Do PR Practitioners Have a PR Problem?: The Effect of Associating a Source With Public Relations and Client-Negative News on Audience Perception of Credibility

Through a 2 × 2 factorial experiment (N = 141), information source type (public relations spokesperson or generic spokesperson) and message topic (client-neutral and client-negative) were varied to determine whether they affect audience perception of source credibility. Results suggest public relations professionals and the organizations they represent are perceived as less credible than unidentified sources and their employers. Also, sources and their sponsors communicating organization-negative news are perceived as less credible than those communicating client-neutral information.     

Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?

According to revisionist historians and American Indian activists,Christopher Columbus deserves condemnation for having broughtslavery, disease, and death to America’s indigenous peoples.We ask whether the general public’s beliefs about Columbusshow signs of reflecting these critical accounts, which increasedmarkedly as the 1992 Quincentenary approached. Our nationalsurveys, using several different question wordings, indicatethat most Americans continue to admire Columbus because, astradition puts it, "he discovered America," though only a smallnumber of mainly older respondents speak of him in the heroicterms common in earlier years. At the same time, the percentageof Americans who reject traditional beliefs about Columbus isalso small and is divided between those who simply acknowledgethe priority of Indians as the "First Americans" and those whogo further to view Columbus as a villain. The latter group ofrespondents, we find, show a critical stance toward modal Americanbeliefs much more broadly. We also analyze American history school textbooks for evidenceof influence from revisionist writings, and we consider representationsof Columbus in the mass media as well. Revisionist history canbe seen as one consequence of the "minority rights revolution"that began after World War II and has achieved considerablesuccess, but the endurance of Columbus’s reputation—toa considerable extent even among the minorities who have theleast reason to respect him—raises important questionsabout the inertia of tradition, the politics of collective memory,and the difference between elite and popular beliefs.     

How Can We Have a Body?: Desires and Corporeality

This paper proposes a revision of the ways in which the body and bodily symptoms are theorized in psychoanalysis. It argues that psychoanalysis' mentalist stance can fail to sufficiently address the subjective experience of the body as a body and in doing so can miss crucial dimensions of the patient's experience.

Drawing on the countertransferential bodily experience of the analyst during specific therapies enables a fuller understanding of a person's bodily development. The author further proposes that the body is an outcome of relational dynamics that bequeath specific cultural and familial understandings to the contemporary body. She suggests ways in which physical symptoms can be understood as a search on the part of the patient to create a body that is alive for her or him when there is an absence of a sense of body surety.     

Do Parents Have This Right?

IN April of 1998, Li Cheng was taken to court. The month before, Li had tried to end the life of his own child, who was only three days old. The doctor's attempts to stop him managed to prolong the child's life for only two days. Consequently, Li must be punished by law for killing his own child. However, response to this case has varied. Li Cheng's work unit posted bail for him. We will respect the opinion of the court, no matter what the verdict, said the representative from his work unit. However, if our application is refused, we do not intend to cease paying his salary. In the petition for bail, they maintained that Li Cheng was a talented, hard-working staff member. His act must have been commit-     

Risky discounts: Do people prefer them on a per-item or per-purchase basis and why?

Risky discounts differ from other discount formats in that the actual discount level is determined by chance (e.g., “scratch & save” cards). Four studies investigated whether consumers prefer to receive risky discounts on a per-purchase or per-item basis. Although these options do not differ with regard to expected value, they entail multiple differences (e.g., savings distribution, amount of individual gains, excitement, and effort involved) that may lead to differential consumer perceptions and experiences. Controlling for expected value of savings, participants preferred per-item over per-purchase discounts. As hypothesized, the main reasons for this preference were a partly incorrect perception of the properties of the savings distribution, the adoption of a narrow mindset focusing on the best outcome in a series of discount gambles, and the greater excitement provided by multiple discount gambles.     

Do Siblings Matter Independent of Both Parents and Friends? Sympathy as a Mediator Between Sibling Relationship Quality and Adolescent Outcomes

The study explored whether sibling affection and hostility were longitudinally associated with adolescents' prosocial, externalizing, and depressive behaviors, after controlling for parent–child and best friend relationship quality. Sympathy was examined as a possible mediator. Three hundred and eight randomly selected families completed Waves 3, 4, and 5 of the Flourishing Families Project. Multiple group comparison via structural equation modeling compared differences between girls and boys. Sibling affection (T3) was positively associated with adolescents' sympathy (T4) and prosocial behavior (T5). Sibling hostility (T3) was positively associated with adolescents' depression (T5) and externalizing behavior (T5) (for boys only), even after controlling for parent and friend relationships. Discussion focuses on the unique role of the sibling relationship on adolescent development.     

Resignation or Dismissal?: When a CEO and a President Clash

In the executive director's opinion, Bluehills Family Services' board of directors had serious problems with their organizational governance. These difficulties came to a head in an apparently unresolvable clash between the executive director and the board president. Given the preexisting board and organization perceptions, could an emergency board meeting produce a positive outcome, and would the executive director's participation be counterproductive?     

How Do Neoliberal Policies Affect Income Inequality? Exploring the Link Between Liberalization,Finance, and Inequality

It is commonly asserted that economic liberalization increases income inequality in advanced industrial societies. However, the empirical evidence is inconclusive. The current investigation thus attempts to shed light on this important topic by presenting the argument that economic liberalization indirectly augments income inequality given its tendency to expand financial activity. This contention is tested using a panel dataset of 20 developed economies for the years 1988 to 2009. According to the fixed effects two‐stage least squares models, economic liberalization is positively associated with financialization, while financial activity is positively connected to income inequality. These results are found to be consistent across a variety of regression parameters and robustness checks.     

Sibship size and educational attainment in peninsular Malaysia: do policies matter?

This study examines the effects of sibship size on secondary school attainment in Malaysia. Data were obtained from the 1989 Malaysian Second Family Life Survey among a sample of individuals aged 19-38 years in 1989 who were born during 1938-69. The sample included 1749 Malays, 1071 Chinese, and 523 Indians. Subsamples divided persons into those born during the period 1950-59 and those born during 1960-69. 98% of the sample had a primary education. Almost 66% had attained a secondary school education: 23% of Malays, 34% of Chinese, and 30% of Indians. 97% had at least one sibling. The percentage of non-Malays with a secondary school education (SSE) decreased with an increase in sibship size. Sibship size was unrelated to SSE among Malays. It is pointed out that the preferential policies were probably a stronger impetus for secondary attainment among Malays than sibship size. Finer analysis by cohort revealed that only in the cohort born during 1950-59 did sibship size have no significant effect on SSE. Sibship size had a significantly negative impact among children born during 1960-69 and the impact was greater for Malays than non-Malays. The magnitude of the effect for Malays was twice as large in the 1960-69 cohort as in the 1950-59 cohort, while the magnitude of the impact of sibship size for non-Malays was the same for both birth cohorts. Average sibship size for non-Malays declined sharply over time, while it remained stable for Malays. Logistic analysis revealed few differences between ethnic groups in the predicted probabilities for the 1950-59 cohort when individual and family factors were accounted for. Findings suggest that non-Malays' adjustment by decreasing their fertility or changing family resource allocations could not entirely compensate for increases in the cost of education or reductions in the return to education. The benefit was the closing of the gap between Malays and non-Malays with regard to children's likelihood of SSE.     

Beliefs About Cues to Deception: Mindless Stereotypes or Untapped Wisdom?

In this longitudinal study, senders told truths and lies to same-sex friends (judges) at both one month and six months into the relationship. Judges guessed whether the stories were truths or lies, and described the cues they used to make their decisions. These cues were coded into categories according to the nature of the cue (verbal, visual, or paralinguistic). Judges mentioned more verbal cues when the story was truthful than when it was fabricated, and mentioned more visual nonverbal cues when it was fabricated than when it was truthful. Therefore, perceivers' stated beliefs about cues discriminated the truths from the lies, although their explicit judgments of deceptiveness did not. Perceivers who mentioned visual or verbal cues more often were not more accurate at detecting deception (explicitly), but those who mentioned paralinguistic cues more often were more accurate.     

Formal and Informal Social Organization: Do Geography,Structural Inequality,and Other Forms of Social Organization Matter?

Neighborhood social organization is one way that neighborhoods matter for residents, as well as an intervention opportunity for macro practitioners. Neighborhood social organization encapsulates how neighborhoods differentially organize, both formally and informally. We tested whether neighborhood structural inequality, types of social organization, and spatial clustering were associated with both formal and informal neighborhood social organization. Formal and informal social organization were mutually reinforcing. Formal social organization, measured by organizational participation, predicted informal social organization. In multivariate spatial analysis, organizational participation was also influenced by adjacent neighborhoods. Practitioners should consider how adjacent neighborhoods could affect place-based interventions.     

Do magnet and charter schools exacerbate or ameliorate inequality?

School choice typically refers to opportunities to enroll youth in public and/or private educational alternatives to traditional neighborhood public schools. While these options continue to grow in the United States under the umbrella of school choice, magnet and charter schools are the most common forms of public school choice. In this article, we review the development of school choice and the differing historical and philosophical origins of magnet and charter schools. We then summarize what we know about the extent to which these public choice options exacerbate or ameliorate two forms of inequality—academic achievement and school segregation by race and class. Research suggests that magnet schools often encourage racial and class diversity, while charters contribute to racial and socioeconomic isolation. While low‐income minority students may benefit academically from attending magnet schools, it is unclear whether charter schools have any effect on achievement when comparing charter school students to their counterparts in traditional public school. We expect that continued growth of magnet schools will likely promote school diversity both within and between districts, though some types of magnets may also inadvertently promote segregation. However, expansion of the charter school sector will heighten school segregation and exacerbate racial and socioeconomic isolation.     

Casino policies: Have Australians had a fair deal?

The introduction of commercial casinos to Australia in 1973 was arguably the most radical shift of gambling policy in Australia's history. At one level, the risk seems to have been justified, with very little organised public opposition to the promotion of casinos as a catalyst for tourism growth and regional economic development. However, recent events suggest that Australian casino policies have moved to a more politicised stage, a period in which governments could be forced to contend with new conflicts, tensions and contradictions. Now that some of the benefits and costs of casinos have become apparent, it is appropriate to evaluate existing casino policies and trends, and to reconsider other alternatives which might be available. This paper examines the broad social implications of the Australian casino boom, the economic changes which have occurred, and the social and political costs which have begun to surface.This article is an updated and modified version of a paper presented to200-UP; The Third Conference of the National Association for Gambling Studies, July ll–13th 1988, Australian National University.     

Gender Asymmetry in Family Migration: Occupational Inequality or Interspousal Comparative Advantage?

This paper examines gender inequality in the determinants of job‐related long‐distance migration among married dual‐earner couples during the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis tested the structural explanation, which attributes gender asymmetry in family migration to structural inequality in the labor market, and the comparative advantage explanation derived from relative resource theory. The analysis used individual‐ and family‐level data from 5,504 Panel Study of Income Dynamics families, occupation‐level data from the 1980–2000 U.S. Decennial Censuses Integrated Public Use Micro Samples, and discrete‐time event history models. Gender differences in the determinants of family migration were not explained by gender differences in occupational characteristics, but the results partially support the relative resource theory by illustrating the conditioning influence of interspousal comparative advantage.     

Piketty's Calibration Economics: Inequality and the Dissolution of Solutions?

Abstract

By popularising interest in inequality, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has made a significant contribution. It has helped to change the basic terms of debate regarding wealth and income. However, Capital exhibits several weaknesses. The overall statement of Piketty's 3 laws tends to confuse the reader by conflating capital with all forms of wealth, and capital with the current market valuation of wealth assets. The whole creates a form of empiricism by metrics or calibration. The aggregation also lends itself to data as history rather than as historically grounded explanation of evidence. Concomitantly, it lacks a theorisation of capitalism, of power, of the state, of social movements, and of social transformations. This affects the way in which possible solutions to inequality are conceived. However, it does provoke further grounds for ethical counterargument productive of more progressive solutions to the problems it highlights.