Given assertions of the theoretical, empirical, and practical importance of self-control, this meta-analytic study sought to review evidence concerning the relationship between dispositional self-control and behavior. The authors provide a brief overview over prominent theories of self-control, identifying implicit assumptions surrounding the effects of self-control that warrant empirical testing. They report the results of a meta-analysis of 102 studies (total N = 32,648) investigating the behavioral effects of self-control using the Self-Control Scale, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, and the Low Self-Control Scale. A small to medium positive effect of self-control on behavior was found for the three scales. Only the Self-Control Scale allowed for a fine-grained analysis of conceptual moderators of the self-control behavior relation. Specifically, self-control (measured by the Self-Control Scale) related similarly to the performance of desired behaviors and the inhibition of undesired behaviors, but its effects varied dramatically across life domains (e.g., achievement, adjustment). In addition, the associations between self-control and behavior were significantly stronger for automatic (as compared to controlled) behavior and for imagined (as compared to actual) behavior.

/pdf/taking-stock-of-self-control-a-meta-analysis-of-how-trait-4o1a2xsgbu.pdf

Taking Stock of Self-Control A Meta-Analysis of How Trait Self-Control Relates to a Wide Range of Behaviors

This article summarizes and draws connections among diverse streams of theoretical and empirical research on the economics of privacy. We focus on the economic value and consequences of protecting and disclosing personal information, and on consumers' understanding and decisions regarding the trade-offs associated with the privacy and the sharing of personal data. We highlight how the economic analysis of privacy evolved over time, as advancements in information technology raised increasingly nuanced and complex issues associated with the protection and sharing of personal information. We find and highlight three themes that connect diverse insights from the literature. First, characterizing a single unifying economic theory of privacy is hard, because privacy issues of economic relevance arise in widely diverse contexts. Second, there are theoretical and empirical situations where the protection of privacy can both enhance, and detract from, individual and societal welfare. Third, in digital economies, consumers' ability to make informed decisions about their privacy is severely hindered, because consumers are often in a position of imperfect or asymmetric information regarding when their data is collected, for what purposes, and with what consequences. We conclude the article by highlighting some of the ongoing issues in the privacy debate of interest to economists.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2744818_code1596912.pdf?abstractid=2580411&mirid=1&type=2

The Economics of Privacy

This article summarizes and draws connections among diverse streams of theoretical and empirical research on the economics of privacy. We focus on the economic value and consequences of protecting and disclosing personal information, and on consumers' understanding and decisions regarding the trade-offs associated with the privacy and the sharing of personal data. We highlight how the economic analysis of privacy evolved over time, as advancements in information technology raised increasingly nuanced and complex issues. We find and highlight three themes that connect diverse insights from the literature. First, characterizing a single unifying economic theory of privacy is hard, because privacy issues of economic relevance arise in widely diverse contexts. Second, there are theoretical and empirical situations where the protection of privacy can both enhance and detract from individual and societal welfare. Third, in digital economies, consumers' ability to make informed decisions about their privacy is severely hindered because consumers are often in a position of imperfect or asymmetric information regarding when their data is collected, for what purposes, and with what consequences. We conclude the article by highlighting some of the ongoing issues in the privacy debate of interest to economists.

/pdf/the-economics-of-privacy-4luf9jam9p.pdf

There is tension between the core tenets of procedural justice and those of order maintenance policing. Research has shown that citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice influence their beliefs about police legitimacy, yet at the same time, some order maintenance policing efforts stress frequent stops of vehicles and persons for suspected disorderly behavior. These types of programs can threaten citizens’ perceptions of police legitimacy because the targeted offenses are minor and are often not well‐defined. Citizens stopped for low‐level offenses may view such stops as a form of harassment, as they may not believe they were doing anything to warrant police scrutiny. This paper examines young men’s self‐described experiences with this style of proactive policing. Study findings highlight that order maintenance policing strategies have negative implications for police legitimacy and crime control efforts via their potential to damage citizens’ views of procedural justice.

Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing: A Study of Inner‐City Young Men’s Perceptions of Police Legitimacy

The Lifetime Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse and Sexual Assault Assessed in Late Adolescence

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is believed to have emerged in Wuhan, China in late December 2019 and began rapidly spreading around the globe throughout the spring months of 2020. As COVID-19 proliferated across the United States, Asian Americans reported a surge in racially motivated hate crimes involving physical violence and harassment. Throughout history, pandemic-related health crises have been associated with the stigmatization and “othering” of people of Asian descent. Asian Americans have experienced verbal and physical violence motivated by individual-level racism and xenophobia from the time they arrived in America in the late 1700s up until the present day. At the institutional level, the state has often implicitly reinforced, encouraged, and perpetuated this violence through bigoted rhetoric and exclusionary policies. COVID-19 has enabled the spread of racism and created national insecurity, fear of foreigners, and general xenophobia, which may be related to the increase in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. We examine how these crimes – situated in historically entrenched and intersecting individual-level and institutional-level racism and xenophobia – have operated to “other” Asian Americans and reproduce inequality.

/pdf/anti-asian-hate-crime-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-exploring-4etm0vrxon.pdf

Anti-Asian Hate Crime During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Reproduction of Inequality

The data in this report were drawn from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The NCVS collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police from a nationally representative sample of persons age 12 or older who live in U.S. households. Persons are interviewed every 6 months over 3 years with the first interview conducted in person and follow-up interviews conducted either in person or by phone.

Female victims of sexual violence, 1994-2010

Can general strain theory explain white-collar crime? A preliminary investigation of the relationship between strain and select white-collar offenses

Criminologists have long recognized that whether one perceives a sanction as fair or unfair influences the deterrent success of sanctions and the legitimacy afforded to legal authority. Unfortunately, although several scholars have claimed that individual characteristics influence how sanctions are interpreted, very little research has explored the individual factors that influence how one perceives sanctions to be fair/unfair. In this study, we take Gottfredson and Hirschi's notion of self-control and use it to explain, in part, whether an individual perceives a sanction as fair/unfair. We also examine how sanction perceptions and low self-control influence the perceived anger that may result from being singled out for sanctioning and whether self-control conditions the relationship between perceptions and anger. Our results suggest that individuals with low self-control are more likely to perceive sanctions as unfair, that unfair sanctions and low self-control lead to perceived anger for being singled out for punishment and that self-control conditions the effect of unfair sanction perceptions on perceived anger. Future directions are outlined.

Discerning unfairness where others may not: Low self-control and unfair sanction perceptions

/pdf/can-general-strain-theory-explain-white-collar-crime-a-1ghlzafvmd.pdf

Lynn Langton

Papers

Anti-Asian Hate Crime During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Reproduction of Inequality

Female victims of sexual violence, 1994-2010

Can general strain theory explain white-collar crime? A preliminary investigation of the relationship between strain and select white-collar offenses

Discerning unfairness where others may not: Low self-control and unfair sanction perceptions

Can general strain theory explain white-collar crime? a preliminary investigation