The Impact of (In)effective Listening on Interpersonal Interactions

Most reviews of “listening research” are narrow in scope, focusing only on research published by listening and communication scholars. Given that unique contributions to listening have been provided by scholars from disciplines as varied as psychology, anthropology, management, and linguistics, this review explores connections and divergences that span the academic landscape. After briefly introducing and reviewing listening related research from three primary areas—information processing, competent behavior, and individual differences—we offer a heuristic framework that ties these lines of study together and provides a structure for assessing and generating new listening research. A concluding section suggests lines of future investigation.     

Lessons from the American federal-state unemployment insurance system for a European unemployment benefits system

This article reviews practices in the United States (US) federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system regarding applicant eligibility, benefit generosity, benefit financing and emergency measures with the aim of revealing lessons for a possible European unemployment benefit system (EUBS) for European Union (EU) Member States. We overview the US system for UI and examine important areas of federal leadership. While the US system offers some good ideas for setting up an EUBS, there are also lessons in some shortcomings of the US experience. We overview existing national UI systems in the EU and review the debate on an EUBS in the EU. We identify areas of risk for individual and institutional moral hazard in a multi-tiered UI system and give examples of monitoring methods and incentives to ameliorate such risks. We suggest approaches for gradual system development, encouraging lower-tier behaviour, benefit financing, and responses to regional and system-wide labour market crises.     

Australian employment services: Help or hindrance in the achievement of mutual obligation?

The concept of mutual obligation underpins Australian employment services. In return for receiving income support, there are three elements of mutual obligation: to actively seek work; to improve one’s competitiveness in the labour market; and to contribute to the community. Failing to undertake mutual obligation activities results in sanctions, usually unemployment benefit suspension or cancellation. In the year 2017/18, one mutual obligation activity, compulsory employment service provider appointments, accounted for more than 93 per cent of sanctions. The study reported here explores unemployed and recently employed workers’ experiences of appointments and their attitudes to the concept of mutual obligation. The findings are that unemployed workers say appointments have little utility for advancing elements of mutual obligation and are psychologically harmful. Non-attendance may be a form of self-protection although seeking a medical exemption or dropping out of the system altogether also appears to be a common self-protection strategy. We also find that non-attendance at appointments cannot be conflated with a negative attitude to mutual obligation and that unemployed workers want services that are effective and psychologically positive to help them to fulfil their mutual obligations.     

Perspective‐taking and gift‐giving in Chinese preschool children

This study explored Chinese preschool children's perspective‐taking via a gift‐giving paradigm. Unlike findings with North American children (Atance et al. in, Dev Psychol 46:1505–1513, 2010), the results from two experiments (N_{Exp. 1} = 329; N_{Exp. 2} = 112) showed that allowing Chinese children to first choose a desired object for themselves did not enhance their subsequent perspective‐taking performance in gift selection or gift justifications. This was true regardless of gift type (consumable or recreational items) or of recipient (mom, teacher, experimenter, or friend). In addition, children's perspective‐taking did not correlate with their performances in behavioral inhibition and delay of gratification tasks. These results suggest the possibility that the prior desire fulfillment effect varies with children's socio‐cultural experiences. Finally, Chinese children showed better perspective‐taking in choosing consumable gifts (e.g., drinks, snacks) than recreational gifts (e.g., toys, magazines), although this effect was not found for gift selection in Experiment 2. One interpretation of these results is that children's capacity for prosocial perspective‐taking is influenced by socio‐cultural experiences and social knowledge about individuals' preferences for different kinds of objects.     

Design catalogue for eco-engineering of coastal artificial structures: a multifunctional approach for stakeholders and end-users

Urban Ecosystems - Coastal urbanisation, energy extraction, food production, shipping and transportation have led to the global proliferation of artificial structures within the coastal and marine...     

Optimal exact designs of experiments via Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming

Statistics and Computing - Optimal exact designs are problematic to find and study because there is no unified theory for determining them and studying their properties. Each has its own challenges...     

Decision making under uncertainty: Starr's Domain criterion

Theory and Decision - This paper examines a decision making under uncertainty criterion first introduced by Starr, which differs from the classical criteria. The rationale and properties of this...