Extremism and Social Learning

When members of deliberating groups speak with one another, their predeliberation tendencies often become exacerbated as their views become more extreme. The resulting phenomenon -- group polarization -- has been observed in many settings, and it bears on the actions of juries, administrative tribunals, corporate boards, and other institutions. Polarization can result from rational Bayesian updating by group members, but in many contexts, this rational interpretation of polarization seems implausible. We argue that people are better seen as Credulous Bayesians, who insufficiently adjust for idiosyncratic features of particular environments and put excessive weight on the statements of others where there are 1) common sources of information; 2) highly unrepresentative group membership; 3) statements that are made to obtain approval; and 4) statements that are designed to manipulate. Credulous Bayesianism can produce extremism and significant blunders. We discuss the implications of Credulous Bayesianism for law and politics, including media policy and cognitive diversity on administrative agencies and courts.

The Influence of Hospitality Leaders’ Relational Transparency on Followers’ Trust and Deviance Behaviors: Mediating Role of Behavioral Integrity

This paper investigates the effect of leader\u27s relational transparency on follower organizational deviance through followers’ perception of leader\u27s behavioral integrity and their trust in leader. Multi-level modeling results from a multisource survey-based field-study with 24 hospitality student project teams (N = 149) show that behavioral integrity mediates the relationship between leader\u27s relational transparency and follower\u27s trust in leader. Furthermore, multi-level path analysis suggests that leader\u27s relational transparency, a team-level construct, exerts a cross-level effect on follower\u27s organizational deviance through the mediating roles of behavioral integrity and follower\u27s trust in leader. The study has yielded theoretical and practical implications that are useful for hospitality leaders. © 201

Training and Development for a Successful Tourism Industry in Newfoundland: A Literature Review

This project involves a review of the literature on training and development, tourism training, and rural tourism. The aim is to identify information that may contribute to a successful tourism industry in Newfoundland, Canada. A set of considerations is provided for the purpose of understanding training and development needs in a rural context. The literature review aims to interpret previous research in order to condense it into practical and accessible information for tourism professionals and policy makers in the province. Findings suggest that cooperation among stakeholders is critical to the success of the rural tourism industry

Review of geographical stocks of tropical dolphins (Stenella spp. and Delphinus delphis) in the eastern Pacific

Information on geographical variation is reviewed for Stenella attenuata, S. longirostris, S. coeruleoalba, and Delphinus delphis in the eastern tropical Pacific, and boundaries for potential management units are proposed. National Marine Fisheries Service and Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission sighting records made from 1979 to 1983 which were outside boundaries used in a 1979 assessment were examined for validity. Tagging returns and morphological data were also analyzed. Several stock ranges are expanded or combined. Three management units are proposed for S. attenuata: the coastal, northern offshore, and southern offshore spoiled dolphins. Four management units are proposed for S. longirostris: the Costa Rican, eastern, northern whitebelly, and southern whitebelly spinner dolphins. Two provisional management units are proposed for S. coeruleoalba: the northern and southern striped dolphins. Five management units (two of which are provisional) are proposed for D. delphis: the Baja neritic, northern, central, southern, and Guerrero common dolphins. Division into management units was based on morphological stock differences and distributional breaks. (PDF file contains 34 pages.

Extremism and Social Learning

When members of deliberating groups speak with one another, their predeliberation tendencies often become exacerbated as their views become more extreme. The resulting phenomenon—group polarization—has been observed in many settings, and it bears on the actions of juries, administrative tribunals, corporate boards, and other institutions. Polarization can result from rational Bayesian updating by group members, but in many contexts, this rational interpretation of polarization seems implausible. We argue that people are better seen as Credulous Bayesians, who insufficiently adjust for idiosyncratic features of particular environments and put excessive weight on the statements of others where there are 1) common sources of information; 2) highly unrepresentative group membership; 3) statements that are made to obtain approval; and 4) statements that are designed to manipulate. Credulous Bayesianism can produce extremism and significant blunders. We discuss the implications of Credulous Bayesianism for law and politics, including media policy and cognitive diversity on administrative agencies and courts

The Role of the President and OMB in Informal Rulemaking

Regulatory reform has been a subject of frequent discussion in the last decade, especially in the context of presidential efforts to assert control over the rulemaking process. Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan have all attempted to increase presidential authority over regulation. In particular, President Reagan has issued two executive orders that give the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) considerable power over the rulemaking activities of executive agencies. In this article, we set forth our views on the role of presidential supervision in the regulatory process, with particular attention to the questions raised by the recent executive orders

The Presidential Signing Statements Controversy

After all is said and done, the presidential signing statement clearly should be understood to be an appropriate, often helpful-and certainly constitutional-tool of presidential participation in the process of enacting and enforcing our laws. Although a smaller set of signing statements accompany actions that are not consistent with rule of law values, and others express interpretations of questionable validity, the signing statement itself is implicated as a problematic device only when it lowers the cost of the offending conduct. This occurs when the President signs a law that he believes, in its core provisions, so fundamentally violates the Constitution that he cannot with a straight face declare its constitutional merits outweigh its flaws. The problem is not that the President says too much too often about the laws he signs, but instead that he reduces the clarity and predictability of the law if he signs legislation that he is declaring wrong at its core-and wrong in ways that, as an independent constitutional actor, he has an obligation to confront. Ultimately, it is the very fact of his independent constitutional authority that makes a subset of signing statements problematic-not because the President oversteps his bounds in saying so much but because he falls short of his obligation to the Constitution to veto laws that he believes stand primarily as vehicles for violating our most fundamental legal charter