Campaign Contributions,Post-War Reconstruction Contracts,and State Crime

This article presents a case-control study of the relationship between Federal-level campaign contributions, corporate political connections, and the awarding of post-war reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cases are 135 companies that received post-war contracts and controls are 135 randomly selected companies matched on industry. Results reveal that both campaign contributions and political connections significantly increase a company's odds of receiving a contract. Results are situated in the context of current theory on state crime. It is argued that awarding contracts on this basis may constitute a form of state crime, but alternative explanations for the findings are also discussed.     

Academic success in adolescence: Relationships among verbal IQ,social support and emotional intelligence

The objective of this study was to examine, by gender, whether emotional intelligence (EI), peer social support, and/or family social support partially mediated the influence of verbal IQ on Grade 10 grade point average (GPA) for 192 students (96 male, 96 female). For male students, EI and peer social support predicted GPA and EI mediated the association between verbal IQ and GPA. For female students, EI, peer social support, and family support predicted GPA but did not mediate the association between verbal IQ and GPA. This study further examined whether subscales of EI (intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, and stress management abilities), peer social support and family social support (emotional, socialising, practical, financial, and advice) added to the prediction of GPA after verbal IQ, gender, and socioeconomic status were controlled. Adaptability, stress management and practical family social support each added to the explanation of variability. None of the peer social support subscales predicted additional variance in GPA.     

Pain-related anxiety and marijuana use motives: a pilot test among active marijuana-using young adults

The present investigation examined pain-related anxiety in regard to marijuana use motives among a sample of young adult marijuana users (N = 180; 45% women; M(age) = 21.11 years, SD = 6.41). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to determine the relations between pain-related anxiety and marijuana use motives. After controlling for current marijuana use frequency (past 30 days), daily cigarette smoking rate, current rate of alcohol consumption, level of bodily pain (current), and other marijuana use motives, pain-related anxiety was significantly and uniquely associated with coping and conformity motives for marijuana use. Pain-related anxiety was not significantly related to other marijuana use motives. These results offer novel empirical insight pertaining to a relation between pain-related anxiety and coping as well as conformity motives for marijuana use among active users.     

Parental Perceptions of Individual and Dyadic Adjustment as Predictors of Observed Coparenting Cohesion: A Cross‐National Study

Over the past 20 years, systemically guided approaches to understanding early family processes have helped to provide greater clarity concerning the interplay among individual, dyadic, and family level processes. Parental depression, marital functioning, and child adjustment in particular appear to be reliable predictors of coparental and family level functioning. Indeed, cohesion at the level of the family group covaries in theoretically meaningful ways with these indicators of individual and dyadic adjustment. In this study, two collaborating research groups (one in Switzerland, the second in the United States) partnered to examine whether similar patterns of relationships exist among individual and marital adjustment and coparenting processes in families of 4‐year‐old children. Using similar constructs but disparate and occasionally dissimilar measures, both groups measured parent‐reported depression, marital satisfaction, and child behavior problems. Coparenting cooperation and warmth were observed during family interactions. Despite differences between samples and evaluation tools, similar results were found for the Swiss and U.S. samples. A model with depression, marital satisfaction, and child symptoms as predictors of a latent factor of observed coparenting cooperation and warmth showed good fit to data in both samples, suggesting the model was relevant for each. Parameter estimation showed that higher coparenting cooperation and warmth was predicted by lower maternal depression and higher child internalizing symptoms. The common significant effects despite differences in assessment paradigms and instrumentation are of substantive interest. Future directions pertinent to the coparenting questions addressed in this research are discussed.     

Leadership, followership, and evolution: some lessons from the past

This article analyzes the topic of leadership from an evolutionary perspective and proposes three conclusions that are not part of mainstream theory. First, leading and following are strategies that evolved for solving social coordination problems in ancestral environments, including in particular the problems of group movement, intragroup peacekeeping, and intergroup competition. Second, the relationship between leaders and followers is inherently ambivalent because of the potential for exploitation of followers by leaders. Third, modern organizational structures are sometimes inconsistent with aspects of our evolved leadership psychology, which might explain the alienation and frustration of many citizens and employees. The authors draw several implications of this evolutionary analysis for leadership theory, research, and practice.     

Difference and Deference in the Tenor of Learning

The critical resources furnished bydeconstruction have more than occasionally beenturned with negative effect on traditional andmore recent conceptions of liberal learning,including the reaffirmation of the humanitiesassociated with philosophical hermeneutics. Thefirst two sections of the paper review thecontrasting and mutually opposed stancestowards learning represented by earlyformulations of deconstruction and ofhermeneutics. An exploration is thenundertaken in the later sections ofdevelopments that have taken place in bothdeconstruction and hermeneutics since theDerrida-Gadamer encounter in Paris in 1981.While not in any sense assimilatinghermeneutics to deconstruction or vice versa,this exploration identifies significant shiftsin later formulations of both which provide amore inclusive context for understandinglearning as a human undertaking, including theidentification of tensions that are morepromising than negative.     

Competencies for infant mental health therapists: A survey of expert opinion

We report on data provided by a nationwide panel of 23 infant mental health (IMH) experts who provided numerical ratings of the relative importance of 143 competencies desirable for licensed mental health therapists working with infants/children birth to 5 years of age and their families/caregivers. The competencies were developed based on prior state and national efforts and our own experience in training IMH therapists. The competencies were grouped conceptually into seven areas: (a) Normal infant and toddler development; (b) Atypical development (perturbations in development); (c) Emotional/behavioral disorders in infants and young children; (d) Assessment; (e) Intervention; (f) Community resources and referrals; and (g) Organization, communication, and collaboration. We calculated means, SDs, 95% confidence intervals to rank order each competency. We conducted reliability analyses and tested for mean differences in ratings for the seven areas. Interrater and intraclass correlations were modest, likely the result of restriction of range in the ratings. The seven areas showed high levels of internal consistency and, with few exceptions, did not significantly differ in the means of their ratings. The utility of the competencies are discussed as a framework for training and professional development for IMH clinicians.     

Personality correlates of adjustment in isolated work groups

Twenty-five personnel from two Antarctic research stations spent the austral winter (February-October) confined in small, isolated stations located on the Antarctic ice cap. At the end of this confinement, they completed two questionnaires. The first asked about alcohol and marijuana use and self-rated adjustment to the living conditions; it also asked for nominations of others with whom each would most like and least like to spend another Antarctic tour. The second questionnaire was a recently developed personality inventory. Personality scale scores were correlated with self-rated adjustment and peer nominations. The results were consistent with previous research, and indicated that adjustment was a function of narrow interests and a low need for stimulation. More importantly, the findings also demonstrated that personality inventories are useful for predicting adjustment to working conditions in such isolated settings.     

Sense, nonsense, and the use of personality measures

Criticize measurement-based personality research by recounting a well-known limitation: indices of relationship are often inflated because of the similarity of content across measures of presumably different constructs. In this paper we endorse the major contention of Nicholls et al. that measurement-based research may be conducted thoughtlessly, and we extend their thinking by pointing out an important underlying issue—the problem of defining what constitutes a “syndrome.” In contrast to them, however, we argue that the problems in measurement they cite do not entail the consequences they foresee and, in addition, have limited application.