The Top-Down/Bottom-Up Controversy from a Constructionist Approach. A Method for Measuring Top-Down Effects Applied to a Sample of Older People

Two different theories, called bottom-up and top-down, were developed to understand the determinants of an individual's satisfaction. Experimental studies didn't provide unanimous results, and confirmed, to different extents, both theories. Aside from these classic theories, a constructionist approach was developed. The purposes of this study were to examine the top-down/bottom-up controversy from a constructionist point of view and to obtain a new method for measuring the top-down effects in different satisfaction judgements. In this approach, an individual's satisfaction is viewed as constructions, evoked by the specific question in its particular context, and made by people using cognitive strategies. This view implies that the correlation between satisfaction judgements may reflect the use of the same strategies, rather than a causal effect. From this point of view, the top-down and bottom-up effects, described by the classic theories, cannot be seen as a pattern of causal links among satisfaction domains; therefore we propose a reinterpretation of these concepts in which they refer to ways used by people to construct their satisfaction judgements. On these grounds, we developed a method to extract the weight of top-down effects from correlation coefficients between satisfaction judgements. Two hypotheses concerning the different weight of top-down processes in the different satisfaction judgements were subsequently developed.These propositions were tested using the data set of 'Outdoor Mobility Survey' which was carried out in Italy on a sample of 600 people, 55--95 years of age, stratified by sex and age. We found different top-down effects in satisfaction judgements that confirm our hypothesis, even if some aspects need further investigation.     

Popular and Rejected Children's Reasoning Regarding Negative Emotions in Social Situations: The Role of Gender

Two studies compared popular and rejected children's reasoning regarding social interactions involving negative emotions. The first study, with 23 rejected and 23 popular 10‐ to 11‐year‐olds, involved hypothetical social scenarios where a classmate ‘victim’ was likely to experience a negative emotion. Although popular and rejected children both recognized negative emotions and were equally likely to suggest helping behaviour to aid the victim, there were gender effects on the type of helping behaviour suggested. Specifically, popular girls were significantly more likely to offer comforting behaviour than advice whereas popular boys offered advice more than comfort; no such preferences were exhibited by the rejected children. Furthermore, popular girls were significantly more likely than other children to refer to emotional states when justifying their helping response. In the second study, 30 popular and 30 rejected eight‐ to 10‐year‐olds identified the motives behind story characters' efforts to mask negative emotions. Popular girls were more likely to identify the target motives than rejected girls, but no such difference was apparent for the boys. The results are discussed in the light of evidence regarding gender differences in peer interaction patterns.     

Social mobility in Scotland since the middle of the twentieth century

Extensive mobility between class of origin and class of destination has been a characteristic feature of societies in Europe and North America since the middle of the twentieth century. Most mobility has been upward, and most of that has been explicable by occupational change – by the rise in the proportion of the labour force which works in service‐class jobs and the decline in the proportion in manual jobs. This pattern may now be changing, because parents of younger cohorts (people born since the 1960s) have themselves benefited from upward mobility and so there is less scope for further upward movement by their offspring. The paper uses a large new data source for Scotland to investigate these topics. It finds that there is still a great deal of mobility, and that, although upward mobility still predominates, its amount is lower in younger cohorts than in older. Nevertheless, relative mobility has not changed as upward mobility has declined, just as in earlier studies it was found not to have changed as upward mobility rose. These patterns are similar for men and women.     

Quantitative Risk Assessment of FMD Virus Transmission via Water

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a viral disease of domesticated and wild cloven-hoofed animals. FMD virus is known to spread by direct contact between infected and susceptible animals, by animal products such as meat and milk, by the airborne route, and mechanical transfer on people, wild animals, birds, and by vehicles. During the outbreak of 2001 in the Netherlands, milk from dairy cattle was illegally discharged into the sewerage as a consequence of transport prohibition. This may lead to contaminated discharges of biologically treated and raw sewage in surface water that is given to cattle to drink. The objective of the present study was to assess the probability of infecting dairy cows that were drinking FMD virus contaminated surface water due to illegal discharges of contaminated milk. So, the following data were collected from literature: FMD virus inactivation in aqueous environments, FMD virus concentrations in milk, dilution in sewage water, virus removal by sewage treatment, dilution in surface water, water consumption of cows, size of a herd in a meadow, and dose-response data for ingested FMD virus by cattle. In the case of 1.6 x 10(2) FMD virus per milliliter in milk and discharge of treated sewage in surface water, the probability of infecting a herd of cows was estimated to be 3.3 x 10(-7) to 8.5 x 10(-5), dependent on dilution in the receiving surface water. In the case of discharge of raw sewage, all probabilities of infection were 100 times higher. In the case of little dilution in small rivers, the high level of 8.5 x 10(-3) is reached. For 10(4) times higher FMD virus concentrations in milk, the probabilities of infecting a herd of cows are high in the case of discharge of treated sewage (3.3 x 10(-3) to 5.7 x 10(-1)) and very high in the case of discharge of raw sewage (0.28-1.0). It can be concluded that illegal and uncontrolled discharges of contaminated milk into the sewerage system may lead to high risks to other cattle farms at 6-50 km distance of the location of discharge within one day. This clearly underlines current measures that prohibit such discharges, and also asks for strict control. This risk assessment clearly demonstrated the potential significance of FMD virus transmission via water, and the results will be useful on an international scale, and could also serve as a basis for other FMD risk-assessment models.     

Relationships between leadership and professionals' job attitudes and perceptions: Comparison of two leadership models

The aim of this study was to investigate the power of the Average Leadership Style (ALS) and Vertical Dyad Linkage (VDL) models of leadership in explaining relationships between leader's initiating structure behaviour and consideration behaviour, and subordinates' attitudes and perceptions. The considered dependent variables were five facets of job satisfaction, two role stress variables (role conflict and ambiguity), one role strain indicator (job tension), and four dimensions of workteam climate. The relationships were investigated in two occupational samples comprising 127 family physicians and 155 nurses working in 28 Primary Health Care Teams. Within and between analysis (WABA) and contextual analysis were applied in order to determine the appropriate level of analysis (group as expected from ALS or individual as expected from VDL) for studying the relationships between leader consideration and initiating structure behaviours and the dependent variables. The results obtained showed the prevalence of the VDL model in most of the cases, although two of the relationships studied fitted the ALS model.     

The ‘Extended’ Atkinson family: The class of multiplicatively decomposable inequality measures,and some new graphical procedures for analysts

This paper introduces and characterises a class of inequality measures which extends the Atkinson family. This class contains canonical forms of all aggregative inequality measures, each bounded above by one, provides a new dominance criterion for ordering distributions in terms of inequality and offers some new graphical procedures for analysts. The crucial axiom for the characterisation is an alternative to the standard additive decomposition property that we call ‘multiplicative decomposability,’ where the within-group component is a generalised weighted mean with weights summing exactly to one. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Leader vision formation and forecasting: The effects of forecasting extent,resources, and timeframe

Vision formation, and vision articulation, is held to be a central component of leader performance. Less is known, however, about the variables giving rise to viable visions. In the present effort, the impact of forecasting on vision formation was examined. Study participants were asked to write a speech describing their vision for a new school. Prior to writing this speech, participants were asked to forecast the outcomes of vision implementation. It was found that the extent of forecasting, along with forecasting of temporal and resources considerations, influenced the quality of vision statements. Forecasting was improved when people thought about causes, as opposed to goals, and implications, as opposed to facts. The implications of these findings for understanding leader performance in vision formation are discussed.     

Supply Chain Conflict Due to Store Brands: The Value of Wholesale Price Commitment in a Retail Supply Chain*

Store brands are of increasing importance in retail supply chains, often causing channel conflict, as the retailer's product directly competes with the manufacturer's national brand. Extant research on the resulting channel interactions either assumes the national brand manufacturer can credibly commit to maintaining a wholesale price or that he lacks such ability. However, these two scenarios imply very different supply chain interactions, as only a national brand manufacturer with commitment ability can strategically adjust a national brand wholesale price to prevent a store brand introduction by the retailer. We specifically analyze the impact of this assumption on the manufacturer, the retailer, and the customers. We determine when long‐term contracts that provide the manufacturer with such commitment ability can improve supply chain profitability.     

Gender gaps in STEM in Japanese academia: The impact of research productivity,outside offers,and home life on pay

To understand differences in labor market outcomes between genders, economists must examine a complex array of potentially significant factors, such as institutional context, productivity differences, child-bearing and home production, and bargaining behavior. Many of these factors are not well captured by standard data sources. We use a new survey of academics in Japan to better understand the sources of gender pay differences. We find a 6% pay gap which persists when we control for research productivity, despite an institutional context shaped by explicit salary tables. We do not find a motherhood wage penalty, and the gender salary we document is not affected by differences in outside job offers.     

International Adaptation of a Treatment Program for Situational Couple Violence

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a serious international problem. Stith, S. M., McCollum, E. E., and Rosen, K. H. received funding from the US National Institute of Mental Health to develop and test a program for couples experiencing IPV: Domestic Violence Focused Couples Treatment (DVFCT). This article provides an overview of DVFCT, and presents three case studies illustrating how DVFCT has been adapted for use in Colombia, Iran, and Finland. This article emphasizes the need for adapting treatment models to be culturally informed, provides practice-based evidence for DVFCT as a treatment model, and highlights the importance of careful screening and assessment when working with couples who have experienced violence, no matter the country or location where treatment is being conducted.