Willingness to speak out about gay laws reform: some cause for optimism

We examined the extent to which people's private attitudes to gay law reform are influenced by the attitudes of others. Ninety-six university students were told that they were either in a minority or in a majority relative to their university group on their attitudes to gay law reform. Contrary to a number of assumptions made in the social psychological literature, participants who supported gay law reform were more prepared to act in line with their attitudes than were those who opposed gay law reform. Furthermore, anti-gay law reform participants appeared to reassess their attitudes when they were told they were in a minority; in contrast, pro-gay law reform participants were unaffected by the group norm. This suggests that anti-gay law reform attitudes are softer and more easily influenced than are pro-gay law reform attitudes. The implications of these results for activists are discussed.     

A "good death" for whom? Quality of spouse's death and psychological distress among older widowed persons

Ethicists, policy makers, and care providers are increasingly concerned with helping the dying elderly to experience a "good death." A "good death" is characterized by physical comfort, social support, acceptance, and appropriate medical care, and it should minimize psychological distress for the dying and their families. I identify the predictors of death quality and evaluate how the quality of an older adult's death affects the surviving spouse's psychological adjustment six months after the loss. Analyses use Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) data, a prospective study of married persons ages 65 and older. Positive spousal relationships during the final days increase survivors' yearning yet reduce their anger. Having a spouse die a painful death is associated with elevated anxiety, yearning, and intrusive thoughts. The perception of physician negligence is associated with elevated anger. These findings suggest that improved end-of-life care and pain management will benefit both the dying and their bereaved spouses.     

Action e-learning: An exploratory case study of action learning applied online

Abstract

Web-based instruction, also called e-learning, is currently one of the most talked-about education and training media. To prepare courses for online delivery and to maintain their effectiveness, the designer must have an understanding of e-learning instructional design principles. Action learning is a proven, effective management development process that has not been implemented to date as an e-learning instructional methodology. The purpose of this exploratory case study was to examine the impact of the action learning process on the effectiveness of management level web-based instruction (WBI). A leader-led, management-level course using face-to-face delivery was converted to web-based instruction where action learning was the delivery methodology. Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluation served as the evaluation tool to determine effectiveness of the intervention. It was found that, though challenging to facilitate, the action learning online method is effective and yields changes in participants' knowledge. However, contrary to expectations, online learning communities did not form.     

Steuerreformen durch Tarif-oder Zeiteffekte? Eine Analyse am Beispiel der Thesaurierungsbegünstigung für Personenunternehmen

Zusammenfassung  Der Beitrag diskutiert Tarif- und Zinseffekte anhand der begünstigten Besteuerung nicht entnommener Gewinne von Personengesellschaften, die 2008 in Deutschland eingeführt wurde. Bei Eigenfinanzierung und Betrachtung von Grenzsteuers?tzen zeigt der Beitrag, dass die Thesaurierungsbegünstigung stets nachteilig ist, wenn eine abgeltend besteuerte private Kapitalmarktanlage die Alternativanlage darstellt. Müssen Gewinne thesauriert werden, weil Mittel im Unternehmen ben?tigt werden, so entf?llt die private Alternativanlage und die Thesaurierungsbegünstigung kann bei hohen Zins- und Steuers?tzen vorteilhaft sein. Wird die Einkommensteuerprogression berücksichtigt, zeigt der Beitrag, dass bei schwankenden Gewinnen die Thesaurierungsbegünstigung oftmals vorteilhaft ist, auch gegenüber der Abgeltungsteuer. Bei fremdfinanzierten Investitionen kann die Inanspruchnahme der Thesaurierungsbegünstigung sehr vorteilhaft sein, da die geringere Steuerzahlung bei Gewinnanfall den Umfang des ben?tigten Fremdkapitals mindert. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass sich Reformen von Steuertarifen wesentlich st?rker auf die Vorteilhaftigkeit von Investitionen auswirken als Zinseffekte.

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Tax reforms by tax rate effects or timing effects? An analysis based an the German tax privilege for retained earnings

Summary  This paper analyzes two typical effects of tax reforms, tax rate effects and timing effects. The example chosen for the analysis is the tax privilege for retained profits of partnerships and sole proprietorships, which was implemented in Germany in 2008. Taking equity-financing and top marginal tax rates into account, the so-called tax privilege turns out to be a disadvantage under most assumptions. If the alternative investment is private capital income taxed at a flat-rate tax, the tax privilege will always be disadvantageous. If profits have to be retained and business income is the alternative investment, then the tax privilege will be advantageous in case of high income tax rates and interest rates. Analyzing progressive tax rates instead of top marginal tax rates reveals favorable results in case of fluctuating profits if the tax privilege is claimed. The same is true if debtfinancing is taken into account. All in all, the paper shows that a reform of tax rates influences the attractiveness of investments much more compared to timing effects.

     

Nonverbal expectancy violations and conversational involvement

A central feature of nonverbal expectancy violations theory is that unexpected behaviors trigger a cognitive-affective appraisal of such behavior, leading to a valencing of the behavior(s) as positive or negative. It has been proposed that communicator reward mediates the interpretation and evaluation of such violations but may be more important when the violative act is ambiguous in meaning than when it is not. Unclear is whether nonverbal behavioral composites introduce greater or less equivocality of interpretation. Two experiments employing multi-cue conversational involvement violations addressed this issue. In the first, dyads (N=51) engaged in a 10-minute baseline interview, after which participants rated each other on several measures of reward valence. One randomly selected member then served as a confederate interviewee during a second interview and either significantly increased or decreased involvement. In the second experiment, reward was manipulated as physical attractiveness, status, and task expertise. Dyads (N = 60) engaged in prolonged problem-solving discussions during which the confederates either committed an involvement violation or not. In both experiments, the involvement changes were sufficiently unexpected, arousing, and distracting to qualify as violations of expectations. Analysis of message interpretations indicated that (1) relative to normal involvement levels, increased nonverbal involvement was interpreted as most immediate/affectionate, receptive, similar, dominant, and composed, and decreased involvement as least so, and (2) reward mediated only the interpretation of formality. High involvement violations in turn produced greater attraction, credibility, and persuasiveness than low involvement violations for high as well as low-reward communicators, as predicted.where Joe Walther and Jim Baesler are doctoral students. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, New Orleans, May 1988.