Business Legitimacy among Business Students in the United States, Great Britain, and South Africa

This study compares attitudes toward business legitimacy in three countries. Positive attitudes toward business legitimacy exist when there is a congruence between organizational activities and societal expectations. Businesses are concerned about the extent to which negative attitudes toward business legitimacy will lead to increased government regulation. The results suggest that business students in all three countries are similar in their attitudes toward business legitimacy; however, blacks have more negative attitudes toward business legitimacy than do whites. This study resulted in the validation of a scale that can be used to measure attitudes toward business legitimacy on a cross-cultural basis. Business legitimacy is a major concern in South Africa as the predominately white business community seeks to give the emerging black majority a stake in the existing economic system. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Monte Carlo Sensitivity Analysis of Unknown Parameters in Hazardous Materials Transportation Risk Assessment

The US Department of Transportation was interested in the risks associated with transporting Hydrazine in tanks with and without relief devices. Hydrazine is both highly toxic and flammable, as well as corrosive. Consequently, there was a conflict as to whether a relief device should be used or not. Data were not available on the impact of relief devices on release probabilities or the impact of Hydrazine on the likelihood of fires and explosions. In this paper, a Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis of the unknown parameters was used to assess the risks associated with highway transport of Hydrazine. To help determine whether or not relief devices should be used, fault trees and event trees were used to model the sequences of events that could lead to adverse consequences during transport of Hydrazine. The event probabilities in the event trees were derived as functions of the parameters whose effects were not known. The impacts of these parameters on the risk of toxic exposures, fires, and explosions were analyzed through a Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis and analyzed statistically through an analysis of variance. The analysis allowed the determination of which of the unknown parameters had a significant impact on the risks. It also provided the necessary support to a critical transportation decision even though the values of several key parameters were not known.     

Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality

We derive the asymptotic sampling distribution of various estimators frequently used to order distributions in terms of poverty, welfare, and inequality. This includes estimators of most of the poverty indices currently in use, as well as estimators of the curves used to infer stochastic dominance of any order. These curves can be used to determine whether poverty, inequality, or social welfare is greater in one distribution than in another for general classes of indices and for ranges of possible poverty lines. We also derive the sampling distribution of the maximal poverty lines up to which we may confidently assert that poverty is greater in one distribution than in another. The sampling distribution of convenient dual estimators for the measurement of poverty is also established. The statistical results are established for deterministic or stochastic poverty lines as well as for paired or independent samples of incomes. Our results are briefly illustrated using data for four countries drawn from the Luxembourg Income Study data bases.     

A reciprocal global education? Working towards a more humanizing pedagogy through critical literacy

Dehumanizing tendencies within the present neo‐liberal era provide the backdrop against which the authors have developed an 11‐year partnership in the Global South. The economic context encourages competition over community and, while portending to bring people closer together through technological advances, it only facilitates the flow of commerce and capital while stemming the movement of consumers and workers. The authors provide a nuanced historical perspective leading up to the neo‐liberal moment, which notices the emergence of patriarchy, Christianity, racism, and capitalism as particular forms of social control, oppression and dehumanization. Recognizing the constructed nature of these forms, the authors propose community, consciousness, and courage as liberating ways forward towards the creation of an alternative form – a more reciprocal global education. While documenting some of their 11‐year partnership, the authors reveal the contribution of the following theorists who have impacted their praxis: Paul Kivel (social service vs social change), Paul Farmer (charity vs development vs social justice approaches to ‘service’ work), and Paul Gorski (decolonizing intercultural education). The authors conclude by (re)examining their desire to resist neo‐liberal globalizing tendencies towards a more reciprocal global education which expands upon relationships built and focuses on a critical literacy approach though the use of culture circles.     

Factors Influencing Uptake and Use of a New Health Information App for Young People

Abstract

When young people need health information they are increasingly likely to use online sources and health apps (applications). Yet, these are not necessarily well-designed, reliable or appropriate, and research has primarily focused on adult use. Our study is the first to use qualitative mixed methods (focus groups and interviews) to apply the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to understand 26 young people’s uptake and use of a new, clinically-approved health app (application) for 16–25?year olds. We found that perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, social influences and trust, all differently impacted children and young people health-app acceptance and effectiveness. Implications for future research and young-person health-app development are discussed.     

Child Sexual Abuse Attributions Among Undergraduate Psychology Students in Singapore

ABSTRACT

Experimental vignettes were used to investigate attributions relating to child sexual abuse with a focus on the degree of blame allocated to the family and to society, factors thought to be particularly relevant in a collectivist society. One hundred and sixty-two undergraduates in Singapore evaluated media reports describing a case of child sexual abuse. A 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects design manipulated victim sex, perpetrator sex, and victim–perpetrator relationship. Participants rated the vignettes on degree of blame and prevention potential and rated the abusiveness of the case. Individualism and collectivism attitudes of the participants were also measured. While the highest blame ratings were attributed to perpetrators, significantly more blame was attributed to the family and to society than to the victim. The demonstration of the present attributions of blame to family and to society is a timely finding given recent recommendations to broaden approaches to child abuse prevention by moving away from a reliance on school based child protection programs, which leave the onus on the child to prevent and report abuse, toward a public health approach, which is particularly inclusive of parent and community education approaches . Allocation of some blame to victims, in spite of their status as children, while not a unique finding in victimology research, emphasizes the challenges still to be faced in encouraging the reporting of child sexual abuse.     

Child Abuse Prevention During Infancy: Intervention Implications for Caregivers' Attitudes Toward Emotion Regulation

Increasing numbers of states are in the process of passing laws requiring all new parents to receive educational materials to prevent shaken baby syndrome (SBS). These laws create powerful opportunities to reach large numbers of families with an important prevention effort. Results from the effort to raise SBS awareness described here indicate that not only is the content of SBS prevention (e.g., consequences of shaking; emotion regulation/coping skills; safety planning) an important consideration; so too is the approach any given prevention program utilizes. By incorporating social work theory on family-centered practice, social workers, home visitors, and other prevention professionals strengthen the likelihood of having a meaningful impact on caregivers' safe strategies for coping with the frustrations of caring for an infant.     

A Review of: “An Insider's View of Sexual Science since Kinsey” edited by Ira L. Reiss

Masters, Johnson and Kolodny a volume which claims that risk understated by public This paper presents a brief analysis of the key data contained in MJK's book using simple mathematical models. The paper shows that the unconditional per partner risk of infection for the sexually active heterosexuals in the MJK study is exceeded by the similar risk for typical gay men in San Francisco by a factor of nearly fifty; that the conditional probability of infection given exposure via vaginal sex is about 2% for men and 3% for women per partner (both of these numbers are lower than the corresponding infec‐tivities for unprotected anal sex among gay men); and that an AIDS epidemic among the general heterosexual population would occur only if the average number of sexual partners per year exceeds about 5.3, an unlikely number given the data in MJK's study.     

Breve comentario sobre el estudio de los conceptos de emoción

Resumen

Las tareas de grupo han sido una temática de amplio interés en décadas pasadas, proponiéndose diferentes modelos que han abordado sus posibles tipos así como sus dimensiones nucleares. En este artículo se propone un modelo de las tareas de grupo (el MITAG o modelo de incertidumbre de las tareas del grupo) que sintetiza e integra las principales dimensiones propuestas por modelos anteriores. Se presenta una escala que permite su evaluación así como una primera validación del modelo en una muestra de 164 personas pertenecientes a 34 grupos de 3 organizaciones. El análisis factorial revela una estructura de cuatro factores (con el 45% de la varianza explicada), con dos factores nucleares que explican el 36,9% de la varianza (claridad de objetivos y de procedimientos y requerimientos múltiples) y otros dos factores menores (elección entre múltiples formas/familiaridad y conflicto de demandas).