Initial Validation of the Open Adoption Scale: Measuring the Influence of Adoption Myths on Attitudes Toward Open Adoption

All adoptions, including those facilitated by public agencies, should be evaluated for openness. Although there are no national figures related to openness in public welfare, there are indications that it is not considered in all cases. Adoption myths may be one of the reasons that adoption workers do not always assess a family's ability to maintain a more open adoption arrangement. The following study is the initial validation of a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed to measure myths as they relate to open adoption. Based on a sample of 547 university students, the results indicate very good reliability and acceptable factorial and construct validity. The instrument was designed as a training and research tool to inform child welfare personnel and policy makers of the influence of adoption-related myths on child welfare adoption practice.     

The Political Role of Service Delivery in State‐Building: Exploring the Relevance of European History for Developing Countries

Concerns about failed and fragile states have put state‐ and nation‐building firmly on the academic and policy agenda, but the crucial role of public services in this process has remained underexplored. The 1960s and ‘70s generated a substantial set of literature that is largely missing from current writing. It identified state penetration, standardisation and accommodation as key processes in the state‐ and nation‐building sequence. This article analyses these three processes in Western Europe in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, and the role of public services therein, to explore how they may help us to understand the success and failure of state‐ and nation‐building in developing countries and fragile states.     

Mental Rotation of Dynamic,Three‐Dimensional Stimuli by 3‐Month‐Old Infants

Mental rotation involves transforming a mental image of an object so as to accurately predict how the object would look if it were rotated in space. This study examined mental rotation in male and female 3‐month‐olds, using the stimuli and paradigm developed by Moore and Johnson (2008) . Infants were habituated to a video of a three‐dimensional object rotating back and forth through a 240° angle around the vertical axis. After habituation, infants were tested both with videos of the same object rotating through the previously unseen 120° angle, and with the mirror image of that display. Unlike females, who fixated the test displays for approximately equal durations, males spent significantly more time fixating the familiar object than the mirror‐image object. Because familiarity preferences like this emerge when infants are relatively slow to process a habituation stimulus, the data support the interpretation that mental rotation of dynamic three‐dimensional stimuli is relatively difficult—but possible—for 3‐month‐old males. Interpretation of the sex differences observed in 3‐ and 5‐month‐olds’ performances is discussed.     

Permutation tests of scale using deviances

Robust tests for comparing scale parameters, based on deviances—absolute deviations from the median—are examined. Higgins (2004) proposed a permutation test for comparing two treatments based on the ratio of deviances, but the performance of this procedure has not been investigated. A simulation study examines the performance of Higgins’ test relative to other tests of scale utilizing deviances that have been shown in the literature to have good properties. An extension of Higgins’ procedure to three or more treatments is proposed, and a second simulation study compares its performance to other omnibus tests for comparing scale. While no procedure emerged as a preferred choice in every scenario, Higgins’ tests are found to perform well overall with respect to Type I error rate and power.     

Actual Versus Perceived Generational Differences in the Preferred Working Context: An Empirical Study

ABSTRACT

This study extends generational research by delineating actual versus perceived cohort differences through a theoretically grounded model using the Social Identity Approach (SIA). Subjects rated how much they valued 15 workplace characteristics and then provided value ratings for generational cohorts based on their perceptions of said cohorts. This allowed for the determination of actual and perceived cohort differences by characteristics. Results revealed actual cohort value differences across seven characteristics; however, perceived differences exceeded actual ones. Post-hoc, an examination of cohort values by characteristics revealed generational identities and the presence of prototypical distancing between cohort in groups and out groups.     

On the Utility of Robust and Resampling Procedures1

Abstract Kassab (1990) makes an important methodological contribution by urging the use of robust regression methods in the study of community economic impacts and by indicating the utility of the bootstrap in assessing standard errors in robust regression. By introducing the notion of a contaminating distribution, we reconcile differences between her claim that ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is biased when outliers are present and standard linear model theory that does not make assumptions about the shape of the residual distribution in proving OLS an unbiased estimator. The contaminating distribution provides a framework for rural sociologists to link their statistical assumptions to a substantive understanding of the phenomena being studied. We suggest an alternative regression estimation strategy that may be more robust than the technique she uses. We also discuss an approach to bootstrapping that is more appropriate for macro-level social indicator data than the one she describes. An appendix discusses the software available for implementing these methods.     

The Paranoid Style Revisited: Pseudo‐Conservatism in the 21st Century

Fifty years ago, the Pulitzer Prize‐winning historian Richard Hofstadter published the seminal essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” In this and related works he examined the rhetoric animating the extreme right‐wing of the country's electorate. In this article I revisit Hofstadter's claims regarding the marginalization of the paranoid style and its connection to status‐based politics. A review of the most popular “pseudo‐conservative” commentators, survey data, the rise of the Tea Party, and the intransigence of the present day Republican Party suggests that a worldview that was once extreme has now become “mainstreme” within the political culture.     

Research on Assessment of Life Satisfaction of Children and Adolescents

Over the years, various psychologists haveissued calls for greater attention to a scienceof positive psychology, which focuses onstudying conditions that promote optimal humanand societal development. Recent calls (e.g.,McCullough and Snyder, 2000; Seligman andCsikszentmihalyi, 2000) have furthered interestin studies of the nature and determinants ofthe good life. Such a science, along with thecreation of prevention and interventionprograms informed by the expanded scientificframework, is expected to improve the qualityof life for all individuals, not justindividuals who are at risk or who alreadydemonstrate psychopathological conditions. Tocontrast with the previous emphasis onpsychopathology, the development of a positivepsychology requires constructs and measuresthat reflect the full range of humanfunctioning, incorporating indicators of highlevels of wellness as well aspsychopathological functioning. This articlediscusses one such construct, lifesatisfaction, that has been studied extensivelyin adulthood (see Diener et al., 1999), butwhich has only recently gained attention withchildren and adolescents (see Bender, 1997;Huebner, 1997). This article reviews lifesatisfaction assessment research with childrenand adolescents, specifically with regard toconstruct validity. In doing so, the followingareas are addressed: models of lifesatisfaction; convergent validity; discriminantvalidity; relationships with other well-beingmeasures; relationships with external,environmental circumstances; relationships withdemographic variables; cultural factors; groupdifferences on life satisfaction measures;predictive relationships; and stability of lifesatisfaction reports. Conclusions regardingthe validity of the life satisfaction constructare formulated. Recommendations for futureresearch are also discussed.