Mental reinstatement of context with child witnesses: does it matter whether context is reinstated ‘out loud’?

Abstract

In this study we examined the impact of two types of mental reinstatement of context instructions in facilitating children's recall of a staged event across two stages of development. Specifically, a 2 × 3 factorial design was utilised incorporating two age groups (6- and 12-year-olds) and three interview conditions (standard recall, mental reinstatement where the child was instructed to reinstate the context ‘out loud’, and mental reinstatement without the explicit ‘out loud’ instruction). Overall, mental reinstatement instruction led to more correct and fewer incorrect responses than the standard recall instruction. The effect of mental reinstatement was similar across the age groups and irrespective of whether the child was asked to reinstate ‘out loud’. Beneficial effects of the technique, however, were only evident for cued-recall questions as opposed to free-narrative responses. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

The behavioural consequences of institutional rules: republicans in the US house

The Republicans gained a majority in the US House from the 1994 elections, and upon taking office they rewrote the rules that determine legislative power relations. This paper combines a 1996 attitudinal survey of US Representatives with demographic information, status within the House, and party position to examine the impact of the 1995 rule changes on satisfaction, ambition, and retirement. This paper demonstrates that member reactions to reform are explained jointly by their partisanship and their relative position within their party. Senior members of any party dislike rules making power more exclusive, and dissatisfaction increases the likelihood of retirement.     

The Managed Growth Trickle-Up Theory

My title is designed to elicit warm vibes from the free marketeers as well as from the public controllers. For when devising programs to relate the interests of the poor and the environment, it is as necessary to seek consensus in order to progress as it is in other contexts². The managed growth trickle-up theory is designed to be a response by local and regional governments to move with alacrity in the provision of racially and economically integrated housing. Surely, now that Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974⁴ is law, localities and regions can no longer blame their segregative practices on bureaucratic HUD bungling. The locus of blame is now not only clearer; failure to integrate housing is also more expensive.     

Seeing White−Female Whiteness and the Purity of Children in Australian,Chinese and British Visual Culture

In this paper, I interrogate the expression and usage of ‘whiteness’ in Australian, British and Chinese visual culture. My approach is through reading local texts with an eye to transcultural systems of meaning, paying particular attention to the ways in which whiteness is used as a doubled category in sexual politics. The paper is formed through the performance of cross-cultural connectivities within an epistemological emphasis on the travelled theorist. The movement between Chinese, Australian and English ethical positions are constitutive of the perspectives expressed here; the perspectives are themselves concerned to look back and into those ethical positions. The performance works towards a recognition of the semiotic systems of power and identity, and therefore of the conditions of theoretical performance itself.     

Citizen participation through mobilization and the rise of political Islam in Indonesia

The idea that populations participate politically outside of the formal mechanisms of a political system and through mass mobilizations is a reasonably accepted part of political science orthodoxy. Since the turn of the last century, in Indonesia, as in other developing countries, populations have mobilized en masse at particular stages of their histories into nation-state building processes, as well as have been mobilized by political authorities seeking to bolster or install their regimes. In the 1960s, Sukarno increasingly sought to mobilize a range of classes and interests behind his presidency and, in 1965–66, Suharto and his military backers organized anti-communist groups behind a systematic campaign to eradicate the Communist Party and remove Sukarno. Throughout the so-called ‘New Order’ period (1966–98), Suharto periodically mobilized groups behind his presidency and against opponents who, in turn, engaged in occasional street demonstrations against the regime. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the opposition leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri became an important rallying point for popular dissent against Suharto and, in 1998, the student movement played a crucial role in street demonstrations which helped bring down the president after three decades of strongman rule. In the post-Suharto period, which has seen the installation of three presidents between 1998 and 2001, mass mobilizations have continued to be a striking feature of the political landscape. President Habibie mobilized pro-government militias against opponents and student demonstrators, who threatened to bring down his regime. The Muslim supporters of Abdurrahman Wahid entered the streets in their thousands to protest the parliamentary impeachment of the president. Radical Muslim groups demonstrated against US military strikes on Afghanistan and against President Megawati Sukarnoputri's initial soft stance on the strikes. Potentially, these kinds of demonstrations could undermine Megawati's presidency. However, parliamentary processes rather than street mobilizations brought the presidencies of Habibie and Abdurrahman to an end while Megawati is still seeing out her term. This article examines the political mobilizations of the late-Suharto and post-Suharto periods and asks whether these mobilizations pose a threat to Indonesia's fragile transition to democracy and to a more stable institutional political process.     

Turning Housing Into Driving: Parking Requirements and Density in Los Angeles and New York

This article examines the idea that residential minimum parking requirements are associated with lower housing and population densities and higher vehicle densities (residential vehicles per square mile). Cities frequently use minimum parking requirements to manage traffic, but parking requirements accommodate vehicles, suggesting they should lead to more driving and congestion rather than less. If parking requirements reduce congestion, they likely do so not by reducing the number of vehicles in an area but by reducing the densities of housing and people. We support this idea by comparing the Los Angeles and New York urbanized areas. We show that differences in housing, vehicle, and population densities across and within these urbanized areas are closely correlated with differences in the share of housing units that include parking, and that the share of housing units that include parking is in turn correlated with the stringency of parking requirements. Compared with Los Angeles, New York shifts less of the cost of driving into its housing market. We further show that within New York City, a 10% increase in minimum parking requirements is associated with a 5% increase in vehicles per square mile, a 4% increase in vehicles per person, and a 6% reduction in both population density and housing density. These relationships remain even after controlling for street layout and proximity to the subway.     

Public Service Motivation and Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior in Public Organizations: Testing a Preliminary Model

ABSTRACT

A good deal of research has demonstrated how public service motivation (PSM) facilitates desirable organizational attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work effort. Other research has demonstrated that PSM predicts higher levels of social capital and altruistic behavior in society. Between these two strands of PSM research, there is a gap in knowledge about whether PSM matters to citizenship behavior internal to the organization. This article tests the direct and indirect relationship between individual levels of PSM and interpersonal citizenship behavior using a structural equation model. We also account for the effect of organizational environment by incorporating a measure of co-worker support. We find that PSM has a direct and positive effect on interpersonal citizenship behavior in public organizations, even when accounting for the significant role of co-worker support.     

Does Public Service Motivation Lead to Budget Maximization? Evidence from an Experiment

ABSTRACT

One of the most enduring theories in public management is Niskanen's model of the budget-maximizing bureaucrat. While popular, the image of bureaucrats relentlessly advocating for larger budgets has been frequently attacked. A chief criticism is that the assumption of self-interest does not align with budget maximization, since bureaucrats have little direct way to benefit from larger budgets. A more plausible assumption that offers a stronger causal logic for maximization behavior is that bureaucrats are motivated to help others. If they believe that spending on public goods is beneficial to society, public employees may be likely to advocate for larger budgets. Using vignette-experiment methodology, this article finds that individuals with higher levels of public service motivation do not advocate for significantly higher budgets. The results undercut an alternative theoretical means to support Niskanen's original theory, thereby further undermining the budget maximization model.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of International Public Management Journal for the following free supplemental resource: Survey Text with Vignettes.]