Tests of Social Dominance on Charitable Intent Towards Minorities

<p>This thesis investigates the hypothesis that the design of adverts for charitable causes may be unintentionally priming viewers in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO: Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Huang and Liu (2005) found evidence that presenting people with material that makes social hierarchies salient can temporarily increase a person's level of SDO. As many charities make differences in social hierarchy salient as part of their advertisement campaigns, it is possible that such advertisements may unintentionally prime the SDO of viewers. Given prior research that indicates that high SDO is correlated with antisocial attitudes (Sibley & Duckitt, 2010), such priming may be reducing the likelihood that viewers would donate towards the charitable cause. First, a pre-test was conducted to test the psychometric structure and reliability of the SDO7 (Ho, et al., in print) and the Counter Dominance Orientation measure (CDO: Pratto et al., 2012). Confirmatory factor analysis of each measure found a four-factor model of SDO and a two-factor model of CDO. Subsequently, 139 first-year students of psychology were used to test the previously-mentioned hypothesis. Participants were asked to critically evaluate one of two adverts for a student support service, with the one in the experimental condition being for a service for Māori and Pacifica students. The intent of this advert was to prime viewers on SDO. Afterwards, they engaged in a hypothetical public goods game where a portion of the money pool would go towards the service the advert was for. If the hypothesis was correct, participants who were primed on SDO would be less willing to contribute towards a cause that supported minorities, but the data did not support this. Implications and potential future research, both for the new measures and the hypothesis are explored.</p>

Tests of Social Dominance on Charitable Intent Towards Minorities

<p>This thesis investigates the hypothesis that the design of adverts for charitable causes may be unintentionally priming viewers in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO: Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Huang and Liu (2005) found evidence that presenting people with material that makes social hierarchies salient can temporarily increase a person's level of SDO. As many charities make differences in social hierarchy salient as part of their advertisement campaigns, it is possible that such advertisements may unintentionally prime the SDO of viewers. Given prior research that indicates that high SDO is correlated with antisocial attitudes (Sibley & Duckitt, 2010), such priming may be reducing the likelihood that viewers would donate towards the charitable cause. First, a pre-test was conducted to test the psychometric structure and reliability of the SDO7 (Ho, et al., in print) and the Counter Dominance Orientation measure (CDO: Pratto et al., 2012). Confirmatory factor analysis of each measure found a four-factor model of SDO and a two-factor model of CDO. Subsequently, 139 first-year students of psychology were used to test the previously-mentioned hypothesis. Participants were asked to critically evaluate one of two adverts for a student support service, with the one in the experimental condition being for a service for Māori and Pacifica students. The intent of this advert was to prime viewers on SDO. Afterwards, they engaged in a hypothetical public goods game where a portion of the money pool would go towards the service the advert was for. If the hypothesis was correct, participants who were primed on SDO would be less willing to contribute towards a cause that supported minorities, but the data did not support this. Implications and potential future research, both for the new measures and the hypothesis are explored.</p>

The Impact of Civic and Religious Social Capital on the Antisocial Attitudes of the Youth: A Multi-Level Cross-National Study

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether some dimensions of civic and religious social capital are connected to antisocial attitudes of the youth. Based on the social capital theory and previous research, the author assumed that membership of voluntary associations as a dimension of civic social capital and attendance at religious services as a dimension of religious social capital, will be negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes of the youth. The integrated dataset of the last European Values Study and the World Values Survey waves were used as the sources of the research data. The dataset was comprised of 11,411 respondents who were younger than 25 years old from 79 countries. As hypothesized, at the individual level, attendance at religious services was negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes, whereas membership of voluntary associations was positively correlated with antisocial attitudes. At the country level, none of the hypothesized correlations were confirmed. A cross-level interaction between GDP and associational membership was found. The author explains the findings by evoking the special characteristics of religious social capital and its strength in building moral obligations and by suggesting possible differences in incentives for joining voluntary associations in the countries with different levels of economic wealth.

Adjustments to gang exposure in early adolescence

The article investigates how exposure to gang-affiliated peers affects social behaviors and attitudes of early adolescents. Much of the literature finds that exposure to gangs contributes to adolescents’ antisocial behaviors. According to other studies, however, gang exposure can also promote prosocial behaviors. The present article re-examines this contradictory evidence, exploring potential complementarity of both reactions to gangs. Using a survey of 1,782 adolescents aged ten to 13 from rural Colombia, I compare adolescents who are and are not in a school class with members of youth gangs. I exploit the fact that schools in rural Colombia are unsegregated. Moreover, the presence of youth gangs across these schools is linked to incidence of historic armed conflict rather than typical forms of social disadvantage. This comparative setting thus allows me to establish an unconfounded relationship between exposure to gang-affiliated classmates and social outcomes. The analysis reveals gender differences in the effect of youth gang exposure. I find that girls react to male gang classmate by increased involvement in prosocial organizations. Boys, by contrast, adjust to male gangs by expressing more antisocial attitudes. There are no gender differences in the effect of gang classmates on alcohol consumption (an indicator of antisocial behavior). The article shows that the well-documented antisocial adjustments to gangs are – population-wide – complemented by prosocial adjustments, with gender being a key moderator. I discuss the implications of these findings for theories of violence and social change after conflict.

Self-Reported Change in Antisocial Attitudes and Reoffending Among a Sample of 2,337 Males Convicted of Violent Offenses

Antisocial attitudes are among the strongest predictors of reoffending; however, there is little evidence to show that treatment-induced changes in antisocial attitudes correspond to changes in individuals’ risk of recidivism. This study examined relationships between within-treatment change in antisocial attitudes derived from the Measures of Criminal Attitudes and Associates (MCAA) and reoffending among a large sample of males convicted of violent offenses ( N = 2,337). Residual change scores (RCS) and categories of clinically significant change (CSC) were used as indices of within-treatment change. A number of MCAA factor scores significantly predicted general and violent reoffending when assessed before and after treatment. RCS calculations of within-treatment change on the Violence and Antisocial Intent factors were also significantly associated with general reoffending outcomes. There was no evidence that within-treatment change on any measure had predictive validity for violent reoffending.

Atonement of harm as an indicator of changes in the legal consciousness of the person who committed a credit fraud

The idea of this study is based on the assumption that the reason for the unjustified application of the criminal law provisions on accounting by law enforcement agencies when punishing various variants of positive post-criminal behaviour, which are varieties of atonement of the harm caused by a crime, is a lack of attention to the nature of atonement as one of the indicators of positive changes in the legal consciousness of a person who has committed a crime, that is, an insufficiently thorough assessment of the characteristics of the personality of the perpetrators, the degree of rooting of antisocial attitudes in their minds, as well as the level of assimilation of legal values and ideals of law-abiding behaviour. The purpose of the study is to identify and study the aspects of the content of the term “atonement of harm” in the meaning provided for in clause “k” part 1 of Art. 61 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, taking into account the interpretation of the corresponding varieties of positive post-criminal behavior as an indicator of a change in the legal consciousness of a person who has committed a credit fraud. The study is based on the widespread use of the formal legal research method in conjunction with the philological, systemic and logical methods of interpreting regulations. A comprehensive analysis of the content of various types of atonement of the harm caused by a crime as the indicators of positive changes in the legal consciousness of a person who committed credit fraud was carried out for the first time. The results of this study can be used to improve the practice of application of criminal-legal means of accounting for positive post-criminal behavior in the form of atonement when imposing punishment not only on credit fraudsters, but also on persons who have committed other crimes. The author’s concept of the criteria that form the content of the varieties of making amends is presented herein.

Review of the Book ”Evaluarea impactului migrației părinților asupra comportamentului infracțional al copiilor rămași acasă” [Assessing the Impact of Parental Migration on the Criminal Behavior of Children Left at Home], Author: Loredana Florentina Cătărău, Lumen Publishing House, 2019

The book ”Evaluarea impactului migrației părinților asupra comportamentului infracțional al copiilor rămași acasă” [Assessing the impact of parental migration on the criminal behavior of children left at home], written by Loredana Florentina Cătărău, published by Lumen Publishing House from Iași, Romania, în 2019, presents the scientific approach of the author's doctoral thesis, which analyzes how the deterioration of intra-family relationships within transnational families affects the behavior of minor children left at home, while highlighting the link between parental migration and child crime after parents leave. Using qualitative methods of data collection, but respecting ethical principles in relation to interviewing minors, specialists and parents, the author conducts a qualitative research that determines the deterioration of the child-parent relationship and how this reality is reflected on the subsequent behavior of minors, respectively the translation towards antisocial attitudes or towards some behavioral traits specific to criminal behavior.

The role of criminogenic needs and emotions in restorative justice: Offenders’ experiences in victim–offender mediation

Restorative interventions can deal with some criminogenic needs. They can address the offenders’ antisocial attitudes, lack of problem-solving strategies, empathy and self-control or, substance use problems (Moraleda et al., 2004; Raynor et al., 2012; Vanstone and Raynor, 2012). At the same time, restorative justice practices offer the possibility to express emotions and feelings, which are essential elements in a transformative process. The purpose of this article is to identify both, criminogenic needs and emotions expression through offenders’ experiences in Victim–Offender mediation (VOM). The research is developed in three phases and include qualitative and quantitative research methods. This article focuses in the second and third phases. The second involves non participant observation of VOM (40); and the third requires a post-analysis of the process (questionnaires 40), which includes an interview (12) occurring six months after VOM. General data give us a variety of results, and qualitative analysis exemplifies the different cases.