Decentralisatie: maatwerk of uniformiteit? Het Wmo-beleid van Nederlandse gemeenten

A main motive for policy decentralization is the belief that municipalities are better able to customize public policy to local circumstances, and to realize made-to-measure service provision. In this respect, the introduction of the Social Support Act (Wmo) is an interesting example. With the lack of ‘vertical’ accountability obligations to the national government, the Wmo is governmentally innovative. Whether the decentralization results in customized forms of social support is a fascinating one because a detailed reading of the Wmo and its implementation displays possible incentives as well as barriers to made-to-measure service provision. The empirical exploration in this article uses data from the 2007-2009 evaluation of the Wmo conducted by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). The evaluation shows that municipalities involve diverse stakeholders in formulating Wmo policy, and that their involvement seems to lead to customized service provision. At the same time, municipalities follow nationwide models, and information provided by the central government seems to have a major impact on local social care policy. The article concludes with an outlook on future directions in local debates on social care and the recommendation to give time for major decentralization trajectories such as the Wmo

Making good use of partners: Differential effects of managerial networking in the social care domain.

Public managers engage in networking relationships with a wide variety of external actors and organizations from which they can draw different types of support and resources. Most empirical studies on managerial networking merely present different intensities of external networking in general, as if it were a unidimensional concept. In practice, however, public managers strategically differentiate between functional or task-related groups of external partners, based on the specific policy context. Moreover, such differentiation in networking behavior can be expected to systematically impact agency and public program performance outcomes. This article derives contextualized hypotheses on how managerial networking affects the performance of Dutch local governments in the social care domain. Multilevel structural equation analyses of 3,257 social care clients in 71 local governments provide evidence that bilateral client-interest networking is more beneficial to the Social Support Act's overall goal of improving the level of social participation of clients than professional networking. Moreover, the effect is indirect: managerial networking with client interest groups improves the physical self-reliance of clients, enabling them to engage in social activities.The politics and administration of institutional chang

Stimulating a future-oriented mindset and goal attainment through a smartphone-based intervention: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Short-term mindsets interfere with the consideration of future consequences and therefore predict negative behaviors. We developed a smartphone-based intervention aiming to increase a future-oriented mindset and personal goal attainment by strengthening future self-identification and stimulating episodic future thinking. The aims of the study are 1) to examine users' experiences with the application and their treatment adherence, 2) to examine the effectiveness of the intervention, and 3) to explore which intervention modules generate the strongest changes in key outcomes. Methods: First-year university students (N = 166) will be randomly assigned to two conditions: 1) the smartphone-based intervention, or 2) a goal-setting control group. The intervention consists of three week-long modules. Data will be collected at the start of the intervention, at weekly intervals during the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and at 3-month follow-up (and at parallel time points for the control group). We will assess users' experiences, application usage data, primary intervention outcomes (e.g., self-defeating behavior, future orientation, future self-identification), and secondary intervention outcomes (e.g., psychosocial wellbeing, self-efficacy). Discussion: The study will provide information about users' experiences with the application, the intervention's general effectiveness, and which intervention modules show most promise. This information will be used to further develop the application and optimize this novel intervention. Trial registration: The trial is registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (number: NL9671) on 16 August 2021.Education and Child StudiesDevelopment Psychopathology in context: schoo

Emotion and intergroup cooperation: How verbal expressions of guilt, shame and pride influence behavior in a social dilemma

In interpersonal relations, it is known that expressing self-conscious emotions such as guilt and shame following a transgression is beneficial to reconciliation. In the current research, we examine whether this also applies to intergroup relations. Groups of three persons played an intergroup version of the “centipede game,” in which one party can cooperate with or exploit another party. In Study 1, two groups played six rounds of this game in each of two phases. Between phases, groups rated how much guilt, shame, and pride they experienced in relation to how they had performed in Phase 1; these ratings were shared with the opposing group. Groups expressing high levels of guilt and shame were associated with greater cooperation in Phase 2, whereas groups expressing high levels of pride were associated with lower cooperation in Phase 2. In Study 2, all groups played against a “group” programmed to behave in an exploitative way in Phase 1. This group then expressed shame, pride, or no emotion (control) about its performance. Cooperation in Phase 2 was significantly higher in the shame than in the pride condition, and altruistic punishment was highest in the pride condition and lowest in the shame condition. Between them, these studies show that emotional expression plays an important role in repairing intergroup relationships and in particular that expressing shame about a transgression enhances intergroup cooperation following a transgression

Interaction with the future self in virtual reality reduces self-defeating behavior in a sample of convicted offenders

In this study, we test an intervention in which convicted offenders interacted with an age-progressedavatar representing their future selves in virtual reality. During the interaction, they reflected on theircurrent lifestyle, alternating between the perspective of their present self and that of their future self.We hypothesized that this embodied experience would increase their ability to imagine themselvesin the future and reduce their engagement in self-defeating behavior, as measured with a self-reportsurvey. In line with expectations, results indicated that the interaction increased vividness of thefuture self compared to baseline and reduced self-defeating behavior, including alcohol use andoverspending, one week later. In addition, increases in vividness were associated with a reductionin self-defeating behavior over and above other concepts relating to the future self, includingconnectedness, similarity, and valence. The results are based on a small sample and should thereforebe considered as indicative of the possibilities of our virtual reality paradigm as an intervention tool toreduce self-defeating behavior.Development Psychopathology in context: clinical setting

Non-toxicity of IV injected perfluorocarbon oxygen carrier in an animal model of liver regeneration following surgical injury

Lethal dose experiments in animals have demonstrated that second-generation perfluorocarbon oxygen carriers are remarkably non-toxic. However, this non-toxicity has not previously been demonstrated in a liver failure scenario. A surgical liver damage and regeneration model in rats was selected using a well-controlled cross tabulated study design. A large number of physiological, biochemical, and hematological parameters were measured. No indications were found that intravenously injected perfluorooctyl bromide emulsion was toxic at the concentrations employed, in either healthy or severe liver injury scenarios. Neither was there any significant impact on the rate of liver regeneration following the injuries. Bearing in mind prior human clinical studies, it is therefore safe to assume that perfluorocarbon emulsions are also non-toxic in bioartificial liver treatments

The relations between work centrality, psychological contracts, and job attitudes: the influence of age

The current study sought to explain a largely overlooked theme in psychological contract literature, that is, how individual factors are related to formation of psychological contract. It investigated the relationship between people’s work centrality, psychological contracts, and job attitudes. It was expected that people with higher work centrality would be less likely to have a transactional contract and more likely to have a relational contract with the employer. Furthermore, it was expected that psychological contract (transactional and relational) would mediate the relations between work centrality and job attitudes. Finally, we expected age to moderate the relations between work centrality and the psychological contract. The study was conducted among 465 employees in a Dutch health care organization. Structural equation models supported the mediating effect of psychological contract types in the relations between work centrality and three job attitudes (work engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intention). Moreover, it was found that the relations between work centrality and psychological contract were stronger for older workers than for younger workers

Hypertrophy of mature xenopus muscle fibres in culture induced by synergy of albumin and insulin

The aim of this study was to investigate effects of albumin and insulin separately as well as in combination on mature muscle fibres during long-term culture. Single muscle fibres were dissected from m. iliofibularis of Xenopus laevis and attached to a force transducer in a culture chamber. Fibres were cultured in a serum-free medium at slack length (mean sarcomere length 2.3 μm) for 8 to 22 days. The medium was supplemented with (final concentrations): (1) bovine insulin (6 nmol/L or 200-600 nmol/L), (2) 0.2% bovine albumin or (3) 0.2% bovine albumin in combination with insulin (120 nmol/L). In culture medium with insulin, 50% of the muscle fibres became in-excitable within 7-12 days, whereas the other 50% were stable. Caffeine contractures of in-excitable muscle fibres produced 80.4±2.4% of initial peak tetanic force, indicating impaired excitation-contraction (E-C) coupling in in-excitable fibres. In the presence of albumin, all cultured muscle fibres were stable for at least 10 days. Muscle fibres cultured in medium with insulin or albumin exclusively did not hypertrophy or change the number of sarcomeres in series. In contrast, muscle fibres cultured with both albumin and insulin showed an increase in tetanic force and fibre cross-sectional area of 19.6±2.8% and 32.5±4.9%, respectively, (means±SEM.; P=0.007) after 16.3±1.7 days, whereas the number of sarcomeres in series remained unchanged. We conclude that albumin prevents muscle fibre damage and preserves E-C coupling in culture. Furthermore, albumin is important in regulating muscle fibre adaptation by a synergistic action with growth factors like insulin. © 2008 The Author(s)