Care Like Kin: Community Based Youth Serving Organizations and the Social Reproduction of Disconnected Youth in Rural America

Increasing economic insecurity faced by older youth in rural America presents a crisis of social reproduction for disconnected youth in these areas. Increasingly community based youth serving organizations (CBYSOs) are recognizing and responding to the social reproduction needs of this particularly vulnerable youth population. Such responses are often hidden from funders, government agencies, and community residents. Yet these institutions play an important substitution function for disconnected youth and provide critical social support and social leverage for this population. Based on case studies of three CBYSOs in the San Joaquin Valley of California, this article explores how and why CBYSOs play a substitution function for disconnected youth in rural communities. It is the argument of this article that the social reproduction work of CBYSOs is undertaken with a ethic of care that may have the capacity to transform the political, social, and economic contexts that face this marginalized youth population.     

When and why hierarchy steepness is related to team performance

This study develops and tests a contingency theory on the functions of status hierarchy steepness in teams. Findings from a field study among 438 employees working in 72 work teams across diverse business settings demonstrate that task complexity moderates the relationships between status hierarchy steepness, different types of team conflict, and team performance. Steeper status hierarchies were negatively related to both process and task conflict, and hence increased team performance in teams working on tasks with lower complexity but did not yield such clear conflict and performance effects in teams working on more complex tasks. By showing that various levels of task complexity determine whether status hierarchy steepness has a conflict-regulating function that drives team performance, this research generates valuable insights about the context dependency of team responses to status hierarchy steepness.     

Sense or sensibility? Social sharers’ evaluations of socio-affective vs. cognitive support in response to negative emotions

When in emotional distress, people often turn to others for social support. A general distinction has been made between two types of support that are differentially effective: Whereas socio-affective support temporarily alleviates emotional distress, cognitive support may contribute to better long-term recovery. In the current studies, we examine what type of support individuals seek. We first confirmed in a pilot study that these two types of support can be reliably distinguished. Then, in Study 1, we experimentally tested participants’ support evaluations in response to different emotional situations using a vignette methodology. Findings showed that individuals perceived any type of reaction that included socio-affective support as preferable. The evaluation of cognitive support, however, was dependent on the specific emotion: Unlike worry and regret, anger and sadness were characterised by a strong dislike for purely cognitive support. Using different materials, Study 2 replicated these findings. Taken together, the findings suggest that individuals evaluate different types of support in a way that is unlikely to benefit emotional recovery in the long run.     

The psychology of voting action on the psychological origins of electoral research, 1939–1964

This article examines the development of psychologically oriented voting behavior research between 1939–1964. It intends to show the psychological basis of the Columbia and Michigan approaches and its implications for the analysis of electoral behavior. It is argued that, in spite of the large differences commonly perceived between these two approaches, there is much similarity between them, both with regard to their psychological roots as to their principal conclusions.     

Closing the Vocational Counseling Realities Gap

A two-week summer institute sponsored by Plans for Progress, encompassing company visitations and scheduled campus speakers augmented by seminar discussions, provided significant improvement in counselors' perceptions of industry expectations and requirements. A perspective on the amount and accuracy of company knowledge held by vocational counselors was obtained by administering the questionnaire used in the Plans for Progress Institute to a group of undergraduate campus leaders and two expectedly biased “in” groups earning degrees in business administration. The counselors were found to be as knowledgeable as mature MBA students working full time in industry and significantly more informed than undergraduates majoring in business administration as well as undergraduate student leaders.     

Boltzmann and Wittgenstein or How Pictures Became Linguistic

Emphasis in historiography of science is naturally placed on the discoveries and inventions which scientists make and generally less on new methods of doing science, but sometimes the latter can he an important clue to help us understand the former. For example, while we all acknowledge how great the contributions of Maxwell, Boltzmann, Planck, and Einstein were to physics from roughly 1870 to 1920, we often overlook the significance of a methodological phrase which was popular during that same period, namely, what in German was called “Bildtheorie” or in English “picture theory”. But even before we can properly study its significance we have to know what the theory was, but even this presents problems, since the meaning changed. In fact, this paper is an attempt not only to describe the history of that change from Maxwell to Wittgenstein but to study in particular how Boltzmann’s conception of Bildtheorie seems to have been at least partly incorporated into the approach of Ludwig Wittgenstein. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Implementing peer support in schools: using a theoretical framework in action research

The implementation of a peer support project in 13 schools from a disadvantaged background is discussed using the social ecological, systems and social construction theory as a theoretical guide in action research. The goal was to establish an alternative helping system in schools that was sustainable within the school system. In the implementation of peer support attention was given to the integration of the project into the existing context; encouraging participation on all levels, facilitating change and creating shared meanings, supporting the process of reorganizing and restructuring and providing feedback to facilitate further change. From a process evaluation of the programme implementation challenges in the implementation process were identified and recommendations made that could contribute to the optimal functioning and sustainability of the project to address the needs of learners and enhance well being in the school community. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of multiple irrelevant visual events at the same spatial location on inhibition

If an irrelevant visual event, such as a nonpredictive cue, is presented prior to a target, performance is impaired when the target appears at the cued location relative to when it is presented at an uncued location. This phenomenon, referred to as inhibition of return, can be found at multiple spatial locations when each is cued in succession. The present study examined the effect of successively cuing the same spatial location. Results suggested that additional inhibition occurred when more than one cue appeared at a single location at longer intercue intervals, but not at shorter intervals. These findings suggest that total inhibition to respond to targets at a spatial location reflects a summation of facilitatory and inhibitory factors generated by the presentation of each cue.     

What's the difference? Insider perspectives on the importance,content, and meaning of interpersonal differences

This study presents a new approach to examine how team members experience interpersonal differences. This approach offers a way to examine how team members experience their differences with specific other individuals, and how these differences are related to the amount of perceived conflict with these individuals in an organizational context. Data from a non‐profit governmental institution in The Netherlands were analysed, including 80 participants from 15 diverse teams. Five types of differences were salient to the individuals in this sample: differences related to extraversion; work pose; approach to work; task‐related expertise; and seniority. Furthermore, individuals tend to contrast positive and negative evaluations of differences related to extraversion and approaches to work, but to conceptualize positive and negative evaluations of task‐related expertise, seniority, and work pose as more mutually independent phenomena. Moreover, we found that differences related to task‐related expertise were negatively related to both task and relationship conflict. In contrast, differences related to extraversion were positively related to both task and relationship conflict. Finally, the approach‐to‐work cluster was positively related to only task conflict.