Why are children of poor parents more likely to be poor as adults than other children? Early-childhood adversities resulting from social structures and relationships impact children's bodily systems and brain development through recurrent stress. These socially patterned biological processes influence social reproduction. Social support and interventions can prevent or compensate for the early biological effects of toxic social environments. This article integrates sociological, neuroscience, epigenetic, and psychological evidence to build a model of early-childhood developmental mechanisms contributing to intergenerational poverty. This model captures ways in which social structures interact with biological characteristics and systems to shape life trajectories.
In Maine defendants in small claims court are nearly twice as likely to comply fully with mediated outcomes as with judgments imposed by the court after adjudication. Some of the explanation can be attributed to specific features that are more common to mediated and negotiated settlements than to adjudicated outcomes. In addition, consensual processes lead to social psychological pressures for compliance that are not associated with authoritative judgments. Our findings point to the value of consent—the most central difference between mediation and adjudication—as an adjunct to command in promoting compliance with rules and orders.
Legitimacy is a much used concept in the social sciences. However, the absence of precise operational meaning has prompted questions about its utility as an explanation of compliance with social norms. Most recently, Alan Hyde has argued that legitimacy cannot be disentangled from other explanations of compliance such as coercion and self‐interest and should, therefore, be abandoned. However, institutional, attitudinal, and behavioral dimensions of legitimacy can be operationalized. As part of our research on small claims courts we examined variations in institutional processes and legitimacy, gathered data on levels of voluntary compliance, and questioned defendants about their reasons for paying claims against them. We conclude that institutional legitimacy is related to voluntary compliance, and that the “language of obligation” is an important part of normal discourse. Operational meanings for legitimacy are available and empirical research about legitimacy should be a prominent part of the social science research agenda.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.