Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior

Family violence is a pervasive and costly problem, yet there is no consensus on how to interpret the phenomenon of violence by one family member against another. Some analysts assume that violence has an instrumental role in intra-family incentives. Others argue that violent episodes represent a loss of control that the offender immediately regrets. In this paper we specify and test a behavioral model of the latter form in which the strength of an emotional cue depends on outcomes relative to expectations and individuals exhibit loss aversion. Our key hypothesis is that negative emotional cues -- benchmarked relative to a rationally expected reference point -- make a breakdown of control more likely. We test this hypothesis using data on police reports of family violence on Sundays during the professional football season. Controlling for location and time fixed effects, weather factors, the pre-game point spread, and the size of the local viewing audience, we find that upset losses by the home team (losses in games that the home team was predicted to win by more than 3 points) lead to an 8 percent increase in police reports of at-home male-on-female intimate partner violence. There is no corresponding effect on female-on-male violence. Consistent with the behavioral prediction that losses matter more than gains, upset victories by the home team have (at most) a small dampening effect on family violence. We also find that unexpected losses in highly salient or frustrating games have a 50% to 100% larger impact on rates of family violence. The evidence that payoff-irrelevant events affect the rate of family violence leads us to conclude that at least some fraction of family violence is better characterized as a breakdown of control than as an intra-family incentive system. More generally, the empirical findings suggest that gain-loss utility with a rational reference point could be a useful approach to modeling other cues and visceral influences.

Happy voters

In this paper we investigate whether or not recent initiatives taken by governments and international organizations to come up with indicators of Subjective Well Being (SWB) to inform policy makers go in the same direction as citizens expectations on what policy makers should do. We test retrospective voting hypotheses by using standard measures of SWB as a proxy for utility instead of the commonly used indicators of economic and financial circumstances. Using the British Household Panel Survey Data we find that citizens who are satisfied with their life are more likely to cast their vote in favour of the ruling party, even taking into account ideological preferences. We show that SWB influences voting decision even when the event affecting the SWB is beyond the government’s control, like the spouse death

Efficacy and safety of more intensive lowering of LDL cholesterol: a meta-analysis of data from 170 000 participants in 26 randomised trials

Background: Lowering of LDL cholesterol with standard statin regimens reduces the risk of occlusive vascular events in a wide range of individuals. We aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of more intensive lowering of LDL cholesterol with statin therapy. Methods: We undertook meta-analyses of individual participant data from randomised trials involving at least 1000 participants and at least 2 years' treatment duration of more versus less intensive statin regimens (five trials; 39 612 individuals; median follow-up 5·1 years) and of statin versus control (21 trials; 129 526 individuals; median follow-up 4·8 years). For each type of trial, we calculated not only the average risk reduction, but also the average risk reduction per 1·0 mmol/L LDL cholesterol reduction at 1 year after randomisation. Findings: In the trials of more versus less intensive statin therapy, the weighted mean further reduction in LDL cholesterol at 1 year was 0·51 mmol/L. Compared with less intensive regimens, more intensive regimens produced a highly significant 15% (95% CI 11–18; p<0·0001) further reduction in major vascular events, consisting of separately significant reductions in coronary death or non-fatal myocardial infarction of 13% (95% CI 7–19; p<0·0001), in coronary revascularisation of 19% (95% CI 15–24; p<0·0001), and in ischaemic stroke of 16% (95% CI 5–26; p=0·005). Per 1·0 mmol/L reduction in LDL cholesterol, these further reductions in risk were similar to the proportional reductions in the trials of statin versus control. When both types of trial were combined, similar proportional reductions in major vascular events per 1·0 mmol/L LDL cholesterol reduction were found in all types of patient studied (rate ratio [RR] 0·78, 95% CI 0·76–0·80; p<0·0001), including those with LDL cholesterol lower than 2 mmol/L on the less intensive or control regimen. Across all 26 trials, all-cause mortality was reduced by 10% per 1·0 mmol/L LDL reduction (RR 0·90, 95% CI 0·87–0·93; p<0·0001), largely reflecting significant reductions in deaths due to coronary heart disease (RR 0·80, 99% CI 0·74–0·87; p<0·0001) and other cardiac causes (RR 0·89, 99% CI 0·81–0·98; p=0·002), with no significant effect on deaths due to stroke (RR 0·96, 95% CI 0·84–1·09; p=0·5) or other vascular causes (RR 0·98, 99% CI 0·81–1·18; p=0·8). No significant effects were observed on deaths due to cancer or other non-vascular causes (RR 0·97, 95% CI 0·92–1·03; p=0·3) or on cancer incidence (RR 1·00, 95% CI 0·96–1·04; p=0·9), even at low LDL cholesterol concentrations. Interpretation: Further reductions in LDL cholesterol safely produce definite further reductions in the incidence of heart attack, of revascularisation, and of ischaemic stroke, with each 1·0 mmol/L reduction reducing the annual rate of these major vascular events by just over a fifth. There was no evidence of any threshold within the cholesterol range studied, suggesting that reduction of LDL cholesterol by 2–3 mmol/L would reduce risk by about 40–50%

Political Comedy in Aristophanes

This paper argues that Aristophanic comedy, although it takes contemporary political life as its point of departure, is not political in the sense of aiming to influence politics outside the theatre. Brief discussions of Clouds, Knights, Lysistrata and Acharnians are used to cast initial doubt on interpretations that attribute serious intent to Aristophanes. It is then argued that Aristophanes’ treatment of the poet’s role as adviser, abuse of the audience and of individuals, the themes of rich and poor and the power of the dêmos, support this conclusion. In general, the assumptions of Aristophanes’ comedy are too closely attuned to those of the majority of his audience to warrant inferences about Aristophanes’ own political attitudes. This conclusion throws light on the democracy’s exercise of control over the theatre. An appendix argues that the main unifying element in Aristophanic comedy is not theme, but plot, and that Aristophanes took more care over coherence of plot-structure than is sometimes recognised

SensX: About Sensing and Assessment of Complex Human Motion

The great success of wearables and smartphone apps for provision of extensive physical workout instructions boosts a whole industry dealing with consumer oriented sensors and sports equipment. But with these opportunities there are also new challenges emerging. The unregulated distribution of instructions about ambitious exercises enables unexperienced users to undertake demanding workouts without professional supervision which may lead to suboptimal training success or even serious injuries. We believe, that automated supervision and realtime feedback during a workout may help to solve these issues. Therefore we introduce four fundamental steps for complex human motion assessment and present SensX, a sensor-based architecture for monitoring, recording, and analyzing complex and multi-dimensional motion chains. We provide the results of our preliminary study encompassing 8 different body weight exercises, 20 participants, and more than 9,220 recorded exercise repetitions. Furthermore, insights into SensXs classification capabilities and the impact of specific sensor configurations onto the analysis process are given.Comment: Published within the Proceedings of 14th IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), May 16th-18th, 2017, Calabria Italy 6 pages, 5 figure

Economic Voting in Britain, 1857-1914

Despite limited government control over the pre-1914 economy, opposition politicians were enthusiastic in blaming bad economic news on the incumbent. In a study of 458 by-elections between 1857 and 1914, we find that voters typically gave new governments a 'honeymoon' but thereafter held them responsible for high unemployment and high prices. Each 1% rise in the price level, on average, brought about a 0.21% swing against the government of the day, while each one-point rise in the percentage unemployed had double this effect. Attributing shorter- or longer-term memories to voters, as they used the past to determine what constituted unacceptable price and unemployment levels, makes little difference to this result. We also look at grievance asymmetry - the idea that voters give governments more blame for bad outcomes than they give credit for good ones - and find some evidence in its favour.voting, inflation unemplyment, Britian, elections

White Dominion as Control: On Scientific Management and Racial Capitalism

This essay deepens the analysis of whiteness-as-dominion recently advanced by political theorist Ella Myers. Drawing on W.E.B. Du Bois, Myers focuses on the role that ideas of ownership and possession play in white racial identity. While I am persuaded that ownership and whiteness are cojoined, ownership does not necessarily imply control, although the former may be a prerequisite for the latter. I therefore argue that the idea of white dominion can be enhanced by paying greater attention to practices of racial control. More specifically, I focus on racialized modes of labor control via scientific management, or what recent scholars describe as “whiteness-as-management.” Understanding racial capitalism through the lens of control helps us see the tactics that are used to create and maintain racial identity and dominion

Relationship of Locus of Control and Other Personality Characteristics in Enuretics

Past research concerning the personality construct of enuretic children has demonstrated conflicting results. During recent years, the concept of internal versus external locus of control has been used in extensive research dealing with personality and behavioral characteristics of various populations. However, there had not been a study involving locus of control among enuretics. One purpose of the present study was to identify locus of control and other personality and behavioral characteristics among both enuretic and normal (non-enuretic) children and their mothers. Another objective was to determine valuable predictors for locus of control in enuretics, locus of control in mothers of enuretics and the condition of enuresis. Finally, among the enuretic population, there was an attempt to recognize specific types of mother-child pairs. The study involved 36 Caucasian middle class families, consisting of 18 enuretic children and their mothers and 18 normal children and mothers. The enuretic group was obtained and identified through another project carried on at the University. Organic abnormalities involved with enuresis were controlled for. Control group subjects (non-enuretic mother-child pairs) were matched to the enuretic group on the variables of age, sex, number of children in the family and the mother\u27s age. Both groups received the following locus of control and personality test devices: Children Nowicki-Strickland Internal External (I-E) Control Scale or the Preschool and Primary Nowicki-Strickland I-E Control Scale, Adult Nowicki-Strickland I-E Control Scale, Mother Child Relationship Evaluation, Child Behavior Rating Scale and Walker Problem Behavior Identification Checklist (WPBIC). Data was subjected to an extensive statistical analyses involving group comparisons; discriminate analysis; multiple regressions and a canotical correlation. A significant difference (p \u3c.05) was found in regards to the mother\u27s locus of control in which the enuretic\u27s mothers scored more internally than the control group mothers. Also, the enuretic group was seen as having more behavior problems than the non-enuretic group as evidenced by a significantly (p \u3c.001) higher Total score on the WPBIC, especially in respect to the Immaturity (p \u3c.05) and Acting-out (p \u3c.01) scales. The following set of variables significantly (p \u3c.01) discriminated the enuretic from non-enuretic group; acting-out, locus of control of mother, immaturity, mother\u27s overprotection, withdrawal, mother\u27s acceptance, self adjustment, physical adjustment, mother\u27s rejection, distractibility, mother\u27s overindulgence and home adjustment. The following combination of scores from test subscales were the most predictive of frequency of bedwetting: Acting out, Adult Locus of Control, Disturbed Peer Relations, Home Adjustment, Acceptance and Rejection. The test subscales and demographic data most predictive of the enuretic mother\u27s locus of control score were as follows: Childrens Locus of Control, Distractibility, Acceptance, Social Adjustment, Self Adjustment and Age of the enuretic child. The following test subscales and demographic data most predictive of the child\u27s locus of control score were: Overindulgence, Rejection, Disturbed Peer Relations, Age of the child, School Adjustment and Physical Adjustment. Also, the findings identified two significant (p \u3c.001, p \u3c.01) types of enuretic children and their mothers. Enuretic children from the first type were seen as strong in self adjustment, weak in social adjustment, and tended not to act out or be immature. The mothers of these children tended to be nonrejecting; but overindulgent. Enuretic children of the second type were strong in school adjustment, internally controlled and tended not to act out; but were weak in social adjustment and had disturbed peer relations. The mothers of these children tended not to be overprotective, but were low in acceptance. Though the findings need to be further validated, the results seem to indicate there are differences between enuretics and non-enuretics and that some of this may be influenced by the behaviors and attitudes (especially along the dimension of acceptance and rejection) of the mother. The importance of locus of control was seen in the final results of every major hypotheses except one