Situational Crisis Communication Theory and the Use of Apologies in Five High-Profile Food-Poisoning Incidents

This article examines the role that apologies play in situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and focuses on a number of recent food-poisoning incidents. The article first establishes the importance of trust to firms with a marketing orientation, and the harm that comes when that trust is lost. This is followed by an overview of apologies versus pseudo-apologies and how both factor into the principles of SCCT. Finally, examples of five high-profile apologies related to food-poisoning incidents are provided and the way that the principles of SCCT were applied in each instance, along with the outcome, is explored

Primordial Power Spectra from Anisotropic Inflation

We examine cosmological perturbations in a dynamical theory of inflation in which an Abelian gauge field couples directly to the inflaton, breaking conformal invariance. When the coupling between the gauge field and the inflaton takes a specific form, inflation becomes anisotropic and anisotropy can persist throughout inflation, avoiding Wald's no-hair theorem. After discussing scenarios in which anisotropy can persist during inflation, we calculate the dominant effects of a small persistent anisotropy on the primordial gravitational wave and curvature perturbation power spectra using the "in-in" formalism of perturbation theory. We find that the primordial power spectra of cosmological perturbations gain significant direction dependence and that the fractional direction dependence of the tensor power spectrum is suppressed in comparison to that of the scalar power spectrum.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures; References added, typos corrected and some discussion expanded; version submitted for publication in PR

The low-income single-family house and the effectiveness of architects in affecting affordability

Architects are increasingly engaged in efforts to provide affordable, owner-occupied housing in the United States. Yet architects' roles in broadly addressing affordable housing remain marginal as was anecdotally evident by the absence of architects at a recent university-sponsored affordable housing workshop. Apparently, the potential contributions of architects in "the development of innovative approaches and best practices” related to affordable, owner-occupied housing is not always valued to housing policymakers and planners such as those who organized this workshop. This paper speculatively explores the gap between the potential value of architects and their actual effectiveness at realizing widespread relevancy, innovation, and change in improving the quality and attainability of affordable, owner occupied housing and how this gap may contribute to the undervaluation and marginalization of architects' efforts to address affordable housing needs in the United States. Case studies of several recent U.S. house design competitions exemplify these gaps. Potential strategies for closing these gaps and thus appreciating the value of architects' efforts in this endeavor are identified.To become central in providing much-needed affordable, owner-occupied housing, architects must make the value of their potential contributions evident. This requires a clear definition of design goals, a rigorous assessment of built projects, and the thorough dissemination of findings and methodologies. Architects must engage those fields to which they have, in the U.S., long relinquished affordable, single-family housing. Architects must demonstrate that qualitative design improvements are not just possible within the frameworks and agendas of those other fields but that good design will better enable the achievement of those extra-disciplinary goals

Classical stability of a homogeneous, anisotropic inflating space-time

We study the classical stability of an anisotropic space-time seeded by a spacelike, fixed norm, dynamical vector field in a vacuum-energy-dominated inflationary era. It serves as a model for breaking isotropy during the inflationary era. We find that, for a range of parameters, the linear differential equations for small perturbations about the background do not have a growing mode. We also examine the energy of fluctuations about this background in flat-space. If the kinetic terms for the vector field do not take the form of a field strength tensor squared then there is a negative energy mode and the background is unstable. For the case where the kinetic term is of the form of a field strength tensor squared we show that perturbations about the background have positive energy at lowest order.Comment: 12 pages, no figures; references added, content in section V revised and some clarification made in text; minor typos corrected, v4 closely resembles version published in Phys. Rev. D; in v5 - incorrect argument in section V removed and one reference adde

Unnecessary Roughness: Examining Terrain, Indiscriminate Violence, and Conflict Duration

During the past decade scholars have attempted to identify factors influence conflict by using cross-national quantitative analysis, many of which utilize terrain roughness as an independent variable asserting that it provides an advantage in guerrilla warfare. However, despite the theoretical assumptions, these studies fail to reach consensus regarding how or if rough terrain contributes to conflict. One study in particular, Buhaug and Lujala (2005), found that higher levels of rough terrain in the conflict zone were associated, albeit insignificantly, with shorter conflicts, while higher levels of terrain roughness at the country level were associated with longer conflicts. This thesis seeks to explain this counterintuitive result by proposing a new theory about how terrain roughness impacts the way counterinsurgencies are fought. I argue that terrain roughness which conflict zones geographically separated from the capital experience higher levels of indiscriminate violence from the state which increases rebel resolve and prolongs the conflict. Using GIS analysis to construct terrain roughness measures of the country-level, conflict-zone-level and the area separating the conflict zone from the capital, this hypothesis was tested using Cox Proportional-hazards modeling, Seemingly Unrelated Regression, and Coarsened Exact Matching. The results from these test do not provide direct support for the hypothesis. Rough terrain and spatial separation between the conflict zone and the capital correlates to both shorter conflicts and fewer casualties. However, several of the underlying assumptions do receive strong support, including the relationship between state power and conflict location, cost sensitivity, and the application of indiscriminate violence

True Self in Threat Resilience: Using Essentialist Self-Views to Neutralize Personal Morality Threats

course of this dissertation, I introduce the idea of the true self construct as a personalized route to individual meaning and stability at a time in history when external direction regarding values and purpose is in decline. Setting aside the question of the ontological status of the true self, I emphasize that beliefs about and representations of the true self have distinctive psychological impact and cite research supporting this assertion. I then review evidence of the aptness of such true self-orientations in supporting well-being, fulfillment of basic psychological needs, and resilience against threat. Across two studies, I investigated the effectiveness of connecting with one’s true self-orientations for defending against three levels of personal morality threat severity. Compelling support arose for well-being being positively related to participants’ belief in having a true self. Evidence consistently suggested this to be the case across threat severity, but moderate evidence also supported the possibility that true self-orientations are ineffective against strong threat (Study 1). Participants highly preferred to engage with their true self-concepts across threat condition, and in doing so reported significantly higher subjective vitality than those who explored self-flexibility. Other well-being outcomes were unaffected by threat and connection to different self-conceptualizations (Study 2). I then consider theoretical implications and propose multiple pathways for fruitful future exploration. In particular, trait-level true self-orientations seem most effective for predicting well-being, and people may need additional guidance to effectively utilize their true self-orientations for active coping support

Meaning as a Buffer Against Adolescent Psychopathology

This thesis investigates the function of meaning in life in adolescence to ascertain whether specific psychological resources may protect youths against threats to subjective well-being. Meaning in life and the search for the meaning in stressful occurrences were independently examined for their influence on stress impact and depression symptomatology. 201 American middle-school and high-school students between 12 and 19 years of age were recruited for this study. Participants reported on questionnaires targeting frequency of negative life events; depressive symptoms; sense of meaning; and tendency to reframe stressors in terms of their meaning, termed “stressor meaning seeking”. It was expected that having a higher sense of meaning and higher stressor meaning seeking would be positively related, and that each of these variables would be able to buffer the impact of stress and strengthen resilience to depression. Statistical analyses supported the hypotheses, suggesting that meaning can help adolescents manage stressor threats to well-being and be resistant to developing depression. In addition, the results provided evidence that framing stress in terms of its value can be an effective coping strategy for youth. This is among the first contributions that shed light on how meaning and its pursuit interact with threats to well-being in an adolescent sample. These findings have implications for both theoretical and practical applications, and interventions against adolescent stress and psychopathology may be informed by the relationships demonstrated in this investigation