Maximizing both external and internal validity in longitudinal true experiments with voluntary treatments: The “combined modified” design

Human services interventions are most rigorously evaluated with true experimental designs in longitudinal experimental field trials (LEFTs). However, differential self-selection or attrition often pose a serious threat to the LEFTs internal validity. This threat can be largely overcome by describing all conditions in advance to prospective subjects and securing their agreement to participate in and complete whichever condition is selected at random by a Lottery. This solution, however, in turn then poses the external validity problem that the program's effects on those who would participate in a Lottery may well be different than its effects on those who would participate in any single condition. In the present paper, we describe a new design, termed the Combined Modified Design, which assesses and overcomes this problem. This new design, in which a modified version of the Randomized Invitation Design (in which only one condition, assigned at random, is described to a potential subject, but outcome measures are obtained on everyone) is combined with the Lottery LEFT, is illustrated with a hypothetical example.     

Fairness and reputation effects in a provision point contributions process

This article reports on an investigation of how issues of fairness and reputation affect individual contributions in a group decision-making setting. In the context of a threshold public goods provision experiment, treatments were performed to determine how individuals react to limited and unlimited information about the contributions of other group members. Experimental results show that revealing anonymous information about individual contribution behavior caused a concern about equity, which led to decreased average contributions and a higher variance in contributions. These effects were partially offset when individual-specific contribution information was displayed. In their conclusion, the authors discuss how the results apply to different fundraising environments.     

Media and Professional Interest in Homelessness over 30 Years (1974–2003)

Media and professional interest in homelessness represent important sources of data that may be useful in understanding broader societal factors influencing this pressing social issue. The present study examined the volume and content of coverage of homelessness in four major newspapers and the professional literature indexed in PsycINFO over the past 30 years. Media coverage showed a steep increase during the mid-1980s, a steady decline throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, and a plateau since the mid-1990s. Professional coverage demonstrated a less pronounced and delayed pattern of growth, with no sign of decline during the past decade. Content analysis of 574 newspaper articles revealed a sympathetic focus on deinstitutionalization and other structural causes of homelessness during the period of increasing coverage in the mid-1980s, as well as positive media coverage in terms of an emphasis on critical programs and services during more recent years. Content analysis of 324 professional journal articles showed that deficits and deviant characteristics of homeless people were discussed to a significantly greater extent than the structural causes of homelessness over the entire 30-year time period. Possible interactions among media coverage, professional interest, public opinion, the prevalence of homelessness, and policy initiatives are discussed.     

Guidelines for Conducting a Victim-Sensitive Interview

Victim sensitive interviews allow the adult investigator to gather vital facts from a child. Within these interviews, the investigator is provided with an opportunity to elicit responses from the child regarding allegations that have taken place. These allegations often have many origins and may involve sexual impropriety, abuse, taunting, and torture of a physical nature, verbal nature, or both. The purpose of this article is to provide standardized guidelines that can assist individuals from various occupational fields in conducting victim sensitive interviews. The standardized guidelines provided offer an assemblage of general principles that have consistently appeared within literature as well as in manuals provided by various jurisdictions. These guidelines refer to a practice of conduct that is recommended; however, variance with implementation is allowed. It is assumed that the reader brings a level of clinical experience to the material provided in this article.     

A Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations

Positioning within public relations is a concept not often addressed in public relations literature. This article reports on the progress of a project that aims to develop a way in which positioning could be usefully conceptualized within public relations. It suggests a conceptual framework that takes positioning beyond the marketing definitions that have limited use in the broader public relations field. The article reports on the development of a provisional conceptual framework for intentional positioning within a public relations context. Drawing from recent developments in positioning theory in the field of psychology, a framework was developed and applied to 57 award winning public relations campaign entries. Findings reveal that the positioning framework has the potential to be applied both as an heuristic to aid analysis of practice and also as a framework to aid practitioners in designing positioning strategies. Possibilities for further research are discussed.     

Weather‐related Employment Subsidies as a Remedy for Seasonal Unemployment? Evidence from Germany

Many European countries try to reduce seasonal unemployment by subsidizing short‐time employment during the winter period. Despite such costly efforts, pronounced seasonal unemployment patterns continue to exist. This puts doubts on the effectiveness of such policy interventions. This paper provides a first empirical assessment of the effectiveness of different subsidy schemes by exploiting the institutional variation in a German subsidy scheme that applies to the construction sector and the variation in local weather and business cycle conditions across 20 years. The findings confirm that generous short‐time subsidies reduce individual lay‐off probabilities in the case of poor weather conditions. However, the link between weather conditions and seasonal lay‐offs is much less strong than expected, making planned capacity reductions the main suspect for causing seasonality in unemployment patterns.