang membership than expected from non-network research about inmate organization. Regression results indicate that youth who stated they had no close friendships within the facility had a lower rate of institutional misconduct post-interview compared to those who nominated peer friendships. The current study demonstrates that incarcerated youth are capable of building close friendships and highlights the potential of these friendships to affect a youth’s level of institutional misconduct.     

Monaural and binaural audiogenic seizures in mice

The progression of sound-induced seizures was examined in unilaterally or bilaterally sensitized SJL/J mice tested either monaurally or binaurally. An unexpected right-side advantage for becoming susceptible to audiogenic seizure was observed. In addition, two distinct patterns of seizure progression were noted, a uniphasic sequence in which a single burst of running preceded the convulsion and a biphasic pattern with two such bursts. The biphasic progression is viewed to be the result of unilaterally initiated seizures and characteristically reached only a clonic level of severity. Uniphasic seizures are concluded to be the result of bilaterally initiated seizures and, when they occurred after more than 30 s of auditory stimulation, frequently reached a tonic level of intensity. The present results support the view that audiogenic seizures are characterized by precisely timed, sequential processes dependent upon the specific priming and test procedures employed.     

Does Regulating Hate Speech Undermine Democratic Legitimacy? A Cautious ‘No’

Res Publica - This paper critiques the version of the argument that the regulation of hateful speech by the state undermines its democratic legitimacy made by Ronald Dworkin and James Weinstein...     

Effects of amount of information on judgment accuracy and confidence

When a person evaluates his or her confidence in a judgment, what is the effect of receiving more judgment-relevant information? We report three studies that show when judges receive more information, their confidence increases more than their accuracy, producing substantial confidence–accuracy discrepancies. Our results suggest that judges do not adjust for the cognitive limitations that reduce their ability to use additional information effectively. We place these findings in a more general framework of understanding the cues to confidence that judges use and how those cues relate to accuracy and calibration.     

Hedonomics: Bridging Decision Research With Happiness Research

ABSTRACT— One way to increase happiness is to increase the objective levels of external outcomes; another is to improve the presentation and choices among external outcomes without increasing their objective levels. Economists focus on the first method. We advocate the second, which we call hedonomics . Hedonomics studies (a) relationships between presentations (how a given set of outcomes are arranged among themselves or relative to other outcomes) and happiness and (b) relationships between choice (which option among alternative options one chooses) and happiness.     

Neural correlates of the perception of goal-directed action in infants

We investigated the neural correlates of the perception of human goal-directed action by 8-month-old infants. Infants viewed video loops of complete and incomplete actions, which they could discriminate according to our pilot study, while we recorded their electrophysiological brain activity. Analysis of bursts of gamma-band oscillations resulting from passive viewing of these stimuli indicated increased gamma-band activity over left frontal regions when viewing incomplete actions as compared with complete actions. These results suggest that by 8 months infants are sensitive to the disruption of perceived goal-directed actions.     

PERCEPTIONS OF SEX DISCRIMINATION AMONG FEMALE UNIVERSITY FACULTY AND STAFF

Sixty faculty and staff women at a mid–sized university were surveyed to determine the extent to which they perceived sex discrimination. Faculty women perceived sex discrimination more than did staff women and were less likely to believe that academia was a meritocracy. Differences in perception of sex discrimination were also found based upon the gender composition of the departments. Women in departments that were male–dominated were less likely to perceive sex discrimination and more accepting of the meritocracy notion than were women in departments that were not male–dominated.