Status claims, performance expectations, and inequality in groups

We state and test two new theoretical assumptions regarding effects of explicit status claims upon others' performance expectations and the consequent group hierarchy: (1) that any such claim is aggregated with other status information, and (2) that the weight of the effect of a claim is a direct function of the status position of the person expressing it. Added to the core assumptions of theories of status generalization, the new assumptions account for phenomena also called “second-order expectations” and “status cues.” Results from a six-condition experimental test support the ideas, and permit comparing our assumptions with two variant mechanisms. We consider some uses of the extended theory, including interventions to control status effects within groups and legitimating and de-legitimating group hierarchies.     

An instance of spurious equivalence relations

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Four normal children learned conditional discriminations that had upper-case or lower-case Greek letters as comparison stimuli, and dictated letter names as...     

MINIMUM AUSTRALIAN CHILD CARE STANDARDS: A COMPARISON WITH INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARKS

In 1994 the State, Territory and Federal governments agreed upon a set of minimum regulatory standards for long day centre-based child care. This article compares those standards with two international benchmarks for minimum standards in child care. The Australian standards are barely adequate at best when assessed against those benchmarks. It is an open question how much improvement the new child care accreditation system can achieve without improvements in the underlying regulatory requirements.     

An application of a multi‐stage strategy involving confidence intervals to evaluate whether a response rate is favourable or not

In early clinical development of new medicines, a single‐arm study with a limited number of patients is often used to provide a preliminary assessment of a response rate. A multi‐stage design may be indicated, especially when the first stage should only include very few patients so as to enable rapid identification of an ineffective drug. We used decision rules based on several types of nominal confidence intervals to evaluate a three‐stage design for a study that includes at most 30 patients. For each decision rule, we used exact binomial calculations to determine the probability of continuing to further stages as well as to evaluate Type I and Type II error rates. Examples are provided to illustrate the methods for evaluating alternative decision rules and to provide guidance on how to extend the methods to situations with modifications to the number of stages or number of patients per stage in the study design. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Newborn Behavior and Risk of Postnatal Depression in the Mother

The aim of this study was to assess which behavioral characteristics of the newborn infant are associated with an increased risk of postnatal depression (PND) in the mother. A total of 497 mothers from a prospective cohort study were recruited during the last trimester of pregnancy. Infants were evaluated at 3 days with the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Scale. Maternal PND was assessed at 6 weeks postpartum with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Behavioral characteristics of the infant predicted the occurrence of PND, independent of other risk factors for PND: The lower the infants' orientation performance, the higher the risk that the mother would present with PND 6 weeks after delivery. As orientation capacities play a key role in the interactional skills developed between mothers and their infants, an infant who is difficult to engage in interaction may contribute to the risk of PND.     

Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Options in Canada

This article examines the role of public opinion in Canada'sattempt to lessen its dependence on the United States and seekcloser ties with European and Asian countries. Employing nationalsurvey data collected over a three-year period, the authorsargue that widespread public support for new directions in foreignpolicy has not developed in Canada in spite of the climate ofincreasing nationalism and the shift in government policy. Attitudestoward the problem of foreign investment, domestic economicissues, trade agreements, and Canadian participation in internationalpeacekeeping forces are also reported.     

Increasing the degrees of freedom in existing group randomized trials: the df* approach

This study describes a method for incorporating external estimates of intraclass correlation to improve the precision for the analysis of an existing group-randomized trial. The authors use a random-effects meta-analytic approach to pool the information across studies, which takes into account any interstudy heterogeneity that may exist. This approach can be used in several different situations to estimate the degrees of freedom available for an adjusted test of the intervention effect in a study where the challenges of group-randomized trials were not fully considered when the study was planned. The authors discuss the limitations of this approach and the circumstances in which it is likely to be helpful.     

The relationship between perceived youth exposure to anti-smoking advertisements: how perceptions differ by race

Data on self-reported perceived exposure to anti-smoking messages were collected from 1,608 high school students surveyed through the ASPIRE (A Smoking Prevention Interactive Experience) Program in Houston, Texas. Data collection took place between October 2002 and March 2003. Logistic regression identified that African Americans perceived significantly less exposure to anti-smoking advertisements via television (OR = .50, p < 0.05) and posters (OR = .61, p < 0.05) than whites. However, they had nearly twice as much perceived exposure to anti-smoking advertisements at movies (OR = 1.79, p < or = 0.05) and sporting events (OR = 2.1, p < or = 0.05) than their white counterparts. Hispanic youth perceived significantly less exposure to anti-smoking posters (OR = .51, p < or = 0.05) and significantly higher exposure to anti-smoking messages at sporting events (OR = 1.92, p < or = 0.05) and school programs (OR = 3.44, p < or = 0.05) compared to white youth. While the relationships tested in this study are exploratory, they provide initial evidence for an important nexus between race and communication channels that may impact perceived exposure to tobacco advertising.     

Simpson's paradox and the Bayes factor

A counter-example presented by Lindley to Aitkin's posterior Bayes factor is examined. The paradoxical feature of the counter-example is found to be a simple case of Simpson's paradox.     

Plan Evaluation: Challenges and Directions for Future Research

Plan evaluation is a well-established part of the planning canon. While this subject has received considerable attention from planning scholars in recent years, plan evaluation methods are not commonly used in practice. This paper examines the factors that contribute to the underuse of plan outcome evaluation in local government planning practice. The concept of evaluation is explained, and the relationship that exists between program evaluation and plan evaluation is explored.