bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Implementation from Above: The Ecology of Power in Sweden's Environmental Governance
Authors: Lundqvist Lennart J.
Published: March 2003

This paper seeks to assess the tenability of Rhodes' view of the “new governance” as “governing without government,” as well as the validity of Pierre and Peters' assertions that the state is still at the center of structures and processes of governance. The case used for analysis is Sweden's ecological modernization and the implementation of Local Investment Programs for Sustainable Development. This case provides a crucial test of the contradictory propositions of Rhodes and Pierre and Peters. Contrary to Rhodes' assertions, central government held the initiative in the process of implementing Sweden's ecological modernization. In line with the arrguments of Pierre and Peters central government created new structures and processes of governance to keep its initiative over constitutionally independent expert agencies and municipal governments—exactly those actors that, in Rhodes' view, could make central governmental steering well nigh impossible. As the paper illustrates, what government gains in direct control over the process, it may well lose in terms of the end results. The case of “new governance” analyzed here thus directs attention to the critical interplay between structure, process, and end results, and to government's role in governance.
Impact of Culture on Human Resource Management Practices: A 10‐Country Comparison
Authors: Aycan Zeynep , Kanungo Rabindra , Mendonca Manuel , Yu Kaicheng , Deller Jürgen , Stahl Günter , Kurshid Anwar
Published: March 2003

Le Mode`le de Culture Fit explique la manie`re dont l’environnement socio‐culturel influence la culture interne au travail et les pratiques de la direction des ressources humaines. Ce mode`le a e´te´ teste´ sur 2003 salarie´s d’entreprises prive´es dans 10 pays. Les participants ont rempli un questionnaire de 57 items, destine´ a` mesurer les perceptions de la direction sur 4 dimensions socio‐culturelles, 6 dimensions de culture interne au travail, et les pratiques HRM (Management des Ressources Humaines) dans 3 zones territoiriales. Une analyse ponde´re´e par re´gressions multiples, au niveau individuel, a montre´ que les directeurs qui caracte´risaient leurs environnement socio‐culturel de fac¸on fataliste, supposaient aussi que les employe´s n’e´taient pas malle´ables par nature. Ces directeurs ne pratiquaient pas l’enrichissement des postes et donnaient tout pouvoir au contrôle et a` la re´mune´ration en fonction des performances. Les directeurs qui appre´ciaient une grande loyaute´ des employe´s supposaient qu’ils remplissent entre eux des obligations re´ciproques et s’engagaient dans la voie donnant pouvoir aux pratiques HRM. Les directeurs qui percevaient le paternalisme et une forte distance de l’autorite´ dans leur environnement socio‐culturel, supposaient une re´activite´ des employe´s, et en outre ne pourvoyaient pas a` l’enrichissement des postes et a` la de´le´gation. Des mode`les spe´cifiques a` la culture qui mettent en relation ces 3 groupes de variables ainsi que les applications de ces recherches pour la psychologie industrielles trans‐culturellesont e´te´ de´battus.
Participation in Group Goal Setting: Some Novel Findings and a Comprehensive Model as a New Ending to an Old Story
Authors: Wegge Juergen
Published: March 2003

A new model of participation in group goal setting (PGGS) is presented. The model consists of (a) mediator variables (e.g. group cohesion, identification with the group, potency beliefs) that explain why PGGS might affect motivation and group performance, and (b) moderator variables that foster or hinder the development of these effects (e.g. group composition regarding fear of social rejection). Several assumptions of the model were tested in an experiment using a group brainstorming task. Challenging group goals (assigned or participatively set) improved group performance, promoted identification with the group, and improved the readiness for social compensation, but there was no overall effect of PGGS on group performance. However, as predicted, participation alleviated anxiety and groups of highly anxious persons showed enhanced performance due to PGGS. Interestingly, PGGS also decreased group cohesion and intrinsic motivation, probably due to the revelation of goal conflicts during group discussions. These findings suggest that current theories of goal setting and participation have to be extended in various ways.
The Influence of Culture, Community, and the Nested‐Self in the Stress Process: Advancing Conservation of Resources Theory
Authors: Hobfoll Stevan E.
Published: March 2003

Conservation of Resources (COR) theory predicts that resource loss is the principal ingredient in the stress process. Resource gain, in turn, is depicted as of increasing importance in the context of loss. Because resources are also used to prevent resource loss, at each stage of the stress process people are increasingly vulnerable to negative stress sequelae, that if ongoing result in rapid and impactful loss spirals. COR theory is seen as an alternative to appraisal‐based stress theories because it relies more centrally on the objective and culturally construed nature of the environment in determining the stress process, rather than the individual’s personal construel. COR theory has been successfully employed in predicting a range of stress outcomes in organisational settings, health contexts, following traumatic stress, and in the face of everyday stressors. Recent advances in understanding the biological, cognitive, and social bases of stress responding are seen as consistent with the original formulation of COR theory, but call for envisioning of COR theory and the stress process within a more collectivist backdrop than was first posited. The role of both resource losses and gains in predicting positive stress outcomes is also considered. Finally, the limitations and applications of COR theory are discussed.
Immediate Learning in Organisational Computer Training as a Function of Training Intervention Affective Reaction, and Session Impact Measures
Authors: Hook Kevin , Bunce David
Published: March 2003

This study assesses the influence of training intervention session process measures (affective reactions and session impacts) on immediate learning outcomes among 57 male and female telecommunications company employees, receiving instruction on a computer‐based account management system. Hierarchical multiple regression found affective reaction (e.g. session warmth and trainer empathy) and session impact (e.g. usefulness and role clarity) measures explained up to 16.5 per cent of the variance in immediate learning outcomes, having statistically controlled for demographic variables and trainer differences. Furthermore, the results suggested early training experiences were related to later training learning outcomes. The results underline the need for training effectiveness research to gain a greater understanding of the mechanisms which underpin learning outcomes in organisational training contexts.
Assessing the Costs of Behavioral and Psychological Withdrawal: A New Model and an Empirical Illustration
Authors: Sagie Abraham , Birati Assa , Tziner Aharon
Published: March 2003

Ce travail sur la désimplication des salarìés propose un modèle qui intègre les dimensions financière et comportementale et fait appel à des formules mathématiques qui fournissent une estimation du coût global de la désimplication pour l’entreprise. Pour nous différencier des tentatives antérieures de calcul d’un tel coût, nous avons essayé d’englober toute une série de comportements et d’attitudes de retrait, incluant le retrait psychologique, le freinage, les retards, absences et démissions. L’estimation du coût prend en compte des éléments directs et indirects, certains d’entre eux étant même traditionnellement considérés comme ne relevant pas de l’économie. Les équations reposent sur le fond théorique empruntéà la littérature sur le comportement comprenant l’établissement des normes, les interactions à l’intérieur de l’équipe de travail et l’éventuelle dérive d’attitudes et de comportements de retrait relativement discrets vers des formes plus accentuées. On utilise dans les équations des corrélations (corrigées empiriquement) entre les différentes formes de retrait. Ce modèle a été exploité pour évaluer les coûts de la désimplication pour l’année fiscale 1997 dans une société israelienne de dimension moyenne leader dans le domaine de la haute technologic. Il est apparu que le coût de la désimplícation était approximativement de 2,8 millions de dollars américains, ou encore de 16,5% du bénéfice avant impôts de l’entreprise. On discute aussi des consequences théoriques et pratiques de ces résultats.

The present study proposes an integrative behavioral‐financial model of employee withdrawal combined with mathematical formulas, allowing the estimation of the overall cost of withdrawal to the firm. In contrast to previous attempts to calculate such a cost, we aimed to cover an entire range of withdrawal attitudes and behaviors, including psychological withdrawal, withholding effort at work, lateness, absence, and turnover. Cost calculation involves direct and indirect components, including those that were traditionally considered non‐economic. The equations are based on theoretical grounds of the behavioral literature, including norm determination, mutual interpersonal influences within the work teams, and the possible progression of relatively mild withdrawal attitudes and behaviors into more severe forms. Empirical mean corrected correlations between withdrawal forms are used in the equations. We applied the model by assessing the withdrawal costs for the fiscal year 1997 in a leading, medium‐sized, Israeli high‐tech company. It was found that the withdrawal cost was approximately 2.8 million US dollars, or 16.5 per cent of the company’s before‐tax income. Theoretical and applied implications of the results are discussed.
Neuropsychological and Academic Characteristics of Mexican‐American Children: A Longitudinal Field Study
Authors: Bowler Rosemarie M. , Smith Margot W. , Schwarzer Ralf , Perez‐Arce Patricia , Kreutzer Richard A.
Published: March 2003

Les performances académiques et de tests psychologiques de 836 enfants mexicains‐américains ont étéétudiées sur une période de quatre ans. Ces enfants, âgés de 6 à 12 ans, vivaient dans une ville rurale de Californie à prédominance Hispanique. Les moyennes des résultats sur les tests psychologiques étaient à l’intérieur d’une déviation standard des normes nationales. Les résultats académiques (lecture, mathématiques et langue) étaient en dessous de la moyenne nationale, bien que à l’intérieur d’une déviation standard des résultats de l’État de Californie. Des régressions hiérarchiques multiples ont été réalisées avec les variables démographiques (langue de l’enfant, langue de la maison, statut d’immigrant, et niveau de pauvreté) et les résultats des tests psychologiques afin de prédire la performance future sur le “CAT”. Les résultats du test “Coding and Digit Span” se sont révélés les meilleurs indicateurs et étaient meilleurs que les variables démographiques pour cette population.

Performance in psychological tests and academic achievement over four years was examined for 836 Mexican‐American children aged 6 to 12 years living in a rural and predominantly Hispanic town in California. Mean scores on tests were within one standard deviation of national norms. Reading, math, and language scores were below the national average, but they remained within one standard deviation of the state’s population’s scores. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted for both demographic variables (child’s language, household language, migrant status, and poverty level) and psychological test scores. Demographic variables and psychological test scores were used to predict later test performance on the CAT. Test scores for Coding and Digit Span were the best predictors and were better than these demographic variables for this population.
Beyond Gender Roles? Conceptualizing the Social and Economic Lives of Rural Peoples in Sub‐Saharan Africa
Authors: Warner M. W. , Al‐Hassan R. M. , Kydd J. G.
Published: March 2003

The repeated failure to design and appropriately target policies and interventions which address the needs of rural peoples in Africa suggests that something may be wrong with our understanding of the way that these peoples live their lives. Perspectives which focus on intra‐household processes, and on gender issues in particular, represent useful advances in the way that the social and economic lives of Africa's rural peoples are conceptualized. However, this article questions the value of adopting development planning, policy and project approaches based on the rigid identification of `gender roles'. By reference to field research undertaken in northern Ghana, the paper aims to demonstrate that other social constructs, such as marital status and seniority, may be as important as gender in determining the roles and status of individuals in African rural societies. The article concludes by highlighting a number of practical implications of this finding in terms of the structuring of development‐oriented research and the targeting of policy and interventions.
Food Security in India: Measures, Norms and Issues
Authors: Suryanarayana M. H.
Published: March 2003

Although assessments by conventional macro measures show considerable improvement in food security in India, the levels of cereal consumption and calorie intake of even the general population are still below the normative threshold limits. This article brings out the dynamics of changes in institutional and production conditions and their implications for consumption patterns and food security at the micro level. The article uses empirical evidence to raise a number of issues, and calls for emphasis on investment in human capital by way of improvements in food and calorie intake for efficiency and economic growth.
Regional Linkages in the Era of Liberalization: A Critique of the New Agrarian Optimism
Authors: Hart Gillian
Published: March 2003

Regional growth linkage modellers claim that agricultural growth generates non‐agricultural diversification of rural regions through the operation of production and consumption linkages. These influential claims are often legitimated in terms of a composite model of ‘Asian success’ from which neoliberal policy prescriptions are derived for other parts of the world. This article argues that diversification of local rural economies does not emerge automatically from agricultural growth and market expansion. Rather, intersectoral and spatial linkages depend crucially on the social organization of production, the conditions of access to resources, and the social logic of investment—that is, who gets the surplus and what they do with it — as well as on wider configurations of political – economic forces. The article repositions key ‘Asian successes’ within institutionally and historically specific contexts, and shows how supposedly similar instances of regional growth linkages exemplify multiple and quite divergent paths of sectoral and spatial development.
Tuna Dreams: Resource Nationalism and the Pacific Islands' Tuna Industry
Authors: Schurman Rachel A.
Published: March 2003

The 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea was expected by many to lead to a drastic redistribution of income from the world's fisheries. This article explores the extent to which this happened by examining the case of the Pacific Islands' tuna industry. The analysis shows that even though these developing countries gained legal jurisdiction over some of the largest tuna stocks in the world, they encountered tremendous obstacles when they attempted to convert those tenure rights into concrete economic gains. Notwithstanding their success in organizing and co‐operating amongst themselves, the Pacific Island countries (PICs) were unable to compel the distant water fishing nations to pay them more than a nominal access fee. When the PICs tried instead to develop their own tuna industries, they were disadvantaged by being located at the raw material end of the commodity chain. This case study suggests that a change in property rights is only a starting point for achieving increased equity in a global natural resource industry; not only do the new resource owners have to develop expertise in managing their ‘property’; they also need to develop a good understanding of the organization and operation of these natural resource industries.
Quenching the Thirst: The Cost of Water in Fragile Environments
Authors: Reddy V. Ratna
Published: March 2003

Public policy has often addressed the problems of water supply and sanitation from the supply side to the neglect of demand side aspects in developing countries like India. This policy has not only rendered a large number of projects financially unviable but has also resulted in inadequate coverage of aspects such as population and ecological unsustainability. This article, based on household level information from six villages in a water scarce region of India (Rajasthan state), examines inter‐ and intra‐village variations in water use and the costs, direct and indirect, involved in obtaining water. It also estimates households' willingness and ability to pay for water, using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Using qualitative as well as quantitative methods, it is argued that it is the failure of government policy and of institutions which has led to severe water shortages in harsh environments rather than supply or financial bottlenecks per se. While the estimates of price elasticity of water use indicate the feasibility of water pricing in the rural areas, the willingness to pay estimates question the general assumption that rural households are willing to pay 5 per cent of their income/expenditure for water. Various economic and extra economic factors such as household income, low opportunity costs of women and children, and attitudes towards female labour and public goods are vital in influencing the households' willingness to pay for water.
Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment
Authors: Kabeer Naila
Published: March 2003

This paper begins from the understanding that women's empowerment is about the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability. A wide gap separates this processual understanding of empowerment from the more instrumentalist forms of advocacy which have required the measurement and quantification of empowerment. The ability to exercise choice incorporates three inter‐related dimensions: resources (defined broadly to include not only access, but also future claims, to both material and human and social resources); agency (including processes of decision making, as well as less measurable manifestations of agency such as negotiation, deception and manipulation); and achievements (well‐being outcomes). A number of studies of women's empowerment are analysed to make some important methodological points about the measurement of empowerment. The paper argues that these three dimensions of choice are indivisible in determining the meaning of an indicator and hence its validity as a measure of empowerment. The notion of choice is further qualified by referring to the conditions of choice, its content and consequences. These qualifications represent an attempt to incorporate the structural parameters of individual choice in the analysis of women's empowerment.
Land Tenure and Food Security: Exploring Dynamic Linkages
Authors: Maxwell Daniel , Wiebe Keith
Published: March 2003

Land tenure and food security have each been the subject of extensive—but generally separate—research in the past. Links between the two issues are now receiving increased attention, yet critical links between them remain unexplored. After a brief review of the two concepts, this article combines both issues within a dynamic framework that recognizes not just the conventional link between access to land and access to food in the short run, but also the recursive link between access to food and the ability to maintain sufficient resources to meet long‐run needs. Such a framework makes explicit the trade‐offs that poor households may face in bad years between consumption and investment in non‐labour assets. Perhaps less intuitively, it also suggests that the need for self‐insurance may force poor households to choose less efficient crops or production strategies than wealthier households even in good years. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for equity, efficiency, research, and policy.
Welfare Accounting and the Environment: Reassessing Brazilian Economic Growth, 1965–1993
Authors: Torras Mariano
Published: March 2003

Few countries in recent decades have experienced economic growth as rapid as that in Brazil. The period spanning the late 1960s and mid 1970s, during which GDP growth was especially strong, is often referred to as the ‘economic miracle’. Yet, the use of per capita GDP growth as a proxy for economic development (or social welfare improvement) can be questioned on both distributional and environmental grounds. Scholars such as Ahluwalia and Chenery have noted that per capita GDP growth places greater weight on the income of richer income groups, and have proposed distribution‐neutral and pro‐poor alternatives. More recently, studies by the World Resources Institute and others have questioned the environmental sustainability of GDP growth and have introduced an alternative national income accounting methodology that factors in estimated losses associated with natural resource depletion. To date, no studies have undertaken both types of revisions concurrently, creating a revised national welfare measure based on per capita GDP, but corrected for both distributional bias and resource depletion. Such a measure is derived in this article and applied to the Brazilian case. The results cast doubt on the proposition that rapid economic growth in Brazil has resulted in comparable welfare gains.
Property Rights and the Environment in Pastoral China: Evidence from the Field
Authors: Banks Tony
Published: March 2003

It is widely perceived that the degradation of China’s rangelands has accelerated since the introduction of rural reforms in the late 1970s. The popular explanation for this phenomenon has been that a ‘tragedy of the commons’ exists, as privately‐owned livestock are being grazed on ‘common’ land. Since the passing of the Rangeland Law in 1985, Chinese pastoral tenure policy has emphasized the establishment of individual household tenure as a necessary condition for improving incentives for sustainable rangeland management. Yet household tenure has yet to be effectively established in many pastoral regions. The first objective of this article is to describe pastoral tenure arrangements in northern Xinjiang‐Uygur Autonomous Region. Its second objective is to explain pastoral tenure arrangements, particularly the observed persistence of collective action. It is argued that there is no ‘tragedy of the commons’ and that it is characteristics of rangeland resources and the social environment that give rise to the particular types of institutional arrangements found.
Community Formation and Fisheries Conservation in Southern Thailand
Authors: Johnson Craig
Published: March 2003

This article explores theories of community, common property and collective action by reflecting upon the management and enclosure of a coastal fishery in Southern Thailand. Its aims are threefold. First, it explores the incentives that motivated villagers to support and enforce this common property regime. Second, it considers the issue of leadership, investigating why certain individuals were willing to bear considerable costs on behalf of the fishery, while others were not. Finally, it examines the ways in which religion and ethnic identity helped to forge ‘an image of community’ on which collective action could thrive. It argues that age, gender and class had a profound impact on the extent to which individuals could engage in this important socio–political activity. In so doing, it illustrates the dynamic ways in which power, structure and historical social relations can shape community, common property and collective action.
The Challenge to the State in a Globalized World
Authors: Clapham Christopher
Published: March 2003

Individual instances of state failure and collapse must be placed within a broader appreciation of the evolution of statehood within the international system. The idea that the inhabited area of the globe must be divided between sovereign states is a recent development, and likely to prove a transient one. Largely the product of European colonialism, and turned into a global norm by decolonization, it is threatened both by the inherent difficulties of state maintenance, and by processes inherent in globalization. States are expensive organizations to maintain, not only in economic terms but also in the demands that they make on their citizens and their own employees. Poor and dispersed peoples, and those whose values derive from societies without states, have found these demands especially burdensome. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union revealed the hollowness of existing models of sovereign states, and challenged the triple narratives on which the project of global statehood has depended: the narratives of security, representation, and wealth and welfare. While individual cases of state failure and collapse may owe much to specific circumstances and the behaviour of particular individuals, they must also be understood within the context of a world in which maintaining states has become increasingly difficult.
Export Processing Zones: Free Market Islands or Bridges to Structural Transformation?
Authors: Schrank Andrew
Published: March 2003

Do export processing zones draw local manufacturers into world markets – and thereby engender broader market reform – by way of a ‘demonstration effect’? The answer is likely (i) to be determined, not in the EPZ, but in the host country's national customs area, and (ii) to vary systematically with the size of the relevant market. While manufacturers from large economies are able to compete in world markets, and are therefore susceptible to the demonstration effect, their counterparts from small economies are unable to do so, and are therefore intractable. Thus, the nature of the EPZ life‐cycle, like the legacy of import‐substituting industrialisation, is in no small measure a function of market size.
Growth versus Distribution: Does the Pattern of Growth Matter?
Authors: White Howard , Anderson Edward
Published: March 2003

Despite the fashion for pro‐poor growth, there remains no consensus as to its meaning. This article proposes three possible definitions, and examines the pattern of growth over time and in different world regions. The growth of the poor's income can be broken down into a growth effect and a distribution effect. In 143 growth episodes, it is found that the growth effect dominates. However, in over a quarter of cases changes in distribution played a stronger role than overall growth in increasing income for the poor. Econometric analysis of growth regressions for each population quintile supports the idea that openness benefits everyone, but indicates a robust perverse relationship with governance. There is also evidence of a trade‐off between growth and distribution, suggesting that attention to distribution will be better for the poor than going for growth.
Sector Approaches, Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction
Authors: Gilling Jim , Jones Stephen , Duncan Alex
Published: March 2003

This article examines the relationship between sector‐wide approaches (SWAps), sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLAs) and rural poverty reduction. The authors suggest that SLAs provide one means by which SWAps can focus more effectively on poverty reduction, whilst SWAps provide an entry point via which government and donor initiatives can be made supportive of the livelihoods of the poor. The article puts forward guidelines indicating the core issues upon which donors should focus to enhance the poverty impact of sector‐wide approaches.
From Urban to Rural: Lessons for Microfinance from Argentina
Authors: Schreiner Mark , Colombet Héctor Horacio
Published: March 2003

The recent success of microfinance for the urban self‐employed contrasts with decades of failure on the part of public development banks for small farmers. This article describes the ways in which rural microfinance organisations have tried to adapt the lessons of urban microfinance to manage the risks and control the costs of the supply of financial services in rural areas. It then asks whether the lessons of urban microfinance are likely to apply in the poorest rural areas of Argentina. The article concludes that microfinance is unlikely to improve access to small loans and small deposits for many of the rural poor in Argentina; distances are too great, farmers too specialised, and wages too high. Improved access depends not on targeting loans by government decree but on strengthening institutions that support financial markets.
Local Democracy, Democratic Decentralisation and Rural Development: Theories, Challenges and Options for Policy
Authors: Johnson Craig
Published: March 2003

Democratic decentralisation is often presented as the sine qua non of rural poverty reduction. But there is little evidence that either democracy or decentralisation is necessary for poverty reduction in rural or urban areas, and indeed some evidence that they are counter‐productive. There are success stories to report, however. They are cases where three conditions have been met: an appropriate balance between autonomy and accountability; constructive support from external actors; and a commitment to democratic deepening. It is worth building on these conditions because democratic activity is not merely an instrumental good; it also has intrinsic benefits for the rural poor.
The Implications of the Evolving Microfinance Agenda for Regulatory and Supervisory Policy
Authors: Kirkpatrick Colin , Maimbo Samuel Munzele
Published: March 2003

The growth in microfinance institutions (MFIs) has been accompanied by a widening of the range of financial services provided to the poor, to include voluntary savings facilities. This entails prudential risk to clients and poses the policy question of the most appropriate form of regulatory framework for MFIs. This article examines the implications for regulatory policy of the recent trend towards MFI provision of microfinancial services encompassing savings, credit and insurance, by evaluating what we know of the existing regulatory approaches, the main concerns with these approaches, and the merits of recent regulatory proposals for MFIs.
Introduction and Overview
Authors: Booth David
Published: March 2003

PRSPs have achieved a useful mainstreaming of anti–poverty efforts in national policy processes in Africa. However, the seven country experiences synthesised in this article reveal differences as well as commonalities. Whether or not vicious circles of patrimonial politics, state weakness and ineffectual aid can be replaced with virtuous ones, based on greater national ownership of anti–poverty effort, is still uncertain. PRSPs add value to technocratic reforms in public management, by opening new spaces for policy dialogue, but reforms remain vital, especially in regard to the budget. Donors, also, need to take more risks and impose some disciplines on themselves. The hypothesis that PRSP processes can promote changes leading to more effective poverty reduction needs refinement, but remains plausible on balance.
Visual attention in infants with perinatal brain damage: Evidence of the importance of anterior lesions
Authors: Johnson Mark H. , Tucker Leslie A. , Stiles Joan , Trauner Doris
Published: March 2003

Shifts of visual attention can be studied in adults and infants by cueing responses to a particular spatial location. Earlier studies have shown that by seven months of age normal infants show a similar pattern of facilitation and inhibition to a cued spatial location as adults. In this study we report data from infants with perinatal lesions that include or exclude the left anterior quadrant. Results indicate that infants with left anterior lesions do not show facilitation to a cued spatial location in this task. In contrast, infants with posterior lesions showed the same pattern of performance as healthy subjects. While these findings differ from those obtained with adults, they are consistent with previous studies of children with perinatal lesions, and with findings from ERP studies with normal infants.
Parental loss of close family members and propensities towards absorption in offspring
Authors: Hesse Erik , Van IJzendoorn Marinus H.
Published: March 2003

Parental unresolved/disorganized responses to loss assessed in the Adult Attachment Interview predict infant disorganized (D) attachment. Parental experiences of loss near the birth of an infant should therefore increase the likelihood of D attachment to that parent. Liotti (1992) suggested that D attachment may increase tendencies to altered states of consciousness, and some support for this hypothesis has been obtained in clinical and high‐risk samples. Here, Tellegen's Absorption Scale was used to measure propensities to altered consciousness in two low‐risk samples of young adults (N=136, N=308). In both studies, participants whose parents experienced familial loss within two years of their birth showed elevated levels of absorption. These outcomes (a) support the proposed connection between disorganized attachment and tendencies to altered consciousness, and (b) suggest that queries regarding parental loss experiences should be further explored as a ‘rough and ready’ estimate of disorganized attachment in large‐scale studies.
A matter of time: novel nouns mark object categories when delays are imposed
Authors: Waxman Sandra R. , Philippe Murat , Branning Amy
Published: March 2003

In previous work, preschool‐aged children have revealed a specific expectation that novel count nouns (but not adjectives) will refer to object categories (but not to object properties or to thematic relations). However, in these tasks, children have been permitted to extend a novel word immediately after it has been introduced. The current experiments test the hypothesis that the noun‐category bias is sufficiently robust to hold up even when a delay is imposed between a naming episode and the child’s opportunity for extension. To capture this phenomenon experimentally, we imposed delays of 30  s (Experiment 1) and 1  h (Experiment 2). Across both delay conditions, children in a ‘novel noun’ condition revealed a strong inclination to consistently choose other members of the same object category as the (previously named) target. Children in either a ‘novel adjective’ or ‘no word’ condition revealed no taxonomic inclination. These results establish the power of the noun‐category bias in situations that more closely approximate some of the very real challenges that children face in mapping and extending novel words.
Selecting the wrong processor: a critique of Leslie’s theory of mind mechanism–selection processor theory
Authors: Doherty Martin J.
Published: March 2003

The fundamental assumption behind Leslie’s theory of mind mechanism theory is that from 18 months onwards a single device, the theory of mind mechanism, allows children to represent both pretend and belief in terms of propositional attitudes. This is compared with Perner’s argument that early pretence is not understood in terms of propositional attitudes. Recent modifications to Leslie’s theory aim to explain why children younger than 4 years fail the false belief test. Leslie argues that the correct proposition is computed, not by the theory of mind mechanism, but by the selection processor, a later‐developing executive device. In this paper I examine the coherence of Leslie’s revised theory and conclude that representing beliefs is now entirely the task of the selection processor; the theory of mind mechanism is no longer involved, thus contravening the fundamental assumption of the theory. The conclusion is that the theory and the assumption should be abandoned.
Children’s causal reasoning: Counterfactual thinking occurs for ‘negative’ outcomes only
Authors: German Tim P.
Published: March 2003

Harris, German and Mills (Children’s use of counterfactual thinking in causal reasoning. Cognition, 61 (1996), 223–259), following Mackie, argue that children make explicit use of counterfactual thinking in arriving at causal judgments. They showed that children as young as 3, in explaining simple mishap events, made reference to courses of action that a protagonist had rejected, when that course of action would have prevented the observed outcome. It is hypothesized here that such counterfactual thinking might have been invoked by the ‘negative’ mishaps rather than as part of the causal reasoning process. Although the generation of counterfactuals in explanation was replicated using mishap outcomes such as those used by Harris et  al., counterfactual thinking was not evident in children’s explanations of ‘positive’ outcomes. These results undermine the view that a counterfactual thinking process, as indexed by reference to possible actions rejected by a protagonist, is necessary for causal reasoning. Alternative characterizations of the relationship between causals and counterfactuals are discussed.
A new dynamic systems method for the analysis of early socioemotional development
Authors: Lewis Marcn D. , Lamey Alex V. , Douglas Lori
Published: March 2003

This study reports on a new dynamic systems method for studying infant socioemotional development, using conventional statistical techniques to portray dynamic systems constructs. State space grids were constructed from two ordinal variables, distress intensity and attention to mother, and hypothetical attractors were identified as grid cells with high cumulative duration of behavior. Attractor and state space characteristics were operationalized and tested, first to assess the utility of the method and second to reconceptualize and extend conventional developmental hypotheses. The basin strength and relaxation time of hypothetical attractors demonstrated their ‘attractiveness’ and predicted consistency in attractor location across sessions. Developmental changes and individual continuities in the organization of behavior were also revealed, in ways that would be inaccessible to conventional research methods.
A perceptual–attentional explanation of gaze following in 3‐ and 6‐month‐olds
Authors: D’Entremont Barbara
Published: March 2003

Two experiments were conducted with 3‐ and 6‐month‐olds using a standard gaze following procedure with targets to examine the possibility that perceptual–attentional constraints may affect young infants’ gaze following. In Experiment 1, either moving or stationary targets were positioned at 15° from the infants’ midline. In Experiment 2, stationary targets were positioned at either 25° or 40° from the infants’ midline. Gaze following was evaluated with three criteria. Infants made significantly more correct responses to the 15° stationary targets than all other response types combined. When targets were moving or further away, infants made significantly more correct than incorrect responses when they made a turn; however, they did not make significantly more correct responses across all trials. It is argued that the infants’ responses are indicative of perceptual–attention constraints operating where the adult head and eye turn shifts infants’ attention to the side but whether the infants then ‘gaze follow’ depends on the structure of the environment as well as the infants’ ability to disengage attention and initiate saccadic eye movements.
Developmental changes in attention: the effects of endogenous cueing and of distractors
Authors: Goldberg Melissa C. , Maurer Daphne , Lewis Terri L.
Published: March 2003

We used two reaction time tasks to examine age differences in the ability to use an endogenous cue to shift attention covertly and to ignore distractors. In Experiment 1, 8‐year‐olds, 10‐year‐olds and adults (n = 24 per age) were asked to push a button as soon as they detected a target that was presented in a cued, miscued or non‐cued peripheral location at 100, 400 or 800 ms after the appearance of a central cue. In Experiment 2, 10‐year‐olds and adults (n = 24 per age) were asked to indicate which of two shapes appeared in the periphery 400 ms after a central cue, with those shapes surrounded by compatible or incompatible distractors. Unlike previous studies, the data were corrected for a reaction time bias that can inflate the apparent effect of cueing. Children were slower and more variable than adults overall. However, there were no age differences in the effects of the cues in either experiment: at all ages, the speed of responding was increased similarly by correct cueing and slowed similarly by incorrect cueing. Thus, under these conditions, the ability to use endogenous cues to orient covertly to the periphery is already adult‐like by 8–10 years of age, although there may be subsequent changes in the consistency of responding. In Experiment 2, 10‐year‐olds were slowed more than adults by incompatible distractors. Thus, the ability to ignore distracting information is not adult‐like even by 10 years of age. The findings suggest different rates of development for the ability to shift attention following an endogenous cue and for the ability to filter out irrelevant information.
Why count stuff? Young preschoolers do not use number for measurement in continuous dimensions
Authors: Huntley‐Fenner Gavin
Published: March 2003

Adults routinely use numbers to make precise references to amounts of substance (e.g. 5 liters of water), but the ontogenesis of this capability is poorly understood. We developed a new method for addressing this issue. This report focuses on children’s ability to conceive of measuring substances by drawing on numerical information. Three‐ to 5‐year‐olds are unable to use even small differences of number to facilitate the quantitative comparison of small portions of sand. It is argued that children are biased to enumerate objects and to measure substances without counting.
Structural limits on verb mapping: the role of abstract structure in 2.5‐year‐olds’ interpretations of novel verbs
Authors: Fisher Cynthia
Published: March 2003

Two experiments showed that 2.5‐year‐olds, as well as older children, interpret new verbs in accord with their number of arguments. When interpreting new verbs describing the same motion events, children who heard transitive sentences were more likely than were children who heard intransitive sentences to assume that the verb referred to the actions of the causal agent. The sentences were designed so that only the number of noun‐phrase arguments differed across conditions (e.g.She’s pilking her over thereversusShe’s pilking over there). These experiments isolate number of noun‐phrase arguments (or number of nouns) as an early constraint on sentence interpretation and verb learning, and provide strong evidence that children as young as 2.5 years of age attend to a sentence’s overall structure in interpreting it.
A non‐human primate’s understanding of solidity: dissociations between seeing and acting
Authors: Santos Laurie R. , Hauser Marc D.
Published: March 2003

Studies often reveal a dissociation between what infants know as revealed by action and what they know as revealed by perception. We explored whether non‐human primates exhibit a similar dissociation, focusing on what rhesus macaques know about solidity. In a series of search experiments, Hauser (2001) found that rhesus do not possess a complete understanding of solidity, searching below a solid shelf for an invisibly displaced object. In the present experiments, we explored how rhesus would perform in expectancy violation versions of the same tasks. Subjects looked longer when an apple appeared to fall through a solid shelf and when it appeared to roll through a solid barrier. These results suggest that macaques have some understanding of solidity when tested using looking paradigms even though they do not appear to use this knowledge when searching for food. We speculate that this dissociation is similar to that demonstrated in human development.
Ten Criteria for Evaluating the Management of Community Disasters
Authors: Quarantelli E.L.
Published: March 2003

The discussion herein concerns important factors in the local management of disasters. We contrast this with the related but distinct process of disaster planning. Our assumption is that what is crucial is not management per se, but good management. Thus, to assess intelligently the management of community disasters requires an answer to the question: What is good management? The results of empirical research carried out by social scientists over the past 40 years are drawn upon in considering this question.

The criteria identified entail: (1) correctly recognising differences between response and agent‐generated demands; (2) adequately carrying out generic functions; (3) effectively mobilising personnel and resources; (4) generating an appropriate delegation of tasks and division of labour; (5) adequately processing information; (6) properly exercising decision‐making; (7) developing overall co‐ordination; (8) blending emergent and established organisational behaviours; (9) providing appropriate reports for the news media; and (10) having a well‐functioning emergency operations centre.

An issue also raised in the paper is how applicable these research findings — derived mostly from developed countries — are to the developing world.
Disasters and the Information Technology Revolution
Authors: Stephenson Robin , Anderson Peter S.
Published: March 2003

This paper, the second in a series of state‐of‐the art reviews, examines the evolution and possible medium‐term future of information technology (IT) in disaster management. Until the end of the 1970s, civilian application of IT to disaster management was confined to a few specialised departments of universities, large companies and government. Between the late 1970s and mid‐1980s, microprocessor‐based devices brought limited, though rapidly improving, computing capacity to a wider range of organisations and individuals. Operational applications included real‐time emergency information, management decision support and programme and project planning. Extensive innovation occurred, though operational implementation was often long delayed or limited in scope. During the late 1980s, desktop systems became more powerful, more networked, more portable and generally more mature, with a range of practical emergency‐related tools emerging. Computer communications emerged as a practical technology for linking emergency professionals on a global basis. From the early 1990s onwards, powerful and inter‐connectable computer equipment has evolved to become an indispensable component of disaster operations worldwide. There are presently major changes under way in emergency‐related global information access and networking — the implications of which have yet to be played out. The last part of the paper highlights a set of key technologies which seems likely to shape disaster planning, management and research over the next 10 years, and draws out some operational and organisational implications.