Social Media Browsing and Adolescent Well-Being: Challenging the “Passive Social Media Use Hypothesis”

A recurring hypothesis in the literature is that “passive” social media use (browsing) leads to negative effects on well-being. This preregistered study investigated a rival hypothesis, which states that the effects of browsing on well-being depend on person-specific susceptibilities to envy, inspiration, and enjoyment. We conducted a three-week experience sampling study among 353 adolescents (13-15 years, 126 assessments per adolescent). Using a novel, N=1 method of analysis, we found sizeable heterogeneity in the associations of browsing with envy, inspiration, and enjoyment (e.g., for envy ranging from β = -.44 to β = +.71). The passivity hypothesis was confirmed for 20% of adolescents and rejected for 80%. More adolescents with browsing-induced envy experienced negative effects on well-being (25%) than adolescents with no browsing-induced envy (13%). Conversely, more adolescents with browsing-induced enjoyment experienced positive effects on well-being (47%) than adolescents with no browsing-induced enjoyment (9%).

Religious experience and the probability of theism: comments on Swinburne

I discuss the role of religious experience in Richard Swinburne's probabilistic case for theism. Swinburne draws on his principle of credulity to argue that, if in addition to other evidence we consider that many people have theistic religious experiences, theism comes out as more probable than not. However, on many plausible probability assignments for the relevant non-experiential evidence, the conditional probability of theism already converges towards 1. Moreover, an argument analogous to a general Bayesian argument against phenomenal conservatism suggests that, after we take account of evidence from religious experience, the probability of theism cannot be greater than the prior probability that the best rival hypothesis is false. I conclude that these observations are compatible with what Swinburne would call ‘weak rational belief’ in theism and that such weak belief can be strong enough for rational faith.

Discussion Note Evidence for Adverbial Origins of Final -ς on the Medieval and Modern Greek -οντας Participle

This article adduces evidence which helps to confirm the hypothesis of the adverbial origins of final -ς on the -οντα(ς) participle which arose in medieval Greek. First, data from the early vernacular text The Chronicle of the Morea is used to show the inability of a rival hypothesis to account for the distribution of this -ς. Afterward, the hypothesis of adverbial origins is investigated further by noting the distribution of the -ς across multiple editions of three medieval works. As the frequency of innovative -ς appearing on certain adverbs occurs in direct correlation to the frequency of innovative -ς on the participle, the hypothesis for a link between the two phenomena is strengthened.

Institutional Quality and Perceptions of Representation in Advanced Industrial Democracies

This study examines how well publics feel represented by their parliaments and governments in advanced industrial democracies. I argue that these perceptions are to a significant degree shaped by how well arbitrating institutions—bureaucracies and judiciaries—administer policies and adjudicate conflicts. A core premise is that the personal and salient character of contacts with these institutions informs citizens about how effectively other parts of a regime represent them. The results support the argument: When national administrative and judicial institutions work well, citizens are also more likely to believe that parliaments and governments account for their interests, net of economic factors. The main rival hypothesis receives surprisingly little support—a nation’s regime type exerts little influence on representational judgments.

Social Amelioration through Mass Insurgency? A Reexamination of the Piven and Cloward Thesis

Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward (1971, 1977) have argued that mass insurgency in the United States, occurring especially between 1964 and 1969, produced a series of responses by government, one of the most significant being massive expansion of welfare rolls. Using data on which they base their claim, this study examines the hypothesis that there is a positive association between social disorders and welfare caseload increases. The conclusion is that associations specified by Piven and Cloward are not supported by the data and a plausible rival hypothesis is offered to explain the massive increases in welfare caseloads.