Showing papers on "Credibility published in 1987"

Different Questions, Different Answers? Media Use and Media Credibility

Abstract: An issue not addressed in this research is whether the type of media use question asked has any influence on the relationship between media use and media credibility. The purpose of this study is to see if the reported positive correlation between media use and media credibility varies with the type of media use question asked. Three types of media use questions are considered. The questions are, first, a general Roper-type media preference question; second, a frequency of use or \"time spent with\" medium question; and finally, a specific \"medium used yesterday\" question. Two media credibility measures are considered. One is a 12-scale composite measure and the other a four-scale variant of the first measure.

Risk Management and Hazardous Waste: Implementation and the Dialectics of Credibility

Abstract: The proper management of hazardous wastes has become a major environmental and economic problem. Local opposition to siting of new treatment and disposal facilities has amplified international movements of wastes between different regulatory regimes. Inconsistent national regimes allow loopholes whose exploitation amplifies public concern and local opposition. Furthermore, inadequate understanding of public attitudes and political responses allows unpredictability to undermine industrial confidence and decision making. This IIASA book contributes original fieldwork from six countries and conceptual analysis aimed at improving understanding and the practical management of hazardous waste problems. It links the different forms of technical knowledge used in regulation with their institutional decision making context, and analyses the key question of public credibility in a systematic and novel way.

Credibility of Macroeconomic Policy : An Introduction and a Broad Survey

Abstract: This is a broad survey of the work on credibility of macroeconomic policy since the early 80's. I critically evaluate a first generation of work dealing with the basic credibility problem that arises when policy cannot be precommited and when a desireable policy fails to be ex post optimal. Then, the desireable policy is not credible to the private sector. The work I discuss, deals with credibility problems in three different areas of macroeconomics (i) "anti-inflationary monetary policy", (ii) "macroeconomic public finance", and (iii) "policy coordination". The first generation of work leaves several issues unresolved, however, and a second generation of work dealing with these unresolved issues is currently developing. I also discuss this very recent work and make some suggestions for future research.

The emergence of bandwagon effects: a theory

Abstract: Previous explanations of bandwagons from election polls have exclusively emphasized conformity causes. We propose, in addition, “indirect' causes, in which election predictions first affect key actors, influencing their decisions concerning financial support, volunteer work, or endorsements. These decisions then produce major campaign alterations that influence the voters and alter the election outcome. Our addition clarifies anomalous bandwagon research findings and directs attention to the possibility of bandwagon feedback on subsequent elections. If the same forecasters create frequent bandwagon effects, their credibility should increase as a result of enhanced accuracy. But increased credibility should in turn increase the self-fulfilling tendency of their subsequent forecasts. Such deviation-amplifying feedback would permit polls to produce a highly significant, and expanding, influence on elections.

On the Development of Regional Climatic Scenarios for Policy-Oriented Climatic-Impact Assessment

Abstract: A review on the development of climatic scenarios related to policy-oriented assessment of the impact of climatic variations is presented. It seeks to provide background information needed to evaluate the extent to which existing regional scenarios have utility in the above context, and whether and how such utility could be increased in the future. An appraisal of alternative approaches (both GCM and empirically based) that have been used to develop scenarios from the stand-points of their respective motivations, the methods employed, the acknowledged strengths (both present and potential) and weaknesses, the results obtained, and the credibility of those results is given. Types of research needed to make regional climatic scenarios of greater utility for the policy-oriented assessment of the impact of climate variations are suggested.

Criteria and methodology for assessing credibility of sexual abuse allegation

Abstract: This paper will consider three types of interview that are held with sexually abused children. After discussing common problems in technique, it will suggest a methodology designed to help determine a child's credibility and assist in forming and demonstrating a reliable expert opinion for court purposes. Next, it will describe three types of data crucial in investigating allegations of sexual abuse, and will suggest clinical criteria useful in distinguishing true from false allegations. Finally, it will examine the validity of these criteria, comparing them to those of other workers in the field.

Expectancy and outcome in prescriptive vs. exploratory psychotherapy.

Abstract: Client ratings of the credibility of prescriptive and exploratory therapies were compared, and correlated with clinical improvement. Both expectancies and outcomes favoured prescriptive therapy in the first, but not the second, period of a cross-over design, and modest correlations were obtained between credibility and improvement. Regression analysis suggested that the impact of expectancy on outcome was secondary to the treatment effect rather than its cause.

Route Analysis of Credibility and Hearsay

Abstract: This Article applies a simple graphic technique, which I call route analysis,' to problems of credibility and hearsay. Route analysis facilitates the examination of the role that a given piece of evidence plays in the proof of an uncertain factual proposition. The focus of this Article is on a particularly important type of evidence-a person's declaration or other conduct that tends to prove the truth of a proposition because the person asserts the proposition or his conduct otherwise indicates he believes it to be true. This Article assumes, as a working premise, that such declarations or other conduct, whether in court or out of court, can be analyzed by the same technique used for other types of evidence. I hope to demonstrate that this premise is correct by reaching intuitively appealing yet nontrivial results; some of these results are quite general, while others concern specific recurrent issues of evidence law, such as the Hillmon doctrine.

Credibility and time consistency in a stochastic world

Abstract: This paper re-examines the issue of the credibility and sustainability of optimal policies derived from Pontryagin's Maximum Principle and generally regarded as time-inconsistent, in models with forward-looking rational expectations. Specifically, it considers the behaviour of such models in the presence of continuing stochastic noise. This is shown to convert the policy problem from a one-shot dynamic policy game to a continuing game, giving governments an incentive to invest in a reputation for not reneging on the full optimal rule. This incentive may, in certain circumstances, render the full optimal rule credible and therefore sustainable. It is demonstrated that a sufficiently low degree of discounting on the part of government, or a sufficiently high variance of shocks (measured relative to the initial displacement) ensures the sustainability of the full optimal rule. Using a simple dynamic open economy model, these conditions are shown to be plausible unless the discount rate is very high.

Assessing the credibility of young children's allegations of sexual abuse: clinical issues.

Abstract: In assessing the credibility of young children's (ages 2-7) allegations of sexual abuse clinicians need to know how dynamics of sexual abuse affect disclosure, what situations are most commonly associated with fictitious allegations and how the child's developmental stage affects disclosures. Understanding these issues allows for clear decision making. A clear decision making process flows naturally from an understanding of these issues.

Effects of Message Valence, Communicator Credibility, and Source Anonymity on Reactions to Peer Feedback

Abstract: Three possible determinants of subordinates' intended performance and affective reactions to simulated peer feedback received via superiors in an American context were examined. Valence of feedback, credibility of supervisor, and anonymity or identity of peer sources of feedback were manipulated in a 2 × 2 × 2 design. Subjects responded to two scenarios depicting a superior relating peer feedback to a subordinate. The results indicated that feedback valence had a strong effect on both dependent measures. Contrary to expectations, neither supervisor credibility nor anonymity of source interacted significantly with valence. Credibility and anonymity did significantly interact with each other when male and female subjects were separately analyzed.

Nonverbal communication performance and perceptions associated with reticence: Replications and classroom implications

Abstract: Two studies replicated and extended Burgoon and Koper (1984) by examining the nonverbal behavior patterns, relational message interpretations and credibility evaluations associated with communication reticence. Study One (N = 110) examined multiple kinesic and vocalic behaviors exhibited by reticents during a dyadic advocacy/decision‐making task and relational interpretations by unacquainted interaction partners. Study Two (N = 60) examined similar behaviors displayed during a persuasive speaking assignment and credibility evaluations assigned by classmates. In both studies, nonverbal manifestations were sufficiently modest and in some cases transitory to challenge the traditional view that reticence produces pronounced performance decrements. Evaluations, although unfavorable, were also not seriously detrimental. Education implications are discussed.

Credibility as an Interactional Accomplishment

Abstract: Although assumptions about “truthfulness” are necessarily involved in everyday social interaction, individuals rarely try explicitly to “test” one another's credibility. The trial court, and particularly the cross-examination of testimony, is one social occasion where such “testing” of credibility is done. In this article we analyze the cross-examination of a defendant accused of perjury in order to elucidate how credibility (or its lack) is established for all practical purposes. Ethnographic interviews and transcribed tape recordings of testimony provide materials for our analysis. We argue that in this case the prosecutor's cross-examination strategy places the defendant in “the witness's dilemma”—an untenable choice between claiming to have acted “unreasonably” or agreeing to the prosecution's accusation. The defendant responds to this dilemma by giving delayed and qualified responses, expressing apparent confusion about the questions, and agreeing with the prosecutor in only a hypothetical and minimi...

Argumentation and credibility appeals in persuasion

Abstract: This study tests the cognitive response model while investigating three means of persuasion—argumentation, expertise, and attractiveness—on an involving topic. Arguments perceived as strong by receivers generate more favorable cognitive responses (more supportive and less refutative thoughts) than weak message arguments, and they generate more attitude change. While perceived source expertise and attractiveness influenced cognitive responses, they did not do so in a coherent fashion nor did they mediate attitude change.

Does international macroeconomic policy coordination pay and is it sustainable?: a two country analysis

Abstract: THE purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits and the sustainability of cooperation in the conduct of macroeconomic policy in the international economy. Recent work has highlighted the significant externalities between countries in the effects of policy particularly those arising through policyinduced exchange rate changes in a regime of floating rates. Thus Taylor (1985) finds that non-cooperative policy design results in an over-active use of monetary policy, relative to the cooperative case, as countries use tight monetary policy to induce exchange rate appreciation as part of an anti-inflationary package. This is true even if the real exchange rate must subsequently depreciate again, adding to inflationary pressures later on, for the pattern of real exchange rate appreciation and subsequent depreciation acts to redistribute inflation optimally through time, smoothing peaks and troughs. Currie and Levine (1985a, 1985b) obtain similar findings for monetary policy, and report also the incentive for individual governments to offset the output consequences of the resulting loss of competitiveness by means of expansionary fiscal policy. The consequent combination of tight money and expansionary fiscal policy is severely suboptimal for the system taken as a whole, and therefore for all individual countries if such policies are adopted generally, and, if adhered to, are found in some circumstances to be wholly destabilising. These findings that international cooperation in macroeconomic policy is beneficial are at odds with other findings, notably by Oudiz and Sachs (1985), Miller and Salmon (1985) and Rogoff (1985), that the benefits of cooperation may be limited or even absent. It is clearly important to establish the source of these differences, and this is one aim of this paper. The principal source that we identify is whether governments are assumed to have sufficient credibility to commit themselves to the full optimal reputational policy. If governments lack credibility vis-a-vis their private sectors, international cooperation may be counter-productive. With credibility, the pursuit of reputational policies means that international cooperation will be beneficial and its absence may be damaging. For those policies for which cooperation pays, there is still the question of whether cooperative behaviour will be sustained or whether it will be undermined by the incentive to free-ride. In this paper we therefore examine means by which cooperation may be sustained for reputational policies. In particular, we ask whether the threat by each country to revert * The support of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and of the Bank of

Disclosing sexual abuse: the impact of developmental variables

Abstract: Despite increasing evidence that even a young child can be a competent witness in a court of law, there is one factor that is often used to impeach the credibility of a child in a sexual abuse case, and that is the nature and timing of the child's disclosure of the sexual victimization. This paper examines the impact of developmental variables on that disclosure and suggests that when those variables are recognized, the credibility of the young child as a witness increases. Language: en

Making Weapons, Talking Peace

Abstract: In the nuclear debate, scientists risk undermining their technical credibility when they pose ethical questions, just as religious leaders jeopardize their authority by raising technical points. But the realms cannot be separated.

Disinflation, credibility and price inertia: A Danish exposition

Abstract: This paper analyses the disinflationary policy pursued in Denmark since October 1982, focusing on the Phillips curve trade-off and the credibility of this disinflationary policy. The overall conclusion confirms no significant indication of the disinflationary policy being credible.

Credibility of Newspaper Opinion Polls: Source, Source Intent and Precision:

Abstract: b Studies have shown a marked improvement in the reporting of public opinion poll stories in newspapers over the years.[ In addition, surveys of journalists suggest that journalists have adopted more favorable attitudes toward the application of survey research methods in journalism.* But d o newspaper readers evaluate precision poll stories as more credible than stories gathered through other methods? And if so, what factors enhance or mediate the credibility of published poll reports? This study reports the results of respondents' evaluations of the credibility of published poll stories. It examined whether the source of the information, the source's intent t o

Credibility Logic and Policy Analysis Is There Rationality without Science

Abstract: The early promise of positivistic-based policy analysis was based on the authority of “science.” A “scientific approach” could bring rationality and rigor to public policy-making. But with all this promise and confidence, the actual utilization of policy analysis by decision makers within the last decade has been dismal. The purpose of this article is to suggest that policy analysts need not cling to scientific pretensions to bring some rationality and rigor to policymaking. This article introduces a “credibility model” in which policy analysts bring to the policymaker insights not available from the fund of ordinary knowledge, experience, and intuition that policymakers themselves contribute.

Trade Policy under Endogenous Credibility

Abstract: Because trade liberalization which is anticipated to be temporary creates a divergence between the effective domestic rate of interest and the world rate of interest, tariff-reduction in the presence of international financial asset trade may reduce welfare for a small country. Calvo has argued that even though the government intends to liberalize trade permanently, if the private sector believes with some probability that a tariff will be imposed in the future, then free trade may not be optimal. This paper first formalizes this argument and discusses the optimal policy for a government which seeks to maximize representative household welfare. The government's lack of credibility is represented by a set of beliefs the private sector holds about the type of government it faces. Next, beliefs are endoqenized by allowing me private sector to update them using Bayes' rule. In one approach, the true government's objective is maximize welfare for the economy, so that it does not seek to imitate another type, in contrast with other recent models of policy credibility. With learning, the government eventually adopts free trade, even though restricted trade is optimal initially.

To Toast, Pan or Waffle: How Film Reviews Affect Reader Interest and Credibility Perception:

Abstract: Do audiences question negative reviews? Are they more interested in praise than in pans? Do they find one kind of review more credible than another? This experiment assessed subjects' interest in p...

News People's Ideology and the Credibility Debate

Abstract: Data show newspaper journalists' tendency toward liberal philosophies is reflected in attitudes toward credibility, the way journalists and newspapers approach doing their jobs, coverage of differe...