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One of the most remarkable features of contemporary international relations is the new prestige accorded universal standards of human rights. However, NATO's attempt to redeem the promise of human rights by way of military intervention during the recent Kosovo crisis may have established a disturbing precedent for humanitarianism. The Alliance exploited the capabilities of precision weaponry and digital information systems to wage war with air power alone, thus avoiding entirely the deployment of ground troops and the domestic political exposure such a deployment inevitably involves. The best available evidence is that this approach had little immediate effect on the atrocities carried out by Serbian troops in Kosovo and that NATO's overriding concern with casualty-avoidance in war undermined both the effectiveness and the moral legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. Even more disturbing is the question whether NATO's action implies that states endowed with the advanced military assets that were brought to bear against Serbia will adopt a casual policy on the conduct of limited war, a policy at odds with the lessons of the twentieth century.

A religious "halo" effect has been identified wherein religiously active individuals are perceived more positively than nonreligious individuals. Religious individuals, when compared to nonreligious individuals, however, may fall further from social grace if they are perceived
as behaving in a manner inconsistent with religious ideal, (the religious "boomerang" effect). In the present study, male and female college students evaluated a frequent, occasional, or never church-goer on dimensions of morality, trustworthiness and friendship appeal. Later they
rated the female target on these dimensions following knowledge of her involvement in casual sex. Results demonstrated the presence of a religious halo operating in subjects' initial ratings of the religious female target, but following knowledge of her involvement in casual sex, a boomerang
effect was revealed on the subjects' morality ratings.

Previous studies suggest that social media use among the youth is correlated with online and offline political participation. There is also a mixed and inconclusive debate on whether online political participation in the youth increases offline political participation. This study uses three models of OLS, two-way fixed effects, and an instrumental variable approach to make causal inferences about the social media use and online and offline political participation of the youth. The analyses provide evidence of a significant effect of casual social media use on online political participation and no effect or negligible effect on offline political activity and voting behavior. The results from fixed effects and instrumental variable models provide strong evidence of elasticity between online political participation and offline political activity in young individuals. On average, a one percent increase in online political participation increases the offline political activity index by 0.12 percent.

As a media form entwined in the U.S. military-industrial complex, video games continue to celebrate imperialist imagery and Western-centric narratives of the great white explorer (Breger, 2008; Dyer-Witheford & de Peuter, 2009; Geyser & Tshalabala, 2011; Mukherjee, 2016). While much ink has been spilt on the detrimental effects of colonial imagery on those it objectifies and dehumanises, the question is why these games still get made, and what mechanisms are at work in the enjoyment of empire-themed play experiences. To explore this question, this article develops the concept of 'casual empire', suggesting that the wish to play games as a casual pastime expedites the incidental circulation of imperialist ideology. Three examples – Resident Evil V (2009), The Conquest: Colonization (2015) and Playing History: Slave Trade (2013) – are used to demonstrate the production and consumption of casual empire across multiple platforms, genres and player bases. Following a brief contextualisation of postcolonial (game) studies, this article addresses casual design, by which I understand game designers' casual reproduction of inferential racism (Hall, 1995) for the sake of entertainment. I then look at casual play, and players' attitudes to games as rational commodities continuing a history of commodity racism (McClintock, 1995). Finally, the article investigates the casual involvement of formalist game studies in the construction of imperial values. These three dimensions of the casual – design, play and academia – make up the three pillars of the casual empire that must be challenged to undermine video games' neocolonialist praxis.

Temporary and other forms of non-standard employment are an important feature of modern labour markets. Yet, relatively little is known about how much and under what circumstances such employment arrangements impact on long-term wage outcomes. Using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey spanning the period 2001 to 2014, we examine how employment status earlier in a working career is associated with subsequent wage dynamics. Particular attention is paid to how wage trajectories vary with gender and age. Estimates from a series of panel data models of real hourly wages reveal that among men there is an average long-run penalty from casual employment of about 10%, suggestive of scarring effects. Nevertheless, for men in most age groups this wage penalty does eventually begin to shrink. Among prime-age men, however, there is no evidence of catch-up; indeed, for this group the wage gap widens over time. Among women the estimated average long-run wage penalty associated with casual employment is both much smaller and less robust. We argue that expectations and norms about 'ideal careers' may be an important explanatory factor underlying the larger casual employment wage penalty for men.

Objective: We investigated the effects of a passive break, relaxation activity, and casual video game on affect, stress, engagement, and cognitive performance. Background: Reducing stress and improving cognitive performance is critical across many domains. Previous studies investigated taking a break, relaxation techniques, or playing a game; however, these methods have not been compared within a single experiment. Method: Participants completed a baseline affective and cognitive assessment (ACA), which included the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, shortened version of the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire, and backward digit-span. Next, participants completed a vigilance task, followed by another ACA. Participants were then assigned at random to complete a break or relaxation activity or play a casual video game, followed by a final ACA. Results: Participants who played the casual video game exhibited greater engagement and affective restoration than the relaxation condition. The break condition slightly decreased affect and prevented cognitive restoration. Conclusion: Playing a casual video game even briefly can restore individuals' affective abilities, making it a suitable activity to restore mood in response to stress. However, future research is needed to find activities capable of cognitive restoration. Application: Many activities in life require sustained cognitive demand, which are stressful and decrease performance, especially for workers in performance-critical domains. Our research suggests some leisure activities are better than others for restoring fatigued affective processes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically examine a consumer perceived value (CPV) formation model in the context of the US casual sportswear market. The effects of investigated contingency factors on perceived values are empirically determined.Design/methodology/approachCPV was measured by four dimensions: price, quality, social and emotional values. The investigated contingency factors included gender, age, race, income level, and retailer type. The primary data were gathered by a nation‐wide survey of US consumers and the applied statistical techniques were exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis.FindingsThe statistical analysis of 4,949 eligible survey responses shows that four value dimensions accounted for 77 percent of CPV variance. For the effects of contingency factors, race did not significantly affect the formation of any perceived values. In contrast, gender, income level, and retailer type significantly affected perceived price and emotional values, while perceived quality value was significantly affected by all contingency factors except race, and perceived social value was only significantly affected by age and income level.Practical implicationsIncorporation of gender, income level, and retailer type information in developing marketing strategies can help companies more effectively convey price and emotional values to consumers. In contrast, information relating to gender, age, income level, and retailer type should be considered in marketing quality value to consumers, while age and income level information is more critical for properly marketing social value to consumers.Originality/valueCompanies need to know, more than ever, about how consumers are redefining their values, as the current economic crisis has dramatically changed consumer preference. This study responded to this emerging need and provided timely empirical evidence.

AbstractThe retention rate of mobile game players is one of the subjects that spark most interest in the industry, as many abandon the games only a few hours after downloading them. This study examines the antecedents of loyalty towards mobile games from the perspective of perceived value and explores the moderating effect of intensity of playing. The results revealed that hedonic value (i.e., perceived enjoyment and perceived attractiveness) and, to a lesser extent, utilitarian value (i.e., effort expectancy and perceived usefulness) are crucial in the loyalty that players feel towards mobile games. Intensity of playing weakens the relationship between perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and loyalty intention. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications are provided.