No Harm in Checking: Using Factual Manipulation Checks to Assess Attentiveness in Experiments

Manipulation checks are often advisable in experimental studies, yet they rarely appear in practice. This lack of usage may stem from fears of distorting treatment effects and uncertainty regarding which type to use (e.g., instructional manipulation checks [IMCs] or assessments of whether stimuli alter a latent independent variable of interest). Here, we first categorize the main variants and argue that factual manipulation checks (FMCs)—that is, objective questions about key elements of the experiment—can identify individual‐level attentiveness to experimental information and, as a consequence, better enable researchers to diagnose experimental findings. We then find, through four replication studies, little evidence that FMC placement affects treatment effects, and that placing FMCs immediately post‐outcome does not attenuate FMC passage rates. Additionally, FMC and IMC passage rates are only weakly related, suggesting that each technique identifies different sets of attentive subjects. Thus, unlike other methods, FMCs can confirm attentiveness to experimental protocols.     

The Motivational Effects of Mission Matching: A Lab‐Experimental Test of a Moderated Mediation Model

Scholarly literature finds positive motivational effects of matching workers and missions. However, the psychological mechanisms behind this matching effect have not been explored. This article develops and tests a moderated mediation model of mission matching in which meaningfulness serves as an intervening mechanism that explains the association between mission matching and effort. It also considers how individual differences in prosocial motivation influence the intervening role of meaningfulness. Using a real‐effort laboratory experiment with monetary incentives, the article shows that matched subjects exert more effort than mismatched subjects, that this effect is mediated by increases in meaningfulness, that prosociality moderates the effect of a match on meaningfulness, and that the indirect effect of a match on effort through increases in meaningfulness varies as a function of prosociality. These results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of mission matching and suggest that matching may be particularly important for certain types of workers.     

Exploring project sustainability: using a multiperspectival,multidimensional approach to frame inquiry

In development studies, programme sustainability has gained significant attention in recent years. One challenge to sustainability is the range of stakeholders involved in international development projects, presenting multiple perspectives and priorities, not always in harmony, nor necessarily communicated. This article presents an approach to facilitating stakeholder sustainability dialogue, an analytic framework for programme sustainability inquiry comprising five dimensions: political; economic; institutional; ownership; and practice. To demonstrate this framework we describe inquiry into stakeholder perspectives in one Afghanistan education development project. The results indicate the value of multidimensional, multiperspectival inquiry in identifying areas of potential sustainability challenge and strength.     

The effect of institutional educational programming on prisoner misconduct

Relative to studies of recidivism, past research on prison educational programming has largely neglected to examine the relationship, if any, between participation in these programs and institutional misconduct. Using data from the National Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities (N = 6957), we assess the relationship between participation in prison educational programming and instances of prisoner misconduct, considering the types and completion of such programs. Utilizing a recently developed propensity score weighting procedure to adjust for selection into programming, our findings indicate that, contrary to research on educational participation and recidivism, those involved in prison educational programming are more likely to commit misconduct infractions than those who are not involved in these programs. Practical implications and directions for future research are explored.     

Enhancement of microcrystalline identification of gamma-hydroxybutyrate

An enhancement of the microcrystalline test for the detection of gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) is described. The original test used a silver/copper reagent which consisted of 0.1 g of silver nitrate and 0.1 g of copper nitrate in 10 mL water. The enhanced test utilizes lanthanum nitrate in place of copper nitrate. A detection limit of 0.5 mg/mL was achieved and the visual discrimination was improved because of larger sized crystals. Transient crystals were observed between 0.1 and 0.4 mg/mL. Silver nitrate alone appeared to be suitable for GHB detection but was not specific as other hydroxyl acids, such as glycolic acid, produced a similar crystal pattern. Tests conducted on chemical precursors of GHB and substances with similar biological activity highlight the specificity of the enhanced test. The reagent is therefore selective and sensitive for GHB in aqueous solutions. However, in beverage testing, crystal formation appeared to be inhibited for some drinks. Citric acid was identified as a possible interference depending on its concentration relative to GHB.     

Governmental Rejections of Ombudsman Findings: What Role for the Courts?

This article discusses the recent Bradley litigation before the High Court and Court of Appeal, in which applicants sought judicial review of a Government Minister's decision to reject findings made by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration in her report, 'Trusting in the Pensions Promise'. The article critically analyses the Court of Appeal's approach to reviewing the Minister's decision, focusing on the standard of review applied and placing the Court's approach in the wider context of the Ombudsman process, which is inherently political.     

The Push for Racial Equity in Child Welfare: Can Blind Removals Reduce Disproportionality?

We conduct the first quantitative analysis of “blind removals,” an increasingly popular reform that seeks to reduce the over-representation of Black children in foster care by eliminating biases in the removal decisions of investigators. We first show that over-representation in most foster care systems is driven by Black children being substantially more likely than White children to be investigated for maltreatment to begin with. Conditional on initial rates of investigation, investigators remove White and Black children similarly. Second, we find no evidence that blind removals impacted the already small racial disparities in the removal decision, but they substantially increased time to removal.     

Suicide Squads: The Logic of Linked Suicide Bombings

What strategic logics underlie terrorist groups’ use of linked suicide attacks? Are the goals that groups seek to achieve when sending linked bombing teams somehow inherently different than when sending individual suicide bombers? To answer these questions, this article introduces three typologies of linked suicide bomber detonation profiles—simultaneous, sequential, and nonproximate—and theorizes why terrorist groups might view each type of linked suicide bombing to be preferable to deploying a single suicide bomber. Improvements resulting from using an individual attacker include: ensuring a higher likelihood of successfully hitting a given target (simultaneous detonations); causing more casualties than a single bombing (sequential-wave detonations); and engendering wider-spread shock and awe (nonproximate detonations). Drawing on an original dataset detailing the entirety of Boko Haram’s suicide bombing efforts from 2011 to 2017, we then examine the extent to which these linked bombing typologies do actually appear to successfully lead to an improvement over the deployment of single suicide bombers. While we find that sequential-wave and nonproximate suicide bombings demonstrate evidence of hypothesized improvements over the deployment of single suicide bombers, our data show that deploying simultaneous suicide attackers does not lead to higher efficacy at targeting when compared to the deployment of individual bombers. In attempting to account for this fact, we argue that Boko Haram’s simultaneous detonation teams likely fail to show an improvement over single-bomber attacks because they tend to be composed of what we call “unenthusiastic and under-trained” bombers: teams of often uncommitted women, and sometimes children, which it deploys in tandem in a bid to avoid individual defection and increase the likelihood of at least one detonation in an attack. We conclude by suggesting what the process of linked bombing reveals about both terrorist groups in general and Boko Haram specifically.     

Homicidal Ideation and Forensic Psychopathology: Evidence From the 2016 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS)

Homicide is the most serious and costly criminal offense and better forensic and criminological understanding of homicidal ideation as a potential psychobehavioral precursor to homicidal conduct is critical. Using data from the 2016 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) distributed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), we found 64,910 cases of homicidal ideation among a sample of 25.6 + million—a prevalence of 0.25%. Numerous conditions conferred increased substantially the likelihood of homicidal ideation including antisocial personality disorder (2406%), schizoaffective disorder (1821%), borderline personality disorder (1557%), paranoid personality disorder (1,504%), schizophrenia (1,143%), obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (921%), brief psychotic disorder (771%), unspecified psychosis (737%), avoidant personality disorder (596%), and schizoid personality disorder (571%), delusional disorder (546%), and other psychotic disorder (504%). Homicidal ideation is comorbid with serious psychiatric and behavioral problems and has important implications for offender typologies and homicidality.