A survey of university students tested whether committing animal abuse during childhood was related to approval of interpersonal violence against children and women in families. Respondents who had abused an animal as children or adolescents were significantly more likely to support corporal punishment, even after controlling for frequency of childhood spanking, race, biblical literalism, and gender. Those who had perpetrated animal abuse were also more likely to approve of a husband slapping his wife. Engaging in childhood violence against less powerful (...) beings— animals—may generalize to the acceptance of violence against less powerful members of families and society—women and children. This paper discusses the implications of this process. (shrink)

Only recently have sociologists considered the role of nonhuman animals in human society. The few studies undertaken of battered women and their animal companions have revealed high rates of animal abuse co-existing with domestic violence. This study examines several aspects of the relationship between humans and animals in violent homes. The study explored the role of companion animals in the abusive relationship through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with clients at a battered women's shelter. In particular, the study focused on the use (...) of companion animals by women's violent partners to control, hurt, and intimidate the women; the responses of the animals to the women's victimization; and the role of pets as human surrogates and the resulting symbolic interaction between human and nonhuman family members. The significance of the findings for family violence research and application are discussed, as well as the broader implications for sociological investigation of human-animal interaction. (shrink)

(2013). Multiple paths to transfer and constraint relaxation in insight problem solving. Thinking & Reasoning: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 96-136. doi: 10.1080/13546783.2012.742852.

Sociologists have largely ignored the role of animals in society. This article argues that human-animal interaction is a topic worthy of sociological consideration and applies a sociological analysis to one problematic aspect of human-animal relationships - animal cruelty. The article reformulates animal cruelty, traditionally viewed using a psychopathological model, from a sociological perspective.The article identifies social and cultural factors related to the occurrence of animal cruelty. Ultimately, animal cruelty is a serious social problem that deserves attention in its own right, (...) not just because of its association with human violence. (shrink)

Historically, Judeo-Christian doctrine has been used to justify the mistreatment of nonhuman animals through the “dominion” view of human superiority. Linzey and others have questioned this perspective, suggesting that critical tenets of religion, and particularly Christianity, support the ethical treatment of other animals by defining dominion as stewardship. This article considers how framing and networks help explain the complex relationship between religion and support for animal rights. We offer ways in which social networks and framing might inform the beliefs and (...) behaviors of religious individuals who support animal rights as well as the strategies of the animal rights movement intended to appeal to such individuals. (shrink)

State laws dictating “informed consent” about surgical and chemical abortions sometimes ensnare emergency contraceptives, as the science surrounding EC shows. Courts evaluating mandated disclosures gravitate to professional norms rather than the information most women would value: basic factual information about EC so that they can decide for themselves whether to use these drugs.

This study examined the relationship between hunting and illegal violence among college males. Although similar on many socio-demographic characteristics such as age and social class , hunters were more likely than non-hunters to be white and Protestant. They also were more likely to have grown up with a family member who hunted. Hunters were about twice as likely to have been violent toward nonhuman animals; however, one type of violence—killing wild or stray animals—accounted for this difference. Regarding violence toward people, (...) hunters were more than twice as likely to have damaged or destroyed private or public property during their last year in high school but were no more likely during that year to have fought with other persons. Thus, at least for this sample, hunting related to harming animals in the wild and to property damage but not to other forms of animal abuse or violence against humans. This paper discusses possible explanations for this result and limitations of the study. (shrink)

In James Joyce and the Matter of Paris, Catherine Flynn recovers the paradigmatic city of European urban modernity as the foundational context of Joyce's imaginative consciousness. Beginning with Joyce's underexamined first exile in 1902–03, she shows the significance for his writing of the time he spent in Paris and of a range of French authors whose works inflected his experience of that city. In response to the pressures of Parisian consumer capitalism, Joyce drew on French literature to conceive a somatic (...) aesthetic, in which the philosophically disparaged senses of taste, touch, and smell as well as the porous, digestive body resist capitalism's efforts to manage and instrumentalize desire. This book resituates the most canonical of Irish modernists in a European avant-garde context while revealing important links between Anglophone modernism and critical theory. (shrink)