Evaluation of Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Parenting in the Italian Context: Adaptation of a French Questionnaire

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Italian version of a French scale to detect attitudes toward same-sex parenting. The Italian sample was split into two subsamples. On one, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to detect the factor structure of the Italian scale, and on the other, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was run to find the data’s best fit model. The scales’ internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha. The questionnaire’s convergent validity was also evaluated. EFA extracted a four-factor solution, in accordance with the original French scale’s validation study. CFA showed that the translated scale had good consistency, similar to that of the original version, showing satisfactory internal consistency for three of four subscales. There will be benefits to further validation studies of the translated scale on the Italian population and it may possibly be innovative and useful in both research and social fields.     

Exploring the absolutist vs relativist perception of poverty using a cross-country questionnaire survey

Questionnaires eliciting the absolutist vs relativist perception of poverty are administered to 1941 undergraduate students in eight countries - Bolivia, Brazil, Italy, Kenya, Laos, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. We find that the perception of poverty expressed by a large fraction of respondents exhibits both absolutist and relativist concerns, with the former components prevailing over the latter. High-income countries exhibit a significantly more pronounced relativist attitude. Personal characteristics such as past experience of material hardship and relative standard of living play a germane role in shaping respondents’ views.     

‘Moi aussi,alors, je serai grand-mère’. La construction de la parenté dans les familles homosexuelles

Using the gift as epistemological category, the article explores the social processes of kinship formation in homosexual families. Analysing the stories of lesbian families, the article tries to explain the reason why the mothers want to have kinship networks and kinship bonds. Through kinship connections, all the members are and want to be (or don't want to be) publicly recognised as reciprocal parents of the new-born.     

Measuring the Behavioural Component of the S&P 500 and its Relationship to Financial Stress and Aggregated Earnings Surprises

Scholars in management and economics have shown increasing interest in isolating the behavioural dimension of market evolution. Indeed, by improving forecast accuracy and precision, this exercise would certainly help firms to anticipate economic fluctuations, thus leading to more profitable business and investment strategies. Yet, how to extract the behavioural component from real market data remains an open question. By using monthly data on the returns of the constituents of the S&P 500 index, we propose a Bayesian methodology to measure the extent to which market data conform to what is predicted by prospect theory (the behavioural perspective), relative to the (standard) subjective expected utility theory baseline. We document a significant behavioural component that reaches its peaks during recession periods and is correlated to measures of financial volatility, market sentiment and financial stress with expected sign. Moreover, the behavioural component decreases around macroeconomic corporate earnings news, while it reacts positively to the number of surprising announcements.     

Strategic choices and strategic management accounting in large manufacturing firms

Journal of Management and Governance - This study examines the relationship between strategic choices and the use of strategic management accounting (SMA) techniques in large manufacturing...     

Modelling Corruption Perceptions: Evidence from Eastern Europe and Central Asian Countries

Social Indicators Research - This work proposes a multidimensional framework that is based on a latent class model to identify various types of corruption and to outline their importance. A dataset...     

Small-area estimation in the presence of area-level correlated responses

The Fay-Herriot area-level model for correlated response data is augmented with a between-groups-of-domains effect. Correlated-response parameters of small-area estimates no longer need the assumption of spatial contiguity. A simulation shows that area-level correlated-response observations increase the efficiency of the estimates, but do not reduce the biases.     

Measurement Invariance of Ryff’s Psychological Well-being Scales Across Italian and Belarusian Students

Cross-cultural researches on the Ryff’s Psychological Well-being (PWB) Scales are currently not available. The aim of the paper was to investigate the measurement invariance of the 18-item version of the PWB Scales across 1,114 high school and undergraduate Italian and Belarusian students. After identifying the six correlated first-order factors and one second-order factor model of the Ryff’s PWB Scales, as baseline model for each sample, multi-groups confirmatory factor analyses were subsequently performed. All analyses were performed using the Robust Diagonally Weighted Least Squares estimation procedures, entering a polychoric correlation matrix. Multi-groups analyses showed that factor structure of the preferred model did not change across the Italian and Belarusian samples. Although the obtained results provided a preliminary support for cross-cultural structural invariance of the PWB Scales, further investigations are required to ensure its generalizability and applicability. Limitations and suggestions for future researches as well as psychosocial applications for educational context were discussed.     

Generic Identifiability of Linear Structural Equation Models by Ancestor Decomposition

Linear structural equation models, which relate random variables via linear interdependencies and Gaussian noise, are a popular tool for modelling multivariate joint distributions. The models correspond to mixed graphs that include both directed and bidirected edges representing the linear relationships and correlations between noise terms, respectively. A question of interest for these models is that of parameter identifiability, whether or not it is possible to recover edge coefficients from the joint covariance matrix of the random variables. For the problem of determining generic parameter identifiability, we present an algorithm building upon the half‐trek criterion. Underlying our new algorithm is the idea that ancestral subsets of vertices in the graph can be used to extend the applicability of a decomposition technique.