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Conceptual Distinction (conceptual + distinction)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

Information, Bias, and Mediation Success,

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2008
Burcu Savun
Why do some mediation episodes produce successful negotiated settlements between the disputants of international conflict while others fail to achieve success? This article examines how certain characteristics of a mediator, that is, a mediator's information about the disputants and a mediator's bias toward them, affect the success of mediation of international conflicts. By drawing a conceptual distinction between absolute and relative bias and measuring the type of information that is relevant for mediation success, I demonstrate that both the degree of bias a mediator holds toward the disputants and the degree of information a mediator has about the disputants are significant predictors of mediation success. [source]

Public service responsiveness to users' demands and needs: theory, practice and primary healthcare in England

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2002
Rod Sheaff
Analyses and policy statements about publicly funded services frequently distinguish ,demands' from ,needs'. The distinction has been challenged, calling into question the coherence of formulating welfare policy and evaluating public services in terms of needs. This paper explicates the conceptual distinction between demands and needs in terms of derived demand and information asymmetry. ,Needs' can be defined as ,rational demands', where ,rational' means ,consistent and evidence,based', and ,demands' as ,desires' rather than ,effective (i.e. economic) demand'. On that basis, practical demand management in needs,based public services would require: 1. Knowledge of users' demands for services; 2. Content analyses of users' demands to identify any misinformed demands; 3. Conversion of any misinformed demands into evidence,based specifications of needs; 4. Formulating coherent, evidence,based demands on behalf of users who cannot to do so themselves. A study of English NHS Primary Care Groups explores the problems which authorities responsible for publicly funded services face in undertaking these activities. Demand management receives low priority in terms of the incentives and intellectual resources applied to it. Needs assessment has higher priority but is regarded as a branch of evidence,based professional practice, controlled by professionals rather than responsive to users. This separation tends to defeat the purposes of needs,based public services. [source]

Measures of effortful regulation for young children

INFANT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNAL, Issue 6 2007
Tracy L. Spinrad
Emotion-related regulation is a topic of increasing interest among researchers, yet there is little agreement on ways to measure emotion regulation in young children. In this paper, we first consider important conceptual distinctions in regard to the different types of emotion-related regulation and control. Next, we describe a number of ways researchers have assessed children's regulation. We also present data from the Toddler Emotional Development project, in which laboratory-based measures of effortful regulation were used. In this section, we highlight the measures that show promise (and those that did not work well). Future directions for research on the measurement of effortful regulation are presented [source]

Self-Regulation: Reminders and Suggestions from Personality Science

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2006
Daniel Cervone
La littérature sur l'autorégulation est couramment accusée de faiblesse théorique. Il est possible que les avancées dans les recherches sur la personnalité puissent ouvrir des horizons dans ce secteur. Notre objectif est double. Nous rappelons d'abord des distinctions conceptuelles qui, bien que parfois négligées, sont essentielles dans les études contemporaines sur la personnalité et incontournables pour accéder au niveau théorique dans la littérature sur l'autorégulation. Nous disons ensuite que ceux qui font des études fondamentales et appliquées sur l'autorégulation auraient intérêt à assimiler les progrès récents concernant la dynamique et la structure de la personnalité intra-individuelle. Nous passons en revue la théorie de base et les recherches sur l'architecture des systèmes de la personnalité intra-individuelle, ainsi que les retombées de ce travail dans trois domaines d'application: la psychologie du travail/industrielle/organisationnelle, la psychologie clinique et la santé. The self-regulation literature commonly is said to lack theoretical order. This paper explores the possibility that advances in personality science may foster clarity in this literature. Our goals are two-fold. We remind readers of conceptual distinctions that are central to contemporary personality science, that are necessary to the attainment of theoretical order in the self-regulation literature, yet that sometimes are overlooked. Secondly, we suggest that basic and applied students of self-regulation would profit by capitalising on recent advances in personality science that explore intra-individual personality structure and dynamics. We review theory and research on the architecture of intra-individual personality systems and applications of this work to three domains: health, clinical, and work/industrial/organisation psychology. [source]