Driving toward a goal and the goal‐gradient hypothesis: the impact of goal proximity on compliance rate,donation size,and fatigue

Driving toward a goal (DTAG) is a compliance technique derived from observed persuasion practice (e.g., telethons) wherein the persuader utilizes a goal pitch (e.g., “Help us raise $500”) and progress toward a goal (e.g., a tote board) to encourage compliance. It was postulated that DTAG would be more effective than legitimizing a paltry contribution (LPC) at increasing compliance rate, size, and stability. In Study 1, a fundraising field experiment (N = 840 donations) found that LPC garnered significantly more donations and DTAG garnered significantly larger donations. In Study 2, a lab experiment (N = 992 participants) found that LPC garnered more donations at Time 1, DTAG garnered more donations over time (eventually matching LPC), and LPC yielded smaller donations over time.     

The Basic Courses for the Study of Religions at the University of Southern Denmark

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.     

Social Welfare and the Psychology of Food Sharing: Short‐Term Hunger Increases Support for Social Welfare

Do politically irrelevant events influence important policy opinions? Previous research on social welfare attitudes has emphasized the role of political factors such as economic self‐interest and ideology. Here, we demonstrate that attitudes to social welfare are also influenced by short‐term fluctuations in hunger. Using theories in evolutionary psychology, we predict that hungry individuals will be greedier and take more resources from others while also attempting to induce others to share by signaling cooperative intentions and expressing support for sharing, including evolutionarily novel forms of sharing such as social welfare. We test these predictions using self‐reported hunger data as well as comparisons of subjects who participated in relevant online studies before and after eating lunch. Across four studies collected in two different welfare regimes—the United Kingdom and Denmark—we consistently find that hungry individuals act in a greedier manner but describe themselves as more cooperative and express greater support for social welfare.     

Positional inference in rhesus macaques

Animal Cognition - Understanding how organisms make transitive inferences is critical to understanding their general ability to learn serial relationships. In this context, transitive inference...     

Responses to the AAR‐Teagle White Paper: “The Religious Studies Major in a Post‐9/11 World”

In October 2008 The American Academy of Religion published the findings of an eighteen month study (conducted with funding from the Teagle Foundation) on “The Religious Studies Major in a Post–9/11World: New Challenges, New Opportunities.” Re‐published here, this AAR‐Teagle White Paper provides the opportunity for four respondents to raise issues and questions about the teaching of religion in their own institutional contexts. First, Jane Webster describes how the White Paper's “five characteristics of the religion major” find expression in her biblical literature course. Then James Buckley suggests some of the general level teaching issues provoked by the study and analyzes how well the White Paper aligns with how the teaching of religion is conceived in his Catholic university context. Tim Jensen draws comparisons between the White Paper and the higher education structures and goals from his university context in Denmark, raising questions about what motivates students to major in religious studies, the “utility” of a religious studies major, and whether students' religious and spiritual concerns ought to enter the classroom. And finally Stacey Floyd‐Thomas finds surprising similarities between the state of the religion major and the various crises facing contemporary North American theological education.     

The Development and Evaluation of a Parent Empowerment Program for Family Peer Advocates

Family-to-family services are emerging as an important adjunctive service to traditional mental health care and a vehicle for improving parent engagement and service use in children’s mental health services. In New York State, a growing workforce of Family Peer Advocates (FPA) is delivering family-to-family services. We describe the development and evaluation of a professional program to enhance Family Peer Advocate professional skills, called the Parent Engagement and Empowerment Program (PEP). We detail the history and content of PEP and provide data from a pre/post and 6-month follow up evaluation of 58 FPA who participated in the first Statewide regional training effort. Self-efficacy, empowerment, and skills development were assessed at 3 time points: baseline, post-training, and 6-month follow-up. The largest changes were in self-efficacy and empowerment. Regional differences suggest differences in Family Peer Advocate workforce across areas of the state. This evaluation also provides the first systematic documentation of Family Peer Advocate activities over a six-month period. Consistent with peer specialists within the adult health care field, FPA in the children’s mental health field primarily focused on providing emotional support and service access issues. Implications for expanding family-to-family services and integrating it more broadly into provider organizations are described.