Perceived Justice of Compensation Process for Return-to-Work: Development and Validation of a Scale

The experience of injured workers is influenced by multiple systems—the workplace, the healthcare system, and the workers’ compensation system. Little research has been conducted on the impact of the workers’ compensation system on injured workers’ personal experience and on the justice of the workers’ compensation process. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a measure of the justice of the compensation process. Injured workers (n?=?446) with musculoskeletal injuries, in Ontario, Canada, filing a lost-time claim, completed a telephone survey 6 months post-injury. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted with two separate samples, and concurrent validity was examined. The four hypothesized factors emerged: distributive justice, procedural justice, informational justice, and interpersonal justice factors accounted for 96.3% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analyses had satisfactory fit indices to confirm the initial model. Alpha coefficients ranged from 0.86 to 0.92. Concurrent validity of the scale was supported: relationships of distributive and procedural justice with claim status, claim processing delay, perception of going back to work too soon, duration of work accommodation, and satisfaction with work accommodation were in the expected direction. Workers’ experience of the justice of the compensation process can now be measured with a psychometrically sound and theoretically based instrument. This instrument offers researchers the opportunity to focus on the justice of the compensation process of injured workers. It can increase the attention that policy-makers, compensation management, healthcare providers, and other return-to-work stakeholders give to the impact of the compensation system and provide a broadened view of workers’ experience.     

Measuring the Frequency Occurrence of Handwritten Numeral Characteristics

The premise of this follow‐up sister study to “Measuring the Frequency Occurrence of Handwriting and Handprinting Characteristics” was to collect a representative population sampling of numerals and assess how many participants utilize each of the predetermined characteristics as found in their specimens. A total of 1410 handwriting specimen forms were collected from across the United States and pared to 1025 to obtain a proper representative sample of the U.S. adult population based on the same demographics used in the original 2017 study. This study provides frequency of occurrence proportions and 95% confidence limits for 25 handwritten numeral characteristics. A total of 277 intercharacter pairs of handwritten numeral characteristics were cross‐analyzed for interdependence. The results were that 72.92% of all intercharacter pairs had a coefficient of correlation between ?0.2 and +0.2 in this study.     

Age difference in political decision making: Strategies for evaluating political candidates

To investigate age-related differences in strategies used to evaluate political candidates, an experimental study employed protocol tracing techniques with a computerized information matrix. Forty younger and forty older adults gathered information about and evaluated candidates in national and local elections. Older adults accessed less information but took longer to examine information and make choices. Differences in strategic processing suggest that young adults were more likely to organize their information searches by issues and to eliminate candidates based on issue stances. In contrast, older adults were more likely to organize their information searches by candidates and to engage in satisficing.     

The Eisenhower Administration and Public Diplomacy in India: An Ambivalent Engagement, 1953–1960

The United States–India relationship was fraught with misapprehension and ideological disagreement during the 1950s. Public diplomacy provides a valuable context for examining these dynamics. This analysis assesses the planning, deployment, and reception of American public diplomacy to India under President Dwight Eisenhower, a period encompassing Washington’s 1954 alliance with Pakistan and economic aid to India in 1957–1958. Public diplomacy reflects the Administration’s difficulty in clarifying its interests in India. The rhetorical and moralising approach of India’s leadership, and their prominence in the global non-aligned movement, contributed greatly to this ambivalence. Public diplomacy planning highlights Washington’s difficulties in confronting India’s identity in world politics; it struggled to craft messages on racial attitudes, consumerism, and Communism, whilst Soviet public diplomacy gave strong competition throughout the period. At the same time, several aspects of American public diplomacy resonated with Indian audiences, indicating that there was the possibility of a closer American relationship with India had Washington taken a different high policy approach to the region.