From Advocacy to Social Innovation: A Typology of Social Change Efforts by Nonprofits

Literature describing the social change efforts of direct social service nonprofits focuses primarily on their political advocacy role or the ways in which practitioners in organizations address individual service user needs. To elicit a more in-depth understanding of the varying ways that these nonprofits promote social change, this research builds off of the innovation literature in nonprofits. It presents a model of the typology of social innovations based on the empirical findings from survey data from a random sample (n = 241) and interview data (n = 31) of direct social service nonprofits in Alberta, Canada. Exploratory principal factor analysis was used to uncover the underlying structure of the varying types of social innovations undertaken by direct service nonprofits. Results support a three-factor model including socially transformative, product, and process-related social innovations. The qualitative findings provide a conceptual map of the varied foci of social change efforts.     

“I'll Give You the World”: Socioeconomic Differences in Parental Support of Adult Children

Research has shown that parents with higher socioeconomic status provide more resources to their children during childhood and adolescence. The authors asked whether similar effects associated with parental socioeconomic position are extended to adult children. Middle‐aged parents (N = 633) from the Family Exchanges Study reported support they provided to their grown children and coresidence with grown children (N = 1,384). Parents with higher income provided more emotional and material support to the average children. Grown children of parents with less education were more likely to coreside with them. Parental resources (e.g., being married) and demands (e.g., family size) explained these patterns. Of interest is that lower income parents provided more total support to all children (except total financial support). Lower income families may experience a double jeopardy; each grown child receives less support on average, but parents exert greater efforts providing more total support to all their children.     

Predictors of Relapse in Problem Gambling: A Prospective Cohort Study

To explore the variation of predictors of relapse in treatment and support seeking gamblers. A prospective cohort study with 158 treatment and support seeking problem gamblers in South Australia. Key measures were selected using a consensus process with international experts in problem gambling and related addictions. The outcome measures were Victorian Gambling Screen (VGS) and behaviours related to gambling. Potential predictors were gambling related cognitions and urge, emotional disturbance, social support, sensation seeking traits, and levels of work and social functioning. Mean age of participants was 44 years (SD = 12.92 years) and 85 (54 %) were male. Median time for participants enrolment in the study was 8.38 months (IQR = 2.57 months). Patterns of completed measures for points in time included 116 (73.4 %) with at least a 3 month follow-up. Using generalised mixed-effects regression models we found gambling related urge was significantly associated with relapse in problem gambling as measured by VGS (OR 1.29; 95 % CI 1.12–1.49) and gambling behaviours (OR 1.16; 95 % CI 1.06–1.27). Gambling related cognitions were also significantly associated with VGS (OR 1.06; 95 % CI 1.01–1.12). There is consistent association between urge to gamble and relapse in problem gambling but estimates for other potential predictors may have been attenuated because of methodological limitations. This study also highlighted the challenges presented from a cohort study of treatment and support seeking problem gamblers.     

The Dark Side of Authenticity: Feeling “Real” While Gambling Interacts with Enhancement Motives to Predict Problematic Gambling Behavior

Engaging in activities that make people feel authentic or real is typically associated with a host of positive psychological and physiological outcomes (i.e., being authentic serves to increase well-being). In the current study, we tested the idea that authenticity might have a dark side among people engaged in an addictive or risky behavior (gambling). To test this possibility, we assessed gamblers (N = 61) who were betting on the National Hockey League playoff games at a sports bar. As predicted, people who felt authentic when gambling reported behavior associated with problem gambling (high frequency of betting) as well as problematic play (a big monetary loss and a big monetary win). Moreover, such behavior and gambling outcomes were particularly high among people who were motivated to gamble for the purpose of enhancement. The interaction of feeling authentic when betting and gambling for purposes of enhancing positive emotions proved especially troublesome for problematic forms of play. Implications of authenticity as a potential vulnerability factor for sports betting and other types of gambling are discussed.     

Kinesic Patterning in Deceptive and Truthful Interactions

A persistent question in the deception literature has been the extent to which nonverbal behaviors can reliably distinguish between truth and deception. It has been argued that deception instigates cognitive load and arousal that are betrayed through visible nonverbal indicators. Yet, empirical evidence has often failed to find statistically significant or strong relationships. Given that interpersonal message production is characterized by a high degree of simultaneous and serial patterning among multiple behaviors, it may be that patterns of behaviors are more diagnostic of veracity. Or it may be that the theorized linkage between internal states of arousal, cognitive taxation, and efforts to control behavior and nonverbal behaviors are wrong. The current investigation addressed these possibilities by applying a software program called THEME to analyze the patterns of kinesic movements (adaptor gestures, illustrator gestures, and speaker and listener head movements) rated by trained coders for participants in a mock crime experiment. Our multifaceted analysis revealed that the quantity and quality of patterns distinguish truths from untruths. Quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted by case and condition revealed high variability in the types and complexities of patterns that were produced and differences between truthful and deceptive respondents questioned about a theft. Patterns incorporating adaptors and illustrator gestures were correlated in counterintuitive ways with arousal, cognitive load, and behavioral control, and qualitative analyses produced unique insights into truthful and untruthful communication.     

Learning Skinner’s Verbal Operants: Comparing an Online Stimulus Equivalence Procedure to an Assigned Reading

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of an online stimulus equivalence procedure to that of an assigned reading when learning Skinner’s taxonomy of verbal behavior. Twenty-six graduate students participated via an online learning management system. One group was exposed to an online stimulus equivalence procedure (equivalence group) that was designed to teach relations among the names, antecedents, consequences, and examples of each elementary verbal operant. A comparison group (reading group) read a chapter from a popular textbook. Tests for the emergence of selection-based and topography-based intraverbal responses were then conducted, as were tests for generalization and maintenance. Overall, results suggest that the online equivalence procedure was not significantly more effective in promoting topography-based responses than the assigned reading. However, performance on selection-based tests was enhanced by the online equivalence procedure as was performance on topography-based tests when participants were required to provide operant names in response to consequences or examples. On average, the equivalence group performed at a level that was 10 percentage points (i.e., a full letter grade) above that of the reading group. The viability of the equivalence-based procedure is discussed in relation to the assigned reading.