Developing trust: First impressions and experience

Using the repeated Trust Game, we investigated how first impressions and experience affect trusting dispositions, beliefs, and behaviors. As in previous research, trusting beliefs and trust-related behaviors were greater at the start of the game for partners with trustworthy faces; and higher later in the game for partners who reciprocated. Three additional findings extended beyond the previous research. First, by measuring the discrete components of trusting beliefs rather than an umbrella “trustworthiness” measure, we confirmed that first impressions and experience influence judgments of competence, benevolence, and integrity. Moreover, we found suggestive evidence that perceptions of benevolence and integrity updated more quickly with experience than perceptions of competence. Second, by looking at trusting beliefs at the start of two consecutive repeated Trust Games, we found that judgments of competence, benevolence, and integrity continue to be influenced by trustworthy facial appearances, even after previous beliefs based on facial appearances were disconfirmed. Third, we found increased investment with a partner at the start of a second repeated Trust Game, even when participants expected their partners to betray them. Overall, our results clarify our understanding of how first impressions and experience influence trusting beliefs; provides evidence that changes in the repeated Trust Game represents learning about a specific partner rather than revisions of trusting dispositions; and highlights important distinctions between trusting beliefs and trust-related behaviors.     

Developing strategies for the prevention, detection and management of elder abuse: the Irish experience

It is only within the past two decades that elder abuse has received governmental attention in Ireland. There had been little awareness, and no structures in place to tackle this problem prior to this. Media highlighting of particular cases, and an exploratory study undertaken in 1998, prompted the setting up of a governmental working group on elder abuse. Unique to this group was the trialling of a proposed system in two pilot sites. This allowed for recommendations based on actual practice, and has lead to the adoption of a network of elder abuse caseworkers, among other recommendations.     

Kosovo: Phased Independence?

At the end of May 2005, UNMIK head Jessen-Petersen addressed the UN Security Council presenting a generally positive picture of the situation in Kosovo. Now, a special envoy of the UN Secretary General will prepare a full-length report by September 2005 that addresses whether the most important human rights and democratic standards in Kosovo have been fulfilled. It is expected that this report will ascertain that the necessary progress has been made so that, as early as autumn of 2005, the UN Security Council can give the green light for starting negotiations on Kosovo's final status. Whether the carrot of EU membership can be dangled as the most enticing political incentive for Belgrade and Prishtina is questionable in light of the increasing weariness within the EU over expansion.     

Practicing in the Uncertain: Reworking Standardized Clients as Improv Theatre

In this paper, I rework standardized client activities using improvisational methods. While standardized client approaches to teaching/learning interviewing skills have been proven to be effective in increasing students' competence, I suggest that enhancing these practices with the ideas and approaches of improvisational theatre provides opportunities for the creativity that characterizes advanced practice. Improvisational theatre's focus on spontaneity and intuition foregrounds three elements of practice. These include unconscious and emotional knowledge, the relational nature of practice, and the variability and unpredictability of the interview. Reframing standardized client activities through improvisational theory and practice offers students an explicit framework for making sense of simulations as creative, spontaneous spaces for learning.     

论青年学的学科独立性

改革开放以来,由于青年理论工作者的艰辛努力,已经发表了不少青年研究方面的文章,出版了一些由我国学者自己编写的青年学教材或专著,几乎所有团系统的院校都开设了青年学课程,使这门学科在我国得到了较快发展。但是,笔者认为,青年学在我国青年科学体系中并未真正牢固确定它的地位。事实上,青年学的学科独立性在我国仍是一个有待确定的课题。青年学的学科独立性在我国面临的挑战来自青年社会学、青年文化学、青年人类学、青年未来学等学科,并分析其产生的原因。在此基础上,提出了构建一门独立学科的青年学的建议及思路。     

The Well-Made Play and the Theatre of the Absurd: A Study in Attitude Change

The general tenets of balance theory are applied to a study of two dramatic genres, the well-made play and the theatre of the absurd. The theory is used in an attempt to discuss the means by which these different forms achieve their characteristic effects and to place the evolution of dramatic forms within the general context of social change in the last century.     

Positional Independence in Preference Aggregation: A Remark

In a recent article, Quesada (Soc Choice Welfare 20 363–370, 2003) showed that if, for strict preferences, a unique strongly unanimous Choice Function (CF) is used to aggregate preferences position-wise then the resulting Social Welfare Function (SWF) is dictatorial. We show that this result is still true if one allows the use of different choice functions, one for each position. We also show that allowing choice functions not to be unanimous leads to SCW that are perm-dictatorial or imposed. We also show a way to set a dual problem to the one exposed in Que03, namely only perm-dictatorial and imposed SWFs can be decomposed into several Dual Choice Functions.An anonymous referee is thanked for his useful remarks.     

Independence of irrelevant interpersonal comparisons

Arrow's independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) condition makes social choice depend only on personal rather than interpersonal comparisons of relevant social states, and so leads to dictatorship. Instead, a new independence of irrelevant interpersonal comparisons (IIIC) condition allows anonymous Paretian social welfare functionals such as maximin and Sen's leximin, even with an unrestricted preference domain. But when probability mixtures of social states are considered, even IIIC may not allow escape from Arrow's impossibility theorem for individuals' (ex-ante) expected utilities. Modifying IIIC to permit dependence on interpersonal comparisons of relevant probability mixtures allows Vickrey-Harsanyi utilitarianism. Thus, if we wish to go beyong the comparisons that are possible using only the [pareto] principle of the new welfare economics, the issue is not whether we can do so without making interpersonal comparisons of satisfactions. It is rather, what sorts of interpersonal comparisons are we willing to make. Unless the comparisons allowed by Arrow's Condition 3 [independence of irrelevant alternatives] could be shown to have some ethical priority, there seems to be no reason for confining consideration to this group.Hildreth (1953, p 91)     

Oppression Pedagogy: Intergroup Dialogue and Theatre of the Oppressed in Creating a Safe Enough Classroom

ABSTRACT

Creation of a classroom environment safe enough for students to expess their perspectives, hear classmates views and engage in classroom dialogue remains a major challenge in social work teaching. Intergroup dialogue and Theatre of the Oppressed are two approaches that effectively meet these challenges. Intergroup dialogue offers a systematic method of creating safety, exploring and owning social identity, engaging in hot topics, and ally building. Theatre of the Oppressed promotes communications that allow creative delving into sensitive topics. Data are presented from a cohort of students in a social work undergraduate oppression class. An ethnographic method was implemented to review student responses to a pedagogical approach that combined intergroup dialogue and Theatre of the Oppressed. Data analysis revealed students’ increased self-reflection and perspective taking.     

Independence and effectiveness: Messages from the role of Independent Reviewing Officers in England

This paper draws on research into the role of Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) in England, exploring the dimensions and challenges of their ‘independence’. IROs are specialist social workers whose function is to review the cases of children in public care and ensure that they have appropriate plans and that these plans are being implemented in a timely manner. IROs are ‘independent’ in the sense that they are not the social worker to whom a child's case is allocated, and do not have line management responsibility for the case, however they are employed by the same local authority. There are detailed regulations and government guidelines on their role, and high expectations, but what does independence mean in this context? The paper draws on a mixed methods study conducted by the authors in 2012–14, which included a survey of 122 files of children in care from four local authorities; interviews with 54 social workers, 54 IROs, 15 parents, and 15 young people; six focus groups; and nationally-distributed questionnaires for IROs (65), social work managers (46) and children's guardians (39). The study found five dimensions of independence: professional, operational, perceived, institutional and effective. The IROs and social workers generally took more nuanced and pragmatic approaches to their inter-professional working than prescribed in the policy guidance or the pronouncements of politicians and judges, seeing this as more likely to be effective. IROs are not, and cannot be, the solution to all the problems that exist in services for children in care, and the other professionals involved should not be seen as necessarily any less capable or committed to the best interests of the children. Rather, the IRO is part of an interactive system of checks and balances which, together, may increase the likelihood that professional judgement will be exercised effectively on the child's behalf.     

Socioeconomic Status and Parenting Priorities: Child Independence and Obedience Around the World

This study investigates the extent to which both national and personal socioeconomic status shape national norms and parenting priorities concerning child socialization. Data came from the European Values Survey, the World Values Survey, and the World Bank Data Catalog, resulting in 227,431 parents from 90 nations across fives study waves (1981–2008). Child independence was more popular in nations with greater wealth and more highly educated populations; obedience was more popular in nations with less wealth and lower percentages of educated and urban populations. Personal socioeconomic status predicted individual parents' prioritization of child independence and obedience; higher social class predicted a greater likelihood of endorsing independence and not endorsing obedience. Time‐slope estimation across study waves revealed that parents' prioritization of independence and obedience may rise over time in developing nations. Results provide implications for education, practice, and policy on cultural variations in parenting.