bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Complexity: An Emerging Trend in Social Sciences
Authors: Lansing J. Stephen
Published: May 2015

The social sciences have had a good run with linear models, in which effects are proportionate to their causes. Nearly all of our theoretical models, in fields as diverse as microeconomics and evolutionary game theory, are equilibrium theories, which examine the properties of various fixed points and analyze the conditions under which they are selected. In contrast, “complexity” uses different mathematical tools to investigate nonlinear processes. But linear models have the advantages of simplicity and power. Is there a real need to import the theoretical apparatus of “complexity” into the social sciences? Or might it be merely the latest example ofFashionable Nonsense?

As it turns out, one need not seek very far to discover nonlinear dynamics in the social world. And if more than one attractor exists, the resulting variation in dynamical behavior will be mistaken for noise if one assumes linearity. In the past two or three decades, interest in complexity has burgeoned across the social sciences. Under the banner of complexity, researchers have investigated questions as dissimilar as the causes of the Maya collapse, the spread of disease, the origins of syntax, the structural properties of cities, and the evolution of culture. Presently, the mathematical tools needed to analyze complexity present an entry barrier for many social scientists. But generation time in graduate schools is short, and the physicists who have taken the lead in the application of complexity to social science are beginning to have their elbows jostled by social scientists with a new set of skills. As for the likely impact, it is still early days. But one change that is already visible on the horizon has to do with history, which plays no role in equilibrium analysis, but is intrinsic to many of the questions and methods developed to study complex systems.
Concepts and Semantic Memory
Authors: Malt Barbara C.
Published: May 2015

Humans accumulate vast amounts of knowledge over the life span. Much work aimed at understanding this knowledge store has been called eitherconceptsorsemantic memoryresearch. This essay reviews early research on the nature of concrete concepts (concepts of concrete objects) and their organization in memory. It then raises considerations of abstract and relational concepts and of how action affects representation and vice versa. Additional advances discussed come from statistically based views of semantics, connectionist modeling, and neuroscientific evidence, all showing how distributed sources of information can be integrated to create semantic or conceptual content. Cross‐cultural and cross‐linguistic evidence indicate, though, that models based on evidence from any one cultural or language group may not apply well to others. The essay concludes by arguing that key issues for future research include broadening the kinds of knowledge structures that are studied and clarifying how language and nonlinguistic representations are related.
Construal Level Theory and Regulatory Scope
Authors: Ledgerwood Alison , Trope Yaacov , Liberman Nira
Published: May 2015

Humans spend a large portion of their lives in pursuit of desired ends, from finding food and meeting deadlines to pursuing important career and relationship goals. The desired ends that people seek can vary in their proximity: For instance, food may be spatially close or distant; we might plan to meet a friend in the near or distant future. Thus, the ability to mentally support the pursuit of desired ends that are distant as well as close is essential for adaptive human functioning. This essay examines the basic mental processes that allow humans to contract and expand their regulatory scope in this functional way. A growing body of research suggests that different levels of psychological supports enable people to effectively pursue ends that can be closer or more distant. High‐level supports emphasize central and general aspects of an experience, and therefore tend to travel well—they can effectively guide action and interaction for the distant future, for remote locations, for unlikely scenarios, or with dissimilar others. Lower‐level supports emphasize specific, secondary, and unique aspects of an experience, and therefore support contractive scope—they help immerse people in the particular details of the current context to act effectively in the here and now. As the field moves forward, researchers are beginning to investigate how people expand and contract the scope of their social relationships in particular—an area of inquiry with important implications for understanding domains such as social communication and social learning that are central to human experience as social creatures.
Content Analysis
Authors: Stemler Steven E.
Published: May 2015

In the era of “big data,” the methodological technique of content analysis can be the most powerful tool in the researcher's kit. Content analysis is versatile enough to apply to textual, visual, and audio data. Given the massive explosion in permanent, archived linguistic, photographic, video, and audio data arising from the proliferation of technology, the technique of content analysis appears to be on the verge of a renaissance. In this essay, I discuss cutting‐edge examples of how content analysis is being applied or might be applied to the study of areas as diverse as education, criminology, and social intelligence.
Cooperative Breeding and Human Evolution
Authors: Kramer Karen L.
Published: May 2015

The demographic success of humans compared to other closely related species is one of the remarkable stories of our evolutionary history. This can be attributed both to high fertility and improved chances of survival. But it is also fundamentally shaped by features of human parenting, cooperation, and social organization. The concept and theory of cooperative breeding combines these features and is a useful framework to consider child‐rearing patterns characteristic of humans. Cooperative breeding theory was developed in biology to explain a social system found in relatively few animals in which nonparental members of a social group help to support offspring. In traditional human societies, numerous studies document that a variety of kin and nonkin of different ages and sex help mothers and contribute to infant childcare and provisioning juveniles. Cooperative breeding theory offers a well‐developed theoretic and empirical context in which to evaluate cross‐cultural diversity and to understand why humans cooperate in this way. This review situates humans compared to other species of cooperative breeders by outlining what we share in common and what are distinctly human aspects of parenting and childrearing. Attention is paid to both foundational research and new questions that have more recently surfaced through comparative research. Cooperative breeding is relevant to recent debates concerning the evolution of human life history, sociality, and psychology and has implications to demographic patterns, family formation, and social organization in the past as well as in today's world.
Popular Protest, Nationalism, and Domestic‐International Linkages in Chinese Politics
Authors: Weiss Jessica Chen
Published: May 2015

The study of Chinese politics has become increasingly specialized, reflecting broader trends in social science that favor islands of knowledge that can be defended with rigor. Yet many phenomena of interest in Chinese politics are located at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, where the two levels are connected and strategically linked. Nationalist, anti‐foreign protest is a good example, as Chinese officials must choose whether to repress or tolerate nationalist demonstrations based on domestic and international considerations. In turn, the decision to allow or stifle street demonstrations affects the degree of popular influence on Chinese foreign policy, constraining the government's diplomatic options or enhancing its flexibility. Ongoing research into the subnational patterns of Chinese nationalism and popular protest offers a promising avenue of inquiry. Combined with close qualitative assessments to identify mechanisms and processes, meso‐level investigations can provide additional leverage in the study of Chinese nationalism. Future research should aim to bring nationalism back into the mainstream study of state‐society relations in China, bridging the gap between nationalism and other varieties of social mobilization and political contestation.
Cultural Heritage, Patrimony, and Repatriation
Authors: Handler Richard
Published: May 2015

In contemporary usage, the termscultural heritageandcultural patrimonyare synonyms. Both are metaphors that depict the idea that the culture (material and immaterial) of a specific social group is its property, owned collectively and passed on from one generation to the next. In the past 50 years, these terms have come to constitute a discursive space in which academic disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, art history, and philosophy have interacted with professional disciplines such as law, museology, and architecture; and these university‐based fields have had to interface with a much broader public, newly interested in what has come to be called thepolitics of culture.Repatriationis a term that signifies the return of cultural artifacts, from metropolitan institutions that had “collected” them to local communities that can claim to have created them. Repatriation has gained momentum since the Second World War, as both decolonization and various international conventions have provided a platform for once colonized peoples to claim items of their cultural heritage that had been taken from them. Repatriation is a directional process, from center to periphery. It includes both the return of artifacts and a ceding of control over the interpretation of such artifacts.
Culture, Diffusion, and Networks in Social Animals
Authors: Mann Janet , Singh Lisa
Published: May 2015

Long‐term studies of social animals provide detailed data on individual attributes, behaviors, and associations that enable us to explore cultural diffusion in networks. In this essay, we describe how network science can be used to improve our understanding of cultural and information transmission. After presenting an operational definition of culture, we discuss methodologies and research questions applicable to unweighted, weighted, and dynamic networks. We then highlight relevant studies and methods for both descriptive and predictive analyses that have been used to identify culture and social learning in animal networks. Applying and extending the techniques presented will improve our understanding of information transmission, social learning, and embedded subcultures in the context of human networks.
Darwinism as a Decryption Key for the Human Mind
Authors: Pléh Csaba , Boross Ottilia
Published: May 2015

The essay summarizes some of the key results and debated issues of Darwinian psychology over the past 150 years. Comparative psychology, psychological anthropology, research into the ontogeny of the mind, evolutionary interpretations of knowledge, and the study of individual differences are the main areas where evolutionary explanations remarkably influence traditional psychology. All five of them show up in twentieth century developments within the framework of overall selectionism, the idea that in all aspects of life—including human culture or habits—there is a certain diversity and variety not only in the form of living things but also in the form of “living‐things‐made” material, cultural or virtual, all of them being subject to natural selection. Some issues of overall selectionism, having been introduced by Karl Bühler, Karl Popper, and Donald Campbell, or by the genetic epistemology of Jean Piaget, are compared in this essay to the latest debates and ideas about the message of evolution by Daniel Dennett, to the coordination of evolutionary models, the theories about the social mind and its development, and the genesis of culture and evolution in rivaling models of human architectures, as in the one proposed by Michael Tomasello. Some of the continuously debated issues have been escorting us since the 1880s, such as the relative significance of nature or culture, the causal relations between different levels of selection, and the like. They all mean a real challenge to the unbounded and unanchored psychological and epistemological theories.
Data Mining
Authors: Murray Gregg R. , Scime Anthony
Published: May 2015

This essay introduces data mining as an analytical technique for novice to professional social and behavioral scientists. It presents data mining, which is also known as, among other things,data analyticsandpredictive analytics, as an effective tool for researchers who are interested in the analysis of “big data” as well as small, unique data sets. It addresses foundational elements of data mining such as how to avoid “data dredging” and the importance of theory as embodied in researcher domain expertise. It also briefly defines and describes classification analysis, association rules, and clustering, which are the major methodologies among a large number of methodologies that constitute data mining. This essay identifies analytical problems and data for which the techniques are best suited. It goes on to highlight a number of cutting‐edge studies that relied on data mining techniques in disciplines such as criminal justice, education, health sciences, linguistics, political science, and sociology. This essay concludes with a review of key considerations for future research to include discussions of the burgeoning of new analytical techniques and new data sets and sources, the importance and protection of data‐source privacy, and the ethical obligation researchers have to exploit to their fullest extent the costly data on social and behavioral issues collected by scientists and society.
Demography and Cultural Evolution
Authors: Shennan Stephen
Published: May 2015

Trying to explain the increase in cultural complexity over the long term of human history has long been an interest of anthropology and of historical social sciences more generally. In recent years, interest has grown rapidly in the idea that a key factor in accounting for it might be the size of the human population itself and the extent of interaction between people, because of the effect these have on the innovation rates in populations and on the success with which innovations are transmitted. An important driver of this growth of interest has been the emergence of the new interdisciplinary field of cultural evolution, which makes extensive use of mathematical techniques, especially methods derived from population genetics. The result has been the development of a range of analytical and computer simulation models that make various predictions about the way in which population size influences cultural change, and in particular the growth of cumulative culture, including the processes that have led from the very simple forms of culture possessed by other great apes to those characteristic of
Homo sapiens
. The aim of this review is to distinguish them, so that future work can focus on evaluating their strengths and weaknesses and the circumstances in which they are useful.
Deterrence
Authors: Apel Robert , Nagin Daniel S.
Published: May 2015

This essay reviews the evidence on the deterrent effect of police and imprisonment. Studies of changes in police presences, whether achieved by changes in police numbers or in their strategic deployment, consistently find evidence of deterrent effects. Studies of the deterrent effect of increases in already long prison sentences find at most a modest deterrent effect. Three high priority areas for future research are identified: developing and testing an integrated model of the effects of the threat and experience of punishment, measuring perceptions of sanction regimes, developing and estimating the deterrent effect of shorter prison sentences, and identifying high deterrence policies.
Normal Negative Emotions and Mental Disorders
Authors: Horwitz Allan V.
Published: May 2015

The basic goal of psychiatric diagnosis is to distinguish genuine mental dysfunctions from normal, albeit distressing, emotions. This task is especially difficult because, unlike other medical specialties, psychiatry does not have biological markers that can validate diagnoses of mental disorders. Therefore, diagnostic criteria have an outsized role in psychiatry compared to other medical fields. Until the development of the DSM‐III in 1980, psychiatric diagnoses were general, continuous, and causal. In contrast, the diagnostic system that emerged in the DSM‐III and that has remained basically intact until the present has been specific, categorical, and a causal. This type of classification, however, is prone to mistake contextually appropriate symptoms as indicators of mental disorders. Cutting‐edge research incorporates the context in which symptoms emerge and persist to separate normal, distressing emotions from mental illnesses. It also develops alternatives to the DSM's categorical diagnoses. Other valuable studies try to differentiate conditions that stem from evolutionarily normal genes that no longer fit modern environments rather than from genetic or psychological dysfunctions within individuals. Going forward, research must attempt to use biological, psychological, and social factors to develop definitions that adequately distinguish normal responses to stressful environments, evolutionary mismatches, and mental disorders. It will also try to find biomarkers that can set appropriate boundaries between natural and pathological conditions. Finally, it will consider the best ways to optimize the balance between under‐ and over‐diagnosing mental illnesses.
Distributive Politics: Federal Outlays
Authors: Gordon Sanford C. , Kang Woo Chang
Published: May 2015

We provide an interpretive review of theoretical and empirical research on the distribution of federal outlays in the United States and their political antecedents. We argue that the foundational scholarly research on the subject to date can be classified to a great extent according to the perspectives it takes respecting legislative organization, political parties, and the executive branch. After reviewing theoretical and empirical research in these areas, we discuss some cutting‐edge research in this area of research. One of the most exciting trends in the study of distributive politics is a much greater focus on issues of causal identification in empirical tests of theories concerning the allocation of federal resources. Finally, we describe five questions that we believe ought to motivate future research in this area. These questions concern the relationship between entitlement and discretionary spending; how to integrate research on distributive politics with research on political business cycles; how best to measure executive discretion in specific assistance programs; how to understand the relationship between spending in an area and support for that spending; and how to capture the mechanism relating spending and electoral benefits.
Close Friendships among Contemporary People
Authors: Brashears Matthew E. , Brashears Laura Aufderheide
Published: May 2015

Do contemporary people have fewer friends than they used to? In this entry, we examine the research on strong tie networks, or networks containing people especially important to us, in order to provide a partial answer. We begin with a review of the methods employed to collect data on social network connections. We then summarize the literature on the size of Americans' social networks as well as change in this size over time. Finally, we conclude with an analysis of where the study of strong networks needs to go and some suggestions for getting it there. Overall, the research suggests that while strong networks have changed over the past 30–40 years, and may be smaller overall, people are no more isolated than they were in the past.
Domestic Institutions and International Conflict
Authors: Chiozza Giacomo
Published: May 2015

From the democratic peace to the current wave of research on political leaders, the study of the connection between domestic politics and international conflict has been one of the most dynamic areas of study in International Relations in the past 25 years. This essay takes stock of the past 25 years of research on how domestic politics underpins the dynamics of war and peace in the international arena. It reviews the foundational arguments envisioned by Kant in 1795 and later grounded in the scientific canon by Russett and Oneal. The essay then argues that research that evaluates how political leaders make decisions under different institutional arrangements is likely to be one of the most fruitful lines of research in International Relations in the years to come. It illustrates this claim with a review of two alternative perspectives on leaders and international conflict.
Domestic Politics of Trade Policy
Authors: Aklin Michaël , Arias Eric , Deniz Emine , Peter Rosendorff B.
Published: May 2015

Domestic politics shape international trade policy, but exactly how and why remains an open question. We explore the cutting‐edge literature that focuses on how agents' interests are formed, whose interests are organized, and how those interests interact with each other via domestic political institutions to generate both trade policy and international cooperation over trade more broadly. In turn, trade policies operate as a feedback loop. International cooperation generates information via international organizations, treaties, and more informal regimes, which affects the domestic politics conflict in substantive ways. We explore each of these topics and suggest future research paths.
Economics and Culture
Authors: Roland Gérard
Published: May 2015

We survey recent research on the economic effects of culture. We discuss definition and measures of culture used in research. We highlight the strong inertia of culture, document its effects on institutional change, and discuss other economic effects of culture, such as on innovation and growth.
Economics of Privacy and User‐Generated Content
Authors: Tucker Catherine
Published: May 2015

The Internet has allowed an unprecedented expansion of the data firms can collect and the amount of content users can upload. Understanding the forces that shape the demand and supply of this content is critical for understanding the likely evolution of the Internet. We review foundational and cutting‐edge research on the economics of privacy and user‐generated content (UGC), and sketch out issues for future research.
Economics of Renewable Energy Production
Authors: Nemet Gregory F.
Published: May 2015

Renewable energy (RE) includes a diverse set of technologies that produce useful energy from nondepleting resources, emit little pollution, and involve no fuel costs. While RE comprises only about an eighth of world energy supply, it is growing quickly and could become a much larger share without approaching resource supply constraints. Valuation of the costs and benefits of RE has improved as studies have become more comprehensive in scope and more precise. Still valuation remains complicated and subject to wide bands of uncertainty for several reasons: heterogeneity among RE technologies; accounting for externalities, such as pollution, that are not always traded in markets; and benefits that depend on counterfactuals that vary substantially by time and location. Costs have to account for intermittency, which depends on many factors such as how thin a reserve margin to maintain, as well as technology dynamics, which over the long term may reduce costs. Experience with substantial shares of RE generation in real commercial settings has provided data and opportunities to analyze the integration of RE with the surrounding energy market. A key research challenge is to use this fuller accounting of costs and benefits to produce general insights about energy markets, without being limited by the technological, location, and temporal idiosyncrasies, which so far appear dominant. Future research questions revolve around whether costs are increasing or decreasing in deployment and include considerations of resource availability, temporal correlation in production across space and technologies, technological change in RE and complementary technologies, and emergent properties at large scale.
Education for Mobility or Status Reproduction?
Authors: Lacy Karyn
Published: May 2015

Everyone is familiar with the popular phrase, “education levels the playing field.” However, does public schooling really provide opportunities for everyone who is willing to work hard to succeed? This essay examines the scholarly debate that has emerged around this long‐standing maxim. At one end of the continuum, scholars draw on the experiences of white ethnic immigrants to make the claim that education is the ticket to upward mobility for students from poor families. However, critics point to the experiences of marginalized blacks, and increasingly, Latinos, to reject this claim. At the other end of the continuum, scholars depart from traditional debates about racial disparitiesper se, shifting their focus to an understudied disparity—the growing gap in achievement between middle‐class students and poor students. These scholars point to an important new trend in class inequality, one that has gained momentum in recent years, namely, the rising significance of the acquisition of cultural capital as a necessary prerequisite for upward mobility. Analysis of this trend is a promising step in the right direction for scholars concerned with helping disadvantaged students to climb out of poverty.
Effortful Control
Authors: Spinrad Tracy L. , Eisenberg Nancy
Published: May 2015

Effortful control, defined as the ability to voluntary inhibit a dominant response and to activate a subdominant response, is believed to play an important role in children's development. In this essay, we distinguish between effortful control and aspects of control that are involuntary (i.e., reactive). The development of effortful control is summarized, and research on its relations to children's positive social behaviors and maladjustment is reviewed. Key areas for future work are also discussed, with an emphasis on interventions designed to promote self‐regulation.
Electoral Authoritarianism
Authors: Schedler Andreas
Published: May 2015

Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the national level, yet violate liberal‐democratic minimum standards in systematic and profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most common form of nondemocratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical expansion of nondemocratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of comparative politics, summarizes cutting‐edge research on regime trajectories and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research.
Emergence of Stratification in Small Groups
Authors: Askin Noah , Bothner Matthew S. , Lee Wonjae
Published: May 2015

Stratification within small groups is virtually inevitable. Understanding the precise mechanisms by which it occurs and the nature of its consequences is an important sociological endeavor. Individuals' preexisting qualities, as well as advantages emerging from intra‐group interactions, affect the flows of respect and deference accruing to each member of a group. Differences in these flows in turn create a hierarchy. In this essay, we first discuss foundational research on the causes and consequences of stratification before turning to more current trends. We focus on the ways in which status, the primary determinant of one's location in a group's hierarchy, is created and maintained or lost. We discuss the Matthew Effect—a process by which high‐status group members receive disproportionate credit for their contributions, and also more easily maintain their status. We also address the circumstances and activities that can curb the Matthew Effect. We then move to current research, which centers on two main concepts. First, we consider peer effects, discussing the various means by which an individual's closest peers shape his or her status; second, we take a broader perspective by examining small groups as open systems. This section considers how a group's external environment, including other nearby groups, affects the level and stability of within‐group stratification. We emphasize key issues and implications for future research on these topics.
Emerging Evidence of Addiction in Problematic Eating Behavior
Authors: Gearhardt Ashley , Murray Susan , Avena Nicole M.
Published: May 2015

Obesity continues to be a pressing global health crisis with few nonsurgical means of long‐term successful treatment. In addition, in the last year, binge eating disorder (BED), which shares several behavioral characteristics with traditional substance use disorders, has been recognized in the DSM‐V as a distinct eating disorder diagnosis. In light of such trends, an emerging and controversial hypothesis is that an addictive response to certain types of foods may be contributing to eating‐related problems. If certain individuals are experiencing an addiction to highly palatable foods, the treatment and prevention of problematic eating may need to be altered in such circumstances. Further, if certain food (or ingredients in food) are identified as having an addictive potential, policy approaches employed to reduce the public health impact of other types of addictive substances (e.g., reducing advertising to minors, taxation) may be of use in the obesity epidemic. In the following piece, we will review the research linking addiction and eating, but most importantly, we will identify directions for future research in this relatively new field of study.
Museum Anthropology
Authors: Greene Candace S.
Published: May 2015

Museum anthropology is a vigorous and growing perspective within anthropology. It applies insights from cultural anthropology to the assessment of how museums represent cultures, and increasingly looks to museum collections as the material record of cultures over time. It is a theoretical approach, distinct from technical aspects of museum operation, such as collections care and exhibit production, although in best practice, each informs the other. Degree programs in Museum Studies may include training in either theoretical museum anthropology or operational aspects, although more programs focus on the later aspect and are not specific to the discipline of anthropology.
Emerging Trends in Social Network Analysis of Terrorism and Counterterrorism
Authors: Knoke David
Published: May 2015

A key issue in tracking transnational terror trends is the utility of social network analysis, both as a theoretical perspective and as a methodological toolkit, for understanding and assessing terror organizations, and for developing counterterror policies and practices to detect and disrupt terror attacks. Foundational efforts were case studies of particular groups or operations, culling data from newspaper reports and court trial documents, then creating matrix files for analysis with social network computer programs. Mathematicians, game theorists, and computer scientists are dramatically expanding research beyond foundational case studies of terrorist networks. Much of their work centers on devising strategies for counterterror organizations to destabilize clandestine organizations. They develop elegant and precise mathematical models and computer algorithms, then systematically change parameters to assess capabilities of detecting and disrupting terrorist activities under varying conditions. Key issues for future network research include: conducting rigorous comparative analyses of four historical waves of modern terrorism for clues about the present and future waves; building more comprehensive, cohesive, and integrated theoretical models capable of explaining the formation, structure, and consequences of terrorist networks; developing new methods of measuring network relations among terrorists; performing more laboratory experiments as an alternative to collecting inaccessible and dangerous field observation data; and creating large, high‐quality relational datasets to test social network theories of terrorism.
Emotion and Decision Making
Authors: Huntsinger Jeff R. , Ray Cara
Published: May 2015

The topic of emotion and decision making is an old one. Classic Western philosophical perspectives generally considered emotion a contaminating influence on cognition, one that needed to be suppressed, ignored, or ideally brought in line with reason. Recent psychological research shows that, contrary to such pessimistic perspectives, emotion plays a largely functional and adaptive role in regulating cognition and decision making. We first outline how affect regulates cognition using the affect‐as‐information account as a guiding framework. We next discuss foundational research on the role of emotion in regulating cognition and decision making consistent with this account. Finally, we end with a discussion of new research developments and open research questions.
Emotion and Intergroup Relations
Authors: Mackie Diane M. , Maitner Angela T. , Smith Eliot R.
Published: May 2015

When the social identities people develop as members of groups become salient, people perceive the world in terms of the costs and benefits to that salient group membership. This means that events that have no implications for the individual him or herself can be perceived as harmful, beneficial, offensive, complimentary, unfair, or just, for example, depending on the consequences those events have for the group. As a result, perceptions of intergroup events, anticipated intergroup interactions, or ongoing structural intergroup relations elicit group‐based emotions—emotions that individuals feel as members of their groups. These emotions influence individuals' perceptions, interpretations, and actions toward their ingroup, relevant outgroups, and any other objects and events that are relevant to group membership. Thus, emotions play a critical role in intergroup relations, energizing desires to cooperate or compete, to retaliate or make peace. Focusing on the role of such emotions has contributed to an understanding of the social nature of emotion, as well as to the antecedents of intergroup conflict and the necessary conditions for its resolution. That understanding will be promoted by further clarification of the nature of social identity, the process of identification, the anticipation of emotions in others, and the time course of emotions, both in general and in the context of group membership in particular.
Emotion Regulation
Authors: Zarolia Paree , McRae Kateri , Gross James J.
Published: May 2015

Emotion regulation refers to the processes by which we influence which emotions we have, when we have them, how we experience them, and how we express them. The study of emotion regulation has become an increasingly popular and fruitful area of research in the past few decades. In the following chapter, we summarize past research, highlight current findings, and suggest some potential future directions for the study of emotion regulation. We review foundational research highlighting the process model of emotion regulation and research comparing distinct emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal and suppression. Then, we highlight new conceptualizations of emotion regulation that question the assumption that emotion regulation is inherently adaptive, that examine the effect of culture on emotion regulation, examine the contexts that lead to successful emotion regulation towards a variety of emotion goals. Finally we discuss promising future directions for the study of emotion regulation.
Empathy Gaps Between Helpers and Help‐Seekers: Implications for Cooperation
Authors: Bohns Vanessa K. , Flynn Francis J.
Published: May 2015

Help‐seekers and potential helpers often experience an “empathy gap”—an inability to understand each other''s unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about their reputation, self‐esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways that lead to misinterpretation of the other party's actions, and, in turn, missed opportunities for cooperation. In this essay, we review research that describes the role‐specific concerns of helpers and help‐seekers. We then review studies of emotional perspective‐taking, which can help explain why help‐seekers and helpers often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the consequences of empathy gaps between helpers and help‐seekers—social prediction errors that prevent helping and misguided intentions that can lead to unhelpful help. Finally, we discuss some promising directions for future research.
Empirical Models of Bilateral Contracting
Authors: Lee Robin S.
Published: May 2015

This essay briefly surveys the empirical literature on bilateral contracting. The focus is on contracting between firms in vertical markets, and I discuss recent approaches to modeling their determination and the impact of contractual restrictions on competition, industry structure, and welfare. I also highlight challenges facing future research in this area.
Ethical Decision‐Making: Contemporary Research on the Role of the Self
Authors: Shu Lisa L. , Effron Daniel A.
Published: May 2015

How do people decide when facing dilemmas that pit self‐interested gains against ethical values? We highlight two key principles from contemporary behavioral research: (i) people are more willing to act unethically when they can convince themselves that their behavior does not reflect poorly on their moral character and (ii) people tend to be content with an “ethical enough” self‐image. We examine how these principles shed light on the antecedents and consequences of ethical behavior, emphasizing situational determinants and psychological processes. We close by considering important questions that remain unanswered, and discuss how furthering our understanding the role of the self in ethical decision‐making can be used to nudge people toward more ethical behavior.
Ethnic Enclaves
Authors: Gold Steven J.
Published: May 2015

Ethnic enclaves are geographically delimited regions wherein a community of immigrants characterized by common national or ethnic origins as well as class diversity owns a significant fraction of local businesses. By pooling business skill and investment capital within an environment of shared solidarity and coethnic employment, group members are able to successfully compete in the host society's economy such that both owners and workers are protected from the economic disadvantages (in the form of low returns on their investments in human capital) that recent immigrants generally encounter when seeking jobs in a host society's labor market. Through reliance on the ethnic enclave, immigrant populations are able to acquire wealth and provide their children with education sufficient to enter the middle class of the host society.

This essay traces the origin and development of the ethnic enclave, discusses the debates it inspired, and considers its contributions as well as the critiques to which it has been subject. The essay concludes with suggestions for future research that can link the ethnic enclave formulation with emergent themes in the study of international migration and ethnic economies.
Ethnography: Telling Practice Stories
Authors: O'Reilly Karen
Published: May 2015

In this essay I argue that the central emerging trend in ethnography is the telling of practice stories, that is narrative (or story‐like) accounts that make sense of social phenomena by understanding how people respond to constraints and opportunities but in turn create the cultures, constraints, and opportunities within which others act. Drawing either overtly or implicitly on different versions of what has become known as practice theory, contemporary ethnographers increasingly aspire to unravel the processes involved in the ongoing constitution of social life. This constitution is made up of free will as well as structures that restrict action. The key principles of ethnography, established to challenge preconceptions and to yield complex understandings, remain fundamental to its methodology. This is despite massive social change and the emergence of “new ethnographies” to understand such things as globalization and technological change. These key principles are exactly what are required for the analysis of social life as practice. Ethnography pays attention to people's feeling and emotions, their experiences and their free choices, but also to the wider constraints and opportunities that frame their agency. And they do this always in the context of people's daily lives, cultures, and communities, using the key methods of watching, taking part, sharing in conversations and listening.
Evolutionary Theory and Political Behavior
Authors: Petersen Michael Bang , Aarøe Lene
Published: May 2015

Political behavior is behavior aimed at regulating access to resources: Who is recognized to get what, when, and how? Evidence across a number of disciplines shows that humans over evolutionary history have evolved sophisticated abilities to engage in political behavior through status seeking and coalition formation in order to attract resources to themselves, their kin, and their allies. As demonstrated by recent research, this evolutionary history of politics continues to shape how modern individuals behave in modern mass politics and prompt people to derive their political attitudes from ancestrally relevant factors such as upper body strength and short‐term fluctuations in hunger. Important areas for research lies ahead in (i) understanding how evolution has given rise to individual variation in political behavior, (ii) investigating the extent to which the evolved psychology of humans biases modern political behavior, and (iii) strengthening the ties between this emerging application of evolutionary theory and more traditional research on political behavior.
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity
Authors: Laitin David D. , Jeon Sangick
Published: May 2015

In economics and political science, there is evidence from large cross‐sectional datasets and field experiments that neighborhoods, villages, cities, and countries with higher levels of cultural diversity have lower levels of generalized trust, lower quality of public goods, and poorer economic performance. However, in social psychology, organizational behavior, and computer science, there is evidence that diverse populations are collectively better able to solve complex problems with creative solutions. The next generation of research, crucial for the globalized world that is undermining homogeneous communities, will utilize experimental research designs (such as those based on natural or quasi‐natural experiments, laboratory experiments, and randomized experiments in controlled natural settings) to better understand the mechanisms sustaining underperformance of diverse communities and to identify interventions that enable community members to take advantage of the problem‐solving promise of diversity to yield social and economic benefits.
Family Formation in Times of Labor Market Insecurities
Authors: Huinink Johannes
Published: May 2015

Family formation is still a major life goal for an overwhelming section of the population in contemporary societies. It is a major transition in the individual life course because bringing up children in modern societies is a challenging and costly task. Men and women are increasingly aware of this fact. That is why family formation is no longer taken for granted as an obligatory marker of the transition to adulthood. It is increasingly a matter of conscious decision making—at least in modern societies. One would expect economic uncertainty to be a major issue in this decision. Labor market insecurity in particular should prevent couples from realizing family formation and impact the timing of childbirth or the likelihood of remaining childless.

There are plenty of historical examples showing that in times of economic crisis and major societal instability birthrates decline considerably. However, more recent studies in various countries show mixed evidence in regard to the impact of economic uncertainty and labor market insecurity on family formation. The puzzle of these partially seemingly contradictory findings has not yet been solved. Obviously, the relationship between labor market insecurity and family formation is more complex than has been assumed. It is the result of a complex interplay between historical factors and traditions, current socioeconomic conditions of the lives of men and women, and their personal ways of dealing with risks and uncertainties.
Family Income Composition
Authors: Smith Kristin E.
Published: May 2015

Family income has increased overall in the United States since the 1950s, but increased prosperity has not been distributed evenly, with family economic well‐being increasing more for some families than others. The end result has been increased family income inequality. Married couple families with a wife in the labor force have seen the largest gains over the decades. In general, families experienced increased prosperity over the 1950s and 1960s, a time when earnings increased for men and women. Starting in the early 1970s, however, the gap between families with a wife in the labor force and other families expanded markedly, as men's wage inequality grew and women's earnings continued to rise. This resulted in a flat trend line for families dependent only on men's earnings. Meanwhile, female‐led families have seen only modest increases in family income. This uneven growth in family income has its roots in demographic changes in the family, the focus of this essay. Markedly, the rise in women's employment and earnings, the rise in men's wage inequality, and shifts in family structure and increased marital homogamy on earnings all contributed to the shifts in family income composition.
Family Relationships and Development
Authors: Grusec Joan E.
Published: May 2015

Family relationships take different forms, with each form affecting development in a different way and requiring a different kind of parenting intervention. In this essay I begin by reviewing different approaches that have been taken to understanding social and affective outcomes of parenting and how each focuses on one particular kind of relationship. I then discuss central concepts including the importance for successful socialization of the internalization or the taking over of parental values and attitudes as one's own. Some current research is addressed, including (i) the investigation of control and how it can be exercised in such a way that it does not threaten children's autonomy and, therefore, their willingness to comply with parental directives; (ii) investigation of the many interactions between parenting and variables having to do with characteristics of the child and the context in which socialization takes place; and (iii) concern with the impact of different kinds of parental sensitivity on specific aspects of children's behavior. Finally, some key issues for future research are discussed. These include increased attention to the direction of effect between child and parent behavior, continuing attempts to understand how control is most effectively administered, and a focus on understanding the nature of interactions between genes and parenting in the developmental process.