Simple But Powerful Health Messages for Increasing Condom Use in Young Adults

In a large longitudinal study involving young adults, we conducted an eight-hour STD educational intervention and examined the impact of the intervention on the efficacy of a message for promoting condom use. The message was framed in positive or negative terms and was presented visually or in numbers (percentages or frequencies). Results indicated that the numerical positive-framed message increased condom use among young adults who did not receive the intervention, whereas the numerical negative-framed message did not. Attitudes toward condom use along with changes in intentions to use condoms mediated this framing effect. In contrast, the positive-framed and negative-framed messages were equally and highly effective for promoting condom use when the messages were presented visually or when young adults received the STD educational intervention before reading the message, suggesting that the simple brochures featuring visual aids were as effective in changing attitudes and behavioral intentions as the extensive intervention. These findings add to a growing body of evidence detailing the mechanisms that allow well-constructed visual aids to be among the most effective, transparent, memorable, and ethically desirable means of risk communication. Clinical and public health implications are discussed.     

Back to Basics

Nonprofits are under increased accountability pressures to demonstrate their effectiveness. Output measurement (how much is produced) is disregarded as simplistic. Emphasis is made instead on measuring outcomes (changes in the lives of beneficiaries) or impacts (effects developed relative to the mission of the nonprofit, or the overall public good), and a growing portion of organizations state that they measure these effects. However, we question the assumption that outputs such as the number of beneficiaries served are being adequately measured. We first review existing research gaps on results measurement practices and discuss the main types of obstacles to the quality and utility of evaluation data. In this context, we argue for the need to reground nonprofit evaluation in the profound knowledge available about beneficiary populations. We discuss the potential and limitations of reach, a basic output indicator that is defined as the number of individuals directly affected by a nonprofit, and explore the organizational drivers of reach measurement. Evidence from 2,229 nonprofits shows they still lack adequate data on the beneficiaries they serve, face relevant conceptual and practical hurdles when trying to identify them, and are significantly influenced by organizational factors in their capacity to track them. Our research not only shows that nonprofits fail to adequately measure outputs, but also that measuring the number of beneficiaries served and how they are served is not as straightforward as outcome and impact advocates suggest. Practitioners and funders are reminded of the need to place beneficiaries at the core of their evaluation efforts.     

Forensics ergonomics in Spain. Research priorities by the Delphi technique

Among the many fields of application of Ergonomics, this research deals with the services offered to Justice from the expertise recognized by the Law on prevention of occupational risks within the framework of the Law of Civil Procedure: Ergonomics forensic also called Legal Ergonomics. In Spain there are experiences since 1995 and an important development and this paper is to investigate the actions required for a more widespread use in trials. Consensus methods such as the Delphi survey technique are being employed to help enhance effective decision-making in the future development of Ergonomics Forensics. The Delphi survey is a group facilitation technique, which is an iterative multistage process, designed to transform opinion into group consensus. It is a flexible approach, that is used commonly within the health and social sciences, however, there is little use and practice of ergonomics as a technique to facilitate the participation of all experts involved: judges, lawyers and expert ergonomists.     

Validez de las teorías implícitas de personalidad de profesores de Educación General Básica

Resumen

Cuatro muestras análogas de profesores ayudaron a comprobar las hipótesis sobre la validez de sus teorías implícitas de personalidad (TIP). El criterio de validez estuvo basado en juicios emitidos inmediatamente después de observar varias secuencias de conductas grabadas en vídeo. En un nivel agregado de análisis, las TIP demostraron poseer fidelidad estructural al correlacionar con las covariaciones reales entre las categorías, al mismo tiempo que contribuyeron a la validez de los juicios sociales. Por otra parte, la semántica no demostró ser un factor distorsionador de las TIP ni de los juicios, sino que correlacionó positiva y significativamente con ambos y con las covariaciones reales entre las categorías. En un nivel individualizado de análisis, se encontró una variabilidad interindividual significativa en todas las posibles asociaciones de las variables estudiadas, destacando las diferencias entre los sujetos en cuanto al grado de influencia de la TIP sobre los juicios retrospectivos, y el componente semántico de los juicios.     

Why Are Some Subsidiaries of Multinationals the Source of Novel Practices while Others Are Not? National,Corporate and Functional Influences

It has frequently been argued that multinational companies are moving towards network forms whereby subsidiaries share different practices with the rest of the company. This paper presents large‐scale empirical evidence concerning the extent to which subsidiaries input novel practices into the rest of the multinational. We investigate this in the field of human resources through analysis of a unique international data set in four host countries – Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK – and address the question of how we can explain variation between subsidiaries in terms of whether they initiate the diffusion of practices to other subsidiaries. The data support the argument that multiple, rather than single, factor explanations are required to more effectively understand the factors promoting or retarding the diffusion of human resource practices within multinational companies. It emerges that national, corporate and functional contexts all matter. More specifically, actors at subsidiary level who seek to initiate diffusion appear to be differentially placed according to their national context, their place within corporate structures and the extent to which the human resource function is internationally networked.     

FDI and Technology as Levering Factors of Competitiveness in Developing Countries

Technology creation and absorption are two relevant processes that affect the role that multinational enterprises (MNE) may play in the competitiveness improvement of the developing economies. The importance of internal factors in local contexts, the increasing integration in the industrial international value chain and the access of firms from these countries to diverse external learning sources, constitute a suitable framework for the analysis of competitiveness shift. In this paper, we study how the integration of firms from developing countries in sophisticated high-tech markets can be defined by the combined action of MNE and the ability for technology absorption and creation. Our empirical analysis with panel data shows how the different dimensions of internal and external factors affect international competitiveness in high-tech industries.     

Preparing for Male Condom Use: The Importance of Volitional Predictors

Objectives: Intention is not sufficient to actually use condoms, as self-regulatory processes are needed to translate motivation into action. This study has focused on the role of preparatory behaviors as a proximal predictor of condom use and examined how they contribute to the self-regulatory processes proposed by the health action process approach model. Methods: An on-screen longitudinal study was conducted with 3 measurement points 2 weeks apart. The participants were young men aged 18 to 25 years old (N = 203) recruited from vocational training centers. Outcome expectancies, perceived self-efficacy, intention, action planning, coping planning, volitional self-efficacy, preparatory behaviors, and condom use were assessed by self-report. A structural equation analysis was used to test a series of 3 nested models, with all parameters estimated by bootstrapping. Results: The model proposed that the included preparatory behaviors provided the best fit to the data. Preparatory behaviors were the most proximal predictors of condom use, and mediation occurred in a sequential manner with preparatory behaviors preceding the volitional variables, action and coping planning, and volitional self-efficacy. Conclusions: To bridge the intention–behavior gap, preparatory behaviors play a mediating role, demonstrating how they work in conjunction with other volitional variables such as planning and self-efficacy in the translation of behavioral intentions into actual condom use.