Robert F. Rich

Misinformation and the Currency of Democratic Citizenship

Scholars have documented the deficiencies in political knowledge among American citizens. Another problem, misinformation, has received less attention. People are misinformed when they confidently hold wrong beliefs. We present evidence of misinformation about welfare and show that this misinformation acts as an obstacle to educating the public with correct facts. Moreover, wide-spread misinformation can lead to collective preferences that are far different from those that would exist if people were correctly informed. The misinformation phenomenon has implications for two currently influential scholarly literatures: the study of political heuristics and the study of elite persuasion and issue framing.

Measuring knowledge utilization: Processes and outcomes

Studies of knowledge utilization in public policy-making have important practical and theoretical implications. Accordingly, a voluminous work has been done on understanding and explaining the process of knowledge utilization (see Rich and Oh, 1993). However, we can easily find that there is the conspicuous absence of a greatly expanded understanding of the use of knowledge from those studies (Mandell and Sauter, 1984). Taken as a whole, empirical studies in the area of knowledge utilization have suffered from several critical problems (see Rich, 1991; Oh, 1996a). More importantly, there appears to be serious conceptual and methodological gaps which need to be filled. This article focuses on one of the most significant methodological problems: measuring “knowledge utilization” from an evaluation perspective and offers some suggestions for future studies.

Explaining use of information in public policymaking

In recent years, scholars have attempted to understand the role of information in policymaking by developing several models of information utilization and have tested them empirically, at both national and state levels. This paper has called into question past studies as they relate to describing and explaining use of information. This paper tests an integrated model of information utilization that contains four sets of primary variables: decision makers’ environments (i.e., nature of policy issues), organization, individual characteristics, and characteristics of information. Based on the conceptual framework, a path model is built and tested against data about knowledge utilization and policy change in two areas of mental health policy (i.e., service and financing). The findings of the study have demonstrated that decision makers’ behavior does not conform to the assumptions put forward by either the organizational interest (e.g., information source or content of information) or the communications perspective (e.g., decision makers’ attitudes toward social science research). Instead, we have shown that information utilization is affected directly and indirectly by a variety of factors and their linkage, and not dominated by one set of factors that is defined by a singe perspective. The most important paths in the model are those between factors associated with information (e.g., the amount of information received or information source) and the use of information. Interestingly, these factors also play the role of major intervening mechanisms for linking other factors to decision makers’ use of information. More importantly, the general pattern of the findings indicates that policy areas make a difference in the process of information utilization.

Change and Stability in Mental Health Policy The Impact of Two Transformations

This article examines the development of mental health policy in the United States from 1945 to 1985. The mental health system has experienced two major transformations during this period. Data from interviews and records are used to analyze the impact of these changes on the development of policy and on delivery of services at the federal, state, and local levels of government.

Mental Health Policy for Victims of Violence

Public policy-making, as it is reflected in legislation and laws, represents a reactive process, a formalization with the force of law, of the values, norms, attitudes, and beliefs of society which are prevalent at a given period of time. The women’s movement has focused our attention on this process. Discrimination against women in many areas of their social functioning has existed and we feel that it is now time to examine how this bias operates against women who are victims of crime and violence. The aftermath of such experiences often leads to the development of traumatic stress syndromes.

Federal Policy and Knowledge Utilization Issues for the New Decade

use scarce resources effectively has never been greater. In this context, concepts and strategies of knowledge utilization have a much greater salience then they might have appeared to have in the 1980s. Both in the Congress and in the leadership of federal agencies, there is a renewed interest in knowledge utilization. It is for this reason that an entire issue of this journal is devoted to exploring some of the important dimensions of federal policy and knowledge utilization (also called technology transfer in some of the articles presented here). The signals of interest in sharpening and expanding federal policy are many. New York Congressman Major Owens has held hearings in the House of Representatives on knowledge utilization in education. The Congress

Change of Editor

I am pleased to announce that Marcel LaFollette has accepted the position of Editor of Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, and Utilization as of October 1, 1990. Marcel is an ideal choice for this position, and I am personally extraordinarily pleased that she has agreed to serve as Editor of Knowledge. Marcel brings a splendid record of achievement as Editor of Science, Technology, and Human Values (STHV) with her to Knowledge. For over a decade, she served as Associate Editor and Editor of STHV. Moreover, she has gained distinction as a scholar in her own right. Prior to accepting her current position on the faculty of the Science Policy Program at George Washington University, Marcel was on the faculty at MIT in the Science, Technology, and Society Program. She also held joint appointments at various times in Harvard’s Department of Physics and in the Kennedy School of Government.

1989 Overview of the Howard R. Davis Society for Knowledge Utilization and Planned Change

Since its founding in 1985, the Howard R. Davis Society for Knowledge Utilization and Planned Change has been centrally concerned with promoting research and scholarly study in this important field, in addition to honoring the life and works of the man for whom the Society was named. It was James Madison who said,&dquo;The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty,&dquo; and the Society endeavors to fulfill this ideal by fostering research that can be effectively translated into action on urgent social problems. The Society’s third annual meeting was held in Los Angeles

Howard Davis's Writings Emphases and Directions

Writing this article for a special issue of Knowledge honoring Howie Davis has been a bittersweet experience Sweet because of how much I learn each time I read Howies work. Bitter because of the fact that he is no longer here to contribute to the many endeavors of which he was apart He was a strong supporter of this journal from the time it was first conceived of. Howie Davis was very important to me from the time that I finished graduate school. He was committed and enthusiastic about the work I was doing in knowledge utilization and mental health policy. He influenced the questions I asked and he helped in shaping the analysis of the data that were analyzed. Howie was also a good friend; we had many stimulating discussions about the work we were doing. I have enjoyed grappling with his ideas .