POLÉMICAS em TEMPO REAL - opiniões político-filosóficas e bitates em geral

[Lark]

awesome broken windows theory tests
This conference on "social norms and institutions", as you might expect, is quite cross-disciplinary. I'm not sure what the breakdown is, but there are plenty of behavioral economists, sociologists, psychologists, and even law professors and political scientists. So, I'm collecting quite a list of interesting new sources from lectures and conversations with these non-economists.

The most fun, and incredible, set of experiments I've learned about are the ones run by Siegwart Lindenberg and Linda Steg and colleagues at Groningen University. Despite having an unusually high prior*, I'm honestly stunned by their results, both in terms of the sheer size of the effects they're finding, and the stability of those large effects across a great number of slightly different situations.

They're studying, essentially, the broken windows theory. This theory hypothesizes that if there is evidence of some law/norm breaking behavior, that will cause people to break other laws/norms at a higher rate.** This is not due to inferences about levels of enforcement, because the findings are just as strong in purely normative (prescriptive, in addition to proscriptive) settings. In a world of marginally statistically significant results, it's a thrill to see such a long list of replications with huge and extremely statistically significant findings.
Bikes are parked in a row next to a fence with a conspicuous "no graffiti" sign, and flyers are attached to each bicycle such that they must be removed to use the bike. If no graffiti is on the fence, 33% of subjects will litter their flyers. If graffiti is on the fence, 69% will. This was so surprising that a news station paid the researchers to replicate the study while they watched from rented rooms looking down on the area. The finding replicated very closely, and now the Netherlands requires immediate removal of graffiti.
A temporary fence is set up around a parking lot. Two police ordinance signs on the gate state "no trespassing" and "no locking bikes to fence". People were directed 200 meters around to an alternative entrance, but the gate was left about 50cm ajar. If four bikes nearby were not locked to the fence, 27% of people squeezed through the gap in the main gate. If the four bikes were locked to the fence, 82% did.
In a grocery store parking lot, a sign states "please return your shopping carts", and flyers are left under the driver-side windshield wipers on cars in the lot such that people had to remove them to safely drive away. When no stray carts were left in the lot, 30% of drivers littered their flyers. When several carts were improperly left in the lot, 58% of drivers littered.
Bikes parked in a shed have flyers attached to them as in example 1. In the control condition, 52% of subjects littered their flyer. If fireworks were set off, within earshot but out of sight, which is a well-known offense prior to December 31 in the Netherlands, 80% littered.
An envelope is left partially hanging out of a mailbox and visibly has a 5 Euro note inside, showing through a window in the envelope. In the control condition, 13% of people who passed the mailbox on foot stole the envelope. If the mailbox was covered with graffiti, 27% stole the envelope. If the mailbox was not covered in graffiti but litter was on the ground next to the mailbox, 25% stole the envelope.
A stamped addressed envelope is on the ground next to a mailbox. In the control condition, 24% of passersby put the envelope in the mailbox. If bags of garbage are on the ground nearby (illegal in the Netherlands), 10% did.
A bike is on the ground in an alley, having apparently accidentally fallen off its stand. If passersby have just entered the alley from an empty, clean street, 20% of individuals and 27% of groups right the bicycle. If garbage bags had been left on the street, then 6% of individuals and 5% of groups did so. If prior to entering the alley, passersby passed by someone who dropped an aluminum can and then picked it back up, 34% of individuals and 35% of groups picked up the bike.
A person on the sidewalk accidentally drops some oranges just before meeting another pedestrian. Normally, 40% of passersby help the stranger pick up their oranges. If approximately 20 yards earlier, the passersby had witnessed someone drop an aluminum can and pick it up back up, 64% will help the stranger. If 20 yards earlier, the passerby had witnessed someone (a private citizen) sweeping the sidewalk, 82% helped the stranger.
I can't find the numbers for this one, but in a mall where you have to walk down a hallway to get to a smoking zone, a certain percentage of people will start smoking before they reach the zone. If a group of typical looking Germans are standing around smoking prior to the zone, though, more passersby will light up early. If a group of goth teens are smoking prior to the zone, though, a higher than normal percentage of passersby will wait until they get to the smoking zone to light up.
Amazing. And while each individual study has many issues with interpretation and is targetting a different nuance of the phenomenon, the evidence from all 9 considered together is undeniably striking.
fonte

[Incognitus]

Existem muitos estudos de psicossociologia similares, mas em temas diferentes.

Para mim são os estudos mais válidos da psicologia/sociologia, por serem baseados em experiências que podem (e são) repetidas.

[Zark]

Washington (CNN)The United States officially removed Cuba from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism on Friday, setting the two nations up for a full renewal of diplomatic ties.

President Barack Obama originally announced in April that he was recommending that Cuba be removed from the terror blacklist after a State Department review. Friday marked the expiration of a 45-day period when Congress could have blocked the move.

"The rescission of Cuba's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism reflects our assessment that Cuba meets the statutory criteria," the State Department said in a statement Friday.

The statement noted that the U.S. "has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba's policies and actions" but said these fall outside the criteria related to rescinding a state sponsor of terror designation.

Cuba was originally placed on the terror list in 1982 when the U.S. government accused the Fidel Castro regime of sponsoring communist groups in Latin American and Africa. But independent analysts have for years cast doubt on the country's current terror ties, and the State Department said its association with certain groups had "become more distant."

Three other countries are currently named as state sponsors of terror: Iran, Sudan and Syria.

The terror listing was one of the final barriers to restoring diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. Obama announced in December that he was ending a nearly half-century of frozen relations, stating that the freeze wasn't benefiting either nation.

The administration has already lifted some of the restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba, including permitting some ferries to run services from Florida to the island. American visitors are still required to obtain a license from the federal government before traveling to Cuba, though the Treasury has made it easier to obtain permission to go.

The removal of the terror designation will also ease some trade restrictions, though in order for full economic ties to be restored, Congress will need to lift the embargo on Cuba that's been in place since 1960.

Some lawmakers -- including Republican and Democratic Cuban-Americans, staunchly oppose any normalization in relations with Cuba, accusing Obama of sidling up to a brutal dictatorship.

In January Obama met with Cuban leader Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americans in Panama, the first time the leaders of the two countries had met for substantial talks since before the Cuban revolution. Visiting Miami on Thursday, Obama made a stop at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, a religious site honoring the patron saint of Cuba, to pay respects the large Cuban diaspora in the United States.

Officials have been negotiating the reopening of embassies in Washington and Havana, though some sticking points -- like how freely American diplomats will be able to move around Cuba -- remain.

The U.S. is eying the current head of the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, as the first U.S. ambassador to Cuba in more than 50 years. Plans are being formulated to remodel the current building on Havana's waterfront that houses the interests section to use it as the embassy.

cnn