An interest group wants to increase a state's budget for public education. the group investigates and files lawsuits against state lawmakers who have illegally used education dollars for other purposes. which positive function of interest groups does the scenario describe? a. ensuring officials hear about the concerns of individual groups in society b. serving as watchdogs to prevent government corruption c. inspiring political participation d. informing the general public about issues

Serving as watchdogs to prevent government corruption

Explanation:

Stakeholders are groups of people who act politically to monitor parliamentary mandates and lobby for their interests to be championed by legislators. So there are several interest groups, which is natural. There are environmentalist interest groups, lobby groups, among others.

If an interest group that defends the causes of education acts to investigate the misuse of public money that should be employed in education, this group is helping society as a whole, since it acts to prevent or cases of corruption.

the answer is b, encourage free trade

as university of miami psychologists debra lieberman and adam smith pointed out in a recent article in the journal current directions in psychological science, humans have social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. with very few exceptions, marriages between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human culture. the primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. even the idea of sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. the psychologist jonathan haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy).

the biological cost of incest

this raises an interesting question: just what’s so bad about incest? sure, having sex with your dad or your sister seems gross — but why? some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos are learned social conventions. this explanation, however, doesn’t make sense to me as it does not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging from cockroaches to chimpanzees. second, the incest taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.

why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? the answer is simple. the problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect.