The Effects of Task Information and Outcome Feedback on Individuals' Insight into Their Decision Models

When making business decisions, people generally receive some form of guidance. Often, this guidance might be in the form of instructions about which inputs to the decision are most important. Alternatively, it might be outcome feedback concerning the appropriateness of their decisions. When people receive guidance in making difficult judgments, it is important that they do not confuse this guidance with insight into their own decision models. This study examined whether people confuse their actual decision model with task information and outcome feedback. Subjects predicted the likelihood that various hypothetical companies would experience financial distress and then reported the decision models they believed they had used. Their reported models were compared with their actual models as estimated by a regression of the subjects' predictions on the inputs to their decisions. In a 2times2 factorial design, some subjects were provided with task information regarding the relative importance of each input to their decisions while others were not. Some subjects were provided with outcome feedback regarding the quality of their decisions while others were not. The subjects tended to confuse the task information and outcome feedback with their actual decision models. Implications for the results are discussed.     

Promoting Twenty-first-century Student Competencies: A Wellbeing Approach

In Australia and internationally, universities are preparing students for the twenty-first century through building the competencies fundamental for both social sustainability and wellbeing. However, there is little evidence on how these competencies can be fostered in curricula. This article presents the findings of a mixed-methods pilot of an Aboriginal wellbeing intervention that seeks to build such attributes when integrated into an undergraduate social work curriculum. A questionnaire incorporating the validated Growth and Empowerment Measure, the Australian Unity Personal Wellbeing Index, and open-ended qualitative questions was administrated to 64 first-year social work students before and after the intervention. Significant changes on both measures suggest that the intervention is highly relevant for student wellbeing, particularly for those who rated themselves as below the median at baseline. The qualitative findings highlight the relevance of the program for promoting social competencies that enable people to problem-solve and adapt in a complex world.     

The temporal relationship between gambling related beliefs and gambling behaviour: a prospective study using the theory of planned behaviour

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) has been successfully employed to investigate the role of gambling-related beliefs in the maintenance of gambling behaviour. However, there is a lack of research that examines the temporal relationships between the TPB predictor variables and gambling behaviour. Thus, the current study examines the utility of expectancies, normative beliefs, perceived behaviour control and gambling intentions in predicting gambling frequency, as assessed 12 months later. In addition, these gambling-related beliefs were reassessed at the 12-month follow-up survey to examine their stability and relationships with gambling behaviour. A total of 805 Australian adults, recruited via an online research panel, completed the baseline and follow-up online survey. Consistent with expectations, gambling-related beliefs explained gambling intentions and intentions predicted Wave 2 gambling frequency, after controlling Wave 1 gambling frequency. In relation to the stability of gambling-related beliefs, the Wave 2 measures explained additional variance in the Wave 2 gambling behaviour, although the type of beliefs associated with Wave 2 gambling frequency and problem gambling severity differed. These findings provide support for the notion that the perceived benefits of gambling and beliefs in skill are important areas to target in preventative and problem gambling initiatives.     

Differences in soil chemical properties with distance to roads and age of development in urban areas

The main objective of this study was to characterize variation in soil chemical properties with length of urbanization period and distance to roads. Urban boundaries from 1920’s (old), 1960’s (middle) and 2000’s (new) were identified for three cities in northeast Ohio: Massillon, Wooster and Canton. Within each identified historic boundary, soil samples were collected from two road-side and two interior lawns in one public school site in each city. Thus, there were three urban age and two distance-to-roads classes. Soil particle composition and basic chemical properties including pH, available phosphorus (P), exchangeable potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), cation exchange capacity (CEC), nitrate, total carbon (C), total nitrogen (N), and soil organic matter (SOM) were measured. Two notable spatio-temporal patterns appeared repeatedly in the data set. First, total C, total N and SOM were higher in the soils of old (>50 years) urban sites than of newly developed sites. Similar, but not always significant, trends in soil pH, and exchangeable Ca were also observed. Second, road-side soils had higher pH, Ca, total C and N than interior sites regardless of urban age. These data indicate that key soil chemical properties can vary in predictable ways with urban age and distance-to-roads classes. Such variations in key soil chemical properties may influence or reflect soil biota and biogeochemical processes in urban soils.     

Implementation of a Bayesian adaptive design in a proof of concept study

With increased costs of drug development the need for efficient studies has become critical. A key decision point on the development pathway has become the proof of concept study. These studies must provide clear information to the project teams to enable decision making about further developing a drug candidate but also to gain evidence that any effect size is sufficient to warrant this development given the current market environment. Our case study outlines one such proof of concept trial where a new candidate therapy for neuropathic pain was investigated to assess dose-response and to evaluate the magnitude of its effect compared to placebo. A Normal Dynamic Linear Model was used to estimate the dose-response--enforcing some smoothness in the dose-response, but allowing for the fact that the dose-response may be non-monotonic. A pragmatic, parallel group study design was used with interim analyses scheduled to allow the sponsor to drop ineffective doses or to stop the study. Simulations were performed to assess the operating characteristics of the study design. The study results are presented. Significant cost savings were made when it transpired that the new candidate drug did not show superior efficacy when compared placebo and the study was stopped.     

The Effect of Immigration from Mexico on Social Capital in the United States

Has mass migration from Mexico since the 1980s contributed to a well‐documented decline in US social capital? Theories linking ethnic diversity to lower social cohesion and participation (e.g., Putnam 2007, 30, 137) would strongly predict this effect. Yet the impact of immigration in particular, rather than ethno‐racial diversity generally, on US social capital has not been examined. Assessing the impact of immigration is important because some have speculated that associations between measures of diversity and social capital found in the United States are a byproduct of the country's distinctively fraught history of black–white relations. This scope condition would greatly limit the applicability of Putnam's thesis. To assess the impact of Mexican immigration, this study leverages a dynamic measure of social capital and an instrumental variables design. The results address an important recent methodological critique of the broader literature and strongly corroborate the hypothesis that immigration erodes social capital.     

The moral economy of austerity: analysing UK welfare reform

This paper notes the contemporary emergence of ‘morality’ in both sociological argument and political rhetoric, and analyses its significance in relation to ongoing UK welfare reforms. It revisits the idea of ‘moral economy’ and identifies two strands in its contemporary application; that all economies depend on an internal moral schema, and that some external moral evaluation is desirable. UK welfare reform is analysed as an example of the former, with reference to three distinct orientations advanced in the work of Freeden ( 1996 ), Laclau ( 2014 ), and Lockwood ( 1996 ). In this light, the paper then considers challenges to the reform agenda, drawn from third sector and other public sources. It outlines the forms of argument present in these challenges, based respectively on rationality, legality, and morality, which together provide a basis for evaluation of the welfare reforms and for an alternative ‘moral economy’.