When is ambiguity–attitude constant?

This paper studies how updating affects ambiguity attitude. In particular we focus on generalized Bayesian updating of the Jaffray–Philippe sub-class of Choquet Expected Utility preferences. We find conditions for ambiguity attitude to be the same before and after updating. A necessary and sufficient condition for ambiguity attitude to be unchanged when updated on an arbitrary event is for the capacity to be neo-additive. We find a condition for updating on a given partition to preserve ambiguity attitude. We relate this to necessary and sufficient conditions for dynamic consistency. Finally, we study whether ambiguity increases or decreases after updating.     

What's All this Talk About Emotion? Developing Emotional Intelligence in Social Work Students

The capacity to manage emotional reactions effectively, frequently in complex care settings, is central to the role of a social worker. Nonetheless, there is evidence that social work students frequently find their placements emotionally demanding and stressful. It is proposed that emotional intelligence may help students manage their emotional reactions more effectively during placements and their subsequent career. To date, however, little systematic research has explored whether emotional intelligence and associated competencies can be enhanced during social work training and the implications for wellbeing. This paper presents a mixed-methods two-stage study which aimed to increase emotional competencies in social work students during the first year of training. More specifically, it assesses the impact of a workshop designed to enhance emotional competencies and an emotional writing task on levels of emotional intelligence, reflective ability and empathy which were assessed via questionnaire and reflective logs pre- and post-intervention (Times 1 and 2). Levels of reflective ability and empathy increased significantly between Times 1 and 2 and psychological distress decreased. Content analysis of reflective logs found evidence that reflective ability, empathy and emotional intelligence were enhanced following the interventions. The implications of the findings for the development of the curriculum are considered.     

Book Review: The Charitable Impulse: NGOs and Development in East and North-East Africa,by Ondine Barrow and Michael Jennings (eds.). James Currey,Oxford, 2001

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

赛珍珠与美国的海外传教

众所周知,人们对美国的海外传教事业毁誉参半.赛珍珠的一生与美国传教事业的关系错综复杂,她为了挣脱孩提时期宗教信仰的束缚进行了艰难的斗争.赛珍珠的经历代表了很多人对传教活动的醒悟,人们开始质疑"向非基督教文化传播基督教是否有道德可言"这个问题.     

The relocation of nursing home residents: An illustration of the advantages gained by planning a new program and designing an implementation evaluation together

This paper describes a collaboration between an evaluation team and the management and staff responsible for relocating nursing home residents to a new, state-of-the-art facility. Both the relocation plan and the implementation evaluation of this plan are detailed in order to illustrate the link between program planning and evaluation. I argue that combining program planning and implementation evaluation activities is of value to a wide range of organizations contemplating the development and implementation of a new program. Then I draw upon the research utilization literature to discuss how the collaborative relationship between the evaluation team and management contributed to the success of both program planning and program evaluation activities.     

Conspiracy: A Dramaturgical Explanation

This article explores the psychosocial significance of conspiracy theories and explanations from a dramaturgical perspective. Using a modification of Burke's dramaturgical pentad—(a) plot line, (b) directorial assumption, (c) social context, (d) dramatic genre, and (e) dramatic resolution—two variants of conspiracy are presented. Each is available to make sense of group tensions. The dramaturgy of conspiracy theories as a paranoid's story depicts group tensions as a function of the obsessive suspiciousness of a group, which finds a favorable hearing in a quick-fix culture. In this drama, the rationality of the objective and dispassionate analyst is seen as the antidote. The dramaturgy of conspiracy explanations as a viable sense-making heuristic depicts group tensions as a result of the turn to postmodernism. In this drama, rational expertise and the official version of the facts is the source, rather than the solution, of problems.     

A strong (Ross) characterization of multivariate risk aversion

Using the addition of uncorrelated noise as a natural definition of increasing risk for multivariate lotteries, I interpret risk aversion as the willingness to pay a (possibly random) vector premium in exchange for a reduction in multivariate risk. If no restriction is placed on the sign of any co-ordinate of the vector premium then (as was the case in Kihlstrom and Mirman's (1974) analysis) only pairs of expected utility maximizers with thesame ordinal preferences for outcomes can be ranked in terms of their aversion to increasing risk. However, if we restrict the premium to be a non-negative random variable then comparisons of aversion to increasing risk may be possible between expected utility maximizers withdistinct ordinal preferences for outcomes. The relationship between their utility functions is precisely the multi-dimensional analog of Ross's (1981)global condition forstrongly more risk averse.     

An Assessment of Life Satisfaction Responses on Recent Statistics Canada Surveys

Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey (GSS) and Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) offer a valuable opportunity to examine the stability of life satisfaction responses and their correlates from year to year within a consistent analytical framework. Capitalizing on the strengths of these surveys, this paper addresses two questions. First, how much variability is observed from year to year and across surveys in the distribution of life satisfaction responses and what accounts for it? Second, how much variability is observed in the direction and magnitude of the correlation between life satisfaction and a consistent set of socioeconomic characteristics? The study shows that the mean level of life satisfaction reported varies from year to year in the GSS but remains stable in the CCHS. This pattern in variability is associated with survey content preceding the life satisfaction question. In contrast, the direction and magnitude of the relationships between life satisfaction and common socioeconomic characteristics is generally consistent between the two surveys and over time.