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Unequal Turnout Among the Newly Enfranchised : The Role of Political Efficacy
No full textUnequal political participation increasingly challenges democracies. The turnout gap is particularly large among younger voters, with severe implications for future developments of democratic representation, legitimacy, and quality. This article focuses on the role of political efficacy beliefs in explaining unequal turnout among newly enfranchised citizens. We argue that internal political efficacy beliefs are particularly important for turnout among the newly enfranchised from lower-class backgrounds, as they lack alternative mobilizing factors such as politically aware and active parents, political knowledge, and mobilizing networks. Furthermore, we argue that once these voters successfully turn out in their first election, they are as likely as those from higher-class backgrounds to turn out in their second election. We empirically test these arguments using original longitudinal data on newly enfranchised citizens from three German federal states (Bundesländer). Overall, our results support the argument: Political efficacy beliefs are a stronger predictor of first turnout among young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to those from more advantaged backgrounds, and those who do turn out are as likely as those with higher-class backgrounds to turn out in their second election. This highlights the relevance of political efficacy beliefs in the (re)production of persisting political inequality.publishe
Serial Shakespeare after the end of the world : From repetition compulsions to the romance of recycling in Station Eleven
No full textThis article discusses the serial reactivation of Shakespeare’s plays in the complex television series Station Eleven (HBO 2021-22), based on the novel of the same title by Emily St. John Mandel. Set in a post-pandemic situation of apocalyptic proportions, Station Eleven turns King Lear, Hamlet and The Tempest (three plays that can themselves productively be read in a serial manner) into a forum for serially acting out and working though traumatic losses, both on an individual and on a collective level, and for developing models for future action that go beyond reiterating previous damages. Station Eleven’s generic fusion of Shakespearean tragedy, romance and (post-)apocalyptic fiction gradually gives way, via forms adapted from The Tempest, to a hopeful outlook that might aptly be described as a romance of creatively re-assembled leftovers. The article discusses the psychological, political, ecological and meta-adaptational significance of this romance of recycling.publishe
Zur Konzeption und Durchführung eines Schulleitungsmonitorings im deutschsprachigen Bildungsraum : Chancen und Grenzen
No full textpublishe
Decoding p53 tumor suppression : a crosstalk between genomic stability and epigenetic control?
No full textGenomic instability, a hallmark of cancer, is a direct consequence of the inactivation of the tumor suppressor protein p53. Genetically modified mouse models and human tumor samples have revealed that p53 loss results in extensive chromosomal abnormalities, from copy number alterations to structural rearrangements. In this perspective article we explore the multifaceted relationship between p53, genomic stability, and epigenetic control, highlighting its significance in cancer biology. p53 emerges as a critical regulator of DNA repair mechanisms, influencing key components of repair pathways and directly participating in DNA repair processes. p53 role in genomic integrity however extends beyond its canonical functions. p53 influences also epigenetic landscape, where it modulates DNA methylation and histone modifications. This epigenetic control impacts the expression of genes involved in tumor suppression and oncogenesis. Notably, p53 ability to ensure cellular response to DNA demethylation contributes to the maintenance of genomic stability by preventing unscheduled transcription of repetitive non-coding genomic regions. This latter indicates a causative relationship between the control of epigenetic stability and the maintenance of genomic integrity in p53-mediated tumor suppression. Understanding these mechanisms offers promising avenues for innovative therapeutic strategies targeting epigenetic dysregulation in cancer and emphasizes the need for further research to unravel the complexities of this relationship. Ultimately, these insights hold the potential to transform cancer treatment and prevention strategies.publishe
The development of social attention in orangutans : Comparing peering behavior in wild and zoo-housed individuals
No full textSocial learning plays an essential role in all cultural processes, but the factors underlying its evolution remain poorly understood. To understand how socio-ecological conditions affect social learning, we compared peering behavior (i.e., close-range observation of conspecifics’ activities) in wild and zoo-housed Sumatran orangutans. Using long-term data describing over 3,000 peering events (performed by 65 individuals across settings), we found similar age trajectories of peering in both settings. Moreover, immatures universally preferred to peer at older individuals and in learning-intense contexts. However, zoo-housed immatures peered more frequently, and more at non-mother individuals than their wild conspecifics, even when social opportunities were controlled for. Therefore, although similarities across settings suggest that the tendency to attend to social information has hard-wired components, the differences indicate that it is also influenced by social opportunities and the necessity to learn. Our comparative approach thus provides evidence that socio-ecological factors and genetic predispositions underlie the dynamics and evolution of culture.publishe
Combining Unity with machine vision to create low latency, flexible and simple virtual realities
No full text1. In recent years, virtual reality arenas have become increasingly popular for quantifying visual behaviours. By using the actions of a constrained animal to control the visual scenery, the animal perceives that it is moving through a virtual world. Importantly, as the animal is constrained in space, behavioural quantification is facilitated. Furthermore, using computer-generated visual scenery allows for identification of visual triggers of behaviour.
2. We created a novel virtual reality arena combining machine vision with the gaming engine Unity. For tethered flight, we enhanced an existing multi-modal virtual reality arena, MultiMoVR, but tracked wing movements using DeepLabCut-live (DLC-live). For tethered walking animals, we used FicTrac to track the motion of a trackball. In both cases, real-time tracking was interfaced with Unity to control the location and rotation of the tethered animal's avatar in the virtual world. We developed a user-friendly Unity Editor interface, CAVE, to simplify experimental design and data storage without the need for coding.
3. We show that both the DLC-live-Unity and the FicTrac-Unity configurations close the feedback loop effectively and quickly. We show that closed-loop feedback reduces behavioural artefacts exhibited by walking crabs in open-loop scenarios, and that flying Eristalis tenax hoverflies navigate towards virtual flowers in closed loop. We show examples of how the CAVE interface can enable experimental sequencing control including use of avatar proximity to virtual objects of interest.
4. Our results show that combining Unity with machine vision tools provides an easy and flexible virtual reality environment that can be readily adjusted to new experiments and species. This can be implemented programmatically in Unity, or by using our new tool CAVE, which allows users to design new experiments without additional programming. We provide resources for replicating experiments and our interface CAVE via GitHub, together with user manuals and instruction videos, for sharing with the wider scientific community.publishe
Same data, different analysts : variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology
No full textAlthough variation in effect sizes and predicted values among studies of similar phenomena is inevitable, such variation far exceeds what might be produced by sampling error alone. One possible explanation for variation among results is differences among researchers in the decisions they make regarding statistical analyses. A growing array of studies has explored this analytical variability in different fields and has found substantial variability among results despite analysts having the same data and research question. Many of these studies have been in the social sciences, but one small “many analyst” study found similar variability in ecology. We expanded the scope of this prior work by implementing a large-scale empirical exploration of the variation in effect sizes and model predictions generated by the analytical decisions of different researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology. We used two unpublished datasets, one from evolutionary ecology (blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus, to compare sibling number and nestling growth) and one from conservation ecology (Eucalyptus, to compare grass cover and tree seedling recruitment). The project leaders recruited 174 analyst teams, comprising 246 analysts, to investigate the answers to prespecified research questions. Analyses conducted by these teams yielded 141 usable effects (compatible with our meta-analyses and with all necessary information provided) for the blue tit dataset, and 85 usable effects for the Eucalyptus dataset. We found substantial heterogeneity among results for both datasets, although the patterns of variation differed between them. For the blue tit analyses, the average effect was convincingly negative, with less growth for nestlings living with more siblings, but there was near continuous variation in effect size from large negative effects to effects near zero, and even effects crossing the traditional threshold of statistical significance in the opposite direction. In contrast, the average relationship between grass cover and Eucalyptus seedling number was only slightly negative and not convincingly different from zero, and most effects ranged from weakly negative to weakly positive, with about a third of effects crossing the traditional threshold of significance in one direction or the other. However, there were also several striking outliers in the Eucalyptus dataset, with effects far from zero. For both datasets, we found substantial variation in the variable selection and random effects structures among analyses, as well as in the ratings of the analytical methods by peer reviewers, but we found no strong relationship between any of these and deviation from the meta-analytic mean. In other words, analyses with results that were far from the mean were no more or less likely to have dissimilar variable sets, use random effects in their models, or receive poor peer reviews than those analyses that found results that were close to the mean. The existence of substantial variability among analysis outcomes raises important questions about how ecologists and evolutionary biologists should interpret published results, and how they should conduct analyses in the future.publishe
UN peacekeeping presence and local food security outcomes
No full textA now extensive literature examines effects of international peacekeeping on conflict-affected countries’ war-to-peace transitions. Still, we know little about how impactful peacekeeping is in stemming a wider set of hardships affecting host communities, such as hunger. Addressing this gap, we theorize and empirically examine the relationship between local UN peacekeeping deployment and food security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and Liberia. The results suggest an overall positive but substantively modest association between peacekeeping presence and more food secure communities—proxied by stunting rates in children—and point to context-specific variation. We conclude by discussing implications for future research.publishe
Meditation, Not Information? : a Survey Experiment Probing the Effects of Meditation Practice on Affective Polarization and Pro-Environmentalism
No full textObjectives
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. However, current policies are insufficient to keep climate change at manageable levels. In the United States, this is partly because attitudes and opinions on climate change have become increasingly divided along political party lines, making effective policymaking difficult. The existing literature has focused chiefly on cognitive (i.e., informational) approaches to increasing climate change awareness, which are often counterproductive due to patterns of biased information processing. We examined whether meditation can reduce affective polarization and the partisan divide on climate change.
Method
Using a preregistered survey experiment with 500 US respondents, we investigated whether a short (10-min) meditation practice would render partisans less polarized and more pro-environmental. Participants completed either a mindfulness meditation practice designed to cultivate awareness of thoughts and sensations, a loving-kindness meditation practice designed to cultivate unconditional love and compassion, or no meditation.
Results
Self-identified Republicans who completed the loving-kindness meditation subsequently reported significantly lower polarization scores compared to Republicans who did not meditate. Surprisingly, self-identified Democrats who completed the mindfulness meditation exhibited higher anthropocentrism than Democrats who did not meditate. This suggests that mindfulness meditation may, in some cases, reduce some aspects of pro-environmentalism.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that a short loving-kindness meditation can reduce polarization among Republicans. A form of mindfulness that cultivates awareness of thoughts and sensations but not interpersonal connectedness can have unintended side effects by fostering an anthropocentric worldview among Democrats.
Preregistration
This study was preregistered (https://osf.io/nza78).publishe