Ageism and Ageist Language Across the Life Span: Intimate Relationships and Non-intimate Interactions

The possible effects of ageist language and ageism on the structure and function of intimate and non-intimate relationships have received significant attention from social scientists. Recent research grounded in communication accommodation theory ( Giles, Mulac, Bradac, & Johnson, 1987 ), the communication predicament model of ageing ( Ryan, Giles, Bartolucci, & Henwood, 1986 ), the communication enhancement model of ageing ( Ryan, Meredith, MacLean, & Orange, 1995 ), and ageing and stereotype research by Hummert (1994) and colleagues ( Hummert & Mazloff, 2001 ; Hummert, Shaner, & Garstka, 1995 ) point toward the numerous consequences of both negative and positive attitudes toward ageing. Focusing specifically on health care settings, this article reviews recent theoretical positions and empirical findings that link ageist language and ageism to these positive and negative social consequences, and offers pragmatic suggestions and directions for future research .     

Essay: An Insight into Current German Research on Listening,as Exemplified by the Educational Project “GanzOhrSein”

The article gives us an exemplary insight into research in Germany that deals directly or indirectly with aspects of listening. The reader is given a clear picture of the Munich university project GanzOhrSein aimed at promoting listening skills in schools. The educational value of listening is initially derived from research findings and the model course of action to promote listening skills is explained via the cultural potential. The findings of the accompanying research clearly show that the diverse ways of promoting listening ability that have been developed and tested, do broaden the hearing and listening habits of the children and teachers participating in the project, and do facilitate listening conditions in lessons. The article will also demonstrate what researchers and everyday school practice can gain from this project, and how the institutionalisation of the promotion of listening can benefit.     

Synthesizing ENABLE-AGE Research Findings to Suggest Evidence-Based Home and Health Interventions

ABSTRACT

As the quest for knowledge translation from research to practice and policy contexts is growing stronger, researchers need to develop strategies for synthesizing research findings. Since home environments constitute an important context for the delivery of health care and social services to older adults and people aging with disabilities, research in this field can serve as an example for such endeavors. Using 35 original publications and one unpublished doctoral dissertation based on the European ENABLE-AGE Project, we aimed to demonstrate a systematic approach to synthesize research findings generated by large research projects as the basis for evidence-based interventions. The synthesized findings highlighted the complex interactions between objective and perceived aspects of housing and aspects of health in very old age, impacting on, for example, residential decision making. Independence in daily activity is influenced by the sociocultural care and service context. A familiar and safe neighborhood, a social network, and a good supply of services are important to perceptions of participation. Going further, we suggest housing-related interventions that address problems and challenges related to ongoing demographic changes. This article contributes to the development of strategies for knowledge translation, connecting research and practice and policy contexts struggling to meet the societal challenges that accompany population aging.     

Gentrifizierung in Wien, Chicago und Mexiko Stadt

The lack of comparative gentrification research is regularly addressed by the scientific community. Despite the vast amount of isolated case-studies from different urban contexts, there are only few comparisons of gentrified neighborhoods on a global level. It is hypothesized that to a large extent the lack of international comparisons is based on the limits of quantitative secondary data. Therefore, a qualitative research project was designed to develop an analytical scheme of categories. An actor-analysis was conducted in three neighborhoods in Vienna, Chicago and Mexico City. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed in a qualitative content analysis and then linked to the theoretical gentrification-framework. The result, an analytical scheme of 14 categories, provides a new approach to face the significant lack of international comparisons.     

Direct and Indirect Effects Based on Difference-in-Differences With an Application to Political Preferences Following the Vietnam Draft Lottery

Abstract

We propose a difference-in-differences approach for disentangling a total treatment effect within specific subpopulations into a direct effect and an indirect effect operating through a binary mediating variable. Random treatment assignment along with specific common trend and effect homogeneity assumptions identify the direct effects on the always and never takers, whose mediator is not affected by the treatment, as well as the direct and indirect effects on the compliers, whose mediator reacts to the treatment. In our empirical application, we analyze the impact of the Vietnam draft lottery on political preferences. The results suggest that a high draft risk due to the draft lottery outcome leads to an increase in mild preferences for the Republican Party, but has no effect on strong preferences for either party or on specific political attitudes. The increase in Republican support is mostly driven by the direct effect not operating through the mediator that is military service.     

A program to support the construction and evaluation of resilience indicators

The main objective of this work is to propose a method and a tool to support the development of indicators able to inform an organization about the state of its resilience through a cyclical process of identifying its resilience factors, proposing resilience indicators, assessing its organizational resilience followed by assessing and improving the resilience indicators. The research uses concepts from complex adaptive systems and from resilience engineering to establish an initial set of indicators able to assess elements that contribute to organizational resilience, and structures them temporarily as a hierarchy. A software application to support indicator definition and structuring, questionnaire generation, and result assessment activities was built to assist in speeding up the experiment-adjust cycle. Prototype indicators were instantiated with helicopter operating companies in mind, and were reviewed by a domain expert.     

Resourcing Social Enterprises: The Role of Socially Oriented Bootstrapping

Resource constraints are a challenge for social enterprises, prompting interest in innovative approaches to address these deficiencies. In this study, we contribute to the literature on resourcing practices in small, early stage, social enterprises by examining the role of socially oriented bootstrapping for resource access. We use data from eight UK social enterprises to reveal organizational practices – building credibility, leveraging persuasion and creating resource communities – that shape a diverse set of bootstrapping mechanisms to facilitate exchange relationships and to enable resource acquisition and mobilization. We argue that the unique position of social enterprises allows them to benefit from socially orientated bootstrapping and they display a complex approach that is shaped by a creative interplay of practices to support value creation through resource exchange.     

Cardiovascular Reactivity and Behavioral Health

The purpose of this article is to show that cardiovascular reactivity is an important topic within the field of behavioral health. It has been demonstrated that the cardiovascular system responds differentially to stressors that encourage effortful active coping as opposed to passive coping. However, it is also well established that individuals exposed to the same stressor exhibit marked variability in their cardiovascular responses. Evidence from studies of temporal stability of individual differences to laboratory stressors support the view that cardiovascular reactivity may be considered as a psychophysiological trait. The identification of stable individual-specific patterns of exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity during psychologically challenging tasks appears to be important for understanding the development of essential hypertension. Recurrent episodes of stress-induced sympathetic activation associated with non-adaptive hemodynamic responses (non-adaptive with respect to the immediate metabolic demands), give rise to autoregulatory and structural changes in the resistive vessels. Thus, cardiovascular reactivity may be an important aspect of assessing cardiovascular disease risk. Possible application of reactivity testing in a risk-ascertainment process was discussed.     

Ignorance Is Not Probability

The distinction between ignorance about a parameter and knowing only a probability distribution for that parameter is of fundamental importance in risk assessment. Brief dialogs between a hypothetical decisionmaker and a risk assessor illustrate this point, showing that the distinction has real consequences. These dialogs are followed by a short exposition that places risk analysis in a decision‐theoretic framework, describes the important elements of that framework, and uses these to shed light on Terje Aven's criticism of nonprobabilistic purely “objective” methods. Suggestions are offered concerning a more effective approach to evaluating those methods.