The Development of In-Group Favoritism: Between Social Reality and Group Identity

This study examined how social reality restricts children’s tendency for in-group favoritism in group evaluations. Children were faced with social reality considerations and with group identity concerns. Using short stories, in this experimental study, conducted among 3 age groups (6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds), the authors examined the trait attribution effects of reality constraints on eye-color differences and national group differences. The results show that the trait attributions of all age groups were restricted by the acceptance of socially defined reality. In addition, when the information about reality was not considered accurate, only the youngest children showed positive in-group favoritism. It is argued that these findings are useful in trying to reconcile some of the divergent and contrasting findings in the developmental literature on children’s intergroup perceptions and evaluations.

On the difficulties of addressing collective concerns through markets: from market devices to accountability devices

In recent years market-based interventions have been positioned as the basis for addressing what the editors of this special issue have termed ‘collective concerns’ in fields as diverse as healthcare, the environment and crime. This paper considers the terms of such interventions and the market-like relations these terms pre-suppose. It does so through a comparison of two interventions: a market-based scheme to address concerns regarding electronic waste and a Social Impact Bond for children at-risk of going into care. Ideas from Science and Technology Studies are drawn on to explore the composition of market-based interventions, the terms established through accountability devices which decide on who and what gets to participate, and the consequences that follow

The Entangling of Problems, Solutions and Markets: On building a market for privacy

An increasing number of public problems have been subject to market-based interventions as solutions. However, the relationship between problems and solutions in market-based interventions is complex. On occasions solutions are reformulated as understanding of the nature of the problem are advanced. Alternatively, problems are reconfigured to fit a standard solution. Or solutions are said to generate numerous new problems. The complex entangling of problems, solutions and markets can be explored by focusing on the field of online privacy. The complexities of this field can be analysed through three STS treatments of problems and solutions. First, issue-problematisation can be used to understand the ways in which a problem is assembled and comes to form the focus for discussion as an issue can be explored. Second, a paradigm-exemplar approach can assess the extent to which a particular coupling of problem and solution becomes an exemplar for others to draw on. Third, ontological constitution provides a focal point for analysing the ways in which the very nature of entities involved in problems, solutions and markets can be considered. There is analytic utility in each of these approaches in engaging with online privacy regulation and the emerging role of start-ups in introducing new privacy products to an emerging market place. However, these STS approaches leave us with questions regarding the relationship between market solutions and publics, the co-ordination of entities in market solutions and the normative questions that arise from entangling markets, problems and solutions

Market innovation as framing, productive friction and bricolage: an exploration of the personal data market

This paper explores the possibilities offered by recent Science and Technology Studies (STS) research on markets for engaging with market innovation. Although there exist few reflections on how innovation happens in markets, market innovation has not been singularly theorized in STS-inspired market studies. In this paper, we explore the potential analytic utility of different sets of ideas in the field of market studies, such as ‘framing’ [Callon, M. (1998) ‘Introduction: the embeddedness of economic markets in economics’, in The Laws of Markets, ed. M. Callon, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 1–57; Callon, M. (2007) ‘An essay on the growing contribution of economic markets to the proliferation of the social’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 24, no. 7–8, pp. 136–163], ‘productive friction’ [Stark, D. (2009) The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ] and ‘bricolage’ [MacKenzie, D. & Pardo-Guerra, J. P. (2014) ‘Insurgent capitalism: Island, bricolage and the re-making of finance’, Economy and Society, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 153–182]. Drawing on our research into the online personal data industry and start-ups developing personal data control products, we put together five sensibilities that we think are of use for broader considerations of market innovation

Tipping the Balance: Russian Legal Culture and Cash-Settled Derivatives

In its emphasis on the legal technicalities this article is concerned with materiality of financial markets – a key theme in social studies of finance. The paper insists on the importance of local legal culture by articulating this concept in distinction to politics. Focusing on the Amendment to Article 1062 of the Russian Civil Code concerning an important class of financial products – cash-settled currency derivatives – it synthesises the insights of actor-network theory and finitism, and argues that local legal culture is a composite of both distributed agencies and interpretative acts