Hanging Out With the Right Crowd: Peer Influence on Risk‐Taking Behavior in Adolescence

Peer influence plays a key role in the increase of risk‐taking behavior during adolescence. However, its underlying processes are not fully understood. This study examined the effects of social norms, conveyed through peer advice, on risk‐taking behavior in 15‐ to 17‐year‐old adolescents (N = 76). Participants played a card‐guessing task alone and with online peer advice. Results showed that risk‐taking increased in the presence of peers. The results further showed that adolescents took into account the uncertainty associated with gambles, as well as the social norms conveyed by peers. Our findings suggest that peers are most influential in uncertain situations and demonstrate the value of a social norms approach in examining the processes underlying peer effects.     

Social work research as a practice of transparency

Social work research is inherently normative and as such the assumptions about social problems in social work research should be open to scrutiny and contestation. But although researchers often face tussles and huge contradictions, they rarely articulate them. In this article, we report on a small research project in which a collective of social work researchers in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) tried to think critically through some of the questions and complexities they were confronted with in social work research, more specifically in research on poverty. Our research aim implied that we tried to discuss the choices that were made during a diversity of research projects, including making explicit the grounds on which this happened. We learned that the choices made, although they seem to be very obvious ones, often remained implicit during the different research processes. We conclude that social work research requires that researchers attempt to realize a practice of transparency. The pursuit of such a practice of transparency refers to the importance of the creation of reflexive space in research communities to collectively embrace and discuss the complexities of social work research.     

Perceived Autonomy Support From Parents and Best Friends: Longitudinal Associations with Adolescents' Depressive Symptoms

According to the self‐determination theory, experiencing autonomy support in close relationships is thought to promote adolescents' well‐being. Perceptions of autonomy support from parents and from best friends have been associated with lower levels of adolescents' depressive symptoms. This longitudinal study examines the relative contribution of perceived autonomy support from parents and best friends in relation to adolescents' depressive symptoms and changes in these associations from early to late adolescence. Age and gender differences were also investigated. Questionnaires about mother, father, and a best friend were filled out by 923 early adolescents and 390 middle adolescents during five consecutive years, thereby covering an age range from 12 to 20. Multi‐group cross‐lagged path analysis revealed concurrent and longitudinal negative associations between perceived parental autonomy support and adolescents' depressive symptoms. No concurrent and longitudinal associations were found between perceived best friends' autonomy support and adolescents' depressive symptoms. Results were similar for early and middle adolescent boys and girls. Prevention and treatment programs should focus on the bidirectional interplay during adolescence between perceptions of parental autonomy support and adolescents' depressive symptoms.     

Profiling Donors of Blood,Money, and Time

Understanding donor profiles is crucial for donor relationship management. Whereas previous research has focused on profiling blood, money, or time donor segments separately, we define seven donor profiles based on their former donation behavior for blood, money, and time donation and compare them to non‐donors. Relying on representative data from the German Socio Economic Panel, we use an extensive set of characteristics that include sociodemographic, psychographic, health‐related, and geographical measures and simultaneously investigate profiles of donors for single and multiple donation forms and non‐donors by means of a multinomial logistic model. Our results reveal valuable insights for donor acquisition and retention strategies of nonprofit organizations along the identified profiling characteristics of donor segments. By this, our findings help nonprofit organization managers to better target single and multiple donors across three donation forms.     

Exploring Risk Judgments in a Trade Dispute Using Bayesian Networks

Bayesian networks (BNs) are graphical modeling tools that are generally recommended for exploring what‐if scenarios, visualizing systems and problems, and for communication between stakeholders during decision making. In this article, we investigate their potential for exploring different perspectives in trade disputes. To do so, we draw on a specific case study that was arbitrated by the World Trade Organization (WTO): the Australia‐New Zealand apples dispute. The dispute centered on disagreement about judgments contained within Australia's 2006 import risk analysis (IRA). We built a range of BNs of increasing complexity that modeled various approaches to undertaking IRAs, from the basic qualitative and semi‐quantitative risk analyses routinely performed in government agencies, to the more complex quantitative simulation undertaken by Australia in the apples dispute. We found the BNs useful for exploring disagreements under uncertainty because they are probabilistic and transparently represent steps in the analysis. Different scenarios and evidence can easily be entered. Specifically, we explore the sensitivity of the risk output to different judgments (particularly volume of trade). Thus, we explore how BNs could usefully aid WTO dispute settlement. We conclude that BNs are preferable to basic qualitative and semi‐quantitative risk analyses because they offer an accessible interface and are mathematically sound. However, most current BN modeling tools are limited compared with complex simulations, as was used in the 2006 apples IRA. Although complex simulations may be more accurate, they are a black box for stakeholders. BNs have the potential to be a transparent aid to complex decision making, but they are currently computationally limited. Recent technological software developments are promising.     

Sex,greed, and nonprofit mismanagement: A review essay

The United Way: Dilemmas of Organized Charity, by Eleanor L. Brilliant, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. 382 pp. $47.00. The United Way Scandal: An Insider's Account of What Went Wrong and Why, by John Glaser. New York: Wiley, 1994, 274 pp., $34.95. Free Ride: The Tax-Exempt Economy, by Gilbert Gaul and Neill M. Borowski. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1993. 197 pp., $6.95 (paper).     

ARIMA modelling of birth data

In this article the fitting of ARIMA models to time series relating to the births at Edendale Hospital in Natal, South Africa, over a 16-year period is discussed. The model (011)X(011)12 provides andexcellent fit to the monthly totals of mothers delivered but serious discrepancies between estimates of the moving average parameters obtained by the method of unconditional least squares using various statistical computer packages were observed. These can be ascribed to the fact that certain of the packages use the method of backcasting to calculate the unconditional sum-of-squares function in the estimation procedure and this approach breaks down for values of the moving average parameters close to the invertibility boundary. A simulation study to compare the different methods of estimation for the model (011) X (011)12 and to assess the seriousness of discrepancies in the ULS estimates is described. ARIMA models which provided the best fit to the series of monthly totals of caesarean sections performed, breechs births and instrumental deliveries are non-seasonal and reflect a dependence of present on past observations. In contrast the series involving stillbirths and neonatal deaths are white noise indicating that perinatal deaths are random events.     

Managerial Strategies and the Worker: a Marxist Analysis of Bureaucracy*

Systematic study of the sociology of organizations is almost absent in both the classical and modern Marxist traditions. Although some recent studies in the Marxist tradition show considerable promise, the field has been dominated by the Weberian perspective. The development of new theory should be informed by the Marxian concepts of (a) labor theory of value, (b) the forces and relations of production, (c) historical development of capitalism, and (d) class structure and class struggle. Bourgeois organizational theory has some serious deficiencies, but there is much of value that can be subsumed under the broader rubric of Marxist political economy. The potential for a Marxist theory of bureaucracy is explored in an examination of managerial strategies to minimize external uncertainties in a monopoly capitalist system, and internal uncertainties arising from the work force. Strategies for controlling the work force include the division of labor, organizational hierarchy, rules and procedures, the uses of secrecy and hoarding of knowledge, and the maintenance of ethnic and sexual divisions in the work force. Further research is needed on (a) differentiating capital accumulation and social control strategies, (b) comparisons between workers in the state and corporate sectors, (c) comparisons between work organization under full range of socialist economies and those in capitalist economies in both manufacturing and government and (d) alternatives for the future.     

Husbands’ and wives’ characteristics and fertility decisions: A diagonal mobility model

In this article a diagonal mobility model is used to describe the relative effects of husbands' and wives' characteristics on fertility. Compared with the characteristics of their wives, the characteristics of non-Hispanic husbands are nearly insignificant in their effect on fertility. The relative importance of husbands' attributes is much greater among Mexican-American couples. Although this suggests ethnic stereotypes about male dominance in Mexican-American families, differences in female educational attainment may offer a better explanation. The most immediate conclusion from this analysis pertains to the use of wives' characteristics as a proxy for couple data. This strategy is reasonable if female educational levels generally extend into high school. Relying on wives' characteristics to study marital fertility, however, may be problematic if the analysis involves respondents with a wide range of educational levels.