Rebound effects in persuasion: considering potential ironic effects of suppression and correction / Efectos rebote en la persuasión: una consideración de los posibles efectos irónicos de la supresión y la corrección

Abstract

Previous theory and research in persuasion has failed to examine possible ironic effects of attempting to suppress or to correct for influences of a potentially biasing source. Yet, because people often encounter sets of persuasive communications in order (e.g., in advertising), such rebound effects seem possible. Data on such possibilities are scarce, however. Here we present a relevant study. It followed the typical single-shot persuasive message with a second message on an unrelated topic but employed a similar type of (potentially biasing — attractive or unattractive) source. Attitudes following the second communication showed increased source impact for participants asked to suppress source-related thoughts during the first message (especially when the second message was encountered under load). Instructions to correct for potential source effects during the first message did not show ironic effects following the second message. This relatively small study is not enough to make definitive claims, but it suggests that rebound effects of thought suppression are possible in (repeated) persuasion settings. Future research and open questions regarding ironic effects are discussed.     

A sequence of improved standard errors under heteroskedasticity of unknown form

The linear regression model is commonly used by practitioners to model the relationship between the variable of interest and a set of explanatory variables. The assumption that all error variances are the same (homoskedasticity) is oftentimes violated. Consistent regression standard errors can be computed using the heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator proposed by White (1980). Such standard errors, however, typically display nonnegligible systematic errors in finite samples, especially under leveraged data. Cribari-Neto et al. (2000) improved upon the White estimator by defining a sequence of bias-adjusted estimators with increasing accuracy. In this paper, we improve upon their main result by defining an alternative sequence of adjusted estimators whose biases vanish at a much faster rate. Hypothesis testing inference is also addressed. An empirical illustration is presented.     

Reversing Nuclear Opposition: Evolving Public Acceptance of a Permanent Nuclear Waste Disposal Facility

Nuclear facilities have long been seen as the top of the list of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs), with nuclear waste repositories generating the greatest opposition. Focusing on the case of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico, we test competing hypotheses concerning the sources of opposition and support for siting the facility, including demographics, proximity, political ideology, and partisanship, and the unfolding policy process over time. This study tracks the changes of risk perception and acceptance of WIPP over a decade, using measures taken from 35 statewide surveys of New Mexico citizens spanning an 11‐year period from fall 1990 to summer 2001. This time span includes periods before and after WIPP became operational. We find that acceptance of WIPP is greater among those whose residences are closest to the WIPP facility. Surprisingly, and contrary to expectations drawn from the broader literature, acceptance is also greater among those who live closest to the nuclear waste transportation route. We also find that ideology, partisanship, government approval, and broader environmental concerns influence support for WIPP acceptance. Finally, the sequence of procedural steps taken toward formal approval of WIPP by government agencies proved to be important to gaining public acceptance, the most significant being the opening of the WIPP facility itself.     

Measuring the Cultural Dimension of Migrant Integration and Integration Policy in the European Context: Dilemmas and Discussions1

Migrant integration is usually studied in four dimensions: economic, political, social and cultural. The cultural sphere seems to be the most ambiguous, but also the one that induces various interpretations as it touches upon core norms and values held both by migrants and by the receiving society. This paper aims to reconstruct research approaches to cultural integration and integration policy. Beside the receiving country’s language, that is the obvious differentiating factor of cultural integration, other aspects have been defined: migrants’ religion, knowledge of the receiving country’s symbolic culture, maintenance and transmission of cultural patterns, cultural identity. Furthermore, indicators which appear to adequately measure the effectiveness of integration activities have been assigned to the predefined aspects of cultural integration. They have been confronted with indicators used within integration policies of selected EU states and with expert statements (collected within the Delphi method‐based survey) on given aspects of policies aimed at cultural integration.     

Articles reporting research on Latin American social movements are only rarely transparent

ABSTRACT

Social movement scholars often want their research to make a difference beyond the academy. Readers will either read reports directly or they will read reviews that aggregate findings across a number of reports. In either case, readers must find reports to be credible before they will take their findings seriously. While it is not possible to predict the indicators of credibility used by individual, direct readers, formal systems of review do explicate indicators that determine whether a report will be recognized as credible for review. One such indicator, also relevant to pre-publication peer review, is methodological transparency: the extent to which readers are able to detect how research was done and why that made sense. This paper tests published primary research articles on and for social movements in Latin America for compliance with a generous interpretation of methodological transparency. We find that, for the most part, articles are not methodologically transparent. If transparency matters to social movement scholars, the research community may wish to formalize discussions of what aspects of research should be reported and how those reports should be structured.     

Alternative estimator for the parameters of a mixture of two binomial distributions

The method of moments has been widely used as a simple alternative to the maximum likelihood method, mainly because of its efficiency and simplicity in obtaining parameter estimators of a mixture of two binomial distributions. In this paper, an alternative estimate is proposed which is as competitive as of the method of moments when comparing the mean squared error and computational effort.     

Life Satisfaction in Brazil: Testing the Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) in Five Brazilian Samples

The aim of this paper was to validate the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), presenting evidence of its reliability and construct and criterion-related validity. A large Brazilian sample (2,180 participants), from five different populations (undergraduate and high school students, general population, elementary school teachers, and physicians), was considered. The results confirmed the single factorial structure and reliability (0.77 < Cronbach’s α < 0.88, mean α = 0.81) of the SWLS. Supporting its criterion-related validity, the SWLS correlated positively with positive affect and negatively with both negative affect and psychological distress across all five samples. The findings indicate that the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the SWLS is a valid instrument to use with diverse Brazilian samples.