Busy Streets Theory: The Effects of Community‐engaged Greening on Violence

Lack of maintenance on vacant neighborhood lots is associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress for nearby residents. Overgrown grasses and dense brush provide hiding spots for criminals and space to conduct illicit activities. This study builds upon previous research by investigating greening programs that engage community members to conduct routine maintenance on vacant lots within their neighborhoods. The Clean & Green program is a community‐based solution that facilitates resident‐driven routine maintenance of vacant lots in a midsized, Midwestern city. We use mixed effects regression to compare assault and violent crime counts on streets where vacant lot(s) are maintained by community members (N = 216) versus streets where vacant lots were left alone (N = 446) over a 5‐year timeframe (2009–2013). Street segments with vacant lots maintained through the Clean & Green program had nearly 40% fewer assaults and violent crimes than street segments with vacant, abandoned lots, which held across 4 years with a large sample and efforts to test counterfactual explanations. Community‐engaged greening programs may not only provide a solution to vacant lot maintenance, but also work as a crime prevention or reduction strategy. Engaging the community to maintain vacant lots in their neighborhood reduces costs and may increase the sustainability of the program.     

A note on consistency of non-parametric rank tests and related rank transformations

The extent to which rank transformations result in the same statistical decisions as their non‐parametric counterparts is investigated. Simulations are presented using the Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test, the Wilcoxon signed‐rank test and the Kruskal–Wallis test, together with the rank transformations and t and F tests corresponding to each of those non‐parametric methods. In addition to Type I errors and power over all simulations, the study examines the consistency of the outcomes of the two methods on each individual sample. The results show how acceptance or rejection of the null hypothesis and differences in p‐values of the test statistics depend in a regular and predictable way on sample size, significance level, and differences between means, for normal and various non‐normal distributions.     

Perceptual Sensitivity and Motoric Competence in 5- and 6-Month-Old Infants

The authors explored whether 5- to 6-month-old infants were sensitive to perceptual information and how they used perception as a recognition cue to search for a hidden object. In addition, the authors categorized and examined infant grasp by developmental effectiveness to determine any impact on infant search behaviors. In a within-participants design, 20 infants were presented with a toy in 2 occluder conditions. The toy was hidden under either a thick, camouflaging cloth or a thin, semitransparent cloth. The data revealed significant effects of perceptual sensitivity, age, and motor sophistication on search tasks. The results suggest that motor competence might be a limiting factor in infants' abilities to link motoric responses to notions about an object.     

Benefits Derived by College Students from Mentoring At-Risk Youth in a Service-Learning Course

Service learning is increasingly being used as a pedagogical strategy for promoting the development of civic-mindedness among university students. Despite the use of this strategy, little is known about the benefits derived from specific types of service-learning experiences. Additionally, few notable studies have examined the unique outcomes experienced by mentors of at-risk youth. Therefore, this study examines the civic-related benefits that college students derive from mentoring at-risk youth within a structured, service-learning course. A series of linear regression models were estimated to determine if there were significant post-intervention differences between the treatment and comparison condition for the variables of interest, after adjusting for key background factors and pre-intervention levels of all variables. The results indicated that, in comparison to college students who did not participate in the course (n = 258), college student in Campus Corps, a youth mentoring program, (n = 390) had significantly higher scores at post-intervention regarding mentors’ civic attitudes, community service self-efficacy, self-esteem, interpersonal and problem solving skills, political awareness, and civic action. Findings hold important implications for youth mentoring programs and future research.     

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia on Sleep and Daytime Functioning in College Students

The purpose of this study was to pilot test if cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is an effective intervention for insomnia and daytime functioning in college students. College students’ developmental stage and lifestyle are significantly different than the general adult population, yet there have been no studies of CBT-I in this age group.     

Beyond the Individual: Toward a Nomological Network of Organizational Empowerment

Empowerment research has generally been limited to the individual level of analysis. Efforts to study empowerment beyond the individual require conceptual frameworks suggesting attributes that define the construct and guide its measurement. This paper presents an initial attempt to describe the nomological network of empowerment at the organizational level of analysis--organizational empowerment (OE). Intraorganizational, interorganizational, and extraorganizational components of OE are described. Implications for empowerment theory and practice are discussed.     

Reorganization in coping behavior at 1 1/2 years: dynamic systems and normative change

By the age of 1 year toddlers demonstrate distinct coping habits for dealing with frustration. However, these habits may be open to change and reorganization at subsequent developmental junctures. We investigated change in coping habits at 18-20 months, a normative age for major advances in social cognition, focusing on the dynamic systems principles of fluctuation and novelty at transitions. Specifically, we asked whether month-to-month fluctuation, novel behavioral habits and real-time variability increased at the age of a normative transition, despite individual differences in the content of behavior. Infants were given frustrating toys while their mothers sat nearby without helping, on monthly visits at 14-25 months (before, during and after the hypothesized transition). State space grids representing patterns of behavioral durations were constructed for each episode and compared over age. As predicted, month-to-month fluctuation in grid patterns increased temporarily between 17 and 20 months, partly independently of a concurrent peak in distress, and new behavioral habits replaced old ones at the same age. Coping habits changed differently for high-and low-distressed toddlers. However, changes in real-time variability did not generally meet our expectations.