Deviant Peers and Adolescent Risky Behaviors: The Protective Effect of Nonverbal Display of Parental Warmth

This study examines whether nonverbal displays of parents’ warmth during an in‐lab conflict discussion mitigate the links between affiliation with deviant peers and risky behaviors. A sample of 107 youth and their parents participated in a study spanning from mid‐adolescence (T1) to late adolescence (T2). At T1, family members discussed a contentious issue, which was coded for parents’ nonverbal warmth. At T1 and T2, youth reported on their friends’ and their own risky behaviors. Fathers’ warmth moderated each prospective association between deviant peers and risky behaviors. Mothers’ warmth did not emerge as a significant moderator. Girls, in particular, benefitted from fathers’ warmth as a buffer in the trajectory from T1 risky behaviors to T2 risky behaviors and deviant peers.     

Did the escalation of the financial crisis of 2008 affect the perception of immigration-related threats? A natural experiment

In this paper, we apply a natural experiment approach, comparing specific data from the European Values Study prior to and after the escalation of the financial crisis in 2008. The aim is to disentangle the short-term effect of the crisis on the relationship between social vulnerability and immigrant-related threat perceptions for the residents of Luxembourg (natives and foreign nationals). Propensity score matching is used to ensure the balanced composition of the control group and treated group with regard to the observed covariates. The results reveal that vulnerable foreign nationals demonstrated lower perceptions of immigration-related threats after the escalation of the crisis than their pre-crisis counterparts. No significant effect of the escalation of the crisis was found among Luxembourg nationals.     

Changes in Employment Uncertainty and the Fertility Intention–Realization Link: An Analysis Based on the Swiss Household Panel

How do changes in employment uncertainty matter for fertility? Empirical studies on the impact of employment uncertainty on reproductive decision-making offer a variety of conclusions, ranging from gender and socio-economic differences in the effect of employment uncertainty on fertility intentions and behaviour, to the effect of employment on changes in fertility intentions. This article analyses the association between a change in subjective employment uncertainty and fertility intentions and behaviour by distinguishing male and female partners’ employment uncertainty, and examines the variation in these associations by education. Using a sample of men and women living in a couple from the Swiss Household Panel (SHP 2002–2011), we examine through multinomial analysis how changes in employment uncertainty and selected socio-demographic factors are related to individual childbearing decisions. Our results show strong gendered effects of changes in employment uncertainty on the revision of reproductive decisions among the highly educated population.     

The utility of situational theory of publics for assessing public response to a disaster prediction

The study of public response to disasters is a relatively recent discipline that developed following the passage of the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977. Because earthquake prediction is an inexact science, few formal predictions have been issued, which has limited the opportunity to study public response to predictions. The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of public relations theory, specifically situational theory of publics, for assessing response to the New Madrid earthquake prediction.Situational theory demonstrates that there is not a single, general public for disaster predictions as has been assumed in studies of disaster response. Instead, multiple publics develop in response to a prediction based on how members of those publics view the situation. Contrary to previous findings that believability and personalized risk are correlated constructs, high personalized risk was associated with high constraint recognition regardless of belief in the prediction. Based on the findings, suggestions are proposed for the development of more effective messages for communicating with publics at risk.     

Nadaraya–Watson estimator for I.I.D. paths of diffusion processes

This paper deals with a nonparametric Nadaraya–Watson (NW) estimator of the drift function computed from independent continuous observations of a diffusion process. Risk bounds on the estimator and its discrete-time approximation are established. The paper also deals with extensions of the PCO and leave-one-out cross-validation bandwidth selection methods for our NW estimator. Finally, some numerical experiments are provided.     

Decision-Making and Evidence in Direct Practice

This article presents the results of research designed to explore decision-making by direct practitioners in selected non-profit human service settings. Forty interviews were conducted with workers at front-line, supervisory and higher-management levels. The research questions included; what sources of information are used in decision-making, what variables enhance or impede utilization of evidence-based knowledge in decision-making and what would be important resources for improving availability, access and utilization of evidence-based knowledge in decision-making? Our results indicate that respondents relied most heavily on experience; on their professional values and beliefs, and on an empathic understanding of their clients’ uniqueness. Compared to these sources of information use of research and the professional literature were less enthusiastically endorsed.     

Resistance as a means of creating accountability in child welfare institutions

This paper investigates the identity constructions of youths who are objects of special interventions in the area of child welfare. The aim of the paper was to explore the various dimensions of resistance to institutional identities among youths in special schools and foster‐care institutions. Interviews were conducted with adolescents aged between 12 and 15, identified as having social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The analysis generates knowledge about society's interventions as well as how adolescents respond to offered institutional identities by adopting different kinds of discursive resistance. The paper highlights the different types of discursive resistance that adolescents use to present themselves as accountable individuals and discusses the importance of considering resistance as a positive force rather than as something that must be defeated.