Testing the Effectiveness of Fundraiser Job Titles in Charitable Bequest and Complex Gift Planning

Traditional fundraiser job titles are often institution centered, focusing on the benefits of fundraising as “institutional advancement” or “institutional development.” Such institution‐centered job titles may not be as effective with donors given the modern shift toward donor‐centered philanthropy. Alternative job titles can be gift centered (for example, “major gifts”) or donor centered (for example, “donor advising”). A survey of 3,188 respondents tested sixty‐three job titles in four charitable scenarios: a charitable bequest gift, a gift of stock, a gift of real estate, and a charitable gift annuity. Measured by which person donors would be more likely to contact to discuss each donation, the worst‐performing titles were the traditional institution‐focused fundraiser job titles, in particular those using “advancement,” “institutional advancement,” or “development.” This was also true when examining only respondents who had made large gifts ($500+) to a charity. Traditional institution‐focused job titles are both the most commonly used and the worst performing. Nonprofit managers may do well to consider the donor's perspective when selecting job titles for fundraisers rather than following traditional industry practices.     

Your lying,incompetent and selfish member of Congress: Cynical appeals in U.S. Senate advertising

Scholars still do not fully understand what activates cynicism in citizens. Although many expect that negative campaigning contributes to this, no consistent evidence has been found. This research introduces a new measure of appeals to cynicism that expands the commonly used positive–negative taxonomy of tone in advertising. Through a content analyses of more than 600 political advertisements aired during U.S. Senate elections, we identify the extent to which candidates use cynical appeals and the conditions under which these are used. We find that appeals to cynicism are common, are distinct from negative appeals, and that most often, ad sponsors target opponents with cynical appeals, describing them as selfish, dishonest and incompetent. Cynicism appears to be a central part of American campaign rhetoric, used by all sorts of candidates, regardless of party, in many different situations. The prevalence of appeals to cynicism may help explain rising cynicism among the public.     

When the Norwegian child-welfare services get involved: parents making sense of referrals

There is limited research exploring parents' views and understanding of referrals to the child-welfare services (CWS). This study explores parents' understanding of the circumstances leading to a child-welfare referral, and their understanding of the reporter's objectives in making the referral. Qualitative content analysis and frequency analysis was performed on open-ended survey responses from a sample of 683 Norwegian parents in contact with the CWS. The results showed that the majority (60.2%) of the parents perceived the referral to be initiated solely because of parental difficulties and multiple family life stressors. Some of the parents (22.8%) believed the referrals were initiated exclusively because of their children's problems, whereas a few (13.3%) perceived it to be a combination of parental/familial difficulties and children's problems. The findings reveal that close to half of the parents (46.4%) felt the objective of the person making the referral was to help the child, their parents and the family. Some (36.5%) saw it as a routine or mandated action by public or official services, while others (18.7%) reported that they did not know why referrals had been made, or gave no answer to the question. A small group of parents (6%) viewed the referral as an act of harassment. The main implications of these findings are discussed.     

Information Seeking about Global Climate Change among Adolescents: The Role of Risk Perceptions, Efficacy Beliefs and Parental Influences

Global climate change is likely to have significant impacts on public health. Effective communication is critical to informing public decision making and behavior to mitigate climate change. An effective method of audience segmentation, the risk perception attitude (RPA) framework has been previously tested with other health behaviors and classifies people into 4 groups on the basis of their perceptions of risk and beliefs about personal efficacy. The 4 groups - indifference (low risk, weak efficacy), proactive (low risk, strong efficacy), avoidance (high risk, weak efficacy), and responsive (high risk, strong efficacy) - are hypothesized to differ in their self-protective behaviors and in their motivations to seek information. In this paper, we extend the RPA framework in two ways. First, we use it at the household level to determine whether parental classifications into the 4 groups are associated with their teenage children's classification into the same 4 groups. Second, we predict adolescent information-seeking behaviors on the basis of their and their parents' membership in the 4 RPA groups. Results (N = 523 parent-adolescent pairs) indicated that parental membership in the 4 RPA groups was significantly associated with children's membership in the same 4 groups. Furthermore, the RPA framework was a significant predictor of adolescent information-seeking: those in the responsive and avoidance groups sought more information on climate change than the indifference group. Family communication on global warming was positively associated with adolescents' information-seeking. Implications for interventions are discussed.     

Modeling censored data using modified lambda family

In the present article we propose the modified lambda family (MLF) which is the Freimer, Mudholkar, Kollia, and Lin (FMKL) parametrization of generalized lambda distribution (GLD) as a model for censored data. The expressions for probability weighted moments of MLF are derived and used to estimate the parameters of the distribution. We modified the estimation technique using probability weighted moments. It is shown that the distribution provides reasonable fit to a real censored data.     

Discursive psychology as a method of analysis for the study of couple and family therapy

The field of couple and family therapy has benefitted from evidence generated from qualitative approaches. Evidence developed from approaches relying on language and social interaction using naturally occurring recordings of real‐world practice has the benefit of facilitating practice‐based recommendations and informing practice. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of one approach to discourse analysis, Discursive Psychology (DP), demonstrating how a social constructionist framework and focus on discourse can provide an important contribution to the field of therapy. To illustrate the methodological decision‐making process for researchers and/or practitioners who utilize DP, we draw upon a video‐recorded therapeutic session involving Tom Andersen. To conclude, we make recommendations for practitioners using DP to explore and examine therapeutic practice.     

THE HARDER THE TASK,THE HIGHER THE SCORE: FINDINGS OF A DIFFICULTY BIAS

Studies have found that going first or last in a sequential order contest leads to a biased outcome, commonly called order bias (or primacy and recency). Studies have also found that judges have a tendency to reward contestants they recognize with additional points, called reference bias. Controlling for known biases, we test for a new type of bias we refer to as “difficulty bias,” which reveals that athletes attempting more difficult routines receive higher execution scores, even when difficulty and execution are judged separately. Despite some identification challenges, we add to the literature by finding strong evidence of a difficulty bias in gymnastics. We also provide generalizations beyond athletics. (JEL L10, L83, D81, J70, Z1)