Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy

The causes of climate change include not only the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, but also the actions of governments and industries, and these ultimately shape and are shaped by the behavior of individual citizens - their patterns of consumption and willingness to make sacrifices in the present for generations to come. In this collection of papers and commentary, authors examine relations between consumption, sacrifice, and climate change.

Read the special section here.

Listen to author Meagan Patterson comment on her recently published article, Witnesses to History: Children's Views of Race and the 2008 United States Presidential Election, in this video abstract.

Even if disasters, both natural and human-made, are not increasing in frequency, they are becoming more familiar to us in our increasingly connected world.  In this section, authors and commentators examine the roles of personality traits, conceptions of human responsibility, and situational characteristics of natural disasters in predicting the people who help and the conditions under which helping occurs.

Read the special section here.