Monica M. Gerber

Publics and biobanks: Pan-European diversity and the challenge of responsible innovation

This article examines public perceptions of biobanks in Europe using a multi-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative data. It is shown that public support for biobanks in Europe is variable and dependent on a range of interconnected factors: people’s engagement with biobanks; concerns about privacy and data security, and trust in the socio-political system, key actors and institutions involved in biobanks. We argue that the biobank community needs to acknowledge the impact of these factors if they are to successfully develop and integrate biobanks at a pan-European level.

Insecurities about crime in Germany, Austria and Switzerland: A review of research findings:

This paper reviews the research literature on insecurities about crime in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Making criminological studies written in German accessible to the wider European community, we first document how insecurities about crime have been conceptualized and measured in these three countries, and second review the various theoretical positions that have been empirically assessed.We highlight commonalities and differences in the German- and English-language literatures on the topic, making the review relevant to criminologists from all European countries. Our overall goal is to help stimulate a comparative research agenda on insecurities about crime across the European continent.

Justifying Violence: Legitimacy, Ideology and Public Support for Police Use of Force

Under what conditions do people support police use of force? In this paper we assess some of the empirical links between police legitimacy, political ideology (right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation), and support for ‘reasonable’ use of force (e.g. an officer striking a citizen in self-defence) and ‘excessive’ use of force (e.g. an officer using violence to arrest an unarmed person who is not offering violent resistance). Analyzing data from an online survey with US participants (n=186) we find that legitimacy is a positive predictor of reasonable but not excessive police use of force, and that political ideology predicts support for excessive but not reasonable use of force. We conclude with the idea that legitimacy places normative constraints around police power. On the one hand, legitimacy is associated with increased support for the use of force, but only when violence is bounded within certain acceptable limits. On the other hand, excessive use of force seems to require an extra-legal justification that is – at least in our analysis – partly ideological. Our findings open up a new direction of research in what is currently a rather sparse psychological literature on the ability of legitimacy to ‘tame’ coercive power.

Trust and Legitimacy Across Europe: A FIDUCIA Report on Comparative Public Attitudes Towards Legal Authority

FIDUCIA (New European Crimes and Trust-based Policy) seeks to shed light on a number of distinctively ‘new European’ criminal behaviours which have emerged in the last decade as a consequence of both technology developments and the increased mobility of populations across Europe. A key objective of FIDUCIA is to propose and proof a ‘trust-based’ policy model in relation to emerging forms of criminality – to explore the idea that public trust and institutional legitimacy are important for the social regulation of the trafficking of human beings, the trafficking of goods, the criminalisation of migration and ethnic minorities, and cybercrimes. In this paper we detail levels of trust and legitimacy in the 26 countries, drawing on data from Round 5 of the European Social Survey. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis that investigates the effect of a lack of measurement equivalence on national estimates.

To be a network society: a cross-national perspective on the internet in Britain

This working paper was prepared for the Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS) input to the World Internet Project (WIP). It compares Britain with other European nations and the wider world in its adoption and use of the Internet. It draws from the Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS)and the World Internet Project (WIP), along with other publicly available data to compare and contrast patterns of adoption, use and impact.

Authority and Punishment: On the Ideological Basis of Punitive Attitudes towards Criminals

Abstract Three explanations dominate the literature as to why people support tough sentencing of criminal offenders. The first is an instrumental perspective: people are concerned about becoming a victim of crime and they look to punishment to reduce future harm. The second is a relational perspective: people are concerned about community breakdown, and they support punishment to restore moral boundaries. The third is a psychological model based on ideological preferences: people desire conformity and authority in society, and they look to institutions to punish transgressions that threaten collective security. Building on the work of Tyler and Boeckmann (1977), we show that right-wing authoritarianism predicts both the extent to which people worry about social threats and the extent to which they support harsh punitive measures. Bridging research from political psychology and criminology, we conclude with the idea that popular punitive sentiment is grounded in an uncritical submission to authorities, an adherence to conservative moral values, and consonant concerns about collective security and cohesion.

The Plausibility of Cross-National Comparisons of Internet Use Types

In studies that compare Internet use between groups, factor analysis is often used to create broader categories of use. Composite variables are constructed using a factor structure that fits the overall data. This approach overlooks tests that show whether the constructs are valid and whether items relate similarly to the general constructs in different countries. In this study, World Internet Project survey data were submitted to multi-group latent variable analysis and tested for configural and measurement invariance to illustrate why these tests might be important in cross-national comparisons. It was found that while the general Internet use constructs were applicable across national contexts, the way in which the items contributed was different.

Do closed survey questions overestimate public perceptions of food risks

In this paper, we show that the widely accepted methodology for the assessment of risk perception – Likert-type survey questions featuring a set of risks with fixed response alternatives measuring the extent of worry or concern – may overestimate food risk perception. Using a European representative sample survey (n = 26,961) that included an open-ended question asking about problems and risks with food and eating, followed by a battery of closed questions (CQs) assessing food risk perception, we find a similar ranking of perceived food risks across the two methods. Across Europe, the five priority concerns are chronic food-related illness; food origins and quality; acute food-related illness; chemical contamination; and adulteration of food. However, the discrepancies between mentioning a risk in the open-ended question and the expression of worry about risks in the CQ are substantial. Of those who did not mention a specific risk category in the open question, between 60 and 83% (depending on risk category) expressed worry in the CQ. This parallels previous research on the fear of crime, showing that survey responses lead to greatly inflated estimates of the public’s fear of crime than is evidenced by qualitative questioning. It is also consistent with evidence from research on cognitive aspects of survey methodology, suggesting that survey questions may frame the respondent’s thinking about an issue. We conclude with recommendations for the use of branched questions in the quantitative elicitation of public perceptions of risk.

Social Identities and Conflict in Chile: The Role of Historical and Political Processes

In this chapter, we seek to integrate historical and contextual perspectives with socio-psychological theories to better understand the development of social identities and conflicts in Chile. Specifically, we analyse across different contexts, ethnic identity, national identity in the context of immigration, political, gender and social class identities. We address the historical background that gave rise to status and power differences, the nature of these intergroup relations and the conflicts associated with the groups involved. We conclude by arguing that in order for a modern society to tackle the challenges imposed by multiculturalism and social diversity, historical and political processes need to be considered, in addition to the needs of belonging, distinctiveness and factors that might threaten social identities. Fostering opportunities to experience positive intergroup encounters, in which, groups can learn from each other and more importantly, can live in peace without feeling threatened by the presence of other groups is seen as crucial.

Erratum : Publics and biobanks: Pan-European diversity and the challenge of responsible innovation (European Journal of Human Genetics (2012) DOI: 10.1038/ejhg.2012.104)

Since the publication of this article one of the authors, Herbert Gottweis, has asked for an additional affiliation to be added. This has now been added and the amended article appears in this issue. The HTML and online PDF versions have also been amended and now carry the additional affiliation. European Journal of Human Genetics (2013) 21, 121 & 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved 1018-4813/13