Organizational Social Media Accounts: Moving Toward Listening Competency

Researchers apply Bodie, St. Cyr, Pence, Rold, and Honeycutt’s (2012) model of listening competency to social media messaging for organizations. The article provides examples of how organizations and their social media managers, as de facto “listening agents,” can incorporate important verbal listening behaviors that represent active-empathic listening—pertinent responses, elaboration, offering advice and opinions, and answering and asking questions—into their social media profiles. In addition, guidance is provided to social media managers and organizations for how to adopt listening skills that will foster dialogue between organizations and their online publics. Potential areas for future research are also examined.     

Emergent Intraverbal Forms may Occur as a Result of Listener Training for Children with Autism

The purpose of the present study was to assess whether intraverbal behavior, in the form of answers to questions, emerges as a result of listener training for five children diagnosed with autism. Listener responses were targeted and taught using prompting and differential reinforcement. Following successful acquisition of listener responses, the intraverbal form of the response was probed. Data were evaluated via a nonconcurrent multiple-baseline design that included a control series. Results showed listener-to-intraverbal transfer for four of the five participants. One participant required additional teaching that involved tacting the items selected during listener training.

     

Impact of caring for children with medical complexity on parents’ employment and time

Objectives: This study examined parental care of children with medical complexity (CMC) in terms of time spent providing care and impacts on employment and career.

Methods: We recruited caregivers of 153 CMC in a tertiary center complex care program to participate in a cross-sectional mail survey.

Results: Among 95 respondents (62% of eligible), 75% of primary caregivers and 53% of spouses experienced employment losses and one-third experienced negative career outcomes attributed to care for CMC. On weekdays during the day (6 a.m.–6 p.m.), 55% of caregivers provided care for 8 hours or more. On weekday evenings and nights, half of caregivers provided care for at least 6 hours, including 53% of caregivers who provided care from midnight to 6 a.m.; these proportions were higher on weekends. Compared to employed caregivers, non-employed caregivers reported spending more time providing care on weekdays (P?=?.001), but less time providing care on weekend evenings (P?=?.019). On weekend days and weekday evenings/nights, employment was not associated with duration of care.

Conclusions: Caring for CMC frequently impacts employment and careers of caregivers and spouses. Employed and non-employed caregivers invest substantial time in care. Research on CMC should include indirect costs of family care in terms of employment, income, and time.     

Determinants of species richness within and across taxonomic groups in urban green spaces

Urban green spaces provide habitat for numerous plant and animal species. However, currently we have little knowledge on which determinants drive the species richness within and across taxonomic groups. In this paper we investigate the determinants of total, native, and endangered species richness for vascular plants, birds, and mammals within and across taxonomic groups. We examined a stratified random sample of 32 urban green spaces in Hannover, Germany. Species inventories for plants and birds were generated on the basis of line transect surveys. Mammals were surveyed by means of point counts using camera traps. Using a principal component analysis and multiple regression models, we tested 10 explanatory variables for species-area effects, distance effects, and the effects of habitat structure of green spaces on species richness. When analyzing single explanatory variables, we determined that the species richness of all groups was significantly positively correlated to patch area, number of habitat types, and a short distance to the nearest green space. Testing combined effects of variables showed that patch area in combination with habitat heterogeneity was most important for plants (total, native, and endangered), birds (total and native), and overall species richness. This emphasizes the importance of the species-area effect and the effects of habitat structure on species richness in urban green spaces. We conclude that, in the context of urban planning, it is important to conserve large green spaces that include a high diversity of habitats to maintain high species richness.     

Disasters and subjective assessments of recovery in the long run

Population and Environment - Researchers and policymakers often claim that harsh climate conditions intensify the risk of armed conflict by acting as a “threat multiplier.” Yet, new...     

Missouri Casino Self-Excluders: Distributions Across Time and Space

According to public health research, exposure to casinos is a risk factor for disordered gambling. Consequently, casino self-exclusion programs, which provide gamblers with the opportunity to voluntarily seek limits on their access to gambling venues, can serve as a barometer of the concentration of disordered gambling in an area. This study reports on the distribution, both temporally and geographically, of 6,599 people who applied to exclude themselves from Missouri casinos between November, 1996 and February, 2004. Analyses used Microsoft MapPoint to plot the location of casinos and self-excluders (SEs) across Missouri and its constituent counties. These regional exposure analyses showed that the Western region around Kansas City is an epicenter of disordered gambling as, to a lesser extent, is the Eastern region around St. Louis. The annual number of SE enrollments increased during the first few years of the Missouri self-exclusion program and then leveled off during the later years. These findings have important implications for public health and the development of public health interventions for disordered gamblers.     

Correlates of women's sexual assault disclosure to informal and formal support sources

Deciding which people to tell about sexual assault is an important and potentially consequential decision for sexual assault survivors. Women typically receive many different positive and negative reactions when they disclose sexual assault to social support sources. A diverse sample of adult sexual assault survivors in the Chicago area was surveyed about sexual assault experiences, social reactions received when disclosing assault to others, attributions of blame, coping strategies, and PTSD. Analyses were run to identify demographic, assault, and postassault factors differentiating women disclosing to informal support sources only from those disclosing to both informal and formal support sources. Women disclosing to both formal and informal support sources experienced more stereotypical assaults, had more PTSD symptoms, engaged in less behavioral self-blame, and received more negative social reactions than those disclosing to informal support sources only. Implications for future research and intervention are discussed.     

Seeking Construct Validity in Interpersonal Trust Research: A Proposal on Linking Theory and Survey Measures

This paper highlights the under-emphasised connection between theoretical conceptualisations and empirical operationalisations in the field of trust research. The paper proposes a matching of specific surveys measures with conceptualisations in order to work towards a more theoretically-informed empirical study of interpersonal trust. The work examines five widely-used survey measures of trust, and considers whether they are likely to operationalise conceptualisations of trust that are broadly more ‘strategic’ or more ‘moralistic’ in nature. It is argued that these trust questions, which are frequently used interchangeably, are likely to differ substantially from each other in terms of their conceptual underpinnings. This expectation is tested by examining the association between interpersonal trust and gender across seven UK social surveys. Findings indicate that the trust questions indeed have different associations with gender, providing support for the idea that some questions map more closely onto ‘strategic’ conceptualisations of trust, whilst others map more closely onto ‘moralistic’ conceptualisations. Implications of these findings are explored in the context of the search for construct validity in trust research.     

Tracing the Life of a Crime Category

This article traces the shifting meaning of “date rape” in US newspapers across a fourteen-year period. A crime category created by a niche feminist press, “date rape” originally referred to a form of intimate-partner violence, and has, more latterly, come to refer predominantly to an assault that occurs after a victim has had a drug, such as Rohypnol, surreptitiously slipped into her drink. Employing quantitative content analysis to explicate this shift, the article considers possible explanations for the changing meaning of “date rape,” including the applicability of the risk thesis and criminological theory on the de-politicisation of crime. Finally, I suggest that a feminist perspective allows us to recognise that “date rape” has been transformed from an issue of female disempowerment into a nebulous threat of limited ideological significance.