Multi-criteria evaluation of climate policy interactions

The effectiveness of a national climate policy instrument is affected by the presence of policy interactions with other instruments that were not forecasted before its implementation. The problem can be confronted during the design of the instrument by determining forms, types and size of emerging interactions. This paper presents a systematic approach for evaluating the aggregate effect of interactions using a combination of three multi-criteria methods, the analytical hierarchy process, the multi-attribute utility theory and the Simple Multi-Attribute Ranking Technique. The first is used for determining the weight coefficients for interaction forms and sub-criteria. The other two are used for grading policy interactions under a set of three criteria and their sub-criteria. The method is tested for two pairs of interactive instruments, IPPC and EU-ETS, EU-ETS and policies for the promotion of RES, within the Hellenic climate policy framework. Consistency and robustness tests are performed. Results are commented. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motivos de los ciudadanos para realizar ejercicio físico: un estudio desde la teoría de la autodeterminación

Based on self-determination theory, the objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between the reasons for exercise and its reported weekly frequency in a representative sample of an adult urban population. A total of 918 inhabitants, aged between 16 and 89, participated in this study answering the Spanish version of the Exercise Motivations Inventory-2 (EMI-2) and reporting on their exercise frequency. Controlling for the influence of age and gender, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that participants who reported the highest exercise frequency had the highest score on both self-determined and controlling exercise motives, except the ill-health avoidance motive. The results support propositions of self-determination theory, and suggest that citizens may internalize exercise behaviour as they become more physically active. However, the results also suggest that some controlling motives are pertinent to exercise. Decision makers of the local sport policy should look into suitable ways of combining both controlling motives and more internalized motives in order to produce long lasting exercise adherence in citizens.     

Investigating the cost to ongoing tasks not associated with prospective memory task requirements

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between prospective memory (PM) and consciousness by examining cost to ongoing activities, with cost assumed to reflect a direction of conscious resources away from the ongoing task in service of the PM task. Ongoing task blocks in which the PM task was relevant or irrelevant were alternated to achieve three aims: determine if cost would persist in irrelevant blocks when relevant and irrelevant blocks were clearly demarcated and irrelevant stimuli were incompatible with the PM task; investigate if costs would be greatest at the start of irrelevant blocks; and determine whether costs would occur when the irrelevant block preceded any relevant blocks. Costs were found in irrelevant blocks and greater cost at the start of the irrelevant blocks suggest the cost may be due in part to participants making decisions about the engagement of conscious resources at transition points.     

Personality Certainty and Politics: Increasing the Predictive Utility of Individual‐Difference Inventories

Research on political psychology has benefitted from using individual‐difference measures to predict political attitudes and behavior. And, previous research has further identified a number of specific variables that enhance the predictive utility of individual‐difference scales. However, a potentially important factor that has been overlooked is the certainty with which people make their responses. The present research establishes that the certainty with which people respond to scales is associated with stability of the scale responses over time and correspondence between the scale and related outcomes. In addition, the effects of certainty in political ideological identification in predicting politically relevant outcomes hold when controlling for a number of previously established moderators. This research suggests that measuring certainty in answers to individual‐difference scales can be a useful and efficient way to increase the predictive utility of those scales within the political domain and beyond. This benefit is demonstrated with need for cognition (Study 1), need to evaluate (Study 2), and ideological identification (Studies 2 and 3).     

The role of learning and career guidance for managing mid-career transitions – comparing Germany and Denmark

In Germany and Denmark, the systems of further education and career guidance are well developed, offering a wide range of services and learning opportunities for targeted, specific and also general skills development. Based on an empirical study with mid-career individuals in both countries, the article investigates how the different systems support individuals to manage a career transition and develop their individual pathways. Mid-career transitions can be considered particularly challenging as they often reflect a more profound crisis and major concerns about future career opportunities. Constraints that prevent individuals in mid-career to fully benefit from the learning and guidance offers available can be identified in both countries. These range from the availability of programmes and accessing funding to getting the ‘right’ information. These constraints partly derive from adult education and guidance systems presupposing linear careers rather than disruptive trajectories and horizontal mobility.     

Guidance systems across Europe: heritage,change and the art of becoming

Guidance systems exist within learning, working and welfare cultures, which are upheld by prevailing institutions and stakeholders. Implementing a lifelong approach questions rooted codes and idiosyncrasies of the sectors across which guidance is distributed. To support individuals' careers, unlock their potential and increase their contribution to the economy i.e. support their process of becoming, lifelong guidance must strive for effective systems' integration across policy fields, cultures and organisations. This article departs from national experiences and discusses how cultures and institutional contexts generate resistance to change, but can also be the departure point for the successful development of lifelong support to people's careers.     

Testing times: careers market policies and practices in England and the Netherlands

Careers work is a very political business. Since the early 1990s, successive governments in England and the Netherlands have persistently challenged those working in the careers sector to demonstrate the educational, social and economic value and impact of their work. In this context, the marketisation of career guidance policies and practices has expanded, with a growing assumption that market-based goods and services ensure greater responsiveness to consumer choice and offer better and/or more innovative services for lower prices. In this article, we do not intend to give a comparison of trends in England and the Netherlands. We only examine the impact of market principles applied to career guidance provision in both countries. Findings indicate such provision for young people is on a steady decline. Lessons learned from these two nations indicate that a market for quality career services does not exist in schools and colleges. As a result, marketisation and privatisation of career services have led to an impoverished and fragmented supply of services. Greater attention by governments in career guidance policies for young people (and adults) is necessary to reduce the widening gap between ‘the haves and have nots’ in society. Failure to reduce labour market mismatch through new forms of careers dialogue is not only damaging and costly for individuals, families and employers, but for the taxpayer too.     

The Social Determinants of Health: Why Should We Care?

A growing body of empirical research examines the effects of the so-called “social determinants of health” (SDH) on health and health inequalities. Several high-profile publications have issued policy recommendations to reduce health inequalities based on a specific interpretation of this empirical research as well as a set of normative assumptions. This article questions the framework defined by these assumptions by focusing on two issues: first, the normative judgments about the (un)fairness of particular health inequalities; and second, the policy recommendations issued on this basis. We argue that the normative underpinnings of the approach are insufficiently supported and that the policy recommendations do not necessarily follow from the arguments provided. Furthermore, while many of the policies recommended—such as improving people's living conditions and reducing inequalities in wealth and power—are justified in their own right, the way these recommendations are tied to health is problematic.     

Intergroup Contact,Prejudicial Attitudes,and Policy Preferences: The Case of the U.S. Military’s “Don’t Ask,Don’t Tell” Policy

Data from 115,052 active United States military personnel were analyzed to explore links between contact with gay people and attitudes about repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Results showed that prejudice against homosexuals significantly mediated the association between contact and supporting repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”; quality of contact in the military was a stronger predictor than other measures of contact. Quality and quantity of contact interacted: more contact quantity had opposing statistical effects on policy attitudes for people experiencing high versus low quality contact. Findings are discussed in terms of contact theory, the association between intergroup attitudes and policy preferences, and practical implications for situations in which groups’ access to new positions or roles is limited, and hence contact opportunities are rare.