Salient Reference Research Articles

HALKLA İLİŞKİLER OKUMA FİKRİ ARDINDA YATAN ALGI VE KİŞİSEL DEĞERLENDİRMELER

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the choice of major and in particular to the choice of a major in public relations. The paper first summarizes the literature on the broad area of choice of major and then on the decision of studying public relations. It presents a phenomenological qualitative research in the empirical setting of Turkey to understand how bachelor degree students decide to study public relations and how the perceptions of students at different years of study change. Findings clustered into seven themes representing the perceptions and experiences of informants about the phenomenon of interest ‘the idea of studying public relations’. Results show that salient referents (people and media), career-oriented reasons, expected earnings and perceived compatibility with the job are effective determinants on the choice of studying public relations. Results also show that misperceptions about public relations decrease and ethical considerations increase in the latter years of study. Furthermore, internship turned out to have a critical role during the public relations education since this experience changes students’ perspectives about the profession, mostly leading to disappointments.

Regulatory Certification, Risk Factor Disclosure, and Investor Behavior

Abstract This article examines the question: Does regulatory approval of prospectuses act as a “certification” of securities offerings? Rational investors should generally ignore prospectus approval due to its being uninformative regarding either the quality of, or motives for, the underlying offering. Our survey experiment demonstrates that salient references to regulatory oversight in investment advertisements can lead to significant increases in willingness to invest and concomitant decreases in perceived risks. Conversely, salient disclosure of risk factor information increases risk perceptions and reduces the intention to search for additional information. Various robustness tests confirm that investors can perceive regulatory oversight of securities offerings as an endorsement. Our results provide insight regarding the design of the disclosure and the effective regulation of financial marketing.

Breaking the rules to venture off-trail at national parks: exploring salient beliefs through a planned behaviour approach

ABSTRACT This research unpacked the salient beliefs towards the problematic behaviour of breaking the rules and walking off-trail at national parks. A systematic elicitation study was conducted through qualitative interviews (n = 27) comprising of 22 visitors, and five park administrators at the Blue Mountains National Park, NSW, Australia. Grounded on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as the theoretical lens, the interviews elicited five behavioural beliefs, six normative beliefs, and six control beliefs. Results identified a closer view of nature and being more adventurous as key attitudinal items shaping visitors to venture off-trail. Concerning important reference groups, other visitors and friends emerged as salient reference groups. With respect to perceived barriers, visitors stated the unclear / lack of signage and damaged / unclear walking trails as key constraints in their decision to stay on-trail.

Framing Bias in Mortgage Refinancing Decisions and Monetary Policy Pass-Through

This paper shows that households’ mortgage refinancing decisions suboptimally depend on uninformative reference points, imposing a friction to the refinancing channel of monetary policy. I study refinancing behavior in the UK, where on pre-determined dates initial fixed rates reset and mortgagors automatically move onto a reversion rate above market rates. A borrower’s expired fixed rate determines whether failing to refinance is perceived as a loss or as a gain, thus serving as a salient reference point. I find that borrowers for whom inaction implies a relative gain refinance on average 13.4% less than borrowers who face a loss. This evidence is at odds with optimal models of refinancing since future borrowing costs are unrelated to past rates.

James A. Herrick: Visions of Technological Transcendence: Human Enhancement and Rhetoric of the Future [Book Review

Technologists, research scientists, communication professionals, and others involved in computer and internet technologies, including graduate students, will find this book both relevant and prescient. Readers interested in philosophy, futurism, or the fate of humanity will like it too. The book achieves its purpose of outlining, with salient references and a sense of history, the prominent strains of thought in the transhumanist and human enhancement communities - and their philosophical forebears - along with critical responses. The book stands out as a comprehensive, measured look at technology, its future, and its narratives. The author's well-researched, historical look at the stories we tell ourselves about the future—and, crucially, how those stories drive technological advances and policies—details the beliefs of transhumanism: where those beliefs came from and how they are driving the shape of our future. The author also balances the book with critical responses to each of these narratives. The book is focused more on the mythology of the future and technology, rather than on practical applications of any of the technologies discussed. Therefore, it would be most suited to a graduate-level course, or for consideration by policy makers and designers who are potentially influenced by these myths. The book’s value - and its contribution to its field - is in its scope and context, as well as its critical balance.

The discursive distribution of subject pronouns in Spanish spoken in Georgia: A weakening of pragmatic constraints?

AbstractThis study examines subject expression from a pragmatic perspective in an emerging bilingual community of Roswell, Georgia, an exurb of Atlanta. Using sociolinguistic interviews conducted in Roswell, first-person singular subject pronoun (SP) usage is analyzed among 10 Mexican speakers within five distinct pragmatic contexts: salient referent, switch focus, contrastive focus, pragmatic weight, and epistemic parentheticals. A comparison is made between Georgia speakers and monolingual Mexican speakers in Querétaro in order to explore the possible weakening of pragmatic constraints due to English contact. Results indicate that a contact hypothesis is not supported in terms of overall overt pronoun usage as evidenced by similar frequencies when compared to monolingual Mexican varieties. However, an increased use of overt SPs in the context of salient referent as well as a diminished use of overt SPs in switch focus contexts is found, suggesting a potential weakened sensitivity to such pragmatic constraints.

Ethical Predispositions to Violate or Obey Traffic Rules and the Mediating Role of Driving Styles

ABSTRACTTraffic law violations are the most important determinants of traffic accidents. This study examined the influence of drivers' ethical perspective on their traffic violations and the mediating role of driving styles in these relationships. A sample of 313 drivers participated in the study. Contrary to expectations, high ethical relativism was found to be associated with fewer aggressive traffic violations. This suggests that the informal normative system that parallels the official traffic regulations is the more salient reference against which drivers usually assess the adequacy of their behaviors, highly relativistic drivers being more willing to also take into consideration the official traffic code in these appraisals. We also found significant interactions between idealism and relativism on both ordinary and aggressive violations. Idealism emerged as a predictor of these violations only in drivers low in relativism. In this group, one's concern about the harm that he/she might cause to other traffic participants induces higher traffic law abidingness. These influences of idealism were mediated by certain driving styles. Drivers' general ethical perspective fosters a specific pattern of driving styles and, consequently, the tendency to commit or to refrain from traffic violations.

Predicting Ghanaian farmers’ intention to sustain the supply of quality cocoa beans

This article discusses the predictors of Ghanaian cocoa producers’ intention to continue adopting a recommended cocoa beanfermentation technology in the future. The analyses is carried out within the framework of the theory of planned behaviour.Three hundred and twenty-one cocoa producers were interviewed. Consistent with literature, attitudes, subjective norms andpast behaviour were significant predictors of fermentation intentions. Positive attitude relate to beliefs about ease of use oftechnologies and existence of non-financial rewards. Negative attitudes relate to lack of direct financial rewards. PurchasingClerks, Chief Farmers and society at large were found to be the salient social referents who shape producers’ fermentationintentions. Recommendations included improving implementation of current producer incentive regimes, promoting trust betweenproducers and purchasing clerks and strengthening producer association to increase the sphere of influence of the Chief Farmers.

Focus on Cataphora: Experiments in Context

Since Chomsky 1976 , it has been claimed that focus on a referring expression blocks coreference in a cataphoric dependency (* Hisi mother loves JOHNi vs. Hisi mother LOVES Johni ). In three auditory experiments and a written questionnaire, we show that this fact does not hold when a referent is unambiguously established in the discourse (cf. Williams 1997 , Bianchi 2009 ) but does hold otherwise, validating suggestions in Rochemont 1978 , Horvath 1981 , and Rooth 1985 . The perceived effect of prosody, we argue, building on Williams’s original insight and deliberate experimental manipulation of Rochemont’s and Horvath’s examples, is due to the fact that deaccenting the R-expression allows hearers to accommodate a salient referent via a “question under discussion” ( Roberts 1996/2012 , Rooth 1996 ), to which the pronoun can refer in ambiguous or impoverished contexts. This heuristic is not available in the focus cases, and we show that participants’ interpretation of the pronoun is ambivalent here.

Time-counting expressions as aspectual complex numerals

We compare the syntactic and semantic properties of time-counting expressions to those of better studied counting systems, such as complex cardinal numerals (Kayne 2005, 2016; Ionin & Matushansky 2006; Stavrou & Terzi 2008; Di Sciullo 2012, 2015, a.o.). From a typological point of view, we will focus on Romance languages. We argue that time-counting expressions, as opposed to complex numerical expressions, may have specific aspectual properties. We observe first that time-counting expressions involve a “salient” reference time, henceforth SRT, on the basis of Italian and Spanish. We argue that this salient reference hour-time may denote either a time‑point or a time-interval. The time-point interpretation of the SRT gives rise to telic construals in some cases. The lack of SRT makes number phrases not interpretable as time denoting expressions. The telic construals usually involve locative or goal prepositions, such as a “to” in Italian, para “for” in Portuguese or to in English. On the other hand, time-interval interpretations of SRT are typical of time-counting expressions involving pseudo‑partitives in languages like Catalan. In these cases, the reference-time is not viewed as the endpoint of a telic interval. We also discuss telic cases similar to the pseudo-partitive ones in that they involve [ quarter + minutes ] constituents, but involving aspectual prepositional projections. We analyze time‑counting expressions in terms of extended prepositional projections including RelView categories, discussed in Cinque & Rizzi (2010) for the syntax-semantics of locative/directional prepositions, in order to formalize the spatial location of time. By doing so, we propose a unified account for the variety of Romance languages time-counting expressions.

Unobserved Quality and Anchoring to Purchase Price and Fundamentals over a Housing Market Cycle

Previous literature has established that the first price of a repeat pair is a salient reference price. We show that local fundamentals at the date of the first sale (implicit rents divided by user costs of housing) are salient also. A salient market gap, the difference between change in market value and change in local fundamental value over the time between any two sales, redefines an important diagnostic tool for housing cycles, the ratio of house prices to fundamentals. The strong association we find between the mix of sellers with gains and losses, a mix that changes dramatically over the cycle, and the ratio of house prices to salient fundamentals challenges those developing structural models of excess volatility to include anchoring behavior.We find pro-cyclical selection of properties for sale based on unobserved quality as a function of gains and losses. This explains about 70% of the implausibly large discount for gains relative to losses documented in previous literature.Our unique data control major structural changes between sales and allow detailed spatial controls for unobserved heterogeneity; town-year fixed effects are strongly correlated with local public services and taxes. Average sales with gains are priced .17 (.06) below losses in log terms in the presence (absence) of a positive salient gap. Salience is supported when we compare to a counterfactual fixed seven-year gap. Results are robust to sub-periods around the global financial crisis, and to differences across towns in proxies for elasticity of housing supply and demand.

Impact of Media on Major Choice: Survey of Communication Undergraduates

Popular and news media sources may play a key role in influencing undergraduate choice of major, yet their unique impact has not been investigated. Most research has focused on the influence of unmediated salient referents, such as parents, on students' major choices. Therefore, we developed a scale to examine the role of media professionals and celebrities (mediated salient referents) and unmediated salient referents on career selection. Overall, we investigated the ways media exposure, technology use, mediated salient referents, and unmediated salient referents influenced variations in the likelihood students choose the media-related major of journalism through a survey of communication undergraduates (N = 2,401). Results showed mediated referents and news consumption positively predicted the choice of journalism as a major, while unmediated referents influenced students' selection of other communication-related majors.

Mention Detection for Improving Coreference Resolution in Russian Texts: A Machine Learning Approach

The paper concerns discourse-new referent detection. The task of coreference resolution is essential in many text-mining applications. The focus in this task is to detect noun phrases (NPs) that refer to the same entity. In languages without articles, there are no overt grammatical clues in an NP for whether it introduces a new referent into discourse or it refers to one of before-mentioned entities. However, there are some theoretical researches which claim that referent first-mentioning NPs have some specific features. In our research, we examine features that serve as discourse-new detectors for NPs corresponding to discourse salient referents and provide an experiment on different features contribution to this detection. The first-mention detection could help the quality of coreference resolution systems.

Neuroscience Fiction as Eidolá: Social Reflection and Neuroethical Obligations in Depictions of Neuroscience in Film.

Neuroscience and neurotechnology are increasingly being employed to assess and alter cognition, emotions, and behaviors, and the knowledge and implications of neuroscience have the potential to radically affect, if not redefine, notions of what constitutes humanity, the human condition, and the "self." Such capability renders neuroscience a compelling theme that is becoming ubiquitous in literary and cinematic fiction. Such neuro-SciFi (or "NeuroS/F") may be seen as eidolá: a created likeness that can either accurately-or superficially, in a limited way-represent that which it depicts. Such eidolá assume discursive properties implicitly, as emotionally salient references for responding to cultural events and technological objects reminiscent of fictional portrayal; and explicitly, through characters and plots that consider the influence of neurotechnological advances from various perspectives. We argue that in this way, neuroS/F eidolá serve as allegorical discourse on sociopolitical or cultural phenomena, have power to restructure technological constructs, and thereby alter the trajectory of technological development. This fosters neuroethical responsibility for monitoring neuroS/F eidolá and the sociocultural context from which-and into which-the ideas of eidolá are projected. We propose three approaches to this: evaluating reciprocal effects of imaginary depictions on real-world neurotechnological development; tracking changing sociocultural expectations of neuroscience and its uses; and analyzing the actual process of social interpretation of neuroscience to reveal shifts in heuristics, ideas, and attitudes. Neuroethicists are further obliged to engage with other discourse actors about neuroS/F interpretations to ensure that meanings assigned to neuroscientific advances are well communicated and more fully appreciated.

USING A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL TO IDENTIFY AND UNDERSTAND FACTORS INFLUENCING THE USE AND ADOPTION OF A SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION BY SMALL-SCALE DAIRY FARMERS OF CENTRAL MEXICO

SUMMARYThis paper seeks to make an exploratory investigation regarding farmers who have been using an innovation for a relatively long period (established users), compared to farmers who have only recently started (recent users). Therefore, the aims of this research were to identify (i) the extent to which intentions, attitudes and social pressure are similar or different between these two groups and (ii) whether comparison of the groups can improve academic understanding and provide insights into what is influencing the uptake of innovations. The study was conducted with 80 farmers who are already engaged with the use of improved grassland. In order to develop an understanding of the differences in drivers of the adoption of new technology, the sample was divided into established users and recent users of the innovation. To identify differences between groups regarding farmer and farm characteristics, 11 quantitative variables were analysed through a dependent t-test. The theory of reasoned action (TRA) was used as a theoretical framework and the Spearman rank-order correlation was used in data analyses. To identify differences in farmers’ perceptions of the components of the TRA, we used the Mann–Whitney U test. The results showed that established users had stronger intention to use improved grassland in the next 12 months, which would be attributed to activity based on milk production as a main source of family income. Advantages of improved grassland included lower animal feeding expenses; increases in quantity, quality and availability of fodder production and increases in milk production. We concluded that established and recent users’ intention to use improved grassland over the 12 months was influenced in different ways. Established users’ intention to adopt was strongly influenced by normative beliefs, i.e. social pressure from salient referents, where the father, uncle and veterinarian played the most important role, whereas recent users’ intention was mainly influenced by behavioural beliefs (positive and negative beliefs regarding the innovation) and the variables that describe the farm characteristics, i.e. the advantages and disadvantages that farmers perceive of the use of improved grassland on their farms, which were also considered as drivers of adoption.

Selfishly benevolent or benevolently selfish: When self-interest undermines versus promotes prosocial behavior

Existing research shows that appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. We propose that this inconsistency is in part due to the framings of these appeals. Different framings generate different salient reference points, leading to different assessments of the appeal. Study 1 demonstrates that buying an item with the proceeds going to charity evokes a different set of alternative behaviors than donating and receiving an item in return. Studies 2 and 3a-g establish that people are more willing to act, and give more when they do, when reading the former framing than the latter. Study 4 establishes ecological validity by replicating the effect in a field experiment assessing participants’ actual charitable contributions. Finally, Study 5 provides additional process evidence via moderation for the proposed mechanism. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggest avenues for future research.

Beliefs about Supporting Mothers to Exclusively Breastfeed for 6 Months: An Elicitation Study of Health Professionals Working in Maternal-Child Health Clinics in Nairobi, Kenya.

Exclusive breastfeeding rates remain low in Kenya and determinants influencing mothers' practice are documented. Little is known about factors underlying health professionals' intention to support mothers to continue exclusive breastfeeding. Effective behavior modification requires designing interventions at multiple levels of influence, informed by theory-based research to identify relevant determinants. To identify salient beliefs held by health professionals about support of mothers to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months and to explore definitions of the term support. This qualitative study was conducted in 6 public health facilities in Nairobi, Kenya. We used open-ended questions based on the reasoned action approach to elicit salient consequences, referents, and circumstances perceived by 15 health professionals about support for mothers to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months. The most frequently mentioned consequences were healthier babies (87%) and reduced childhood ailments (67%). The main disadvantage was human immunodeficiency virus transmission through breast milk (33%). Colleagues (80%) and managers (67%) were perceived as approving referents, whereas some mothers/couples (40%) and the breast milk substitute industry (20%) were perceived as disapproving. Facilitating circumstances included lighter workload, better training, and more time. Definitions of support were varied and included giving information and demonstrating positioning and attachment techniques. Overall, health professionals perceived positive consequences toward supporting exclusive breastfeeding continuation and identified a number of approving referents. However, they reported challenging circumstances in the work environment, which managers need to address to help health professionals provide the support needed by Kenyan mothers to continue exclusive breastfeeding.

Determinants of consumer behaviour in novice markets: the case of wine

Purpose – This study aims to understand the behaviour of novice consumers and provide businesses with guidelines regarding how to approach the different typologies of novice consumers from new inexperienced markets and from new generations. Design/methodology/approach – The reasoned action approach is applied to wine consumer, and two parallel surveys using a questionnaire have been conducted with a sample of the Missouri population – representing new consumers – and a sample of the young Italian population – representing young consumers located in traditional consuming countries. Two research hypotheses are tested. Findings – The hypothesis testing reveals two effects. The age effect creates similarities in the decision-making process structure, and attitude and subjective norm have the same weight in influencing behavioural intention. The novice effect creates differences in the structure; however, similarities exist at a more basic level than that of attitude and subjective norm, in salient beliefs and salient referents. Practical implications – The study highlights that penetration of these consumer segments should pursue different marketing approaches: educational goals for young people from new markets, an experiential marketing approach to improve the link between product and producer for new consumers and emphasis on cultural aspects of the product in a “young manner” for young consumers from traditional consuming markets. Originality/value – For the first time in the literature, this study analyses commonalities and peculiarities in the decision-making process of novice consumers.

"Selling" value: the influence of language on willingness-to-accept.

In behavioral economics, the “endowment effect” describes the robust finding that prices people are willing to accept (WTA) for a good exceed prices people are willing to pay (WTP) for the same good. The increase in WTA values is often explained by the sellers’ negative hedonic response to losing their item. Recent studies, however, show that subtle cues may change participants’ perspective, influencing their valuations. We hypothesized that implicit connotations of instructional language may be one of those cues. To test this hypothesis we manipulated the wording of instructions in two conditions: in the Sell condition, subjects were endowed with a set of pens and asked to select an amount of money for which they would sell the pens back and in the Take condition, subjects were endowed with the pens and asked to select an amount of money they would take for the pens. Participants in each condition also estimated the market value of the pens. Consistent with our hypothesis, WTA in the Sell condition was higher than in the Take condition, though there were no differences in market values between conditions. These findings show that instructional language does influence participant valuations. Furthermore, we suggest that those being asked to “sell” use their market estimations as the salient reference point in the transaction.

Behavioural insights into housing relocation decisions: The effects of the Beijing Olympics

This article examines the impact of mega events on Beijing housing market from a behavioural perspective. By exploring the situation surrounding the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, we analyse the relationship between mega-event regeneration and expected residential relocation outcomes. Our findings suggest that Beijing Olympic regeneration caused disadvantaged groups to anticipate relocation to undesirable areas, as a result of improved infrastructure, public security, and urban environment. Behavioural sciences research indicates that expectation influences decision-making by serving as a salient reference point. Agents who perceived themselves as in a disadvantaged position or holding a gloomy prospect of their future are more likely to end up in such a situation. This paper offers insights into an effect of mega event regeneration projects that has been largely overlooked in the literature, i.e., the expected housing relocation outcomes. The research calls for government intervention and public attention to this important behavioural aspect of mega-event effects.