Doing and Undoing Gender in Commuter Marriages

Much recent literature has focused on how women and men “do” (and potentially “undo”) gender when juggling home and work responsibilities. Commuter marriages—in which dual-income professionals live apart due to the demands of their jobs—present a strategic context in which to investigate these gendered processes. Drawing upon theoretical work on doing and undoing gender, prior literature about gender dynamics at the nexus of home and work, and data from in-depth interviews with 97 other-sex commuter spouses, this analysis finds that in some ways these nontraditional arrangements are unique sites for undoing gender; yet, in other respects, standard gender roles are crystallized within these relationships. Specifically, for some women, these arrangements provide a respite from domestic demands, enabling them to function as hyper-productive, “masculinized” workers. However, commuter spouses also perform gender in ways that replicate the conventional gender structure. For example, living apart crystallizes many women’s roles as caregivers. These findings have implications for broader literature on gender, family, and work. They also have implications for counselors, institutional practices, and social policy; for instance, they caution against equating female autonomy with gender parity in making family policy.     

Identity and sociocultural change: Comparing young indigenous people in Chiapas who have different sociodemographic trajectories

One of the most commonly used distinctions in cross‐cultural studies is the one between individualism and collectivism. One of the criticisms levelled at this distinction is that it fails to incorporate the differences that may exist when comparing people from a rural context with little formal education to people from the same group who live in an urban context where formal education is the norm. Bearing in mind these sociodemographic factors, we have compared the self‐concepts among 104 young indigenous people in Chiapas (Mexico), having divided them into three groups: “rural‐traditional,” “rural–urban” and “urban.” These people's self‐concepts were analysed using a task that contrasts personal self‐concept with social self‐concept and a technique in which participants draw themselves along with the things and people they consider most important to them. The results reveal significant differences between the three groups. The personal categories are given a higher value in the “urban” group while the social categories score higher in the “rural‐traditional” group. Regarding the results of the indigenous self‐portraits, from the content analysis of the drawings, 16 categories emerged. These findings are discussed in the light of Greenfield's theory of social change and human development.     

The yom kippur war: The soldier on the front and his family

Abstract

The present report illustrates how uncertainty, continued stress and the transient “commuter” role of the soldier in the Yom Kippur War led to psychological disequilibrium on both the individual and familial level. On the individual level such phenomena as anger outbursts, apathy, depression and secondary impotence were observed and reported. These were often relieved through group discussions in the soldier's unit about the universality of such reactions to stress. On the familial level regressive behaviors, disciplinary problems, spouse conflict and diffuse anxiety were among the phenomena reported. In group discussions with soldiers and their spouses, it was suggested that candid and clear communication about the father-soldier's whereabouts and the nature of his military duties were necessary to prevent regression and permit active coping behavior. Conflicting expectations and role change resulting from the war situation were discussed in terms of how these might affect the family's functioning in such realms as child rearing, spouse relations and other familial matters. Death, mourning and bereavement were also discussed and it was suggested that family and friends are often more effective than professionals in helping relatives of the deceased do their mourning work.     

Happily Stressed: The Complexity of Well-Being in Midlife

Previous studies provided mixed findings of well-being in midlife, so the present study sought to add new dimensions to this area of research by investigating diverse aspects of midlife well-being, including sources of enjoyment and stress. In a national sample of 834 Americans ages 40–60, overall well-being was high, and most participants agreed that their current time of life is “fun and exciting” (71%), a time of freedom (71%), and a time when “anything is possible” (77%). They also regarded themselves as being in a time of life for focusing on themselves (56%) and “finding out who I really am” (55%). However, 65% assessed this time of their lives as stressful (65%), and many agreed that they often feel anxious (39%), depressed (25%), or that “my life is not going well” (27%). Regression analyses revealed no notable variations in well-being by gender, ethnicity, educational attainment, work status, or relationship status. In sum, among Americans in midlife, well-being is generally high even as it coexists with stress and other mental health challenges.     

Knowledge and beliefs about depression among urban and rural Indian Malaysians

This study was concerned with mental health literacy specifically with regard to depression. It aimed to investigate “depression literacy” in a sample of urban and rural Indians in Malaysia. A total of 314 participants completed a survey that examined knowledge about depression using a vignette-identification method, and ratings of statements about causes and treatments for depression. The vignette-identification task showed that urban participants were more likely than rural participants to identify depression as such. Only a small minority of rural participants recognised the disorder, using the actual term depression. Factor analysis of the causes and belief items revealed a number of distinct factors, of which trauma and stress were the most strongly endorsed causal factor. For treatment, religious observance and lifestyle factors were rated highly by both groups. The findings suggest that information campaigns are needed to increase the level of awareness about depression targeting the rural population. Limitations are considering including possible ethnocentric biases. The implications of these results are considered.     

Blurring of emotional and non-emotional memories by taxing working memory during recall

Memories that are recalled while working memory (WM) is taxed, e.g., by making eye movements (EM), become blurred during the recall + EM and later recall, without EM. This may help to explain the effects of Eye Movement and Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in which patients make EM during trauma recall. Earlier experimental studies on recall + EM have focused on emotional memories. WM theory suggests that recall + EM is superior to recall only but is silent about effects of memory emotionality. Based on the emotion and memory literature, we examined whether recall + EM has superior effects in blurring emotional memories relative to neutral memories. Healthy volunteers recalled negative or neutral memories, matched for vividness, while visually tracking a dot that moved horizontally (“recall + EM”) or remained stationary (“recall only”). Compared to a pre-test, a post-test (without concentrating on the dot) replicated earlier findings: negative memories are rated as less vivid after “recall + EM” but not after “recall only”. This was not found for neutral memories. Emotional memories are more taxing than neutral memories, which may explain the findings. Alternatively, transient arousal induced by recall of aversive memories may promote reconsolidation of the blurred memory image that is provoked by EM.     

Psychisches Risiko „Großstadtleben“

The material determining factors of mental stress and diseases are comparatively rarely reflected on and analysed in depth in psychotherapy research and by psychotherapists. This article should be seen as a plea to look at these factors in more detail. When this involves the question of the influence of risk factors of city lifestyle conditions on the mental health of its inhabitants, the urban environment“city” is the melting pot for a multitude of individual factors and factor constellations the influence of which must be theoretically conceptualized and empirically collated.     

Simultaneous motor demands affect decision making under objective risk

Previous studies on factors influencing decision making focused on the effects of additional cognitive load, stress, psychological disorders, and the process of aging. The potential effects of simultaneously performing motor demands have been neglected, so far. However, previous motor / cognitive dual-task studies provide evidence for both negative as well as facilitating effects of simultaneously performing cognitive and motor tasks. The study at hand, aimed to investigate the effects of decision making under objective risk while performing additional motor demands. Seventy-two participants ranging from 18 to 30 years performed the Game of Dice Task either while sitting or while standing on one leg. Participants were asked to put similar effort on the decision task and the motor demand. The results revealed a significant main effect for “choice”, as well as a significant interaction of “choice”?×?“group”. Participants standing on one leg more frequently selected the most disadvantageous choice (one single number), whereas the “sitting group” most often selected the advantageous combination of four numbers. The findings are discussed under the aspects of executive functions, working memory, stress, somatic markers and the dual-process theory.     

A longitudinal person-centred approach to the job demands-control model

We used a longitudinal design and a person-centred methodology to test the strain and learning hypotheses of the job demands–control model among Finnish employees (n = 926), who were followed-up at three time points covering a period of 2 years (2008–2010). First, we identified longitudinal subgroups in demands and control across three measurement points. Second, we examined how these subgroups differed in strain (job exhaustion) and motivation-related outcomes (vigour at work, work–family enrichment). Growth mixture modelling revealed four subgroups: “stable high strain”, “stable low strain”, “increasing control”, and “decreasing control”. The stable high- and low-strain subgroups also differed in the outcomes studied (exhaustion, work–family enrichment) as suggested by the demands–control model. The findings also suggest that job control is subject to changes over time and that these changes are likely to be associated with changes in employee outcomes. Malleability of job control should be kept in mind in job stress interventions, likewise the fact that some employees suffer from chronic job stress.     

The clustering of health-related occupational stressors among contemporary wage-earners

In this study, it is investigated whether a typology can be imposed upon a sample of wage-earners, based on their exposure to a broad number of occupational stressors: quantitative, emotional, and physical demands, repetitive movements, atypical schedules, low job control, relationships with superiors, job insecurity, and bullying behaviour. Also associations between this typology and measures of emotional problems (EP) and musculoskeletal complaints (MC) are tested. Logistic regression and a latent class cluster analysis are performed on a representative sample of 10,074 Flemish (Belgian) employees. Five clusters are revealed: “low stress”, “high stress”, “manual-passive”, “human contact”, and “high demand”. These clusters are showing a clear socioeconomic distribution and distinct associations with EP and MC—with the “high stress cluster” being the most problematic. Health-damaging occupational stress clusters are prevalent at both higher and lower socioeconomic positions. This is suggesting a complex relationship between occupational stressors and socioeconomic health variations.     

Illusions of familiarity caused by cohort activation

Subjects took part in an auditory lexical decision task followed by an auditory test of recognition memory for words presented in this task. Subjects categorized their recognition judgments as based on either recollection (“remember” responses) or familiarity (“know” responses). Distractor items in the recognition test included the base words from which the nonwords used in the lexical decision task were derived. Consistent with the findings of Wallace, Stewart, Sherman, and Mellor (1995), more false alarms were made to “late” base words (where the corresponding nonwords were created by changing a phoneme near the end of the word) than to “early” base words (corresponding nonwords were created by changing a phoneme at the beginning of the word). However, this effect was found in “know” responses but not in “remember” responses. The findings are attributed to enhanced fluency with which the base words are processed following their implicit activation at encoding.     

How school climate relates to chronic absence: A multi–level latent profile analysis

Chronic absence is a significant problem in schools. School climate may play an important role in influencing chronic absence rates among schools, yet little research has evaluated how school climate constructs relate to chronic absence. Using multilevel latent profile analysis, we evaluated how profiles of student perceptions of school climate at both the student and school level differentiated school–level rates of chronic absence. Participants included 25,776 middle and high school students from 106 schools who completed a district administered school climate survey. Students attended schools in a large urban school district where 89% of 6th through 12th grade students were African-American and 61% were eligible for the federally subsidized school meals program. Three student–level profiles of perceptions of school climate emerged that corresponded to “positive,” “moderate,” and “negative” climate. Two predominant patterns regarding the distribution of these profiles within schools emerged that corresponded to the two school–level profiles of “marginal climate” and “climate challenged” schools. Students reporting “moderate” and “negative” climate in their schools were more likely to attend schools with higher chronic absence rates than students reporting that their school had “positive” climate. Likewise, “climate challenged” schools had significantly higher chronic absence rates than “marginal climate” schools. These results suggest that school climate shares an important relation with chronic absence among adolescent students attending urban schools. Implications for prevention and intervention programs are discussed.     

The Role of Integrative Complexity in Military Leadership: Robert E. Lee and His Opponents1

Paragraphs selected from material written by Gen. Robert E. Lee between 1839 and 1867, and by Union generals who opposed him in six major battles, were scored for integrative complexity. This characteristic is defined by the degree of differentiation and integration that the individual demonstrates in processing information, ranging from low or simple (rigid, all-or-none, egocentric) to high or complex (flexible, information-oriented, integrated) on a 1–7 scale. Gen. Lee showed a high level of complexity as a stable characteristic, with changes downward in periods of particular stress. Lee was able to defeat superior enemy forces in battles where his level of complexity was substantially higher than that of the opposing commander; this was not the case when the levels were closer together or when (as with Grant) he faced an opponent whose complexity was actually higher than his own. These findings support previous research on the effects of stress, and emphasize the nature of information processing complexity as both a “trait” and a “state” variable.     

Integrating turnover reasons and shocks with turnover decision processes

We interviewed and classified 186 quitters from many jobs and organizations via a theoretically-based protocol into five decision process types. We then tested exploratory hypotheses comparing users of these types on their propensity to report certain turnover reasons and turnover shocks. “Impulsive-type quitters,” with neither a job offer in hand nor turnover plan when they quit, reported poor management, work stress, and family demands as frequent turnover reasons, with manager conflicts and family events as frequent shocks. “Comparison quitters,” who had a job offer in hand and no plan, reported pay and advancement opportunities as top reasons with information about an alternative job being the most frequent shock. “Preplanned quitters,” who had a definite plan to quit well in advance, reported relocation and life/career changes as frequent reasons, with increasing family demand, relocation, and school starting as frequent shocks. “Satisficing quitters,” who made a plan conditional on getting an acceptable job offer, reported pay, poor management, work responsibilities, and work schedules as frequent reasons. Implications of these and other findings are discussed.     

Public Theologies of Love in the Civitas Dei and Civitas Terrena: Sexuality and the Transformation of Sydney,Australia 1960–2010

This article discusses the emergence of a public LGBTQI culture in Sydney that both challenged hetero-normative philosophies and praxes of love and sexuality, and engaged with Christian urban theologies to give voice to alternative, queer-affirming forms of eros, agape, and philia. This case study is situated in the context of the problematic relationship between Christianity and the urban throughout history; the ideal Civitas Dei negated the real Civitas Terrena, faithful Jerusalem triumphed over decadent Sodom. Public theologies, initially formulated by Christians, were hijacked to expose tensions resulting from notions of “proper” and “improper” love being mapped onto urban spaces. Churches and other “official” structures represented planning in the service of institutional religion and heterosexual married love (a Civitas Dei), and the clean, modern city as eschatological ideal (the heavenly Jerusalem). The existence of ruins and “undesirable” places, temporary heterotopias where “unnatural” acts of love and sex took place, challenged this order (a Civitas Terrena or Sodom). We argue that public theologies, mainstream and fringe, play a vital creative role in the planning, regulation, and lived experience of the modern city of Sydney.     

Work Motivation in “Post-Socialist” Industrial Organizations

Abstract

This article describes a study into the needs and behavioural reaction patterns in a sample of 715 workers in Bulgarian industrial firms during the “post-Socialist” period. The findings from this study cast doubt on some popular views of the typical motivation and reactions to work in the former “Socialist society”. Our data suggest that higher order needs are dominant in the motivational hierarchy and are significant in determining work outcomes, such as satisfaction, tendency to leave, and stress. We found no evidence for a motivational stereotype characterized by a low level of work involvement, lack of initiative, obedience, etc. hypothesized by other authors. In order to gain a better understanding of work motivation, it is useful to differentiate needs from the opportunities to satisfy those same needs, as well as work motivation from behavioural reaction patterns that actualize the opportunities and relate them to personal outcomes. A specific behavioural reaction pattern seems to exist among Bulgarian workers as an adaptation reaction to the specific environment of the “(post-) Socialist” industrial organization. This pattern, identified as “egocentrism in work”, combines a high involvement in work with partial alienation, i.e. detachment from the organization and income.     

社会支持与人格对大学生压力的影响

将横断与纵向研究相结合,对660名大学生进行了问卷调查。结果发现,社会支持对同期压力的主效应非常显著,对后期压力的主效应则不显著。社会支持的变化类型对后期压力也具有显著的主效应。“开朗—果断”与“拘谨—温和”两类人格对同期压力的主效应非常显著,前者同期的各类压力均显著低于后者的同类压力;前期人格类型对两年后压力的主效应依然显著。社会支持与人格的独立主效应和交互作用均显著;社会支持的变化与人格的独立主效应和交互作用均显著     

Detection errors in a task with articulatory suppression: Phonological receding and reading

In two experiments, subjects read passages of text and circled instances of a target letter under normal conditions or while engaged in articulatory suppression. In Experiment 1, subjects searching for the letter e made a disproportionately large number of errors on the word “the” and more errors when e occurred in unstressed than in stressed syllables of three-syllable words. In Experiment 2, subjects searching for the letter f made an exceedingly large number of errors on the word “of.” Articulatory suppression significantly reduced the stress effect in the three-syllable words but did not reduce the tendency to make errors on “the” or “of,” suggesting that phonological recoding is responsible for this effect of stress but does not influence the unitization processes of reading.     

A multiple case study approach to work stress prevention in Europe

Work stress has become a major issue among European employees. The current practice of its prevention seems disappointing, as work stress prevention programmes are predominantly reactive and biased to the individual. The lack of organization-level intervention studies is a barrier to progress in reducing work-related stress. In addition to the “true experimental approach”, multiple case studies may provide an adequate research strategy for addressing the potential impact of stress interventions in organizations. The study aim was to obtain more knowledge with respect to evidence-based work stress prevention in Europe, by focusing on both content (cause-effect relationships) and process (“how”). Therefore it was decided: (1) to collect from each European Union member state a work stress intervention study; (2) to analyse each of these cases as to content and process factors; and (3) to systematically compare these studies in a step-by-step approach. Through a network approach, 11 cases were identified. Nine projects received an acceptable methodological standard and were included in this study. Evaluation of these cases reveals that stress prevention is no “one time event”, nor merely a technical process. It is concluded that “true prevention” (i.e., preventive measures that are based on an adequate diagnosis identifying risk factors and risk groups, which theoretically and logically fit in with the problems, and which are introduced and implemented in a proper way) may be beneficial to both the employee and the organization.