Public Relations Problem Solving: Heuristics and Expertise

This study examines one of the threats to successful problem solving identified by cognitive psychologists: error induced by the problem solver's use of heuristics. The 3 factors comprising expertise (experience, education, and training) are considered in a controlled experiment involving conjunction-rule problems framed in a public relations context. A novel approach to measuring expertise is used and discussed in this study. Training was found to significantly affect error rate. whereas experience and education, as operationalized in this study, had no effect. Implications for cognitive researchers are discussed. as are more pragmatic concerns for those interested in studying problem solving.     

Matching Public Relations Research to the Problem: Conducting a Special Focus Group

Many public relations practitioners use focus groups in their practice, but most consider the technique merely a complement to survey research. In this article, I show that focus groups can stand alone as a research technique and that they can be used both for formative and evaluative research. I review literature about focus groups from several fields and provide an overview of the nature, value, applications, procedures, and limitations of focus groups. In addition to being a research technique, focus groups can provide a means of two-way communication between organizations and publics. Used this way, focus groups are particularly valuable because they uncover why people think what they think and make possible unbridled conversations about sensitive issues, even among strangers. A case in which focus groups were used for such two-way comnmunication—to help providers of mental health services understand the stigma affecting the mentally ill consumers they serve—is analyzed. The success of the experiment suggests that focus groups also can be used for communication about similar taboos such as homosexuality, AIDS, cancer, or eating disorders.     

Problem Behavior and Heart Rate Reactivity in Adopted Adolescents: Longitudinal and Concurrent Relations

The present longitudinal study examined resting heart rate and heart rate variability and reactivity to a stressful gambling task in adopted adolescents with aggressive, delinquent, or internalizing behavior problems and adopted adolescents without behavior problems (total N=151). Early‐onset delinquent adolescents showed heart rate hyporeactivity to the stress‐eliciting gambling task compared to late‐onset delinquent adolescents and adolescents without behavior problems. Heart rate, heart rate variability, and reactivity to stress were not related to environmental factors such as early‐childhood parental sensitivity, parental socioeconomic status, or adoptee's health status at arrival. We conclude that the distinction between delinquency and aggression and between childhood‐onset and adolescence‐onset delinquency is important for the study of stress reactivity in adolescents.     

Depressive Symptoms in Early Adolescence: Their Relations with Classroom Problem Behavior and Peer Status

It has been suggested that early antisocial behavior plays a causal role in the development of depression during childhood and adolescence through pervasive failures in social competence and social acceptance (Patterson & Capaldi, 1990). The present study was conducted to test this hypothesis by examining longitudinal data from a sample of 215 Italian middle school students. Analyses revealed that Time 1 (T1) problem behavior predicted both Time 2 (T2) peer status and T2 depressive symptoms, even after controlling for T1 peer status and depressive symptoms, respectively. Moreover, T1 peer status predicted depressive symptoms at T2, even after controlling for prior levels of depressive symptoms. However, analyses did not support the hypothesis that peer rejection mediates the effects of problem behavior on depression.     

联合国难民救济及工程局(UNRWA)和巴勒斯坦解放组织(PLO)关系演变简析

UNRWA是联合国于1949年设立的一个专门负责巴勒斯坦难民事务的机构.50年代末以前,它致力于难民的重新安置,但遭到难民的强烈反对,之后转向福利、教育事业.1964年PLO创建后,UNRWA逐渐对巴勒斯坦民族解放事业发挥积极影响,但两者的正式关系直到1975年联合国赋予PL0观察员身份的次年才建立.80年代末期,NURWA开始从社会经济方面推动巴勒斯坦建国,PLO在难民问题上则越来越务实,双方形成一种合作伙伴关系.90年代中期以来,巴以和平进程波折不断,难民问题的解决受到各种因素的干扰,UNRWA和PL0的关系也受到影响,但在一些技术问题上仍有合作.     

论中国-阿拉伯国家关系的发展

中阿友谊源远流长。进入新世纪,随着国际形势特别是中东形势的急剧变化,中阿交往日趋密切和活跃,合作领域不断拓宽,合作关系不断深入。笔者认为,中阿双方在政治关系上有着深厚的基础,将会不断发展;在经济合作方面的潜力也很大,发展前景广阔。加强中阿合作、实现共同发展,不仅是中阿双方的共同需要,也是中阿人民对世界和平与发展的重要贡献。     

论中国-阿拉伯国家关系的发展

中阿友谊源远流长。进入新世纪,随着国际形势特别是中东形势的急剧变化,中阿交往日趋密切和活跃,合作领域不断拓宽,合作关系不断深入。笔者认为,中阿双方在政治关系上有着深厚的基础,将会不断发展;在经济合作方面的潜力也很大,发展前景广阔。加强中阿合作、实现共同发展,不仅是中阿双方的共同需要,也是中阿人民对世界和平与发展的重要贡献。     

An Analysis of the Influence of Public Relations Department Leadership Style on Public Relations Strategy Use and Effectiveness

A survey of Public Relations Society of America members (N = 885) suggests that 2 leadership styles are present in public relations environments. Inclusive leaders are collaborative, share decision making, and engage in participative practices. Transformational leaders have a clear vision for the future, motivate change, are good policy makers, inspire others through communication, and are innovative risk takers. Results indicate that inclusive leadership style is positively related to use of facilitative and cooperative problem solving strategies and effectiveness of informative and facilitative strategies. Transformational leadership style is positively related to use of power strategies and effectiveness of persuasive and cooperative problem solving strategies.     

Women's Changing Relations to the State and Citizenship: Caring and Intergenerational Relations in Globalizing Western Democracies*

En sociologie, l'évolution des rapports entre les femmes et l'État s'aborde sous trois points de vue: 1) les femmes et l'État‐providence; 2) le récent concept de citoyenneté; et 3) la cohésion sociale. La présente analyse repose sur les fondements suivants: le point jusqu'où l'État peut investir dans les droits des femmes ou leurs gains et les protéger dans le contexte où l'État lui‐même se rétrecit; la contradiction entre le rétrécissement des États‐providence, different pour les hommes et les femmes, et la phénoménale progression du travail rémunéré des femmes; enfin le degré de parallélisme existant entre la marginalisation croissante des femmes et les inquiétudes quant à la cohésion sociale. Les soins et les rapports entre les générations sont passés en revue pour certaines démocraties occidentales en voie de mondialisation. De nouvelles normativités de citoyenneté pour les femmes sont présentées. Women's changing relations to the state are addressed in three sociological literatures: 1) women and welfare states; 2) the new citizenship literature; and 3) social cohesion. The basis for this analysis: the degree to which the state can be protector and investor in women's rights or gains, if the state itself is shrinking; the contradiction between the gendered shrinking of welfare states and women's dramatic increases in paid work; and the degree to which deepening marginalization of women parallels growing concerns about social cohesion. Caring and intergenerational relations are examined in select globalizing Western democracies. New normativities of citizenship for women are delineated.     

Social Identity and Intergroup Relations Within the Hospital

City hospitals are complex organizations made up of thousands of employees with a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds, and representing diverse occupational roles. These various groups often have differing religious and philosophical belief systems, which creates a complex combination of people similar to a small urban city. This paper investigated this multicultural society within the hospital and looked specifically at how various occupational groups define themselves in terms of their social identity. In addition, the paper also explored how various occupational groups related with one another. This study explored specifically the intergroup relations of the psychiatric staff and their supporting personnel. These groups were understood within the theoretical framework of Tajfel's social identity theory (1978, 1982), and Allport's (1954) intergroup contact theory, as well as Sherif (1961) and Turner's (1975) concept of the in group/out group process.     

Return Migration and the Problem of Reintegration

This article proposes a programme approach for achieving the social and economic reintegration of all categories of return migrants. As former exiles who have returned to their country of origin are no longer refugees, some government agencies need to organize the reception of, and provide assistance to, returnees. But without long-term planning, ad hoc committees are unable to be effective facilitators of the reintegration process. The article suggests a list of major elements necessary for an effective reintegration programme, and argues that governments should focus on the institutional mechanism of programme management, including the creation of a responsible agency or agencies. The management structure should be based in the National Planning Ministry of government. Establishment of an effective mechanism would be likely to inspire donor confidence; and 'homecoming' would no longer be a nightmare for potential returnees trying to reintegrate.     

Ukrainian Symbolism and the Problem of Modernism

This article explores the role of children’s literature in the formation of Stalinist identity and assembles a list of moral principles developed in the most popular early works of Arkadii Gaidar. It is not in Marxist texts nor in Pioneer slogans, but in these simple stories that the essential narrative structures of Soviet morality were created. Gaidar’s books are representative of a whole group of Soviet children’s literary classics published in the late 1920s–early 1930s and written by young people whose coming of age coincided with the years of political and social turmoil. This study argues that Gaidar’s own personal experiences as a youthful Red Army commander during the Civil War underpinned the moral vision of these popular novels. A new military-like value system, with courage (not kindness or love) as its central value, originated in Gaidar’s books and moulded several generations of Soviet children.     

Robert Nisbet and the Problem of Community

The article traces the importance and development of the concept of ‘community’ in Robert Nisbet’s sociological theory. Community and voluntary associations were key components of his view of civil society, because they stood between the individual and the state as bastions of personal liberty against authoritarianism. This idea was taken from Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of America democracy and developed by Nisbet as a critique of modern America. The article examines the conservative underpinnings of Nisbet’s sociology and compares his perspective on civil society with the idea of civil religion in J-J Rousseau and Robert Bellah. Nisbet’s perspective is criticised because not all voluntary associations have beneficial effects on civil society. The article considers how far his views on authority and community are still relevant and concludes by making a distinction between ‘sticky societies’ that are hard to join and difficult to leave and ‘elastic societies’ that are easy to join and cost-free to leave, and asks whether community is possible when the Internet has transformed sticky relationships into elastic, thin and dispersed relationships.     

Social Identity and Intergroup Relations Within the Hospital

City hospitals are complex organizations made up ofthousands ofemployees with a variety ofethnic and racial backgrounds, and representing diverse occupational roles. These various groups often have differing religious and philosophical belief systems, which creates a complex combination of people similar to a small urban city. This paper investigated this multicultural society within the hospital and looked specifically at how various occupational groups define themselves in terms of their social identity. In addition, the paper also explored how various occupational groups related with one another. This study explored specifically the intergroup relations ofthe psychiatric staffand their supporting personnel. These groups were understood within the theoreticalframework of Tajfel’s social identity theory (1978,1982), and Allport’s (1954) intergroup contact theory, as well as Sherif (1961) and Turner's (1975) concept ofthe in group/out group process.     

中阿关系的回顾和展望

中国与阿拉伯国家文明交流源远流长。中华人民共和国成立后,双方在国际政治舞台上广泛合作。万隆会议的成功召开带来了中阿三次建交高潮。新时期中阿双方的战略合作具有坚实的政治基础:双方都强调开展文明对话,反对文明对抗,反对霸权主义和强权政治,主张建立公正民主的国际新秩序。未来双方经贸关系的发展将促进政治合作领域不断扩大。     

Investor Relations as a Public Relations Function: A State of the Profession in the United States

There are no majors, or even minors, in investor relations for undergraduate students in the United States. Yet, the association of investor relations professionals, the National Investor Relations Institute, has 4,300 members. The questions, then, become who works in the investor relations departments and investor relations agencies, where do they come from, and, more important, what does it mean for the status of investor relations as a profession? This study addresses these questions by conducting a random probability sampling of investor relations professionals to investigate their educational backgrounds, organizational structures, reporting relationships, and other variables. The study concludes that investor relations is still primarily a financial function: Investor relations professionals have financial or business backgrounds and report to the financial executives rather than to the communication executives or to the Chief Executive Officer.