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Author(s): Haimin Pan [sup.1] , Qian Liu [sup.2] , Yaolin Pei [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.194645.b, 0000000121742757, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, , [...], The empirical evidence regarding the relationship between confidence in the future and life satisfaction is little. This study strived to unmask the reciprocal effects between future confidence and life satisfaction among widowed older people in China. The subsample of 677 widowed older adults was extracted from the 2014, 2016, and 2018 waves of data of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Cross-lagged and bivariate linear growth curve analyses were conducted together to investigate the longitudinally reciprocal relationship between confidence in the future and life satisfaction. In general, the results in this study verified the existing interactive relationships between future confidence and life satisfaction over time. Such reciprocal relationships were robust when control variables of interest were taken into consideration. This study was worthwhile in that it provided another point of view to improve life satisfaction among widowed older people in China from the perspective of confidence in the future. Discussions on the results were provided in detail.

We advance a model that highlights contingent linkages between overconfidence and narcissism, entrepreneurial entry, and the successful realization of venture opportunities. Overall, our proposals point to a paradox in which entrepreneurs high in overconfidence and narcissism are propelled toward more novel venture contexts-where these qualities are most detrimental to venture success-and are repelled from more familiar venture contexts-where these qualities are least harmful and may even facilitate venture success. To illuminate these patterns of misalignment, we attend to the defining characteristics of alternative venture contexts and the focal constructs of overconfidence and narcissism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses research she conducted that examined why women do not perform at the same level as men in organizational settings. She notes that, while progress in being made, women still remain concentrated in lower paying, lower prestige jobs when compared to their male colleagues. The author examines the effect the feedback has on the self-confidence of both women and men, noting that women were more likely to express lower levels of self-confidence in achievement situations when feedback is not provided. She adds that when feedback is supplied women express levels of self-confidence equal to that of men. She also discusses some methodological problems with the research and offers several hypotheses framed by the results of this study.

This paper examines the claim that democratic decision making is epistemically valuable. Focussing on communication and voting, circumstances are identified under which groups are able to reliably identify the 'correct alternative.' Employing formal models from social epistemology, group performance under varying conditions in a simple epistemic task is scrutinized. Simulation results show that larger majority requirements can favour the veto power of closed-minded individuals, but can also increase precision in well-functioning groups. Reasonable scepticism against other people's opinions can provide a useful impediment to overly quick convergence onto a false consensus when independent information acquisition is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If educators are to educate they must be accorded some level of trust. Anthony Giddens claims that because trust is not easily created, it is now being replaced with ‘confidence’ because this latter disposition is much easier to give and is more convenient. It is argued in this paper that this shift from trust to confidence stifles education because emphasis is placed solely upon qualifications and competence, and is neglectful of disclosing one’s motives and desires—which are considered to be essential elements for relationships and communities which depend upon trust. Therefore, educators ought to seek to become more trustworthy by going beyond evidence-based practices and codes of ethics, towards articulating a developed personal philosophy of education outlining the ultimate end-purposes to which they aspire. Through such a philosophy, educators identify their ultimatedesiresand commitments and this self-disclosure can make trust-giving more likely. Demonstrated evidence of achievements and qualifications encourage confidence and this has some value. In addition to these artefacts of evidence, it is argued here that educators must also articulate what they actuallydesire.This can be understood as John Dewey’s virtue of ‘genuine interest’ which he characterises as being wholehearted, persistent and impartial. For educators, this is often represented in our personal philosophy of education and because it is personal, it is also existential in the sense that it pertains to giving sense, meaning and purpose to all of our activities and way of life for which we are individually responsible and passionately committed to as professionals. As a consequence of being existential, our philosophy and our commitment to it has an intellectualandmoral aspect and because it reaches to the very depths of ourraison d’être, it pertains to our passion as described by Søren Kierkegaard. This paper shall draw upon Dewey’s notion of wholeheartedness and Kierkegaard’s notion of purity of heart, to make the case that if educators embrace these in their practices, we may become more trustworthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the confidence the population (N = 4,003) has in the child welfare system in four countries - England, Finland, Norway and the USA (California). We find that about half or less of the population reports having confidence in the system, which is slightly higher than the confidence in the civil servants in the same countries. The Nordic countries display more confidence in the child welfare system than the Anglo-American countries. The similarity between the countries is, however, greater than anticipated. As for independent variables that can shed light on differences in confidence levels, we find three variables to be related to a higher confidence level, and these are a left wing political orientation, lower age, and higher education. This study contributes in filling a knowledge gap on studies about trust in the child welfare system, but we emphasize that we have studied an aspect of trust that rests on the population's impressions of a system, and not their substantial knowledge about, or identification with, this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to test the predictions that lower self-esteem and higher shyness in individuals with a history of language impairment (LI) would continue from adolescence into early adulthood and that those with LI would have lower social self-efficacy in early adulthood. Method: Participants were young people with a history of LI and a comparison group of age-matched peers. Both groups were tested at ages 17 and 24 years. Participants completed measures of language ability, nonverbal IQ, shyness, global self-esteem, and (at age 24 years only) social self-efficacy. Results: Young adults with LI scored lower than age-matched peers on self-esteem, higher on shyness, and lower on social self-efficacy (medium to large effect sizes). In line with expectations, in the group with LI, language ability in adolescence predicted shyness in young adulthood, which, in turn, was negatively associated with self-esteem. There was also a direct association between language ability in adolescence and self-esteem in young adulthood. Conclusions: Young people with a history of LI are likely to be entering adulthood less socially confident than their peers. Interventions may be desirable for young adults with LI, and the present findings indicate social self-efficacy as a key area of social confidence that calls for practitioners' attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her searching paper “Going Too Far: Relational Heroines and Relational Excess,” (this issue) Slochower finds the potential for excess as inherent in any psychoanalytic theory. I argue that context is key in understanding this phenomenon within relational psychoanalysis; what she describes may not be the case for other theories. The beginnings of relational theory as a movement, generational and radical, could lead to therapeutic overconfidence or certainty around countertransference insights and disclosures. Slochower sees an abundance of certainty in this stance, as well as pressure for premature mutuality. As a complement or balance to this intense mode of interpersonal engagement, Slochower elaborates her own work on holding, wherein the analyst “brackets” her experience and respects the patient’s need for privacy and nonimpingement. Uncertainty is an affirmative stance in letting the patient’s inner life come into being. There are a number of polarities in Slochower’s paper—between mutuality and privacy, certainty and uncertainty, and in the origin story of relational psychoanalysis between relational and classical theories. I argue that pluralism offers a path forward from polarities to a rich complex world of multiple possibilities and recognition of different minds and theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was conducted to examine the impact of media gender ratios on male audience members. One hundred thirty young adult men read a series of media narratives featuring either multiple men and a single woman or multiple women and a single man as well as a measure of endorsement of traditional masculinity and measures of romantic and sexual selectivity and confidence. Men who read the abundant partners narratives exhibited greater selectivity for marriage partners relative to control participants. Partner availability or scarcity in media narratives also influenced romantic confidence, although this was moderated by endorsement of traditional masculine ideology (TMI). Keywords gender ratios, romantic confidence, media, sex, Sex ratios influence the standards applied in the selection of romantic and sexual partners. When sex ratios favor one's sex, with relatively more members of the opposite sex as potential [...]

Expectation of reward can be shaped by the observation of actions and expressions of other people in one's environment. A person's apparent confidence in the likely reward of an action, for instance, makes qualities of their evidence, not observed directly, socially accessible. This strategy is computationally distinguished from associative learning methods that rely on direct observation, by its use of inference from indirect evidence. In twenty-three healthy human subjects, we isolated effects of first-hand experience, other people's choices, and the mediating effect of their confidence, on decision-making and neural correlates of value within ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Value derived from first-hand experience and other people's choices (regardless of confidence) were indiscriminately represented across vmPFC. However, value computed from agent choices weighted by their associated confidence was represented with specificity for ventromedial area 10. This pattern corresponds to shifts of connectivity and overlapping cognitive processes along a posterior-anterior vmPFC axis. Task behavior and self-reported self-reliance for decision-making in other social contexts correlated. The tendency to conform in other social contexts corresponded to increased activation in cortical regions previously shown to respond to social conflict in proportion to subsequent conformity (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2010). The tendency to self-monitor predicted a selectively enhanced response to accordance with others in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ). The findings anatomically decompose vmPFC value representations according to computational requirements and provide biological insight into the social transmission of preference and reassurance gained from the confidence of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To aim of this study, confidence and social desirability of levels that doing exercise of male and female athletes in fitness centers, is to examine according to several variables. Working group consist of that doing exercise 152 volunteers which is 36 female and 116 male, between January and April 2016 in two fitness room at the Batman province. In this research as data collection tools which had developed by Akın (2007) " Confidence Scale " and had developed by Akın (2010) "Social Desirability Scale". The results of this study shows that the level of confidence of people who go to fitness center regularly is higher than social acceptence level. While marital status doesnt influence the results, sex changes the outcomes in terms of social desirability. Additionally education, monthly income and the reason to go to fitness center only change the levels of confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth's trust in program leaders is considered a key to the positive impact of youth programs. We sought to understand how trust influences youth's program experiences from their perspective. We interviewed 108 ethnically diverse youth (ages 12-19) participating in 13 arts, leadership, and technology programs. Analysis of these accounts suggested five ways in which youth's trust in leaders amplified program benefits. Trust increased youth's (1) confidence in leaders' guidance in program activities, (2) motivation in the program, (3) use of leaders for mentoring, (4) use of leaders as a model of a well-functioning relationship, and (5) experience of program cohesiveness. Across benefits, trust allowed youth to draw on leaders' expertise, opened them to new experiences, and helped increase youth's agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on nuclear security has gone quantitative. Rapid growth in empirical approaches to the consequences of nuclear weapons in recent years promises to settle some controversies, even as it initiates or resurrects debates that may eventually be resolved with better estimates or data. The toolkit for studying nuclear security had long been bereft of quantitative approaches, undermining the virtuous cycle between theory and evidence. New data and growing confidence in statistical approaches have finally produced a systematic empirical literature on the consequences of nuclear weapons. We review existing studies, organizing the literature along thematic lines. We also discuss challenges facing the emergent quantitative literature and suggest several avenues for future research. Although the terminus of the basic research agenda has been anticipated more than once, the literature on nuclear consequences has shown a remarkable ability to generate novel and often unexpected research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Good communication skills and rapport building are considered the cardinal tools for developing a patient-doctor relationship. A positive, healthy competition among different health care organizations in Saudi Arabia underlines an ever increasing emphasis on effective patient-doctor relationship. Despite the numerous guidelines provided and programs available, there is a significant variation in the acceptance and approach to the use of this important tool among pediatric residents in this part of the world. Objective: To determine pediatric residents' attitude toward communication skills, their perception of important communication skills, and their confidence in the use of their communication skills in the performance of their primary duties. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among all pediatrics trainee residents working in 13 different hospitals in Saudi Arabia. A standardized self-administered questionnaire developed by the Harvard Medical School was used. Results: A total of 297 residents out of all trainees in these centers participated in the data collection. The 283 (95%) residents considered learning communication skills a priority in establishing a good patient-doctor relationship. Thirty four percent reported being very confident with regard to their communication skills. Few residents had the skills, and the confidence to communicate with children with serious diseases, discuss end-of-life issues, and deal with difficult patients and parents. Conclusion: Pediatric residents perceive the importance of communication skills and competencies as crucial components in their training. A proper comprehensive communication skills training should be incorporated into the pediatric resident training curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing crisis of confidence in the integrity of managerial decision making is partly attributed to the prescriptive character of educational programs favored by Western business schools. This character includes an overly instrumental preoccupation, preventing practitioner students from developing skill sets to address the varied issues that organizations face. We argue for more challenging pedagogical programs to help managers increase their understanding of contemporary managerial requirements. We document a teaching scenario that drew on critical management studies research material (coined as “troublesome knowledge”) designed to engage students. The “situated learning” focus adopted enabled students to collectively interrogate managerialist and troublesome knowledge perspectives. The integration of theory and practice that emerged through the combination of analytical sources, classroom dialogue, and novel assignments developed the students’ “relational” understandings and skills of “reflexivity,” a combination we characterize as advancing “practical wisdom.” The R&R (relational and reflexive) “threshold concepts” were used as a learning framework to chart student progress. We modeled a parallel facilitative mode of critical reflection- and relationship-centered management style. Feedback from the students indicates that the coupling of critically oriented conceptual material with the applied principles proffered empowering options for them regarding their own managerial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an analysis of the nature of epistemic trust (ET). With increased philosophical attention to social epistemology in general and testimony in particular, the role for an epistemic or intellectual version of trust has loomed large in recent debates. But, too often, epistemologists talk about trust without really providing a sustained examination of the concept. After some introductory comments, I begin by addressing various components key to trust simpliciter. In particular, I examine what we might think of when we consider what it means to place trust in someone. Once we have examined trust in general, we can modify this discussion to derive an epistemic version of trust—placing trust in someone for an epistemic reason. I argue that ET includes four components: belief, communication, reliance, and confidence. The first two sets (belief and communication) are distinctively epistemic and the second set of conditions (reliance and confidence) form the core of any kind of trust. Put together, both strands of concepts yield a distinctively epistemic version of trust. Together, these four conditions account for when H places ET in S that/for p. I end by addressing alternative accounts of ET and argue that they are all lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A paradigm shift in higher education is occurring internationally, with universities changing the focus of their undergraduate degrees, increasing enrolments, and broadening participation. As a result, non-traditional students, who would once have been excluded from university studies, are now enrolling in enabling programmes to meet university entry requirements. Given the vast social and educational diversities of these students, just providing content is often not enough. Many educators are therefore left questioning how they can prepare these students for undergraduate study. Many students entering university through non-traditional means have decreased mathematical confidence and a diminished perception of mathematics and their mathematical ability. Previous studies have indicated that student confidence in their mathematical ability is important and has a direct impact on their success. Therefore, in order to be successful, enabling courses need to provide an avenue for transformative learning--students need to change their frame of reference. The Transition Mathematics courses at Central Queensland University, Australia (CQU) were designed to follow adult learning principles, providing content knowledge, and increasing students' confidence, whilst also catering to the diverse social and educational backgrounds of students. A study conducted by CQU, examining students' mathematical confidence prior to and after completing at least one Transition Mathematics course, found that students reported reduced confusion with mathematics and increased mathematical confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) has recently reappeared in popular culture as a result of the bestseller Lean In. IP asserts that many successful people feel like frauds that will be discovered in time. Twenty-nine women in leadership were interviewed in this qualitative study, and it was discovered that the majority of them do not have impostor feelings. Their confidence can be attributed to strong relationships with mentors, romantic partners, and other women in leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When searching for information, groups that are homogeneous regarding their members' prediscussion decision preferences show a strong bias for information that supports rather than conflicts with the prevailing opinion (confirmation bias). The present research examined whether homogeneous groups blindly search for information confirming their beliefs irrespective of the anticipated task or whether they are sensitive to the usefulness of new information for this forthcoming task. Results of three experiments show that task sensitivity depends on the groups' confidence in the correctness of their decision: Moderately confident groups displayed a strong confirmation bias when they anticipated having to give reasons for their decision but showed a balanced information search or even a disconfirmation bias (i.e., predominately seeking conflicting information) when they anticipated having to refute counterarguments. In contrast, highly confident groups demonstrated a strong confirmation bias independent of the anticipated task requirements. Keywords: information seeking; selective exposure; confirmation bias; group decision making; group confidence

The aim of this article is to examine to what degree the movement of elected representatives from local to central level affects the outlook of the ones who move 'upwards'. Two Scandinavian countries - Sweden and Norway - serve as comparative cases. In both countries a high share of members of parliament ( MPs) has served as local councillors before being elected to parliament. According to conventional wisdom, this high share of inter-level mobility would strengthen ties between government tiers. Hence, parliamentarians with local political background are assumed to have greater confidence in the capacities of local government. It turns out that Sweden corresponds to this assumption, while the Norwegian results to some extent contradict the same hypothesis. In the Norwegian case, MPs who previously held office as local councillors are actually more sceptical towards local government than MPs with no experience from local politics. In the last section of the article a number of explanations for the disparate findings are being discussed. For one, it appears to be a higher level of controversy related to local government in Norway than in Sweden. In turn, this accounts for some of the scepticism being expressed by the very MPs who themselves have held local office. Second, greater financial dependency in the Norwegian case creates incentives for strategic action which, in turn, might undermine confidence between levels of government. These are strategies that are harder to conceal vis-à-vis MPs who have themselves gained experience from local politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can trusting relationships be identified in international politics? The recent wave of scholarship on trust in International Relations answers this question by looking for one or the combination of three indicators – the incidence of cooperation; discourses expressing trust; or the calculated acceptance of vulnerability. These methods are inadequate both theoretically and empirically. Distinguishing between the concepts of trust and confidence, we instead propose an approach that focuses on the actors' hedging strategies. We argue that actors either declining to adopt or removing hedging strategies is a better indicator of a trusting relationship than the alternatives. We demonstrate the strength of our approach by showing how the existing approaches would suggest the US-Soviet relationship to be trusting when it was not so. In contrast, the US-Japanese alliance relationship allows us to show how we can identify a developing trusting relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fear-of-crime research, although plentiful, has been plagued by criticism that it often focuses on generalized, global measures of fear instead of specific instances that elicit an emotional response of fear. Much of the criticism is justified. Little is known about women's perceptions of confidence in managing dangerous situations or crimes, or if confidence is correlated strongly with fear. College women (n = 564) completed the Perceptions of Dangerous Situations Scale, a survey instrument validated for college women, consisting of 34 crimes and dangerous situations. Women rated each situation with regard to their fear of and their confidence to manage selected situations. Ratings were subjected to multidimensional scaling, producing two dimensions that were interpreted as Personal Threat and Intimacy. Cluster analysis produced eight interpretable clusters for fear and eight for confidence. Implications for self-defense curricula and rape prevention training are discussed.

To examine the power of group confidence, the nomological network of group potency (generalized confidence) and group efficacy (task-specific confidence) is detailed. These constructs are embedded in a causal model including both antecedent and consequent variables. Results obtained within a collective cultural context suggest that group cohesion and group norms are antecedents to group confidence, and task performance and satisfaction are consequences. The empirical effects for group potency were robust, but those for group efficacy were surprisingly nonsignificant. This study shows that generalized confidence (group potency) is a stronger predictor of group outcomes than is group efficacy when the group members are unfamiliar with the complex tasks at hand. Implications for future research and group training are noted.

Although a family health history can be used to assess disease risk and increase health prevention behaviors, research suggests that few people have collected family health information. Guided by the Theory of Motivated Information Management, this study seeks to understand the barriers to and facilitators of interpersonal information seeking about family health history. Individuals who were engaged to be married (N = 306) were surveyed online and in person to understand how factors such as uncertainty, expectations for an information search, efficacy, and anxiety influence decisions and strategies for obtaining family health histories. The results supported the Theory of Motivated Information Management by demonstrating that individuals who experienced uncertainty discrepancies regarding family heath history had greater intention to seek information from family members when anxiety was low, outcome expectancy was high, and communication efficacy was positive. Although raising uncertainty about family health history may be an effective tool for health communicators to increase communication among family members, low-anxiety situations may be optimal for information seeking. Health communication messages must also build confidence in people's ability to communicate with family to obtain the needed health information. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the last 30 years US citizens experienced, on average, a decline in reported happiness, social connections, and confidence in institutions. We show that a remarkable portion of the decrease in happiness is predicted by the decline in social connections and confidence in institutions. We carry out our investigation in three steps. First, we run a happiness regression that includes various indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions, alongside with own income, reference income, and the usual socio-demographic controls. We find that indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions are positively and significantly correlated with happiness. Second, we investigate the evolution of social connections and confidence in institutions over time, finding that they generally show a declining trend. Third, we calculate the variation in happiness over time as predicted by each of its statistically significant correlates, finding that the decrease in happiness is mainly predicted by the decline in social connections and by the growth in reference income. More precisely, the sum of the negative changes in happiness predicted by the reduction in social connections and the increase in reference income more than offsets the positive change predicted by the growth of household income. Also, the reduction in happiness predicted by the decline in confidence in institutions is non-negligible, although substantially smaller than the one predicted by either social connections or reference income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although competition is regarded as a powerful motivator in game-based learning, it might have a negative influence, such as damage to confidence, on students who lose the competition. In this paper, we propose an indirect approach, substitutive competition, to alleviate such negative influences. The approach is used to develop a My-Pet v3 system, in which pupils master subject materials to make their pets stronger, and compete against each other. Specifically, pupils learn Chinese idioms in a pet-training game scenario, and their mastery of the material is related to the pets' strength to win the competition. The result of the competition is influenced by whether pupils spend enough effort on the learning tasks. This intention is expected to alleviate the negative influence that results from direct competition. A within-subject experiment was conducted to examine the influence of substitutive competition. The results indicated that substitutive competition seems a promising scheme to maximise the power of competition. However, there were no apparent evidences in this study to demonstrate its effect to alleviate pupils' sense of failure, as compared with other two direct competition conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of social trust factors is presented, focusing on positive reputation systems. Topics include reputation ease, confidence gain, and reputation effectiveness.

Trust is a way of organizing one's relationship to the other, an orientation that exemplifies Simmel's form of association of the second order. Whereas much has been said about the 'further element' that distinguishes trust from confidence, I argue that the missing element is self. Confidence building is an inherently systemic or institution relevant function; in contrast, trust emerges in relationship to the self of the role-occupant, for this individual is the interface between these larger structures and the other. Providing fertile grounds for trust, confidence is not trust. Both may place the individual at risk; however, trust places the self at risk. In this paper, I examine the relevance of this self-oriented approach to trust in the context of increasing globalization as diverse selves cross national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we first re-visit the inference problem for interval identified parameters originally studied in Imbens and Manski (2004) and later extended in Stoye (2008). We take the general criterion function approach and establish a new confidence interval that is asymptotically valid under the same assumptions as in Stoye (2008). Like the confidence interval of Stoye (2008), our new confidence interval extends that of Imbens and Manski (2004) to allow for the lack of a super-efficient estimator of the length of the identified interval. In addition, it shares the natural nesting property of the original confidence interval of Imbens and Manski (2004). A simulation study is conducted to examine the finite sample performance of our new confidence interval and that of Stoye (2008). Finally we extend our confidence interval for interval identified parameters to parameters defined by moment equalities/inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings from a study on the impact of concurrent service- learning pedagogical training and service-learning engagement on pre-service teachers' perceptions of teaching and inclination toward using service-learning. Findings reveal that experiential activities in which pre-service teachers can engage in real classrooms in real capacities can open their eyes to realities of teaching, bolster their confidence, inform them about good/bad practices, and remind them that students are key to a conducive learning environment. Findings were not attributed explicitly to prospective teachers' participation in service-learning, however. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the motivations of college students who mentor youth from high-poverty backgrounds? Our team surveyed university students before and after an elective service-learning course that included voluntary mentoring of high-poverty youth. Mentors were motivated primarily by the opportunity to have a positive impact on youth through (a) being a role model, friend, source of support, and caring adult, and (b) increasing their own understanding of inner-city schools and culture in order to serve youth better. Following the experience, mentors reported having largely achieved these aims. In addition, their responses reflected greater confidence in themselves as mentors, better understanding of the challenges and contexts of high-poverty environments, and a higher level of cross-cultural comfort. Based on these findings, we propose strategies for future mentoring efforts in the context of service learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A primary goal of terrorism is to instill a sense of fear and vulnerability in a population and to erode its confidence in government and law enforcement agencies to protect citizens against future attacks. In recognition of its importance, the Department of Homeland Security includes public confidence as one of the principal metrics used to assess the consequences of terrorist attacks. Hence, a detailed understanding of the variations in public confidence among individuals, terrorist event types, and as a function of time is critical to developing this metric. In this exploratory study, a questionnaire was designed, tested, and administered to small groups of individuals to measure public confidence in the ability of federal, state, and local governments and their public safety agencies to prevent acts of terrorism. Data was collected from three groups before and after they watched mock television news broadcasts portraying a smallpox attack, a series of suicide bomber attacks, a refinery explosion attack, and cyber intrusions on financial institutions, resulting in identity theft. Our findings are: (a) although the aggregate confidence level is low, there are optimists and pessimists; (b) the subjects are discriminating in interpreting the nature of a terrorist attack, the time horizon, and its impact; (c) confidence recovery after a terrorist event has an incubation period; and (d) the patterns of recovery of confidence of the optimists and the pessimists are different. These findings can affect the strategy and policies to manage public confidence after a terrorist event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can local confidence building and cooperation strengthen local communities and have a positive influence on local development? This is the main question in this article. In the first part of the article the conditions for confidence building, mobilization, self-development and self-confidence in local planning are presented. A planning process called strategic and mobilizing planning which is built on these conditions is described. This planning or development process is drawn as an infinite spiral with an increasing 'radius'. As examples of such local confidence building and mobilization processes the cases of 'Nordvest Forum' and 'Cooperation in Haram commune' are presented and discussed. Nordvest Forum is a collaborative activity owned by competing companies in the region, which have recognized that they have a common problem related to recruitment and training of leaders. This has lead to new activities and new cooperation especially related to management training and cooperation. The collaboration between private and public institutions in Haram is an example where common challenges for companies and community were recognized. This process started as a concrete activity regarding recruitment of skilled workers with participation from a few but nevertheless important persons in the private and public sectors. The learning and confidence developed as a result of this cooperation lead to new and broader activities concerning the future of the community with many more participants. In the conclusion some practical advice is given for community planning and confidence building, informed by the theoretical discussion and the empirical examples in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of a person's confidence on group decision is analyzed. Tests were conducted among participants to evaluate either individual or group confidence. Results showed that an individual's confidence can affect the group's opinion if the group is working on a task situated on the intellective end of the judgmental-intellective continuum. However, the relation between confidence and influence is not constant or fixed, that is, they are also affected by the type of task in which the group is challenged.