Search

Financial aid counseling and outreach programs at the University of California, Davis, are described. Counseling services include: an intake interviewer, student interns, a hot-line program, and drop-in counseling. Workshops, a newsletter, and summer residential programs for low-income and minority groups are among the outreach services. (JMD)

The theory-perseverance bias was investigated in 3 related studies. In Study 1, a test of the hypothesis that group discussion attenuates this bias, male and female Canadian undergraduates examined information suggesting that either a positive or a negative relationship exists between risk preference and firefighting performance; they were then informed that this information was fictitious. They then recorded their beliefs regarding the actual relationship between these variables (a) immediately, (b) after 7 min of thought, (c) after a 7-min group discussion, or (d) after perusing a transcript of one of the discussions. Only the participants in the first condition made biased judgments. Study 2, which used Vinokur and Burnstein's (1974) procedures and which again drew a sample of Canadian students, provided support for a persuasive-arguments explanation of this group-discussion effect. The results of Study 3, which used procedures similar to those of Study 1, ruled out a social-comparison explanation for this effect. Factors that might enhance or diminish the effects of group discussion on this bias are suggested., In making social judgments and decisions, people frequently rely on informal social theories (beliefs concerning the causal relationships between social variables). Anderson, Lepper, and Ross (1980) demonstrated that people cling [...]

Local governments in developing nations are greatly affected by social and economic changes. Central governments may benefit from decentralization as observed in some third world countries in Central and South America, Asia and Africa. International organizations are using these countries to study the effects of decentralization and to implement new public financial management systems that are expected to strengthen local governments.

Having people think about reasons why they hold particular attitudes has been shown to reduce the correlation between attitudes and behaviors. Failures to replicate this phenomenon may have been due to the timing of reasons-analysis manipulations. In this study, 81 subjects were divided into three groups. As they familiarized themselves with a set of photographs of opposite-sex adults, the first group was asked to think of reasons why they found each picture attractive or unattractive. After they had rated the attractiveness of each photograph and had completed a 20-min. 'filler' task, they were asked to refamiliarize themselves with the photographs. The behavior, time spent looking at each photograph, was recorded on videotape. A second group of subjects analyzed reasons following an initial perusal of the photographs. A control group did not analyze reasons. Mean attitude-behavior correlations between attractiveness ratings and times spent looking at pictures were .35 in the control group, .46 in the reasons-analysis-after-familiarization group, and .05 in the reasons-analysis-during-familiarization group. These results suggest that the timing of reasons-analysis manipulations may be an important limiting condition on the reasons-analysis effect.