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This paper is an attempt to broaden economic discourse by importing insights into human behavior not just from psychology, but also from sociology and anthropology. Whereas the concept of the decision-maker in standard economics is the rational actor and, in early work in behavioral economics, the quasi-rational actor influenced by the context of the moment of decision-making, in some recent work in behavioral economics the decision-maker could be called the enculturated actor. This actor's preferences, perception, and cognition are subject to two deep social influences: (a) the social contexts to which he has become exposed and, especially, accustomed; and (b) the cultural mental models—including categories, identities, narratives, and worldviews—that he uses to process information. The paper traces how these factors shape individual behavior through the endogenous determination of preferences and the lenses through which individuals see the world—their perception and interpretation of situations. The paper offers a tentative taxonomy of the social determinants of behavior and describes the results of controlled and natural experiments that only a broader view of these determinants can plausibly explain. The perspective suggests more realistic models of human behavior for explaining outcomes and designing policies.

This article on elderly adult survivors of domestic violence (usually women) reviews the literature that examines the impact on later life of domestic violence experienced earlier in life and that examines the effects of elder abuse perpetrated by adult family members. The discussion is illustrated with case studies and figures that list the physical, psychological, behavioral, and social effects of each type of violence as well as intervening variables. Next, the paper reviews the influence of culture and ethnicity on the meaning attached to elder abuse and on help-seeking or accepting behavior. The article then proposes a conceptual framework that uses contributing factors (cultural background, individual influences, and cohort influences), modifying factors (the nature of violence, personal circumstances, and relationship with perpetrator), the meaning of violence, and the effects on the survivor to explain the effects of early or late family violence on elderly adult survivors. The discussion notes that the framework focuses on negative effects but that survivors of domestic violence can experience positive effects, such as the development of personal coping skills. The article ends by noting that this proposed framework has clinical implications because it recognizes that the effects of domestic violence on elderly adults may be complicated, it helps practitioners link symptoms to domestic violence, it helps practitioners realize that the meaning of domestic violence may vary among elderly victims, and it shows that family violence occurs in a social context.

ITH CHARACTERISTIC scholarly perception a d breadth of perspective, Robin Room has provided a provocative paper on priorities in social science research on alcohol. By applying the historical framework of the_last third of a century to his analysis, and by viewing social science research on alcohol in the broader perspective of the social science and the alcohol problems fields generally, Room has helped pinpoint the parochial pitfalls that have prevented a more effective impact of alcohol research on social science perceptions and of social science research on alcohol problems and policies. As Room has pointed out, alcohol social science research in the last four decades has been heavily weighted with efforts to identify social causes of alcohol problems rather than the effects of such problems on society. Room believes that this may be due in part to the reluctance of the scientists entering the field in the 1940s to be identified with the temperance movement and its stress on the dire consequences of drinking. It should be remembered that the national prohibition experiment was still a recent experience in the 1940s and that people interested in alcohol problems were assumed to be either "wet ...... or dry. It can also be noted that several prevailing biological scientific assumptions in the 1940s were diametrically opposite to claims of the temperance movement. For example, temperance messages emphasized that alcohol could have a direct deleterious effect on body organs; that it could damage the brain, stomach, liver, heart and fetus. Most scientists tended to reject the concept of direct damage and assumed that alcohol-related isease was due to nutritional deficiency, unhygienic living, or other concomitants of heavy drinking. In light of recent modifications of scientific thinking about the relationship between alcohol and organic disease and fetal damage, it is interesting to conjecture whether the need of scientists to dissociate from the temperance ideology and from