Thursday 31 May 2018

On a combined theory of pay level satisfaction

an article by Yong Heng (Angus) Yao (University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada), Edwin A. Locke (University of Maryland, USA) and Muhammad Jamal (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) published in Journal of Organizational Behavior Volume 39 Issue 4 (May 2018)

Summary
For decades, research on pay level satisfaction has focused on two theories and one approach: the direct link theory, the discrepancy theory, and the no‐difference‐scores approach. However, there are still unsolved puzzles facing pay level satisfaction research.

We develop a combined theory to consider the impact of the interaction of reported pay and pay discrepancy. With this newly developed theory, we expect that:
  1. both reported pay and pay discrepancy have main effects on pay level satisfaction;
  2. reported pay and pay discrepancy also interact with each other, in that the effect of pay discrepancy on pay level satisfaction decreases as pay level increases;
  3. equitable payment is more related to pay level dissatisfaction when pay level is low; and
  4. overpayment in general is related to pay level satisfaction, not dissatisfaction.
An empirical study (N = 481) using four types of comparison standards was conducted, and the results supported our predictions. The findings of our study have important implications for both academic research and management practice.

Full text (PDF 14pp)


Does my algorithm have a mental-health problem?

a post by Thomas P. Hills for the Big Think

Is my car hallucinating? Is the algorithm that runs the police surveillance system in my city paranoid? Marvin the android in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had a pain in all the diodes down his left-hand side. Is that how my toaster feels?

This all sounds ludicrous until we realize that our algorithms are increasingly being made in our own image. As we’ve learned more about our own brains, we’ve enlisted that knowledge to create algorithmic versions of ourselves. These algorithms control the speeds of driverless cars, identify targets for autonomous military drones, compute our susceptibility to commercial and political advertising, find our soulmates in online dating services, and evaluate our insurance and credit risks. Algorithms are becoming the near-sentient backdrop of our lives.

The most popular algorithms currently being put into the workforce are deep learning algorithms. These algorithms mirror the architecture of human brains by building complex representations of information. They learn to understand environments by experiencing them, identify what seems to matter, and figure out what predicts what. Being like our brains, these algorithms are increasingly at risk of mental-health problems.

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Friday 25 May 2018

Pensions planning in the UK: A gendered challenge

an article by Liam Foster and Martin Heneghan (University of Sheffield, UK) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 38 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

Gender differences in the accumulation of pension savings are well documented.

Work in this field has concluded that while differing lifetime work profiles (and family history) explained much of the difference, other factors such as pension knowledge and confidence in decision-making, may also be significant.

This research, commissioned by the Fawcett Society and funded by Scottish Widows, explores some of these factors through the use of 30 semi-structured interviews and a focus group with women (aged 24–39) about their attitudes and motivations towards pension saving. It concentrates on discussions around pension knowledge, advice and decision-making, and identifies challenges in relation to women’s pension knowledge and the use of male ‘role models’ in making decisions.

The article then explores potential policy mechanisms to enhance women’s pension saving for retirement, including the manner in which information and advice is provided and strategies to improve confidence in pension decision-making.

Full text (PDF 22pp)


Wednesday 23 May 2018

The Sound of Madness

an article by T.M. Luhrmann published in Harper’s Magazine [via Arts & Letters Daily]

Can we treat psychosis by listening to the voices in our heads?

Sarah was four years old when her spirit guide first appeared. One day, she woke up from a nap and saw him there beside her bed. He was short, with longish curly hair, like a cherub made of light. She couldn’t see his feet. They played a board game – she remembers pushing the pieces around – and then he melted away.

After that, he came and went like any child’s imaginary friend. Sarah often sensed his presence when strange things happened – when forces of light and darkness took shape in the air around her or when photographs rippled as though shimmering in the heat. Sometimes Sarah had thoughts in her head that she knew were not her own. She would say things that upset her parents. “Cut it out,” her mother would warn. “This is what they put people in psychiatric hospitals for.”

Continue reading

This is a long read which I found intellectually stimulating. The advice provided about the Hearing Voices network seems eminently sensible.
Some people might find the accompanying images disturbing.


How easily could you be duped by fake news?

a post by Stephen Abram on his blog Stephen's Lighthouse

A team of French journalists created a conspiracy theory video to show how real fake news can seem

“A fake video documentary produced by a team of French journalists working with Spicee.com exemplifies how well produced fake news can be. Most people assume fake news is easy to spot because of translation problems and low production values, according to Thomas Huchon, who worked on the project.”

Continue reading at the CBC News site





What to do if you hate your job

Alison Green wrote this for LinkedIn’s Weekend Essay this weekend [21 May]

If you’re miserable at work, you’re not alone. Having written Ask a Manager for more than a decade now, I’ve answered questions from literally thousands of people who hate their jobs. Whether it’s due to a difficult boss, unpleasant colleagues, mind-numbing work, or a toxic culture, there are a lot of people toiling away at jobs they’d rather not be in.

The unsettling reality is that even if you do everything right in screening your jobs, you can still end up in a work situation that makes you unhappy. The great boss who you were so excited to work with could move on a few months after you start, and her replacement could end up being a disaster. Your office could have budget cuts that leave you with an unmanageable workload. You could be assigned a new client who turns your dream job into a nightmare. Or, if you’re like a lot of people, you might just end up in a job that sounded amazing in the interview but fell drastically short of your expectations once you started.

If you find yourself in this situation, step one is to get really clear about exactly what the problem is. Is your boss a hovering micromanager who doesn’t give you any autonomy, despite your years of experience? Or maybe the problem is your coworkers – is your work life lonely because you haven’t been able to form any rapport with your colleagues? Maybe it’s the work itself; you might have signed up expecting to do X but ended up doing Y, or the workload might be way too high or so low that you’re bored for hours every week. Or maybe it’s your company culture since not every culture will be a fit for every person. Maybe your office is slow-moving and resistant to change, while you’re more entrepreneurial and need a culture that values that, or maybe it rewards people who spend their off-hours golfing with the company bigwigs and you’re not up for that. Or maybe upon reflection you’ll realize that the problem isn’t this particular job, but rather the idea of having to work in general that’s making you miserable.

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Everyone Has Struggles, So Don’t Stigmatize Yourself

a post by Mosab Alkhteb for the Tiny Buddha blog



From a psychological point of view, my childhood sucked.

I didn't have many friends, I rarely left the house, I was terribly shy, and I used to get bullied a lot, both physically and mentally.

My teenage years weren't any different. The psychological issues I had as a child amplified further and created more profound problems.

When I started college, I didn't magically become more confident or develop high self-esteem. I was almost the same person.

Now, I proudly (and humbly) can say that I've gotten over most of my childhood and teenage problems, including the ones related to my social life.

But I'm not here to tell you how I did that. That would probably take a book. And trust me, it's not as glorious as I wish it were.

Instead, I want to tell you about one factor that made all the difference during my journey of change and development.

One factor that made my journey tolerable at times. Without it, I would have given up.

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Believe me it will be worth all the time you spend working through the ideas.


Tuesday 22 May 2018

Acas launches new religion and belief guidance to help prevent discrimination at work

ACAS press release

Workplace experts Acas have published new guidance on religion and belief to help ensure businesses are following the law when it comes to managing staff that have a particular religion, belief or those that don't hold any beliefs.

The guidance offers employers essential advice on how to comply with the Equalities Act, which protects employees against discrimination based on religion and belief.

Acas Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Julie Dennis, said:
"Discriminating against someone due to their religion or belief is against the law. Employers need to ensure that their workplaces are inclusive and respectful of people's beliefs, particularly in areas such as recruitment and annual leave.
"Our new free guidance for employers and employees explains what religion or belief discrimination is, how to avoid it and includes advice on what the law says about religious dress codes, fasting and time off for religious festivals or holidays."

The Acas guidance highlights recruitment as a key area where employers should take care to ensure they avoid discrimination, especially related to:
  • job adverts. They should be publicised widely and it is almost always better if employers don't mention religion in the posting
  • training and development opportunities that help employees gain promotions should be organised so employees don't miss out due to religious observance
  • opportunities for promotions. It would be discriminatory for an employer to discourage an employee from taking a promotion because of their religion.
The Acas guidance also offers help to ensure that employers:
  • take a flexible approach to dress codes where possible
  • consider requests to use annual leave for religious reasons carefully and sympathetically
  • understand that fasting can impact on performance so employers should try to be understanding in line with business needs.
The guide is available at http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1856


Long-term scarring effect of neither working nor studying

an article by Fredrik W. Andersson and Susanne Gullberg Brännstrom (Statistics Sweden, Örebro, Sweden) and Roger Mörtvik (Umeå University, Sweden) published in International Journal of Manpower Volume 39 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

Purpose
It is increasingly important to study labour market outcomes for people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). Where most studies focus solely on young people, the purpose of this paper is to include both younger and older NEETs to find out if there is any long-term scarring effect, and if the effect is different between these two groups.

Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a twin-based estimation method for the first time to measure the long-term effect of economic inactivity on income. The analysis is based on biological twins, in order to control for individuals’ unobservable heterogeneity. It is assumed that twins are similar to each other and the only unobservable heterogeneity is at the family level. Register-based data from Statistics Sweden is used.

Findings
The result indicates a significant negative income effect for those who have been in NEET, and is larger for those who have been in NEET for several consecutive periods of time. Individuals who were in NEET during 2001-2003 had on average 62 per cent lower income compared with their twin in 2011. The corresponding number for individuals who were in NEET for just one period was 33 per cent. Hence, time in NEET reduces income. The results show that the long-term scarring effect is not affected by age.

Originality/value
This study utilises for the first time a twin-based estimation method to measure the long-term effect of inactivity. Most studies focus solely on young people, but the authors also include an older group of people.

JEL Classification: J20, J24, J30, J60


The levelling effects of good quality early childcare

a column by Christina Felfe and Rafael Lalive for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

In many societies and for many families, the responsibility for looking after very young children during the day has passed from parents to third-party care providers, prompting a hotly contested debate about the merits of early childcare and how it affects childhood development. This column exploits an expansion of childcare provision in Germany to show that early childcare can be a major contributor to eliminating inequality of opportunity and even lay the foundations for a more productive workforce in the future.

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3 Ways to Outsmart Self-Doubt

a post by Melody Wilding for the World of Psychology blog



Tell me if you can relate to any of the following:


  • You feel like you’re not qualified for your job or cut out for the work you do.
  • You’re uncomfortable when praised for your success, because you feel like you haven’t earned it.
  • You fear you’ll be “found out” and exposed for the fraud you are.

If these sound like thoughts that run through your head, you may be experiencing something called Impostor Syndrome.

And you wouldn’t be alone: over 70% of people report experiencing Impostor Syndrome at some point in their career. Impostor Syndrome refers to the inability to internalize success – when people have a persistent belief that they are unintelligent or incompetent. It manifests in feelings that you’re a fake who will be exposed as incapable or ill-equipped, despite plenty of evidence to prove you’re skilled and competent.

So called “impostors” habitually attribute their accomplishments to luck, chance, connections, charm, or other external factors.

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‘Community Is Being Lost’: Mental Illness Campaigner Natasha Devon on the Ideas in Her Bold New Book

a post by Dylan Brethour for the Rights Info blog



Mental health and body image campaigner Natasha Devon MBE writes about mental illness, pill shaming, and getting fired by the government in her new book A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental: An A-Z From Anxiety to Zero F**cks Given.

“I very quickly realised that when the government says, ‘we consulted with experts,’ what they mean is ‘we’re going to go through experts until we find the one that’s going to back up what we were going to do anyway,’” Natasha Devon tells me. “And I wasn’t prepared to toe that line.”

We’re talking about her very public sacking by the Department of Education as a children’s mental health champion in 2016. Devon asserts that the relationship soured after she refused to rein in criticism of the government’s policies.

“I think it’s beyond dispute now that I’ve seen the freedom of information request,” she says, “I don’t think anyone would contest it.”

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A hand up or a slap down? Criminalising benefit claimants in Britain via strategies of surveillance, sanctions and deterrence

an article by Del Roy Fletcher (Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield, England) and Sharon Wright (University of Glasgow, Scotland) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 38 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

British policy-makers have increasingly sought to intensify and extend welfare conditionality. A distinctly more punitive turn was taken in 2012 to re-orientate the whole social security and employment services system to combine harsh sanctions with minimal mandatory support in order to prioritise moving individuals ‘off benefit and into work’ with the primary aim of reducing costs.

This article questions the extent to which these changes can be explained by Wacquant’s (2009) theory of the ‘centaur state’ (a neoliberal head on an authoritarian body), which sees poverty criminalised via the advance of workfare.

We present evidence of an authoritarian approach to unemployment, involving dramatic use of strategies of surveillance (via new paternalist tools like the Claimant Commitment and the Universal Jobmatch panopticon), sanction and deterrence. This shift has replaced job match support with mandatory digital self-help, coercion and punishment.

In relation to Work Programme providers, there is a contrasting liberal approach permitting high discretion in service design.

This article makes a significant original contribution to the field by demonstrating that Wacquant’s analysis of ‘workfare’ is broadly applicable to the British case and its reliance on a centralised model of state action is truer in the British case than the US.

However, we establish that the character of British reform is somewhat different: less ‘new’ (challenging the time-tethered interpretation that welfare reform is a uniquely neoliberal product of late modernity) and more broadly applied to ‘core’ workers, including working-class white men with earned entitlement, rather than peripheral workers.

Full text (PDF 22pp)


Monday 21 May 2018

When You’re Overwhelmed with Being an Adult

a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog



Working, paying bills, making meals, managing a household, running errands, making important decisions… adulthood isn’t for the faint of heart. Responsibilities regularly pile up. And it becomes a lot to juggle and handle on a regular basis.

And there isn’t exactly a class we take that prepares us for the nitty gritty of the day to day.

In fact, many of us go off to college with little to no training about how to handle the basics – like bills, budgeting and taxes. Psychotherapist Alyson Cohen, LCSW, works with many young adults who have a hard time “adulting”. In particular, her clients struggle with money: budgeting their expenses and spending above their means.

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How I Uncovered the Root Cause of My Social Anxiety (and Finally Healed)

a post by Berni Sewell for the Tiny Buddha blog


“I want to dare to exist, and more than that, to live audaciously, in all my imperfect, lumpy, scarred glory, because the alternative is letting shame win.” ~Shauna Niequist

I kept my head down. Staring at my plate of food.

I could hear the laughter of the other people around the table – work colleagues, my bosses, a couple of high-profile clients. They were having a great time, enjoying the company and their expensive meals.

I felt light-headed and clammy as I battled to fake a calm and relaxed appearance. My finger nails left painful, crimson marks where I dug them into my palms to distract myself from the overwhelming anxiety.

The whole situation was a nightmare I wanted to escape. But I couldn’t have refused my boss’s invitation. Not again.

I had dreaded this evening since I learned about it. The prospect of social interactions with my superiors in a formal setting made me sick with worry. I tried to prepare myself, convince myself that the event was no threat, work up confidence beforehand.




We know how to fight air pollution. So why leave so many to die?

an article by Harry Quilter-Pinner published in the Guardian

What if the water that came out of your taps made you – and thousands of others – ill? How would people respond? Voters would quite rightly demand that the government act decisively to address the problem. Heads would roll in the boardrooms of the big water companies. And demand for alternatives such as bottled water would spike. Yet scientists and campaigners – validated by the UK courts – have been telling us for years that the air we breathe is both lethal and illegal, and the response from our politicians has been negligible.

Invisible pollutants – such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM2.5) – put us at higher risk of everything from asthma to stroke, and cancer to heart disease. One study suggests that nearly 60% of the UK’s population live in areas where air pollution is above the legal limit. The end result is staggering: 40,000 early deaths every year in the UK. In London, this makes air pollution the second-biggest health risk, outranking alcohol consumption and obesity.

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The Collaborative Nature of Psychotherapy

a post by Linda Sapadin for the World of Psychology blog



“I don’t believe in psychotherapy.”

“Therapy is for crazy people; you’re not crazy.”

“Therapy is for narcissists who just like to hear themselves talk.”

“Therapy is for weak wimps who can’t solve their own problems.”

“Therapy is for whiners who complain about everything.”

“Therapy is like talking to a friend; why pay someone when you can talk to me?”

These beliefs are what stops many people from seeking out psychotherapy. Too bad. For when therapy is humming, the possibilities for growth are endless.
  • Instead of honing in only on your shortcomings, you learn ways to develop your best self.
  • Instead of living with a wounded heart, you learn how to heal it.
  • Instead of putting up with painful relationships, you learn how to enrich them.
Continue reading


The populism backlash: An economically driven backlash

a column by Luigi Guiso, Helios Herrera, Massimo Morelli and Tommaso Sonno for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

There has been some disagreement over the roots of the recent rise of populism in Europe. This column examines variations in exposure to economic shocks and in ability to react to them in different regions of Europe to show that the cultural backlash against globalisation has been driven by economic woes.

In regions where globalisation was present but that have benefited economically, there has been no such backlash and the populist message has retreated. The message is clear: if one wants to defeat populism, one must defeat first economic insecurity.

Continue reading

I now understand a lot better what populism is and how it works or not as the case might be. I like my information visually so the charts and graphs from VOX please me and make the meaning of the words clearer.




Sex Work, Sensory Urbanism and Visual Criminology: Exploring the Role of the Senses in Shaping Residential Perceptions of Brothels in Blackpool

an article by Emily Cooper (University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK) and Ian R. Cook and Charlotte Bilby (Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK) published in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Volume 42 Number 3 (May 2018)

Abstract

Urban studies and criminology have much to offer each other, but the links between the two have so far been underexplored. This article is an illustration of how aspects of both can, and should, be brought into conversation: namely the literatures on sensory urbanism (in urban studies) and visual criminology.

The benefits of doing so are evidenced by a case study exploring the ways in which the senses shape residents’ perceptions of brothels in Blackpool.

Three key findings emerge from the case study.

  • First, the residents interviewed tended to focus on the visual aspects of brothels rather than other sensory aspects. Nevertheless, touch and smell (and their interaction with the visual) also played small but important roles in shaping residential perceptions.
  • Second, residential perceptions of sex work and brothels are linked to, and encompass, a plurality of emotional responses.
  • Third, while the residents could see or hear little of what was happening inside the brothels, they often sought out sensory clues from outside, typically drawn from the architectural features of the brothels.

Such insights, we argue, are made possible by, and highlight the possibilities of, the bringing together of urban studies and criminology.

Full text (PDF 17pp)


Making political citizens? Migrants’ narratives of naturalization in the United Kingdom

an article by Leah Bassel and Pierre Monforte (University of Leicester, UK) and Kamran Khan (Universitat de Lleida, Spain; King's College London, UK) published in Citizenship Studies Volume 22 Issue 3 (May 2018)

Abstract

Citizenship tests are arguably intended as moments of hailing, or interpellation, through which norms are internalized and citizen-subjects produced. We analyse the multiple political subjects revealed through migrants’ narratives of the citizenship test process, drawing on 158 interviews with migrants in Leicester and London who are at different stages in the UK citizenship test process.

In dialogue with three counter-figures in the critical naturalization literature – the ‘neoliberal citizen’; the ‘anxious citizen’; and the ‘heroic citizen’ – we propose the figure of the ‘citizen-negotiator’, a socially situated actor who attempts to assert control over their life as they navigate the test process and state power.

Through the focus on negotiation, we see migrants navigating a process of differentiation founded on pre-existing inequalities rather than a journey toward transformation.

Full text (PDF 19pp)


Sunday 20 May 2018

There’s something off-key about our approach to inheritance tax

a post by Mattew Whittaker for the Resolution Foundation

It takes something to be crowned Britain’s most hated tax – a bit like being the UK’s worst ever Eurovision entry – but that is the unwanted title held by inheritance tax. It doesn’t help that it’s a tax that’s unavoidably associated with the death of loved ones. And complexity is undoubtedly a problem too. But by far the biggest issue is the sense of inherent unfairness – there’s something fundamentally off-key about inheritance tax.

Just one-in-five of us think the current approach is “fair” – somewhat lower than for any other tax. It’s viewed as a double taxation of those who have earned the wealth and who have now had the temerity to die and pass their assets onto grieving families. With a flat rate of 40 per cent (above the nil-rate band), it’s also considered high – much higher than the 20 per cent income tax rate most people are familiar with. But it’s also regarded as a tax that is ‘voluntary’ for the super-rich and well-advised, with a range of reliefs and gifting rules that make it too easy – for some – to avoid.

That’s why any proposals for reform are treated with suspicion. It’s also why the review launched this week by the Office of Tax Simplification is important but tough. It will undoubtedly uncover useful insights and offer sensible options for improvement, but our view is that we need to move beyond tinkering. As our new report for the Intergenerational Commission argues, a much better approach would be to overhaul inheritance tax entirely. Done right, there’s the potential to raise significantly more money while simultaneously making it more popular.

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Here’s How Some People Think Tech Is Affecting Our Free Speech

a post by Nik Williams for Rights Info



Imagine writing something deeply personal: a piece of creative fiction or poetry, a diary entry, a CV, or perhaps a speech for a loved one’s funeral.

Now imagine writing these with someone watching every word you typed. Would you feel free to say what you wanted, to say something controversial? Welcome to free expression in the age of big data and pervasive digital surveillance.

Following the Snowden revelations in 2013 that showed the breath-taking scope of state surveillance mechanisms in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, there has been much focus on trying to understand how the right to privacy can function in this new landscape.

And the tension between privacy and surveillance has recently been heightened even further. First, the passing of the Investigatory Powers Act in 2016 expanded state surveillance capabilities, while reinforcing the permissive attitude towards these powers of the UK state. Then, the recent Cambridge Analytica controversy showed how our digital persona can be co-opted or weaponised by opaque private companies for political ends.

But the impact of surveillance is bigger than this.

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Mental health self-help guides tend to be dull, so I created a vibrant zine | Andy Walton

an Interview by Katherine Purvis published in the Guardian

SWIRLZINE SOCIALS 017
‘I noticed there were few resources for service users that were empowering or pleasing to the eye.’ Photograph: Swirlzine

I have struggled with anxiety, particularly overthinking, for a number of years. I’ve had cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and taken medication – and I’ve collected a lot of self-help literature.

I’ve found most of this material dull and lengthy, and if you have mental health issues, you might struggle with the motivation and concentration to read it. As a mental health nurse, I also noticed there were few resources for service users that were empowering or pleasing to the eye. There was a lot of stereotyping, with pictures of clouds, people frowning or sitting with their head in their hands. I wanted to create something that could take on those associations.

Last year, a number of zines around mental health were published, such as Doll Hospital Journal and Anxy. They were all aesthetically pleasing and empowering, doing their bit to strip down stigma – but many of them focused on very personal stories. I wanted to produce something similar that was more of a guide, to condense all the information from lengthy self-help books into something concise.

The result is Swirl – a vibrant, 20-page booklet that provides straightforward wisdom around overcoming overthinking. It is digestible and accessible.

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EPIC publishes policy memo on using EU funding sources to tackle child poverty

via Social Europe e-newsletter

The European Platform for Investing in Children (EPIC) has published a policy memo on the use of EU funding mechanisms to tackle child poverty and social exclusion in the EU. This memo is the first in a series of short policy memos aimed at policymakers, researchers and practitioners and focusing on topics relevant to child welfare.

Making use of structural funds and other funding sources to support investment in children

This EPIC policy memo, Tackling child poverty and social exclusion in the EU: How EU funding mechanisms can help, provides an overview of the various funding mechanisms available at EU level and how they can be used by Member States and NGOs to fund initiatives to help all children reach their potential.

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Monetary policy and inequality: A new channel

a column by Juan Dolado, Gergo Motyovszki and Evi Pappa for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

There is ongoing debate over the welfare implications of the unorthodox measures adopted by central banks in the wake of the Global Crisis. Using US data, this column explores the implications of monetary policy for income and wealth inequality. Unexpected monetary expansions are found to increase inequality between high- and low-skilled workers. In terms of stabilising the economy, strict inflation targeting is found to be the most successful policy.

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Inductive reasoning 2.0

an article by Brett K. Hayes (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) and Evan Heit (University of California, Merced, USA) published in WIREs Cognitive SCience Volume 9 Issue 3 (May/June 2018)

Abstract

Inductive reasoning entails using existing knowledge to make predictions about novel cases.

The first part of this review summarizes key inductive phenomena and critically evaluates theories of induction. We highlight recent theoretical advances, with a special emphasis on the structured statistical approach, the importance of sampling assumptions in Bayesian models, and connectionist modeling.

A number of new research directions in this field are identified including comparisons of inductive and deductive reasoning, the identification of common core processes in induction and memory tasks and induction involving category uncertainty.

The implications of induction research for areas as diverse as complex decision‐making and fear generalization are discussed.

Full text (PDF 13pp)



Saturday 19 May 2018

A meta‐analysis of the antecedents of work–family enrichment

an article by Laurent M. Lapierre and Yanhong Li (University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), Ho Kwong Kwan (Tongji University, Shanghai, China), Jeffrey H. Greenhaus (Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), Marco S. DiRenzo (Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA) and Ping Shao (California State University at Sacramento, California, USA) published in Journal of Organizational Behavior Volume 39 Issue 4 (May 2018)

Summary

This study meta‐analytically examined theoretically derived antecedents of both directions of work-family enrichment (sometimes labeled facilitation or positive spillover), namely, work-family enrichment and family-work enrichment. Contextual and personal characteristics specific to each domain were examined.

Resource‐providing (e.g., social support and work autonomy) and resource‐depleting (e.g., role overload) contextual characteristics were considered. Domain‐specific personal characteristics included the individuals' psychological involvement in each domain, the centrality of each domain, and work engagement.

Results based on 767 correlations from 171 independent studies published between 1990 and 2016 indicate that several contextual and personal characteristics have significant relationships with enrichment. Although those associated with work tend to have stronger relationships with work-family enrichment and those associated with family tend to have stronger relationships with family-work enrichment, several antecedent variables have significant relationships with both directions of enrichment. Resource‐providing contextual characteristics tend to have stronger relationships with enrichment than do resource‐depleting characteristics.

There was very little evidence of gender being a moderator of relationships between contextual characteristics and enrichment.

Lastly, meta‐analytic structural equation modeling provided evidence that a theoretical path model wherein work engagement mediates between several contextual characteristics and enrichment is largely generalizable across populations.

Full text (PDF 17pp)


Exercise is good for you – unless it's part of your job

an article by Ian Sample, Science editor, published in the Guardian

Construction workers build new houses on a housing development in Middlewich, England
Construction workers build new houses on a housing development in Middlewich, England. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Men who work as labourers or in other physically demanding roles have a greater risk of dying early than those with more sedentary jobs, researchers say.

The finding, from scientists in the Netherlands, reveals an apparent “physical activity paradox” where exercise can be harmful at work but beneficial to health when performed in leisure time.

Pieter Coenen, a public health researcher at VU University medical centre in Amsterdam, said the reason for the disparity is unclear, but he believes it may reflect the different types of exercise people get at work compared with those in their free time.

“While we know leisure-time physical activity is good for you, we found that occupational physical activity has an 18% increased risk of early mortality for men,” Coenen said. “These men are dying earlier than those who are not physically active in their occupation.”

Other researchers say the finding may simply reflect a greater likelihood for people in manual labouring jobs to have unhealthier lifestyles in which diet, smoking and alcohol consumption all conspire to reduce life expectancy.

Continue reading

I follow the argument about people in manual labouring jobs but manual labouring is not the only physically active job. Nurses and other health professionals often spend very long hours walking and they are not alone.


The Art of Nurturing Self-Talk: How to Tell Yourself What You Need to Hear

a post by Rita Loyd for the Tiny Buddha blog


“You will never speak to anyone more than you speak to yourself in your head. Be kind to yourself.” ~Unknown

Talking to ourselves in a nurturing way can be a challenge if we rarely heard nurturing words in the early formative years of our lives. In fact, if we were often criticized or neglected, we probably learned to criticize and neglect ourselves instead.

When I was growing up, my mom was a dedicated wife and mother, but she suffered from deep depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. She didn’t know how to be encouraging or nurturing because she was never nurtured or encouraged by her parents while she was growing up. So her words to me reflected the negativity that she felt about life and herself.

I have forgiven my mother for all the mistakes she made in my childhood, and, in fact, we ended up extremely close during her last years of life. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t work for me to do on myself in order to heal the self-hatred that had been unconsciously passed down.

Growing up as I did, I struggled with low self-esteem, I was deeply depressed, I found myself in an abusive marriage with my first husband, I depended on other people for approval, and I neglected my dreams, since I didn’t believe in myself.

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‘Dead people don’t claim’: A psychopolitical autopsy of UK austerity suicides

an article by China Mills (University of Sheffield, England) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 38 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

One of the symptoms of post financial crisis austerity in the UK has been an increase in the numbers of suicides, especially by people who have experienced welfare reform.

This article develops and utilises an analytic framework of psychopolitical autopsy to explore media coverage of ‘austerity suicide’ and to take seriously the psychic life of austerity (internalisation, shame, anxiety), embedding it in a context of social dis-ease.

Drawing on three distinct yet interrelated areas of literature (the politics of affect and psychosocial dynamics of welfare, post and anti-colonial psychopolitics, and critical suicidology), the article aims to better understand how austerity ‘kills’.

Key findings include understanding austerity suicides as embedded within an affective economy of the anxiety caused by punitive welfare retrenchment, the stigmatisation of being a recipient of benefits, and the internalisation of market logic that assigns value through ‘productivity’ and conceptualises welfare entitlement as economic ‘burden’.

The significance of this approach lies in its ability to widen analytic framing of suicide from an individual and psychocentric focus, to illuminate culpability of government reforms while still retaining the complexity of suicide, and thus to provide relevant policy insights about welfare reform.


Understanding the effects of legalising undocumented immigrants

a column by Joan Monras, Javier Vázquez-Grenno and Ferran Elias for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Studies have shown that granting work permits helps immigrants settle and integrate into host economies, but we know relatively little about how host economies are affected by the mass legalisation of immigrant workers. This column uses one of the largest and most unexpected legalisations in the world – by the Zapatero government in Spain – to show how legalisation can increase public revenues, but can also have distributive consequences for other workers in the economy.

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This makes a lot of sense and is well worth reading in its entirety (as are most VOX columns but this one really hit a nerve with me.)


Living with Panic Disorder: A Therapist’s Perspective

a post by Julie Galiñanes for the World of Psychology blog



Picture this, you are driving on the highway and your hands begin to sweat, your heart begins to race. Your feet become numb and you can’t feel the brakes. You feel like you are losing control and do not feel yourself. You think you are having a heart attack. Although you may be experiencing many of the physical symptoms of a heart attack, in actuality, what you are experiencing is a panic attack.

Panic attacks are intense and plain dreadful; and they can strike when you least expect it. Their exact cause is unknown, but we do know that they are typically hereditary. So, if say your mother, father, aunt, uncle or grandparents have suffered from them, chances are you will too.

Oftentimes panic attacks can also be triggered by a painful event or major life event or stressor in your life, such as marriage, the birth of a baby, divorce, or death. Panic attacks are very possibly the body’s attempt to process the powerful feelings of loss, grief, or challenging event you have experienced.

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Friday 18 May 2018

Cyptocurrencies' challenge to central banks

a column by Antonio Fatás and Beatrice Weder di Mauro for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Central banks are alert to the challenge of cryptocurrencies, and are contemplating reactions ranging from prohibiting private issuance to embracing such currencies. This column argues that the risks of introducing a central bank digital currency are high while the efficiency gains do not seem large. A more efficient system can be achieved via innovation in current payment infrastructure.

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One thing I realised, not for the first time, is that it is not love that makes the world go round but money whether it’s the coins in my purse, the balance showing on my personal bank accounts or the manipulation of currencies that goes on inside the heads of people working in central banks.

P.S. It is definitely love that makes my personal world right.


Thursday 17 May 2018

6 Powerful Steps to Stop Binge Eating for Good

a post by Maria Marklove for the Tiny Buddha blog


“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter how ill or how despairing you may be feeling in a given moment.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Binge eating is hard. For me, winter time has always been hardest.

The winter of 2011 was particularly bad. It was then that I sat, hands clasped around my knees, thinking about how best to kill myself.

Hopeless only scratches the surface of what I was feeling—that same feeling I’d had on-and-off for fifteen years. I was twenty-three. I’d spent half my life in darkness.

I went over the mathematics: Depression + Eating Disorder = Agonizing Existence.

I was finally ready to admit I needed help. So as I sat there, I vowed to put an end to my suffering. I told myself “I’m going to give this one final push. I’ll put all of my energy into stopping this continual depression, and these cycles of binge eating and starving myself. If it still doesn’t work, I’ll just kill myself.”

It really was that simple.

By the end of 2011, I didn’t want to kill myself anymore. A few years later, I’d stopped binge eating completely. These days, I’ve never been happier. I don’t get depressed anymore. I am healthy, mentally and physically, and I try to live every day in gratitude, happiness, and well-being.

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I know that having a role model is a good idea but following in someone else’s footsteps is not always possible as we are all different.
All Maria’s suggestions look good to me but I have never had a problem with food so am not able to judge fairly.



Cloaked Facebook pages: Exploring fake Islamist propaganda in social media

an article by Johan Farkas, Jannick Schou and Christina Neumayer (IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark) published in New Media & Society Volume 20 Issue 5 (May 2018)

Abstract

This research analyses cloaked Facebook pages that are created to spread political propaganda by cloaking a user profile and imitating the identity of a political opponent in order to spark hateful and aggressive reactions.

This inquiry is pursued through a multi-sited online ethnographic case study of Danish Facebook pages disguised as radical Islamist pages, which provoked racist and anti-Muslim reactions as well as negative sentiments towards refugees and immigrants in Denmark in general.

Drawing on Jessie Daniels’ critical insights into cloaked websites, this research furthermore analyses the epistemological, methodological and conceptual challenges of online propaganda. It enhances our understanding of disinformation and propaganda in an increasingly interactive social media environment and contributes to a critical inquiry into social media and subversive politics.


Wednesday 16 May 2018

The Stress Reaction Cycle

a post by Dr. Melissa Samartano for the World of Psychology blog



It may seem like stress is an external force — something that happens to you, such as a rude driver, a work deadline, or the illness of a loved one. As a result, it may seem like there’s really nothing you can do about your stress, but this simply isn’t the case. You may not be able to shape the world so that nothing stressful ever happens to you again, but you can change the way you respond to stress, and that can make all the difference in how you feel.

The most fundamental thing to understand about stress is that it isn’t a one-time event with one cause and one reaction. It’s actually a cycle with many phases, which means there are multiple opportunities to interrupt it before it turns into a full-blown chain reaction. As you’ll discover as you this, there is no one right way to reduce stress. There are many options available to you, and understanding your own personal version of the cycle of stress will help you find the ones that work for you.

Let’s start to break down the individual steps in the pattern. Each of these occurrences are links that add up to form a chain that’s known by health professionals as the stress reaction cycle.

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The stress reaction cycle explained. And as a sidebar to the post there are links to stress relief mechanisms. Very useful.


10 for today starts with bacteria, bacteria and psylocybin and ends with amazing plywood art.

As bacteria build fortresses, scientists seek weak points for attacks
via Boing Boing by Andrea James

Bacteria are extremely adept at building biofilm cities, often in places humans don't want them: catheters, sewer lines, and our teeth, to name a few. Now scientists are working to unlock the structural mysteries in order to eradicate unwanted bacterial buildup.
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Bacteria Use Brainlike Bursts of Electricity to Communicate
via 3 Quarks Daily: Gabriel Popkin in Quanta

Olena Shmahalo/ Quanta Magazine
Bacteria have an unfortunate – and inaccurate – public image as isolated cells twiddling about on microscope slides. The more that scientists learn about bacteria, however, the more they see that this hermit-like reputation is deeply misleading, like trying to understand human behavior without referring to cities, laws or speech. “People were treating bacteria as … solitary organisms that live by themselves,” said Gürol Süel, a biophysicist at the University of California, San Diego. “In fact, most bacteria in nature appear to reside in very dense communities.”
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The psilocybin in magic mushrooms is an insect repellant
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

The psilocybin in magic mushrooms is a potent psychedelic for animals. But what good is the psilocybin for the shrooms? New genetic research from Ohio State University suggests that the psilocybin might act as an insect repellant, protecting the mushrooms.
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The Origin Story of Animals Is a Song of Ice and Fire
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ed Yong in The Atlantic
Heimdal Glacier in southern Greenland
Around 717 million years ago, the Earth turned into a snowball. Most of the ocean, if not all of it, was frozen at its surface. The land, which was aggregated into one big supercontinent, was also covered in mile-thick ice. And then, everything changed. Volcanoes released enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to trap the sun’s heat and trigger global warming. The ice melted, and the surface of the sea reached temperatures of 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. By 659 million years ago, the world had transformed from snowball to greenhouse. And just 14 million years later, the ice returned and the planet became a snowball for the second time.
This song of ice and fire was a momentous period for life on Earth. According to Jochen Brocks from the Australian National University, it liberated a flood of nutrients that permanently transformed the oceans, from a world that was dominated by bacteria to one where algae were ascendant. The algae, in turn, revolutionized the food webs in the sea, paving the way for the evolution of larger and increasingly complex organisms – like the first animals. If the Age of Algae had never dawned, we wouldn’t be here.
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Hitchcock and Shakespeare
via the OUP Blog by Sidney Gottlieb

Portrait of Alfred Hitchcock. Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte, Public Domain via flickr.
There are two adjectives we commonly use when discussing artists and artistic things that we feel deserve serious attention and appreciation: Shakespearean and Hitchcockian. These two terms actually have quite a bit in common, not only in how and why they are used but also in what they specifically refer to, and closely examining the ways in which Hitchcock is Shakespearean can be very revealing. My aim in adopting this perspective is more analytical than honorific: we could rest easy by simply repeating the frequent description of Hitchcock as “our modern Shakespeare,” but let’s be restless and think more deeply about some of the details that make this more than merely a convenient (and for some, a problematic) statement of high praise.
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Degas’s Model Tells All
via 3 Quarks Daily: Jeff Nagy in the Paris Review

EDGAR DEGAS, SULKING, CA. 1870, OIL ON CANVAS.
Chrissakes, Pauline! No one would have been more horrified than Edgar Degas at the thought of a model taking up the pen. Not a fan of working-class literacy in general, he might well have died of apoplexy at the very idea that a model might dare not only to write about art but about his art. And from the very first words, we know that Alice Michel’s memoir is not going to be a typical hagiography of a great dead artist. This Degas is not the elegant gentleman, proud member of the Parisian haute bourgeoisie and scion of a well-to-do and diasporic family, with branches running banks in Naples and plantations in New Orleans. Nor is he the grand habitué of ballets, café concerts, and the opera, haunting the loges alongside his one-time friend librettist Ludovic Halévy. Not the cultivated disciple of Mallarmé who tried his hand at the occasional sonnet, not the obsessive aesthete who co-organized the exhibitions that made Impressionism an art-world phenomenon, and certainly not the purveyor of cutting, perfectly formed witticisms at exhibitions and dinner parties.
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Traces of 6,000-year-old wine discovered in Sicilian cave
via the Guardian by Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
A vineyard near Mt Etna, Sicily
 A vineyard near Mt Etna, Sicily.
Winemaking may have begun on the island more than 6,000 years ago. 

Researchers have discovered traces of what could be the world’s oldest wine at the bottom of terracotta jars in a cave in Sicily, showing that the fermented drink was being made and consumed in Italy more than 6,000 years ago.
Previously scientists had believed winemaking developed in Italy around 1200 BC, but the find by a team from the University of South Florida pushes that date back by at least three millennia.
“Unlike earlier discoveries that were limited to vines and so showed only that grapes were being grown, our work has resulted in the identification of a wine residue,” said Davide Tanasi, the archeologist who led the research.
“That obviously involves not just the practice of viticulture but the production of actual wine – and during a much earlier period,” Tanasi said.
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Eubulides and his paradoxes
via the OUP Blog by Graham Priest

Plato’s Symposium by Anselm Feuerbach from Google Cultural Institute.
Public domain via 
Wikimedia Commons.

Who was the greatest paradoxer in Ancient Western Philosophy? If one were to ask this question of a person who knows something of the history of logic and philosophy, they would probably say Zeno of Elea (c. 490-460 BCE). (If one were to ask the same question about Ancient Eastern Philosophy, the person might well say Hui Shi (c. 370-310 BCE). However, my story here is about the Western side of the Euphrates.)
According to Plato in the Parmenides, Zeno wrote a book in defence of Parmenides, containing many paradoxical arguments. Sadly, most of these paradoxes have not survived, with one notable exception: the famous paradoxes of motion, reported to us by Aristotle. With arguments such as Achilles and the Tortoise, and the Arrow, Zeno argued that motion was impossible. Zeno’s arguments have been much discussed through the history of Western philosophy, and – arguably – were finally laid to rest thanks to developments in mathematics in the 19th Century.
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You’ll Never Guess What a Supermassive Black Hole’s Favorite Food Is
via Big Think by Philip Perry
Cosmic jellyfish might sound like the name of a really bad cover band, but in reality, these are galaxies whose tentacles of stars, gases, and cosmic dust stream forth from their central, galactic discs. They certainly aren’t alone. Curiosities and strange wonders abound in our vast, prodigious universe. Both professional and amateur astronomers alike have hollered “Eureka!” at such things as voorwerps, magnetars, blitzars, and “green peas”.
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Intricately layered laser-cut plywood sculptures
via Boing Boing by Andrea James

These amazing plywood art pieces are created in a small work area by Gabriel Schama and his laser cutter Elsie. His work really took off after a successful Kickstarter a few years ago.
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8 Ways Childhood Neglect Affected Your Life

a post by Darius Cikanavicius for the Psychology of Self blog [via World of Psychology]



Most people have experienced childhood neglect to one degree or another at some point during their lives. Of those, many don’t even recognize it as neglect or abuse because people tend to idealize their childhood upbringing or even defend child abuse in order to cope with their own unpleasant feelings.

It’s easier to recognize that there’s something wrong when you feel physical pain, for instance, when being beaten or sexually assaulted. It is much more confusing when you have an emotional need but the caregiver is unable or unwilling to recognize and meet that need.

This is especially true when you are also taught that your role is to meet the caregiver’s needs, that you are “very problematic,” or that you shouldn’t question how the caregiver treats you because you are just a child.

But childhood neglect is damaging, and a person can struggle with its effects for the rest of their adult life.

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Tuesday 15 May 2018

I’ve Learned That I Deserve…

a post by Maria Shriver for the Tiny Buddha blog



When I was growing up, my parents never spoke to me about what I “deserved.” They spoke to me a lot about what was “expected.” They were very clear about that.

They expected me to be tough, hard-working, well-read, and smart. They expected me to help others, especially those struggling on the margins. They sent me to work in impoverished parts of the world, so I would realize I was very lucky and really had nothing to complain about. They expected me to go to church every week, to be honest, to help my brothers, my cousins, my community. They expected me to hold my head up and keep walking forward no matter what.

They expected me to stand up when they walked into a room, something I continued through their dying days. The list of their expectations went on and on. And along the way, their expectations of me slowly became my own.

But over time, another word crept into my life. Slowly at first, even timidly, because for me the word and the concept felt foreign, maybe even embarrassing.

That word was deserve. To think you “deserve” something when others have so little felt arrogant and selfish—as in, Who do you think you are? I got that message from my parents.

But I’ve come to understand that there is power in the idea of deserving.

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Please do, there is a lot of encouragement there for you to start learning what it is that you deserve.


South Georgia declared rat-free after centuries of rodent devastation

an article by Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent published in the Guardian

One of the dogs used to hunt for any remaining rodents
One of the dogs used to hunt for any remaining rodents.
Photograph: Oliver Prince/South Georgia Heritage Trust

The world’s biggest project to eradicate a dangerous invasive species has been declared a success, as the remote island of South Georgia is now clear of the rats and mice that had devastated its wildlife for nearly 250 years.

Rats and mice were inadvertently introduced to the island, off the southern tip of South America and close to Antarctica, by ships that stopped there, usually on whaling expeditions. The effect on native bird populations was dramatic. Unused to predators, they laid their eggs on the ground or in burrows, easily accessible to the rodents.

Two species of birds unique to the island, the South Georgia pipit and pintail, were largely confined to a few tiny islands off the coast, which the rodents could not reach, and penguins and other seabird populations were also threatened.

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A genie in a bottle: Inflation, globalisation, and competition

a column by Dan Andrews, Peter Gal and William Witheridge for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Low inflation at the same time as rising global competition has led to a debate on the importance of globalisation for domestic inflation. This column suggests that greater participation in global value chains has placed downward pressure on inflation. The current higher level of global value chain integration may also dampen inflation by accentuating the impact of global economic slack on domestic inflation. There is a risk that stalling globalisation since the crisis, coupled with stronger aggregate demand and declining market contestability, could lead to inflationary pressures in the medium term.

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8 Rules to Help Alleviate Being Lonely

a post by Erica Loberg for the Tales of Manic Depression blog [via World of Psychology]

“Young people are far more likely than senior citizens to report being lonely and in poor health, a surprising survey of 20,000 Americans released Tuesday shows.” (USA Today.) So, according to a study put out by Cigna, Millennials and Generation X’ers are really lonely.

And I am one of them.

I remember back in college, I had a professor that thought the internet was going to end up contributing to social isolation, and she was right. We think that we are more connected through the internet, or social media platforms but, we’re not, and I believe it. Imagine waking up, going online to Amazon and buying a book. Convenient, right? Troubling, maybe. Imagine waking up and walking outdoors, down the street to your local book store, and buying a book. You might run into a neighbor and say hello. You might have a few words with the person behind the register while purchasing your book. At the very least, you are among people.

It’s 2018. There are no book stores. There are people walking around with headphones on blocking out society. I am one of those people too, and it’s not helping. If I’m not going to make a conservative effort to be social at the very least I should ditch my headphones before exiting my place. But what else can I do. I’m not down to try internet dating. I’m not down with going out and meeting people the old fashion way, so, where does that leave me. Isolated and alone.

But it is now time to make some changes. There are going to have to be some new rules.

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Some of the ideas are not necessarily possible for all of us but the thought behind the idea may be something to think about.
And it is not just for younger people.

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Why the ‘introverts v extroverts’ battle helps neither side

an article by Rachel England published in the Guardian

A confident young woman dancing on a city street
The idea of extroverts all being outgoing, attention-seeking, confident, noisy types is both inaccurate and really unhelpful. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

When Carl Jung first introduced the concepts of as human personality traits back in the 1920s, he probably never thought that nearly 100 years later his theory would form the basis of a very quiet – but nonetheless persistent – battle of wills.

Type “being an introvert/extrovert” into Google and you get a plethora of emotive and divisive article headlines: listicles, op-eds, motivational blog posts – even scientific – all waxing lyrical about the benefits or downfalls of being one or the other. It’s true that Jung’s theories are pretty old by now and , but they’re essentially the basis around which this introvert v extrovert narrative has formed.

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Policy-driven evidence: Evaluating the UK government’s approach to immigration policy making

an article by Tom Wallace (University of Stirling, Scotland) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 38 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

This critique conducts a technical analysis of a UK Home Office report which was a key justification for passing the Immigration Act 2014. The law seeks to reduce non-EU immigration to the UK.

The report is based on a 2012 report by the Migration Advisory Committee which used firmly established methods in the field of immigration studies. Despite this, it is concluded that the Home Office report not only excludes several important aspects of analysis, the entrepreneurialism of migrants and student immigration, but also has severe statistical problems.

The report’s choice of operationalisations, lack of information regarding confidence intervals, and lack of sufficient model testing and repetition all combine to make it a weak piece of research and substantially undermine its suitability to inform policy.

In the final analysis, this critique posits that the Home Office report reflects the Conservative government’s utilisation of ‘policy driven evidence’.


The economic crisis and changes in work–family arrangements in six European countries

an article by Giulia Maria Dotti Sani (Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy) published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 28 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

Over the past decades, there has been a substantial increase in female labour force participation, and the number of dual-earner and female-earner households has risen throughout western countries. However, the recent economic crisis has caused large losses in employment for both women and men, potentially yielding unexpected consequences for the evolution of work–family arrangements.

This article carries out a comparative analysis of the relationship between the 2008/2009 economic crisis and work–family arrangements in Europe. Using data for six countries from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, this article fills a gap in the literature by addressing three issues:
  1. whether work–family arrangements have changed from before to after the beginning of the economic downturn in countries with different gender and welfare regimes (Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom),
  2. whether changes in work–family arrangements have occurred at different levels of the social strata and
  3. whether couples have moved from dual-earner to male- or female-breadwinner.
The results indicate changes in work–family arrangements in those countries worst hit by the economic crisis, Greece and Spain, where dual-earner and male-breadwinner households have decreased and no-earner and female-main-earner households have increased.

Moreover, the results show that in these two countries, all social strata – proxied through women’s level of education – have been affected by the crisis. In contrast, only moderate changes in work–family arrangements among all women can be observed in countries less hit by the economic downturn.

The findings for the two southern European countries are troubling, as the increases in no-earner and female-breadwinner households point to worsening economic conditions throughout the population and to a halt in the process that for several decades had been leading to more equality in the distribution of employment between genders.


Monday 14 May 2018

Tax evasion and inequality

a column by Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Tax records are often used to gauge the concentration of wealth and income in a society. However, if the rich dodge taxes more than the poor, tax records will underestimate inequality. This column uses Scandinavia as an example to demonstrate how tax evasion varies with wealth: the top 0.01% richest households in Scandinavia evade about 25% of the taxes they owe by concealing assets and investment income abroad. The very rich are able to do this simply because they have access to wealth concealment services. To reduce top-end evasion, what is essential is to shrink the supply of such services.

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OCD and Death Obsessions

a post by Janet Singer for the World of Psychology blog



As some of us know, obsessive-compulsive disorder can take on many shapes and forms, limited only by the imagination of the person with OCD. In general, OCD likes to attack whatever it is we most value: our families, relationships, morals, accomplishments, etc. In short – our lives.

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that some people with OCD are obsessed with death. What better way for OCD to attack what is most important to us than telling us our lives are all for naught as we’re just going to die anyway?

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Oh the lies that mental illness tells us. Food is an enemy, I am worthless, I am a terrible mother, nobody loves me – our wise minds tell us that these statements are not true. However, trying to find the wise mind when the illness is filling our heads with lies is very hard,


10 policies if you think you might want a Universal Basic Income but aren’t sure

a post by Adam Corlett for the Resolution Foundation blog

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the policy idea du jour, especially among Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and Green members. But those three words by themselves are not a policy.

The concept draws support for a range of different – and sometimes contradictory – reasons, and a UBI could be designed in countless ways with vastly different results. In addition, the debate often fails to engage with the real-life benefits system we already have.

To help clarify which aspects of a UBI really matter to you, and which aspects may not be so appealing, here’s a set of thought experiments: what a UBI manifesto for incrementalists might look like (not all of them necessarily welcome). It shows that there are good ideas to be taken from the concept and the motivations behind it, but that UBI may not be the only or best way to achieve particular goals.

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In 2017, CO2 emissions in the EU estimated to have increased compared with 2016

Eurostat News Release 80/2018 (4 May 2018)

Eurostat estimates that in 2017 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion increased by 1.8% in the European Union (EU), compared with the previous year. CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming and account for around 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions. They are influenced by factors such as climate conditions, economic growth, size of the population, transport and industrial activities.

It should also be noted that imports and exports of energy products have an impact on CO2 emissions in the country where fossil fuels are burned: for example if coal is imported this leads to an increase in emissions, while if electricity is imported, it has no direct effect on emissions in the importing country, as these would be reported in the exporting country where it is produced.

This information on early estimates of CO2 emissions from energy use for 2017 is published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

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Saturday 12 May 2018

Don’t Forget to Appreciate How Far You’ve Come

a post by Rose Nguyen for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Remember how far you've come, not how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be.” ~Rick Warren

We’re always talking about how we should live in the now and “be present”. We shame ourselves for looking back at the past or into the future, thinking that we shouldn’t look too far ahead or worry about what’s to come, and we shouldn’t get too caught up in events that have already happened. We want to be focused on being the best person we can be right now.

We often forget, though, that it’s possible to look at our past with love, not ruminating in it but appreciating it. We’re often so focused on living in the present that we forget to be mindful of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come.

You could say that I'm a bit of a productivity addict. I love doing things that are beneficial to me in some way. I love the feeling of doing something positive or productive for myself, whether it’s squeezing in that extra thirty-minute yoga practice or ten-minute meditation, or listening to podcasts or reading the news instead of watching TV. I get so caught up with being a “better version of me” that I forget to appreciate my current version.

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‘Paying our own way’: Application of the capability approach to explore older people’s experiences of self-funding social care

an article by Denise Tanner (University of Birmingham, UK), Lizzie Ward (University of Brighton, UK) and Mo Ray (University of Lincoln, UK) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 38 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

Adult social care policy in England is premised on the concept of personalisation that purports to place individuals in control of the services they receive through market-based mechanisms of support, such as direct payments and personal budgets. However, the demographic context of an ageing population and the economic and political context of austerity have endorsed further rationing of resources.

Increasing numbers of people now pay for their own social care because either they do not meet tight eligibility criteria for access to services and/or their financial means place them above the threshold for local authority-funded care. The majority of self-funders are older people. Older people with complex and changing needs are particularly likely to experience difficulties in fulfilling the role of informed, proactive and skilled navigators of the care market.

Based on individual interviews with older people funding their own care, this article uses a relational-political interpretation (Deneulin, 2011) of the capability approach (CA) to analyse shortfalls between the policy rhetoric of choice and control and the lived experience of self-funding. Whilst CA, like personalisation, is seen as reflecting neo-liberal values, we argue that, in its relational-political form, it has the potential to expose the fallacious assumptions on which self-funding policies are founded and to offer a more nuanced understanding of older people’s experiences.

Full text (PDF 21pp)


Addiction Is an Intimacy Disorder

a post by Robert Weiss for the Sex & Intimacy in the Digital Age blog [via World of Psychology]

Addiction photo

Addiction and Early-Life Trauma

Addicts are people who’ve lost control over their relationship with a substance or behavior. They use when they don’t want to. They use when they have promised themselves and others they will stop. They use when it pushes them away from family, friends, and other important people. They use when it impacts their work, schooling, finances, reputation, freedom, etc. They tell egregious lies to themselves and others to rationalize and justify their actions. They do this no matter how abominable their behavior gets, no matter how many problems their addiction creates.

And contrary to popular belief, addicts do this not because they enjoy it. They do it to escape. Addictions are not about feeling good, they’re about feeling less. Addicts cope with stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, attachment deficits, and unresolved trauma by numbing out instead of turning to loved ones and trusted others who might provide emotional support.

Addicts choose their addiction rather than other people as a coping mechanism because, for them, unresolved childhood trauma has poisoned the well of attachment. Other people can (and often have) hurt them, let them down, and left them feeling abandoned, unloved, or intruded upon. Thus, they fear and don’t feel secure with emotional intimacy, and they refuse to turn to others, even empathetic loved ones, for help when they’re struggling or feeling down. Instead, they self-soothe by numbing out with an addictive substance or behavior.

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Friday 11 May 2018

Addiction and Mental Health Demystified

Joe Koelzer and Colleagues cover various issue for the World of Psychology blog in separate blog posts

Addiction and Shame

“Shame is a soul-eating emotion.” So said Carl Jung, one of the most influential voices in modern psychology and psychiatry. Those are strong words, but justifiably so.

While shame is a near-universal human emotion - experienced by everyone but sociopaths - it also does tremendous damage.

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Gamification: What it is, and how to fight it

an article by Jamie Woodcock (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK) and Mark R. Johnson (Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK) published in The Sociological Review Volume 66 Issue 3 (May 2018)

Abstract

‘Gamification’ is understood as the application of game systems – competition, rewards, quantifying player/user behaviour – into non-game domains, such as work, productivity and fitness.

Such practices are deeply problematic as they represent the capture of ‘play’ in the pursuit of neoliberal rationalization and the managerial optimization of working life and labour.

However, applying games and play to social life is also central to the Situationist International, as a form of resistance against the regularity and standardization of everyday behaviour. In this article, the authors distinguish between two types of gamification: first, ‘gamification-from-above’, involving the optimization and rationalizing of work practices by management; and second, ‘gamification-from-below’, a form of active resistance against control at work.

Drawing on Autonomism and Situationism, the authors argue that it is possible to transform non-games into games as resistance, rather than transferring game elements out of playful contexts and into managerial ones. Since the original ‘gamification’ term is now lost, the authors develop the alternative conception as a practice that supports workers, rather than one used to adapt behaviour to capital.

The article concludes with a renewed call for this ‘gamification-from-below’, which is an ideal form of resistance against gamification-from-above and its capture of play in pursuit of work.

Full text (PDF 17pp)


Should electronic cigarette producers be prohibited from advertising and be taxed?

a column by Michael Grossman, Dhaval Dave, Henry Saffer, Don Kenkel and Daniel Dench for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration extended its authority over tobacco products to include e-cigarettes. This column argues that advertising restrictions and taxes on e-cigarettes could discourage people from quitting traditional cigarettes. However, little is known about the long-term health consequences of the use of e-cigarettes, so it is too early to conclude that unrestricted advertising of e-cigarettes and low or no federal taxation would advance public health.

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Thursday 10 May 2018

Automating judgment? Algorithmic judgment, news knowledge, and journalistic professionalism

an article by Matt Carlson (Saint Louis University, USA) published in New Media & Society Volume 20 Issue 5 (May 2018)

Abstract

Journalistic judgment is both a central and fraught function of journalism.

The privileging of objectivity norms and the externalization of newsworthiness in discourses about journalism leave little room for the legitimation of journalists’ subjective judgment. This tension has become more apparent in the digital news era due to the growing use of algorithms in automated news distribution and production.

This article argues that algorithmic judgment should be considered distinct from journalists’ professional judgment.

Algorithmic judgment presents a fundamental challenge to news judgment based on the twin beliefs that human subjectivity is inherently suspect and in need of replacement, while algorithms are inherently objective and in need of implementation.

The supplanting of human judgment with algorithmic judgment has significant consequences for both the shape of news and its legitimating discourses.

Before I even glanced at the full text my head was reeling. Yes, humans make mistakes but not as often as a badly written algorithm which will get it wrong every time.

Full text (PDF 18pp)


The Little Things in Life Are the Ones That Matter Most

a post by Linda Broder for the Tiny Buddha blog


“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” ~Muhammad Ali

TRIGGER WARNING – loss of a child
I personally found it strangely comforting.


I followed a little boy in Walmart today. He didn’t look like my son and yet I trailed him and his mother all over the store. I curled my fingers around the shopping cart so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch him.

He didn’t walk with Brendan’s bounce or jerk his head back, trying to slide his glasses back onto his nose. He didn’t have his sarcastic smile or those tiny freckles scattered across his cheeks.

But he had the same cowlick sprouting from the back of his head. I wheeled my cart around and followed this little boy who looked nothing like my son. I itched to brush this boy’s hair, just like I did before Brendan grew too old and wiggled away.

I used to smooth his spikes down and then laugh when they sprang back up, no matter how much gel I used. By the time he became a teenager, he gave up trying to tame them and left it messy and wild.

And now, I’ll never get a chance to touch his hair again. My son died in an accident a week before his first day of high school.

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‘I shouldn’t be living there because I am a sponger’: negotiating everyday geographies by people with learning disabilities

an article by Andrew Power and Ruth Bartlett (University of Southampton, UK) published in Disability & Society Volume 33  Issue 4 (2018)

Abstract

Learning disability policy has for some time been framed by the goal of inclusion which purports to enable people with learning disabilities to lead a ‘life like any other’ person.

This article examines the extent to which this is the case in England, by tracing the lived experiences of people with learning disabilities within their communities.

The article draws on two interlinked qualitative studies involving interviews that examined their local place-based experiences of inclusion and exclusion. The findings reveal ‘moments of inclusion’ and opportunities for social encounter from peer support, but these were situated amidst wider experiences of exclusion and harassment.