Using Behavior Economic Nudges to Facilitate Client Follow-Through in Financial Coaching

While benevolence-based programs have been a large part of meeting immediate financial needs of the poor, they lack the relational aspect needed to facilitate long-term behavior change. Recently many social service organizations have adopted financial coaching as a promising replacement for benevolence programming. The field of coaching has dealt with its own challenges. Most coaching practitioners surveyed in 2016 and 2019 acknowledged lack of client follow-through as their number one challenge. Behavior economics offered nudges as a solution. Nudges are cues placed within the physical environment to prod clients toward behavior change. A quantitative field study was conducted to evaluate 2 program models: a traditional financial coaching model and a behavior economic financial coaching model. The goal was to determine if nudges could produce significant outcomes with client goals of becoming banked and/or increasing savings. A sample population of 70 clients was randomly assigned to 1 of the coaching models. Baseline banking and savings data were collected from both groups. Clients in the behavior economics group received priming and framing as nudges at initial and subsequent coaching sessions. The study found that the behavior economic coaching model produced statistically significant differences in savings increases versus the traditional model. Implications of action for community-based nonprofits offering coaching include initially measuring client intentions to complete goals and integration of nudges throughout sessions. An integrated coaching model was produced and serves as the core foundation for improving client engagement and program outcomes

Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence

Existing concepts can be a major barrier to learning new counterintuitive concepts that contradict pre-existing experience-based beliefs or misleading perceptual cues. When reasoning about counterintuitive concepts, inhibitory control is thought to enable the suppression of incorrect concepts. This study investigated the association between inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescents (N=90, 11-15 years). Both response and semantic inhibition were associated with counterintuitive science and maths reasoning, when controlling for age, general cognitive ability, and performance in control science and maths trials. Better response inhibition was associated with longer reaction times in counterintuitive trials, while better semantic inhibition was associated with higher accuracy in counterintuitive trials. This novel finding suggests that different aspects of inhibitory control may offer unique contributions to counterintuitive reasoning during adolescence and provides further support for the hypothesis that inhibitory control plays a role in science and maths reasoning

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Measure of Intention to Provide Patient-centered Care to People Experiencing Opioid Addiction and Overdose Among EMS Providers in the State of Maine

The current opioid epidemic is devastating our communities. The American Medical Association’s Task Force on opioid addiction has identified stigma as a primary target of intervention for mitigating this epidemic. Stigma is a mark of disgrace or being objectionable. Experiences of stigma and resulting shame serve only to fuel health inequities experienced by people with opioid addiction. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have an important role to play in mitigating this epidemic as entry-level providers in the healthcare system. The quality of that patient-provider encounter had the potential to shift intrinsic motivation to seek and maintain addiction treatment. Patient-centered care is identified as supporting therapeutic communication and is well-suited for rural EMS operations in Maine. The purpose of this research was to examine predictors of intention to provide patient-centered care to people experiencing opioid addiction and overdose (OAO) among EMS providers in the state of Maine. A cross-sectional online survey of currently licensed EMS providers offered a direct measure of intention to give patient-centered care to people experiencing OAO. Multiple regression analysis identified four predictor variables for intention: job satisfaction, exploring patient perspective, sharing information and power, and dealing with communicative challenges. The fitted model resulted in a significant R2 = .529, (F (4, 734) = 226.381, p < .001) exceeding the critical F statistic (F (4,739) = 2.384, p = .05), thus confirming the predictive value of the coefficients. Results suggested that EMS providers at all license levels will benefit from interventions that expand their knowledge of the medical definition of addiction and patient-centered care. EMS providers will also benefit from adopting approaches that support exploring the patient perspective and sharing information and power such as Motivational Interviewing and human performance strategies to develop awareness of socially conditioned biases that moderate provider attitudes. These evidence-based interventions could elevate the standard of care provided by EMS and reduce experiences of stigma in the patient-provider encounter. Reductions in stigma increase self-worth and prime motivation to seek and maintain treatment, thereby closing the treatment gap that exists for those experiencing opioid addiction in the state of Maine

Executive Summary: Evaluation of the MacArthur Foundation's Human Rights and International Justice Grantmaking in Nigeria 2000-2012

The MacArthur Foundation commissioned Itad to conduct an evaluation of the Foundation's Human Rights and International Justice (HRIJ) grant?making program in Nigeria between 2000 and 2012. During this period, the Foundation supported 102 HRIJ projects with an end?date in 2000 or later, for a total grant amount of US$23,945,010. The projects broadly fell within the following thematic categories:- Accountability of democratic institutions, including the police- Justice: legal and judicial reform, including international justice standards - Protection and promotion of human rightsThe evaluation was commissioned to seek answers to the following questions: - Approach and strategy: o What has changed in the wider Nigerian HRIJ landscape in Nigeria since 2000? o What was the Foundation's HRIJ grantmaking strategy in Nigeria over this time? o How has the Foundation responded to change in the wider environment? o How has the implementation of grants contributed to strategic aims? - Impact: o What have been the main results of the Foundation's investments? o What was the Foundation's primary contribution to Nigeria HRIJ issues? o What lessons can be drawn for future HRIJ grantmaking in Nigeria

A Human Factors analysis of Firefighter injury sustained during emergency response operations:Implications for error management and injury reduction in English Fire and Rescue Services.

This research is concerned with the human factors that may contribute to firefighter injury and whether the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) adequately acknowledges their influence when investigating, recording, analysing, or reporting accident causation. In particular, the extent to which, as critical decision makers, firefighters experience the deficit outcome of their own risk-v-benefit decisions when operating without the immediate oversight of a supervisor or commander. Studies of judgement and decision making specifically focused on the role of firefighter as opposed to their incident commanders are exceptional.For the first time in the analysis of firefighter injury, a number of variables that represent the preconditions of accident causation such as the demographic, temporal, environmental and contextual characteristics were analysed. An ‘error typing’ taxonomy that differentiates between decision errors, skill-based errors, perception errors and violations was used to examine the extent to which human factors are being considered by FRSs in the analysis of firefighter injury. Opportunity was also taken to examine the applicability of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) (Weigmann and Shappell 2003), to the emergency response domain of the FRS. This revealed the value of developing a valid and reliable sector specific variant of HFACS (UKFire-HFACS). Finally, using the critical decision method, recollection of the contextual characteristics that influenced the judgements, decisions, and actions at the ‘moment-of-choice’ of injured firefighters was also explored. Three studies that when combined establish components of a Human Factors Analysis Framework (HFAF) for the FRS.It was established that when implementing the requirements of an incident commander’s tactical plan, firefighters are required to make critical decisions and at times experience injury when operating without the immediate oversight of a supervisor or commander. Analysis demonstrated how the majority of injuries involve either a decision based or skill-based error which substantiates the existence and influence of skill fade at the ‘moment-of-choice’. It also brings FRS arrangements for the maintenance of competence into focus and worthy of closer scientific scrutiny. It is also evident that the approach of this research using three studies can be developed into a human factors analysis framework for the FRS. In turn this can establish the means by which the deficit outcome of firefighter critical decision making can be better understood, enable targeted intervention, and over time, reduce reported operational injury

A comparison of the effect of relaxation and focused attention on implicit memory in people with acquired brain injury

Mindfulness as an umbrella term for a range of practices has garnered a significant amount of attention in recent years, particularly with respect to the positive psychological effects it may be associated with. The current paper systematically reviews the evidence for the effects of mindfulness on measures of memory. Three databases were searched, and backward citation tracking was conducted. Nineteen randomised controlled trials providing valid measures of memory were included in the review. Overall, findings were mixed, with studies generally suggesting that mindfulness may improve some subtypes of memory including working memory. There is also some evidence that mindfulness may increase the susceptibility to recall of false memories. The quality of studies, evaluated using a risk of bias tool, was generally poor, possibly accounting for some of the inconsistencies in research findings. Issues in operationalising mindfulness may also have contributed to difficulties in comparing findings across studies. Therefore, the findings reviewed provide a primary analysis suggesting that mindfulness may enhance the use of some subtypes of memory. However, the available evidence is not generally of high quality, and should therefore be considered with caution. More rigorous randomised controlled trials are required to adequately evaluate whether mindfulness practices improve memory