Remuneration disparities in Oceania: Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands

This paper explores the impact of remuneration differences on workers in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. In these countries remunerative differences are linked to government policy (in Papua New Guinea) and job contracts (in the Solomon Islands), and have impacted on industrial relations in both settings (strike action). A total of N = 350 professionals (n = 60 expatriates) from 54 organizations in aid, government, higher education and industry (mean response rate = 36%) responded to an organizational survey form. Remuneration ratios between international and local respondents based on the World Bank's index of purchasing power parity approached 9:1. In both sites staff compared pay and benefits (remuneration) packages: Internationally remunerated staff rated their ability higher than their local counterparts did; locally remunerated groups reported more injustice in remuneration, were more demotivated by the gaps, and were more likely to be thinking about leaving the organization. In-country workshops of N = 40 largely local stakeholders from aid and community organizations plus government ministries considered the survey's findings and recommended: in Solomon Islands, (a) introducing a policy of localization, (b) establishing a remuneration commission (already existent in Papua New Guinea), and (c) reducing the remunerative gap; in Papua New Guinea, (d) reversing the post-Independence "dual pay system" (currently official policy), (e) instituting pay-for-performance, and (f) ensuring the existent localization policy is applied to recruitment, selection, and staff career planning and management.     

Revisiting the role of bad news in maintaining human observing behavior

Results from studies of observing responses have suggested that stimuli maintain observing owing to their special relationship to primary reinforcement (the conditioned-reinforcement hypothesis), and not because they predict the availability and nonavailability of reinforcement (the information hypothesis). The present article first reviews a study that challenges that conclusion and then reports a series of five brief experiments that provide further support for the conditioned-reinforcement view. In Experiments 1 through 3, participants preferred occasional good news (a stimulus correlated with reinforcement) or no news (a stimulus uncorrelated with reinforcement) to occasional bad news (a stimulus negatively correlated with reinforcement). In Experiment 4 bad news was preferred to no news when the absence of stimulus change following a response to the bad-news option was reliably associated with good news. When this association was weakened in Experiment 5 the results were intermediate. The results support the conclusion that information is reinforcing only when it is positive or useful. As required by the conditioned-reinforcement hypothesis, useless information does not maintain observing.     

Consider the situation: Reducing automatic stereotyping through Situational Attribution Training

The present research investigated the effectiveness of a new technique for reducing automatic biases rooted in attribution theory - the Situational Attribution Training Technique. The goal of this strategy extends previous work by targeting the fundamental attributional pillars underlying automatic stereotyping. We aimed to circumvent the well-documented tendency for individuals to be overly reliant on dispositional attributions when perceiving negative stereotype-consistent behaviors performed by outgroup members. By teaching participants to consider situational attributions for such behaviors, we expected a reduction in outgroup stereotyping. Specifically, White participants were trained extensively to choose situational over dispositional explanations for negative stereotype-consistent behaviors performed by Black men. Across two experiments, participants who completed Situational Attribution Training demonstrated reduced automatic racial stereotyping on a person categorization task, relative to control participants who exhibited substantial automatic stereotyping. The implications of these findings for the nature and reduction of intergroup biases are discussed.     

Effects of survival processing and retention interval on true and false recognition in the DRM and category repetition paradigms

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined the effects of survival processing and delay on true and related false recognition. Experiment 1 used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm and found survival processing to increase true and related false recognition. Extending the delay from 5-mins to 1-day reduced true, but not false memory. Measures of the characteristics of true and false memories showed survival processing increased “remember” and “know” responses for related false memory, “know” responses for true memory and gist processing. Experiment 2 made use of the category repetition procedure and found a broadly similar pattern of results for true memory. However, related false memory was decreased by survival processing. Except for one result, no interactions were found between encoding task and delay. Overall, survival processing produced similar or different effects on true/false memory depending on the nature of the list. The mechanisms that might underpin these are evaluated and considered in relation to future work.     

A Substantivist Construal of Discourse Ethics

Abstract

This paper presents a substantivist construal of discourse ethics, which claims that we should see our engagement in public deliberation as expressing and elaborating a substantive commitment to basic moral ideas of solidarity, equality, and freedom. This view is different from Habermas’s standard formalist defence of discourse ethics, which attempts to derive the principle of discursive moral justification from primarily non‐moral presuppositions of rational argumentation as such. After explicating the difference between the substantivist and the formalist construal, I defend the former by showing that it is not only intuitively compelling, but also particularly well equipped for addressing four important objections recently levelled against discourse ethics and its political applications (Rawls’s concern that it lacks substantive guidelines, Gunnarsson’s challenge that it has not been proven to be superior to alternative moral conceptions such as utilitarianism, Scanlon’s complaint that it lacks an account of moral motivation, and Galston’s and Young’s worries that it could lead to political practices of cultural imposition). I conclude by pointing out some consequences of the previous discussion for the future of Critical Theory.     

Study of a Cognitive Dissonance Intervention to Address High School Students' Cheating Attitudes and Behaviors

This study examined academic dishonesty (AD) of 586 Taiwanese graduate students, the relationship between students' AD and their perceptions of AD of their peers, and their judgments regarding the seriousness of AD. Results showed that female students were more critical of AD than their male counterparts were in the areas of fraudulence, plagiarism, and falsification. Male students demonstrated more awareness of peer involvement in AD in the area of falsification than did female students. Master's students confessed to greater involvement in AD compared with the PhD students. Doctoral students were more judgmental with respect to unethical acts of fraudulence, plagiarism, and falsification.     

A Cerebral Hyperventilation Index for Electroencephalography

This study was an attempt to determine the effect of drive on probability learning. Each of two groups of Ss was divided into high- and low-drive groups on the basis of MAS scores. Each S was given 200 trials on a probability learning task, with 70 per cent reinforcement on one side and 30 per cent reinforcement on the other. At the .05 level, there was no difference between groups in probability choices, and neither group differed from the objective probability scores. The results are discussed in terms of the number of trials involved, the introduction of emotional arousal, and Hullian theory. On the basis of a comparison with the results of previous studies, it was suggested that investigators be cautious in generalizing probability learning results from one species to another.     

Mediation analysis of the association between use of NRT for smoking reduction and attempts to stop smoking

Objectives: Use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for smoking reduction (SR) is linked to higher quit attempt rates than SR without NRT. This study aimed to assess the possible mediating roles of confidence in ability to quit, enjoyment of smoking and motivation to quit in this association.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Main outcome measures: Smokers were asked if they were currently attempting SR, and if they were, whether they were using NRT. Motivation to stop, enjoyment of smoking, confidence in ability to stop, and previous quit attempts, were also assessed.

Results: There was no evidence that confidence in ability to quit or enjoyment of smoking mediated the association between the use of NRT for SR and attempts to quit. Only motivation to stop partially mediated between the use of NRT for SR and attempts to stop (indirect effect: odds ratio 1.08, p?<?0.001).

Conclusion: Although this study is limited by its cross-sectional design, the findings point towards the possibility that the use of NRT to aid SR may promote attempts to stop through increasing motivation to quit but not by increasing confidence or by reducing enjoyment of smoking. Longitudinal studies are required to draw firmer conclusions about the possible mediating effects of motivation to quit.     

Magnitude and determinants of behavioral risk reduction: Longitudinal analysis of a cohort at risk for AIDS

The magnitude and predictors of longitudinal behavioral change are reported in a cohort of homosexual men at risk for AIDS. Self-reports of sexual behavior were obtained at two points in time separated by an interval of approximately six months. These self-reports were used to construct both dichotomous and continuous measures of changes in behavior consistent with reduction in the transmission of the AIDS virus (HIV). Although there was considerable variability in behavior. mean changes were consistently in the desired direction. Avoidance of anonymous sexual partners, monogamy, and modification of receptive anal sex to reduce exposure to semen by condom use or withdrawal prior to ejaculation appeared to be especially important in this cohort. Both multiple linear regression and multiple logistic regression were used to examine the relationship between a model of health behavior and these outcomes. Variables examined included knowledge of AIDS. perceived risk of AIDS. the perceived efficacy of behavior in reducing AIDS risk, difficulties with sexual impulse control, belief in biomedical technology to provide a prevention or cure, social norms supportive of behavioral change, and gay network affiliation. Of all these factors, only the availability of supportive peer norms was consistently, significantly and positively related to multiple measures of outcome. Differences between these analyses and longitudinal analyses reported elsewhere are discussed. These results suggest the policies regarding HIV antibody testing should be developed cautiously. taking account of the failure of a sense of risk to predict subsequent behavioral change. They also emphasize the important role of gay organizations in developing social norms supportive of behavioral risk reduction.     

Reducing demand for ineffective health remedies: overcoming the illusion of causality

Abstract

Objective: We tested a novel intervention for reducing demand for ineffective health remedies. The intervention aimed to empower participants to overcome the illusion of causality, which otherwise drives erroneous perceptions regarding remedy efficacy.

Design: A laboratory experiment adopted a between-participants design with six conditions that varied the amount of information available to participants (N?=?245). The control condition received a basic refutation of multivitamin efficacy, whereas the principal intervention condition received a full contingency table specifying the number of people reporting a benefit vs. no benefit from both the product and placebo, plus an alternate causal explanation for inefficacy over placebo.

Main outcome measures: We measured participants’ willingness to pay (WTP) for multivitamin products using two incentivized experimental auctions. General attitudes towards health supplements were assessed as a moderator of WTP. We tested generalisation using ratings of the importance of clinical-trial results for making future health purchases.

Results: Our principal intervention significantly reduced participants’ WTP for multivitamins (by 23%) and increased their recognition of the importance of clinical-trial results.

Conclusion: We found evidence that communicating a simplified full-contingency table and an alternate causal explanation may help reduce demand for ineffective health remedies by countering the illusion of causality.