Uses five unusual indifference curve exercises to show how changing the jail sentence and changing the reward for good behavior can influence the crime rate. Recommends eliminating minimum sentencing while raising sentencing and increasing the rewards for good behavior. Includes illustrative graphs for each exercise. (MJP)

Uses clinical case studies showing autistic children's fascination with and understanding of machines, family studies focusing on occupations of fathers and grandfathers of children with autism or Asperger Syndrome, and experimental evidence using picture-sequencing methods to identify physical or intentional causality to show that children with…

Contrasts aptitude by treatment interaction (ATI) and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) methods for making cross-level inferences between individual-level and group-level factors in school effectiveness research. Recommends HLM when intraclass correlations are high. ATI is suitable when intraclass correlations are low, but partitioning the…

Findings from a study of 504 second grade students indicate that phonics knowledge has a causal impact on both reading comprehension and vocabulary gains; reading comprehension has a causal effect on vocabulary gains. (Author/IAH)

The authors' review of scientific studies on sexual coercion leads to their conclusions that many such studies lack rigor, reflect experimenter bias, and provide almost no insight into causal mechanisms of coercive behaviors. In the politicized area of women's studies, social expression is valued beyond scientific progress. (SLD)

Students (n=59, ages 13-22) in classrooms for the educably mentally retarded were interviewed regarding their attitudes toward computer use in school settings. Results showed a variety of complex beliefs and opinions about computer usage. The majority of students liked using computers and felt they learned "more" when they used computers.…

Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-olds' understanding that trait can be causal mechanisms based on desires or mere summaries of behavioral regularities. Results suggested that children change from viewing traits as behavioral regularities to understanding them as internal mediators and that advances in understanding desire underlie this…

Tested competing causal models concerning the relationship between children's social behaviors and theory of mind in 3- and 4-year-olds tested 3 times over 7 months. Found that false belief performance predicted joint planning and role assignment during pretend play, after taking into account initial performance on joint planning and role…

A causal model of workplace stress was refined and cross-validated. Multivariate analysis and multiple-group structural equation modeling were used to investigate the effects of social roles on patterns of coping with workplace stress and job satisfaction. Differences found between managers (n=249) and clerical workers (n=214) suggest power and…

The theory that children's development of strategies-of-science experimentation is a consequence of developments in theory of mind was examined with 72 children in grades one, three, and five. Ability to predict, explain, and affect the reasoning of a doll or cartoon character predicted performance in planning controlled experiments and in…

The objective of this paper is to profile the role of homelessness in drug and sexual risk in a population of young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Data are from a cross-sectional survey collected between 2000 and 2001 in New York City (N=569). With the goal of examining the import of homelessness in increased risk for the onset of drug and…

This paper addresses doubts concerning the reliability of knowledge being created by double loop learning processes. Popper's ontological worlds are used to explore the philosophical basis of the way that individual experiences are turned into organisational knowledge, and such knowledge is used to generate organisational learning. The paper…

Peers serve as reinforcers and models of behavior, and consequently classrooms containing high numbers of students with poor academic skills or behavior problems are likely to promote these behaviors in individual students. This study examined how variations in social and academic classroom composition as well as the larger school context affected…

Girls consistently out perform boys in mathematics in Hawai'i. Starting from the premise that literacy is a prerequisite for mathematics learning, a causal model was proposed to account for gender differences in mathematics on multiple choice (MC) and constructed response (CR) items in conjunction with the effects of reading and writing. Two…

The Maslach Burnout Inventory--General Survey (MBI-GS) is designed to measure the three subdimensions (exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy) of burnout in a wide range of occupations. This article examines the factorial validity of the MBI-GS across eight different occupational groups in Norway: lawyers, physicians, nurses, teachers,…