Ideals, perceptions, and evaluations in early relationship development

This research examined partner and relationship perceptions and ideal standards in 100 individuals over time, from the 1st to the 12th month of their dating relationships. As expected, the results revealed that (a) individuals evaluated their relationships on both distinct evaluative components and global evaluative dimensions, (b) higher ideal-perception consistency was associated with higher perceived quality of relationships and partners, (c) more positive perceptions of partners and relationships at earlier points in time were associated with more importance being placed on relevant ideals over time but not vice versa, and (d) higher levels of ideal-perception consistency predicted lower rates of relationship dissolution but were mediated through perceptions of relationship quality. These results support the ideal standards model (Fletcher & Simpson, in press).     

The role of causal discourse structure in narrative writing

All writers produce text content and ideally connect it together according to discourse conventions. We investigate whether a particularly strong discourse convention, the need for causal coherence in narratives, can predict the kind of text writers will produce. Causality has been found to be a significant discourse factor in reading comprehension and hence can be expected to determine also what writers produce during composition. In Experiment 1, writers composed short continuations at various points throughout a simple narrative, whereas in Experiment 2, writers composed continuations to complete several narratives. The results indicate that causality indeed plays a major role in composition. Writers tend to produce new text in such a way that it is causally connected to the prior text. Furthermore, writers favored causal relations of necessity or of necessity and sufficiency while largely avoiding relations of sufficiency alone, which suggests a general discourse constraint to be maximally informative (e.g., Grice, 1975).     

How can we understand Islamic law today?

This article attempts to point to certain major aspects of Islamic law which have been obscured from view by the separation between specialized academic disciplines.

It indicates the parallel between Arab common law and English common law and also points out that Arab common law is the template for Islamic law, while acknowledging that the Sunni and Shi^cite traditions differ over this. Arab custom also provided negative examples and the article shows that these were contradicted in the Qur'an and Prophetic hadith with respect to practices prejudicial to women.

The article suggests that the tribal system made it impossible to enforce certain formal legal penalties and that interim measures were used until the Sunni schools of law were established following the urbanization of Islamic society. What remains today of the traditional Islamic impulse is the importance of an independent judiciary as an essential value. The impact of social reality on Islamic law often takes the form of differences in u&art1;ūl al-fiqh.     

The Psychometric Properties of 360 Degree Feedback: An Empirical Study and a Cautionary Tale

Amongst the purported advantages of multi-rater feedback systems is their greater accuracy and objectivity. It is argued here that these benefits may be more imagined than real, and that there is no reason to believe such systems will avoid many of the rating errors and distortions found in traditional top-down appraisal. The first study reported in this paper investigates the psychometric soundness and concurrent validity of a pilot 360 degree feedback scheme operated by a multi-national oil company. The second study describes how analysis of the data provided by the first study was used to re-design the rating form, and demonstrates the resulting improvement achieved in the psychometric properties of the 360 degree scheme. It also examined some of the variables that influence rater’s assessment of the target managers. The conclusion is drawn that unless such feedback systems — irrespective of whether they are used for development or for appraisal — are constructed and evaluated along the lines associated with psychometric tests, they may produce assessments that are seriously misleading.     

Neurobehavioral outcomes in diseases of childhood. Individual change models for pediatric human immunodeficiency viruses.

The growing incidence of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in children is a major public health problem. Current research emphasizes treatments for ameliorating deleterious effects on the child's neurological and behavioral development. This article outlines approaches to the assessment of individual change that may provide alternatives to more traditional approaches to the assessment of neurobehavioral outcomes in children with chronic diseases. These approaches provide more precise conceptualizations of changes that lead directly to statistical designs and measurement strategies for assessing effects of HIV-1 and AIDS on development. Such assessments can be superimposed on current clinical trial methodologies to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacological and behavioral interventions designed to improve quality of life in HIV-1 infected children.     

Assessing the social components of retirement anxiety

In 4 studies involving 308 men and 384 women aged 25-76, a reliable instrument, the Social Components of Retirement Anxiety Scale (SCRAS), was developed to assess retirement anxiety. The 23-item SCRAS measures 4 factors:Social Integration and Identity, Social Adjustment/Hardiness, Anticipated Social Exclusion, and Lost Friendships. The scale strongly predicts fear of retirement and negative attitudes toward retirement. However, it seems not to be measuring simply a generalized emotional state, exhibiting only minimal correlations with more general measures of anxiety and depression. Elevated scores were observed particularly in persons for whom major social transitions are quite difficult--for example, those who were shy, lonely, had fewer instrumental or communal traits, or expected to have little personal control over their lives after retirement.     

Two-Timing: Politics and Response Latencies in a Bilingual Survey

Through the recording of response times in a national four-wave bilingual panel survey, this study reports improvements in the prediction of vote choice up to 1 year in advance of a federal election. These results were achieved with conventional computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) software, indicating that the immediate use of response time measures isboth practical and attractive for commercial as well as academic survey units. Even so, response latencies were found to be sensitive to political circumstance, such that timings should be analyzed separately for minority and majority populations. Moreover, a broad analytic focus, beyond timing only vote intention and partisan commitment, is recommended because latency data on core questions of identity and allegiance reveal a great deal about the contours ofpolitical context.     

Links between social network closure and child well-being: the organizing role of friendship context

Third grade children (N = 404) and their mothers completed questionnaires and participated in interviews designed to identify children's friendships across multiple contexts, determine levels of social network closure for these friendships, and assess child well-being. Cluster analyses revealed distinct patterns in the contexts in which children's friendships were maintained. Closure was highest for children whose friendship clusters heavily represented relatives as friends and lowest when friends were from schools and the broader community. Intermediate levels of closure were observed for the clusters of neighborhood friends and friends from church and school. Both friendship cluster and, to some extent, ethnicity moderated associations between closure and indicators of well-being.