Catholic health care in the United States: American pluralism and religious meanings.

This essay chronicles the development of Catholic health care in the United States during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The author points to the religious pluralism and the respect for that pluralism as well as to the evangelical drive for conversion evident in Catholic hospitals. This essay is a phenomenological study of this commitment to pluralism and the evangelical impulse within the contexts of health care.     

American Indian methamphetamine and other drug use in the Southwestern United States

To investigate the extent of methamphetamine and other drug use among American Indians (AIs) in the Four Corners region, we developed collaborations with Southwestern tribal entities and treatment programs in and around New Mexico. We held nine focus groups, mostly with Southwestern AI participants (N = 81) from three diverse New Mexico communities to understand community members, treatment providers, and clients/relatives views on methamphetamine. We conducted a telephone survey of staff (N = 100) from agencies across New Mexico to assess perceptions of methamphetamine use among people working with AI populations. We collected and analyzed self-reported drug use data from 300 AI clients/relatives who completed the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) in the context of treatment at three diverse addiction treatment programs. Each focus group offered a unique perspective about the effect of drugs and alcohol on each respective community. Though data from the phone surveys and ASIs suggested concerning rates of methamphetamine use, with women more adversely affected by substance use in general, alcohol was identified as the biggest substance use problem for AI populations in the Southwest. There appears to be agreement that methamphetamine use is a significant problem in these communities, but that alcohol is much more prevalent and problematic. There was less agreement about what should be done to prevent and treat methamphetamine use. Future research should attend to regional and tribal differences due to variability in drug use patterns, and should focus on identifying and improving dissemination of effective substance use interventions.     

美国基督教福音派的崛起和美国的单极化战略

美国基督教福音派迅速崛起,积极向政治舞台扩张。这成为近30年来美国社会生活中最引人注目的现象之一。在冷战期间,基督教被当作"美国反对无神论共产主义的重要立足点。"冷战之后,两极对抗消失,地缘政治因素减弱,所谓"国际宗     

Contributions of American mental philosophers to psychology in the United States

Professors of mental philosophy who taught and wrote textbooks in colleges and universities in the United States before the Civil War contributed significantly to the development of the new psychology that replaced mental philosophy in the last quarter of the 19th century. Their contributions have been neglected in textbooks on the history of psychology, even those devoted to the history of psychology in the United States. These mental philosophers eased the transition to, and influenced the nature of, the new psychology in the United States by establishing a place in the curriculum for mental philosophy that the new psychology came to occupy; by identifying the topics for laboratory methods to address; by pursuing an empirical, inductive, scientific approach to the study of the mind; and by their tradition of functional analysis that came to characterize psychology in the United States.     

Identity formation of United States American and Asian Indian adolescents

The Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status-II was completed by 434 high school students from the United States and India. Students were male and female between the ages of 13 and 18 years. Asian Indian adolescents were found to be more diffused, foreclosed, and in moratorium in identity formation than adolescents in the United States. Gender and age differences in identity status also were found. Adolescent males and females in India had higher moratorium scores than adolescent males and females in the United States. Younger adolescents had lower exploration scores than did older adolescents. Implications for research are discussed.     

A Review of North American Selection Procedures: Canada and the United States of America

This article reviews North American selection procedures used to make employment decisions (hiring, promotion, training, layoff and demotion) within public and private organizations in Canada and the United States of America. We present the conclusions of several surveys of selection practices including those conducted by the International Personnel Management Association and the American Management Association. We summarize the literature on assessment centers, biodata, computerized assessment, education and experience criteria, individual assessment, education and experience criteria, individual assessment, integrity testing, interviews, job knowledge tests, physical and psychomotor tests and written tests. We also describe selection procedures being used for a variety of occupations from Air Traffic Controller to Telephone Operator. We conclude by describing future trends in personnel assessment in North America and predict greater collaborative research efforts between our two countries.     

Race,religion and identity: Arab Christians in the United States

In social terms Arab American Christians lie both inside and outside the category of ‘white’ by race. Seemingly ‘white’ via their religious affiliation with the majority and non-white through their Arab and Middle Eastern backgrounds, at times they have access to privilege and power, and at other times face discrimination as non-white and foreign. In this study, there was a connection between those who identified as white, age, and residence in the wealthy suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. The younger generation of professionals who live in the city of Washington DC, as well as activists and academics, tended to be more ambiguous about their own perceived whiteness. Women and men faced differing challenges from prevailing stereotypes of Arabs and gendered expectations of race. The term ‘ancient Christian’ was used to denote a non-Muslim identity and claim an original Christianity located in the Middle East.     

Resources, Races, and Female-Headed Congregations in the United States

This paper uses the 1998 National Congregations Study (NCS) to investigate the demographic and organizational characteristics of female-headed congregations in the United States. Our findings significantly extend knowledge about the demographic characteristics of these congregations. Counterintuitively, female-led congregations are more likely to be found inurban areas than in other locations, and they are more prevalent among African American congregations—particularly those with no denominational ties—and among ethnically mixed congregations. Our findings also confirm previous research on women clergy which indicates that, compared with congregations led by men, there is a paucity of organizational resources in female-headed congregations.     

Culture,Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States

We tested the hypothesis that “good feelings”—the central element of subjective well-being—are associated with interdependence and interpersonal engagement of the self in Japan, but with independence and interpersonal disengagement of the self in the United States. Japanese and American college students (total N = 913) reported how frequently they experienced various emotional states in daily life. In support of the hypothesis, the reported frequency of general positive emotions (e.g. calm, elated) was most closely associated with the reported frequency of interpersonally engaged positive emotions (e.g. friendly feelings) in Japan, but with the reported frequency of interpersonally disengaged positive emotions (e.g. pride) in the United States. Further, for Americans the reported frequency of experience was considerably higher for positive emotions than for negative emotions, but for Japanese it was higher for engaged emotions than for disengaged emotions. Implications for cultural constructions of emotion in general and subjective well-being in particular are discussed.     

Examining Race/Ethnicity and Fears of Children and Adolescents in the United States: Differences Between White,African American,and Hispanic Populations

The American Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC‐AM; J. J. Burnham, 1995, 2005) has been used to measure fears of children and adolescents. The FSSC‐AM is based on the 2nd revision of a psychometrically sound and well‐known fear scale (i.e., FSSC‐II; E. Gullone & N. J. King, 1992). In this study, age and gender differences, fear intensity scores, and fear prevalence scores were analyzed across race/ethnicity (i.e., White, African American, and Hispanic populations). Multivariate analyses of variance yielded significant effects for race/ethnicity.     

人口统计、身份和空间:定义美国穆斯林

本文以2001年以来,以美国乔治敦大学穆斯林-基督徒理解中心为基地的《美国公共领域中的穆斯林》项目展开的美国穆斯林民意调查为基础,从人口统计、宗教实践、对社会和政治事务领域各种行为的看法,以及9·11事件及其后果等方面,对美国穆斯林社团的现状和未来可能的发展道路进行了分析。     

Adolescent drug use in Mexico and among Mexican American adolescents in the United States: environmental influences and individual characteristics

The authors compared high school students in Baja California Norte (BCN), Mexico (n = 775), with Mexican American students in Los Angeles (LA), California (n = 516). The students' use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, inhalants, and other illicit drugs were compared, because these vary by gender, country, and their age of first drug use and are influenced by demographic variables, individual characteristics, and environmental influences. More BCN students than LA students had used alcohol, but more LA than BCN students had used illicit drugs and initiated drug use earlier. When demographic variables were influential, they were most powerful and increased the risk for drug use more than environmental factors or individual characteristics. Environmental factors were most influential for boys' drug use, whereas environmental and demographic variables were most influential for girls' drug use.     

Cancer Metaphors: Taiwan and the United States

The Cancer Metaphors Test, a measure of the imagery of cancer, was administered to a sample of 138 Taiwanese college students and 167 United States college students, equated on age and gender, and presumed not to be different on academic achievement and socioeconomic level. A factor analysis of the Taiwanese protocols replicated the factor structure previously found on the CMT for United States respondents. Significant differences were obtained on two of the four CMT factors, with Taiwanese students scoring higher on both Terminal Pessimism and Future Optimism. Such differences are discussed in terms of differential coping strategies.     

Pragmatism,bioethics and the grand American social experiment

There is tension in bioethics between two strains of pragmatism. The most prominent strain, following John Dewey, proposes a content-rich ethos of controlled, collective moral inquiry. A second strain, descending from Charles Peirce and Josiah Royce, favors an open-ended approach where diverging moral communities evolve without extensive inter-communal oversight. This essay defends the second strain. The Deweyan approach, I argue, exhibits a problematic quasi-foundationalist character insofar as it canonizes a dubious constellation of "liberal" political values and seeks to establish these values by interposing a consensus of moral experts where genuine inter-communal dialogue, and compromise, would be more fruitful. I hold that the alternative approach of Peirce and Royce is preferable, and truer to the fundamental commitments of classical American pragmatism. Recognizing the epistemic fallibility of various content-rich moral-political formulations, Peirce and Royce hope to cultivate and sustain moral inquiry by allowing each moral community (1) to generate and test its own moral system (as long as it does so peaceably) and (2) to freely make or refuse to make collaborative arrangements with other moral communities. This approach is illustrated in a brief discussion of the Oregon Medical Experiment.     

Social comparison, individualism-collectivism, and self-esteem in china and the United States

Possible differences in social comparison choices between individualistic and collectivistic cultures and individuals were explored among a sample of 235 student participants from the United States and China, focusing on self-esteem as a possible mediating variable. A self-report social comparison measure was developed and factor analyzed. Correlations revealed that higher collectivism scores were associated with an increased desire to compare in general, an increased desire to make upward comparisons, and a decreased desire to make downward comparisons. It is speculated that upward self-improvement comparisons for the sake of the group may be more common for those high in collectivism.