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To inform policy, curricula, and future research on cyberbullying through an exploration of the moral reasoning of digitally active 10–14-year olds (tweens) when witnesses to digital abuse.

Conducted interviews with 41 tweens, asking participants to react as witnesses to two hypothetical scenarios of digital abuse. Through thematic analysis of the interviews, I developed and applied a new typology for classifying “upstanders” and “bystanders” to cyberbullying.

Identified three types of upstander and five types of bystander, along with five thinking processes that led participants to react in those different ways. Upstanders were more likely than bystanders to think through a scenario using high-order moral reasoning processes like disinterested perspective-taking. Moral reasoning, emotions, and contextual factors, as well as participant gender and home school district, all appeared to play a role in determining how participants responded to cyberbullying scenarios.

Hypothetical scenarios posed in interviews cannot substitute for case studies of real events, but this qualitative analysis has produced a framework for classifying upstanding and bystanding behavior that can inform future studies and approaches to digital ethics education.

This study contributes to the literature on cyberbullying and moral reasoning through in-depth interviews with tweens that record the complexity and context-dependency of thinking processes like perspective-taking among an understudied but critical age group.

Although questions about nonhuman animal mind and selfhood have been a long-standing interest of philosophers, psychologists, biologists, and cognitive ethologists, sociologists have been reluctant to acknowledge the importance of such questions. This is due, in part, to George Herbert Mead’s denial of consciousness, especially self-consciousness, in animals. Indeed, the exclusion of nonhuman consciousness was a fundamental axiom of Mead’s very conceptions of mind and self. However, recently a growing number symbolic interactionists have begun to build a body of research that demands a reconsideration of Mead’s anthropocentric and phonocentric definitions of mind, self, and the nonhuman participants who cohabit the everyday world of social life. Here we provide a brief account of their work and present evidence from evolutionary biology, cognitive ethology, and neuroscience that strongly validates their contention that the processes of consciousness and self, which constitute the cornerstone of meaningful social action and interaction, can no longer be denied to several species of nonhuman animals.

Reputational crisis negatively affects brands and companies. This chapter, based on a single case study, aims to explore how prejudicial corporate statements directed toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals have affected the Italian multinational Barilla S.p.A., as well as how the company responded both internally and to the market in order to attempt to overcome the highly damaging consequences.

This chapter uses a single case-study methodology, which constitutes “a research strategy that focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings to create theoretical constructs, propositions and/or midrange theory from empirical evidence” (Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 534). The case-study design was chosen as it has been demonstrated to provide a methodological tool for both theory generation and theory testing (Gibbert et al., 2008).

Conclusions from the chapter indicate that negative, incendiary, and oftentimes comments citing either religious or stereotypical-based ideology negatively impact both the consumers and its associated publics in terms of product branding or reputation image.

The study’s limitations, which rely primarily on a single case study and secondary research data, may motivate further investigative avenues, particularly as similarly referenced events continue to unfold almost daily, such as the study’s referenced incident with Philippine boxer Manny Pacquiao, as well as action taken by social media giants (Apple and Facebook) against the controversial media figure Alex Jones.

This chapter also looks at family succession roadblocks and navigating social media gaffes. These contemporary issues highlight challenges, strategies, sales and market share dynamics for the company, and suggestions for navigating the road ahead. The research concludes with possible linkages and insights for both ongoing management issues and potential areas for future research. Other findings indicate that rapid responses, particularly those citing concrete corporate policy changes or tangible actions, help to reverse and mitigate reputational damage, and contemporary approaches utilizing social media appear to buttress these efforts.

This case study of Barilla as well as other firms mentioned, such as Chick-fil-A and Nike (which have experienced parallel situational crises), indicates that in only the last five years of contemporary international business practice, MNEs are continually and at times unexpectedly challenged by the lack of sensitivity demonstrated by their owners and spokespeople who utter comments which may be seen by the public as potentially harmful to the LGBT community. This study hopes to illuminate this challenge while offering tangible solutions to turning around future, similar situational crises.

Perhaps one of the most important points Shalev makes is that Przeworski and Tuene's (1970) admonition to comparative political analysts to replace the proper names of cases with concepts and variables, or to pursue what Ragin (1987) dubs variable-oriented research, has gone too far. In Shalev's view, cases (typically nation states for the purposes of this discussion) have become all but invisible. This is particularly troublesome in Shalev's mind because, at least as far as comparative analysis of developed democratic capitalist systems is concerned (and we can say the same for political research on Latin America, Africa, or Asia), the cases are few enough to know quite well and bring to the forefront of sophisticated analysis.¹ In addition, Shalev makes the distinct point that the theories we seek to test in comparative political research entail complex and often non-linear causal sequences: causes of particular political outcomes are commonly contingent on the presence of other forces, or conjunctural with temporally and spatially bound forces and contexts. In fact, in comparative theory, it is fair to argue (as Shalev does) that causal explanations of important political outcomes are often put forward in terms of complex configurations of multiple factors. Moreover, in theory and in practice, we are often confronted with the prospect of multiple configurative paths of causation of the same outcome. In the end, Shalev believes that the linear and additive logic of general MR analysis, as well as the more sophisticated versions with non-linear specifications and interaction terms, cannot adequately test our complex theories.

Balance Theory has accumulated an impressive record of empirical confirmation at both the micro- and macro-levels. Yet, it is unclear why humans consistently prefer balanced relations when imbalance offers the opportunity to reap material rewards. We argue that balance is preferred because it functions as a “compression heuristic,” allowing networks to be more easily encoded in, and recalled from, memory.

We present the results of a novel randomized laboratory experiment using nearly 300 subjects. We evaluate the independent and joint effects of degree of balance/imbalance and presence/absence of kin compression heuristics on network recall.

We find that memory for relationship valence is more accurate for balanced, rather than imbalanced, networks and that relationship existence and relationship valence are separable cognitive elements. We also use comparisons between kin and non-kin networks to suggest that humans are implicitly aware of the conditions under which imbalanced networks will be most durable.

We show that the tension/strain postulated to generate mental and behavioral responses to increase balance likely stems from cognitive limitations. More broadly, this connects balance theory to models of human cognition and evolution and suggests that human general processing ability may have evolved in response to social, rather than physical, challenges.

This chapter explores the ways in which cybernetics influenced the works of F. A. Hayek from the late 1940s onward. It shows that the concept of negative feedback, borrowed from cybernetics, was central to Hayek’s attempt to explain the principle of the emergence of human purposive behavior. Next, the chapter discusses Hayek’s later uses of cybernetic ideas in his works on the spontaneous formation of social orders. Finally, Hayek’s view on the appropriate scope of the use of cybernetics is considered.

This chapter reviews critically the policy developments in the United Kingdom since 2010 with the adoption by the coalition of ‘community organising’ as both a concept and practice.

The chapter is an extensive literature review informed by critical thinking and reflection.

The chapter argues that the model adopted in the United Kingdom is unlikely to address the power imbalances between civil society organisations and the state and that there needs to be a more critical and reflective assessment of the potential of civil society agencies to influence public policy in a progressive way.

The chapter is intentionally speculative.

During the 2020 election cycle, 2,276 super PACs spent over $2.1 billion in federal elections. This chapter argues that changes made to the US campaign finance system brought about by the Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and SpeechNow.org v. FEC (2010) cases have destabilized the American political system by fueling tensions between right-wing and left-wing populist factions and by contributing to congressional corruption. By moving away from the political corruption standard and toward the free speech standard in Citizens United, polarizing wealthy mega-donors and dark money sources have come to play a dominant role in congressional elections. These cases also helped to contribute to a two-tiered campaign finance regulatory structure that distinguishes between campaign contributions given directly to federal candidates and political money contributed to super PACs to support or oppose federal candidates. In the 2020 congressional elections, PACs and super PACS outspent both major party candidates combined in 35 House and Senate races. Super PACs are serving as “shadow parties” by targeting competitive races for the purpose of swaying partisan control of Congress. This study also shows that an exceedingly high percentage of super PAC money is spent on negative advertising that further divides rather than unifies the nation. This chapter also highlights the corrupting influence of congressional leadership PACs and examines how super PACs have enabled foreign and dark money sources to illegally influence congressional campaigns.

This chapter focuses on the Trump administration's health policies, with an emphasis on its efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It assesses those policies both in the context of the administration's broader goals and motivations, and in the context of systemic deficits and deficiencies in American health policy. I argue that failures of health policy and health security in the face of the pandemic reflect those longstanding weaknesses, much more so than the administration's actions (or inaction).

This chapter depicts the burden of suicidal behavior among African American males. It describes the public health approach to preventing suicidal behavior among African American males. This approach includes assessing and describing the problem; identifying causes or risk and protective factors; developing and evaluating programs and policies; and implementing and disseminating findings and activities. The chapter provides a review of the epidemiology of fatal and non-fatal suicidal behavior; a summary of what is known about the risk and protective factors of the problem; and a descriptive analysis of the circumstances associated with suicides among young African American males is presented. Lastly, the authors give a summary of evidenced-based prevention programs which could be applied in preventing male suicidal behavior.