granted that literacy is a social practice involving different values, attitudes, feelings, and social relationships, this study attempts to examine literacy practices and the potential changes made through a history of forty years. the study was conducted in the village of cheshmeh, near mashhad, iran, where the social definition of literacy emerged. the data have been collected through partic...

Based on data from a representative survey among more than 2200 households, this paper empirically examines the agreement to the German energy transition in total and to six single energy policy measures, which are components of this challenging national policy approach. Our micro-econometric analysis with uniand multivariate binary and ordered probit models reveals that both economic calculus ...

Across five studies, we found consistent evidence for the idea that personal relative deprivation (PRD), which refers to resentment stemming from the belief that one is deprived of deserved outcomes compared to others, uniquely contributes to materialism. In Study 1, self-reports of PRD positively predicted materialistic values over and above socioeconomic status, personal power, self-esteem, a...

We study a model of electoral competition where voters obtain information on candidates’ platforms through campaign advertising, and word-of-mouth communication. We show that when the costs of campaign advertising are low, an increase in word-of-mouth communication among voters causes polarization. In particular, the more voters can exchange political information between each other, the more of...

Understanding what constitutes workplace competence stands a key concern for those who rely on and aim to develop and/or sustain that competence. Without a comprehensive understanding of this competence, it is difficult to advise individuals, enterprises, and governments how they should, respectively, plan their development throughout working life, manage the continuity of their workforce‟s ski...

ḥasan ṣabbāḥ’s specific leadership style and his followers’ specific style of obedience, because of his followers’ unquestionable and voluntary obedience to him, is one of the most outstanding examples for stylistics studies of leadership and unquestionable obedience. unquestionable obedience of the ismā‘īlīs to the leadership of ḥasan ṣabbāḥ in a totally voluntary condition and to the cost of ...