IMPLEMENTATION OF EVIDENCE‐BASED PRACTICE IN HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: IMPLICATIONS FROM AGENT‐BASED MODELS

Much of the impact of a policy depends on how it is implemented, especially as mediated by organizations such as schools or hospitals. Here, we focus on how implementation of evidence‐based practices in human service organizations (e.g., schools, hospitals) is affected by intraorganizational network dynamics. In particular, we hypothesize intraorganizational behavioral divergence and network polarization are likely to occur when actors strongly identify with their organizations. Using agent‐based models, we find that when organizational identification is high, external change agents who attempt to direct organizations by introducing policy aligned messages (e.g., professional development emphasizing specific teaching practices) may unintentionally contribute to divergence in practice and polarization in networks, inhibiting full implementation of the desired practices as well as reducing organizational capacity to absorb new practices. Thus, the external change agent should consider the interaction between the type of message and the intraorganizational network dynamics driven by organizational identification.     

后苏联地区的制度竞争

在转型和发展经济体中,制度竞争经常被作为建立和保障市场的工具而加以讨论.后苏联地区(post-Soviet space)为这一问题的研究提供了一个有益的案例:国际投资流入不断增加,同时缺少政策协调,造成一种各管辖主体之间制度竞争日趋激烈的局面.不过,在后苏联地区,制度的质量看起来还不高.本论文主要分析后苏联地区内各管辖主体就制度质量所展开的竞争的潜在影响,并从两个层面进行分析:理性选择因素(经济不平等和学习效应)以及正式与非正式制度间的相互作用(对自由市场的理解,对公共权威的信任,深层次制度与浅层次制度间的相互影响).     

Ashes from the phoenix: state terrorism and the party-list groups in the Philippines

An ongoing theme in Filipino history has been the exclusion of the left from electoral politics. Something that may provide an aperture facilitating left-wing participation are the provisions of the 1987 Constitution providing for the election, based on proportional representation, of representatives from traditionally marginalized sectors of society. Since the implementation of these provisions, six party-list groups have become the visible face of the left in Philippine politics. However, since 2001, the Philippines have experienced a wave of assassinations targeting leftists. These killings, an emulation of the Phoenix Program implemented by the United States in Vietnam, are designed to destroy organizations used as ‘fronts’ by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the progressive party-list groups have been specifically targeted. These killings, and the fear they generate, are an example of state terrorism and, eventually, will prove themselves to be flawed counterinsurgency doctrine because, by precluding left-wing participation in electoral politics, they force the left into armed opposition.     

Similarities and Differences in Adolescent Siblings’ Alcohol-Related Attitudes,Use, and Delinquency: Evidence for Convergent and Divergent Influence Processes

A growing body of research indicates that siblings influence each other’s risky and deviant behaviors during adolescence. Guided by research and theory on sibling similarities and differences, this study examined the operation and implications of three different influence processes—social learning, shared friends, and sibling differentiation—during adolescence. Participants included one parent and two adolescent siblings (earlier born age: M = 17.17 years, SD = 0.94; later born age: M = 14.52 years, SD = 1.27) from 326 families. Data were collected via telephone interviews. Using reports from both older and younger siblings, two-stage cluster analyses revealed three influence profiles: mutual modeling and shared friends, younger sibling admiration, and differentiation. Additional analyses revealed that mutual modeling and shared friends as well as younger sibling admiration were linked to similarities in brothers’ and sisters’ health-risk behaviors and attitudes, whereas differentiation processes were associated with divergence in siblings’ characteristics. The discussion focuses on refining the study of sibling influence, with particular attention paid to the operation and implications of both convergent and divergent influence processes.     

Self-Concept Clarity Across Adolescence: Longitudinal Associations With Open Communication With Parents and Internalizing Symptoms

Higher self-concept clarity is related to several adjustment indices and may be promoted by open communication with parents, while problems with self-concept clarity development could enhance internalizing problems (i.e., depressive and anxiety symptoms) in adolescence. This longitudinal study examined linkages between self-concept clarity, adolescents’ open communication with parents, and adolescent depressive and anxiety symptoms. Dutch youths (N = 323; 51.1 % girls; mean age Time 1 = 13.3 years) reported on these constructs over four consecutive annual measurements. Concurrent positive links between open communication and self-concept clarity were found at Time 1. Over time, higher levels of open communication with parents predicted higher self-concept clarity only in middle adolescence (mean age between 14 and 15 years). We also found concurrent associations between self-concept clarity and both depressive and anxiety symptoms. Longitudinally, lower self-concept clarity predicted relatively higher levels of depressive symptoms across all waves, and also higher anxiety levels from Time 1 to Time 2. Conversely, higher levels of anxiety also predicted lower levels of self-concept clarity during the first three waves. Self-concept clarity did not mediate the longitudinal associations between open communication and internalizing symptoms. This study is one of the first to investigate self-concept clarity across adolescence. It highlights the possible importance of both anxiety symptoms and communication with parents in understanding the development of a clear self-concept, and demonstrates an association between lower self-concept clarity and higher levels of later depressive and anxiety symptoms.     

More Than a Just a Game: Video Game and Internet Use During Emerging Adulthood

The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer understanding of the pattern of video game and internet use among college students and to examine how electronic leisure was related to risk behaviors (i.e., drinking, drug use, sex), perceptions of the self (i.e., self worth and social acceptance), and relationships with others (i.e., relationship quality with parents and friends). Participants included 813 undergraduate students (500 young women, 313 young men, M age = 20, SD = 1.87) who were mainly European American (79%), unmarried (100%) and living outside their parents’ home (90%). Results suggested that (a) video game use was linked to negative outcomes for men and women, (b) different patterns of video game and internet use existed for men and women and (c) there were different relations to risk behaviors, feelings about the self, and relationship quality based on the type of internet use, and based on gender. The discussion focuses on the implications of electronic leisure on the overall health and development of young people as they transition to adulthood.     

Identity Formation in Adolescence: Change or Stability?

The aim of this five-wave longitudinal study of 923 early to middle adolescents (50.7% boys; 49.3% girls) and 390 middle to late adolescents (43.3% boys and 56.7% girls) is to provide a comprehensive view on change and stability in identity formation from ages 12 to 20. Several types of change and stability (i.e., mean-level change, rank-order stability, and profile similarity) were assessed for three dimensions of identity formation (i.e., commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration), using adolescent self-report questionnaires. Results revealed changes in identity dimensions towards maturity, indicated by a decreasing tendency for reconsideration, increasingly more in-depth exploration, and increasingly more stable identity dimension profiles. Mean levels of commitment remained stable, and rank-order stability of commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration did not change with age. Overall, girls were more mature with regard to identity formation in early adolescence, but boys had caught up with them by late adolescence. Taken together, our findings indicate that adolescent identity formation is guided by progressive changes in the way adolescents deal with commitments, rather than by changes in the commitments themselves.     

Economic integration and the relationship between profit and wage taxes

This paper analyzes the development of the ratio of corporate taxes to wage taxes using a simple political economy model with workers and capitalists that own internationally mobile and immobile firms. Among other results, our model predicts that countries reduce their corporate tax rate, relative to the wage tax, when preferences for public goods increase, or when the share of capital employed in multinational firms is rising. We further show how an increase in the wage share changes both the relative size of tax bases and the political influence of different income groups. The predicted relationships are tested using panel data for 23 OECD countries for the period 1980 through 2004. The results of the empirical analysis support our main hypotheses.     

Coase and Bertrand on lighthouses

Coase (Journal of Low and Economics 17(2):185–213, 1974) failed to appreciate that the construction and maintenance of nineteenth-century lighthouses were in part financed by British taxpayers. Bertrand (Cambridge Journal of Economics 30:389–402, 2006) rightly calls him to account. While agreeing with Bertrand’s conclusion, we dispute her reasoning and argue that lighthouses nevertheless could have been supplied by the private sector.     

Public opinion during a presidential campaign: Distinguishing the effects of environmental evolution and attitude change

This paper develops a spatial model which distinguishes between different sources of temporal variability in public opinion over the course of an election campaign. Candidates and citizens are shown as points within a space. The candidate points are fixed, but their relative positions can change as a result of change over time in the dimension weights. If this occurs, it represents environmental evolution. The individual citizens' points also can move within the space, independently of the external environment. To the extent this occurs, it represents attitude change. The model is tested with data from the CPS 1980 National Election Study. The empirical results show that much of the variability in public evaluations of the candidates is due to evolutionary changes in the electoral environment, rather than individual-level attitude changes. Furthermore, that attitudinal change which does occur is strongly delimited by factors like partisan strength, interest in the campaign, and political participation.