Penny for Your Thoughts: Beggars and the Exercise of Morality in Daily Life1

Urban sociology has tended to study interactions between passersby and “street persons” with an emphasis on the ways street persons become bothersome, harassing, or dangerous. This article moves away from the focus on the ways interactions in public go awry and focuses on how individuals account for the mundane, everyday exchanges they have with strangers who seek their help. Based on interview data (N = 31) and qualitative analysis of data from an Internet survey (N = 110), this article suggests that the presence of beggars does not inherently symbolize urban decay to passersby and does not necessarily elicit anxiety, but instead provides a valuable texture of urban life. Further, the article argues that individuals, when justifying their responses to requests for help from needy persons (beggars) in urban spaces, use a variety of cultural strategies to maintain their perception of themselves as moral persons, both when they choose to help and when they refuse. Drawing from these findings, the article suggests that urban sociology and the sociology of risk would benefit from sensitizing their studies of public interactions to the diverse meanings individuals assign to them, rather than presupposing annoyance, anxiety, or fear as their predominant characteristic.     

Predictors of Antisocial and Prosocial Behavior in an Adolescent Sports Context

This study examined antisocial and prosocial behavior of N = 439 adolescent athletes between 14 and 17 years of age (67 teams). Multi‐level analyses showed that team membership explained 20 and 13 percent of the variance in antisocial and prosocial behavior in the sports context, respectively. The team effects suggest that aggregating antisocial or prosocial adolescents within teams may partially explain differences in antisocial and prosocial behavior among athletes in the sports context. A trend was found toward a relation between higher levels of moral reasoning within teams, and less antisocial behavior in the sports context. Favorable moral atmosphere was positively associated with more prosocial behavior in the sports context. Finally, supportive coach–athlete relationships were associated with both less antisocial and more prosocial behavior in the sports context.     

Exploring the nonverbal facet of ethnic discrimination: a field experiment on anti-Roma racism in the Paris métro

A field experiment on the discrimination of Roma migrants from Eastern Europe was conducted in two stations of the Paris metro to explore the behaviors that may communicate misrecognition in everyday encounters. An actress asked for help to randomly chosen passengers on a metro platform, wearing a glaringly Romani skirt in the treatment condition but an unconspicuous middle-class style in the control condition. In interaction with the actress wearing the Romani skirt, passengers were found to enact the so-called “visual dominance pattern”, and male passengers in particular were found to keep greater distances. Reverse discrimination also occurred as women kept shorter distances from the actress bearing the ethnic stigma. Last, passengers helped less the stigmatized actress, but only in one of the two metro stations where trials were conducted.     

体制化“空转”： 发展悖境中社区工作站运行的组织行为分析——以S市X社区为例

社区工作站作为承接政府社区公共服务职能的新型社会组织，似乎并未真正摒弃行政化积弊及普遍性怠政现象，凸显出事实与价值背离的发展悖境态势。在当前新工作情境下，社区工作站无论是窗口、街头还是社区,其实都呈现出无工作负荷的“空转”状态，并彰显惯习性运作的体制化印记，而体制化“空转”的致因逻辑又在于情境暗示效应下的规章制度软性约束、街道办“示范效应”及社区工作“应付法则”。对此，有必要由情境反思予以解悖，从“干净的石板（clean slate）”出发，在政策原点上破解社区工作站的运行困境，尝试社区工作站的机构撤并及职能删减,以摒除社区公共服务工作中本不该有的体制化“空转”状态，力促基层组织体制改革去行政化的不二取向。     

幼儿撒谎行为的成因分析及对策研究

幼儿的撒谎行为是幼儿成长过程中面临的普遍问题，如果忽视这一问题，将会对幼儿的健康成长造成影响。对幼儿的撒谎行为教育者既不可漠不关心、任其发展，也不可过分斥责、大打出手。文章分析了影响幼儿撒谎行为的内外因素，提出了一系列矫正幼儿撒谎行为的有效策略，以促进幼儿身心健康发展。     

Price-setting newsvendor with strategic consumers

We consider a newsvendor who sells a single product over a single season with the objective of determining both the selling price and stock quantity to maximize the expected profit. The customers are strategic and we consider two demand cases: additive and multiplicative. For each case, we derive the newsvendor׳s optimal decisions and demonstrate that neglecting the price-sensitivity of demand leads the newsvendor to make sub-optimal decisions. Moreover, we show that under certain conditions, strategic consumer behavior may positively affect the newsvendor׳s optimal expected profit in the additive demand case.     

The “Silent Dog” Method: Analyzing the Impact of Self-Generated Rules When Teaching Different Computer Chains to Boys with Autism

The purpose of the study was to extend the literature on verbal self-regulation by using the “silent dog” method to evaluate the role of verbal regulation over nonverbal behavior in 2 individuals with autism. Participants were required to talk-aloud while performing functional computer tasks.Then the effects of distracters with increasing demands on target behavior were evaluated as well as whether self-talk emitted by Participant 1 could be used to alter Participant 2''s performance. Results suggest that participants'' tasks seemed to be under control of self-instructions, and the rules generated from Participants 1''s self-talk were effective in teaching computer skills to Participant 2. The silent dog method was useful in evaluating the possible role of self-generated rules in teaching computer skills to participants with autism.     

农民工子女健康危险行为思考

农民工子女健康危险行为日益增多,影响到社会安定。进行青少年健康危险行为的有关理论、概念、影响因素、预防和干预策略的阐述和总结,并为今后农民工子女健康危险行为研究提出建议。     

Individual and situational correlates of motivation for skills upgrading: an empirical study

The present research examines the tenability of a number of factors thought to precede an individual's motivation for skills upgrading. Because motivation for skills upgrading is instrumental to training success and is highly malleable, knowing the factors that precede motivation for skills upgrading would help managers and policy makers a great deal in formulating strategies to raise the competitiveness of the workforce. We derive several testable hypotheses from the existing literature and empirically verify the selected antecedents of motivation for skills upgrading. Results based on responses from 413 employees suggest that an individual's attitude towards skills upgrading, self-efficacy, usefulness of skills upgrading, health condition and long-term orientation are positively related to motivation for skills upgrading. Implications for policy makers, managers and researchers are discussed.     

The Making of COBRS 2.0

Abstract

Recently introduced advances in microcomputer technology offer opportunities for improving child welfare agencies' access to powerful case assessment and program evaluation tools. This paper discusses the process of fitting a child behavior outcome measurement system to a menu driven microcomputer program. Traditional strategies for measuring outcome effectiveness, managerial priorities and operational constraints are examined in terms of their bearing on the introduction of new microcomputer technology. The developmental process is traced to show how these factors influenced the addition of a number of user options to the basic program to enhance its adaptability to specific agency needs. Initial user feedback indicated general satisfaction with the basic program and the applicability of its output, little or no experimentation, as yet, in adapting the system, and, a minor need to adjust the sequencing of operator activities to better fit the realities of agency work rhythms.