Civic Engagement, Interpersonal Trust, and Television Use: An Individual-Level Assessment of Social Capital

The mechanisms underlying the formation and sustenance of social capital on the individual level were explored with a structural model composed of the endogenous variables of civic engagement and interpersonal trust. Using the 1995 DDB Needham life style study, analysis of the model permitted an examination of the strength and direction of the causal relationships driving the "virtuous circle" of participation and trust; the demographic, situational/contextual, orientational, and attitudinal factors that are exogenous to these latent variables; and the linkage between these components of social capital and viewing preferences for specific television genres. The results indicate that (1) the direction of the linkage between civic engagement and interpersonal trust is mainly from participating to trusting; and (2) television viewing plays a conditional role in the production of social capital that is dependent on the use of particular genres.     

Religion,ethnicity, and citizenship: the role of Jain institutions in the social incorporation of young Jains in Britain and the United States

The on-going importance of religion as a marker of identity among young South Asians has provoked reflection on the relationship between religion and citizenship in the aftermath of events such as 9/11 and 7/7. In general, European and American scholarship highlights different perspectives on the role of religion in the social incorporation of immigrants and their children. In this article I explore how religion shapes identity and citizenship among young Jains, a group that experiences successful socio-economic integration and material success in Britain and the United States. This qualitative comparative analysis of Jain institutions which are oriented towards young Jains reveals the ways in which the intersection of transnational circulation of religious ideas and actors, national integration regimes, migration histories, and the place of religion in specific contexts shapes religious identities, religious group boundaries, and religious discourses in different ways. Different Jain religious assemblages affirm views of religion in the United States as having a positive role in the social incorporation of immigrants and their children, but point to a more neutral role for religion in the incorporation of middle-class young Jains in Britain.     

Temperament-Character Profile and Psychopathologies in Patients with Alopecia Areata

The aim of this study is to investigate psychopathologies and the temperament-character profile of Alopecia Areata patients and to compare them with healthy controls. Patients and controls who presented at a dermatology clinic were selected by convenience sampling to respond to Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), SCL-90-R, and a checklist about the demographic data and their dermatologic and psychiatric history. Patients reported higher harm avoidance and reward dependence than controls (Cohen's d = .93 and = .94). A significant correlation between Harm Avoidance (r = ?0.33, p = .02) and Reward Dependence (r = ?0.28, p = 0.05) with sex was found (females scored higher). Lifetime history of AA relapse was significantly associated with higher psychiatric symptoms; the effect sizes were large for Obsessive-Compulsive (d = .81) and Paranoia Ideation (d = .89). The higher psychological symptoms in AA patients with the history of relapses in this study have a practical message for clinicians.     

"Doctor, would you prescribe a pill to help me … ?" a national survey of physicians on using medicine for human enhancement

Using medical advances to enhance human athletic, aesthetic, and cognitive performance, rather than to treat disease, has been controversial. Little is known about physicians' experiences, views, and attitudes in this regard. We surveyed a national sample of physicians to determine how often they prescribe enhancements, their views on using medicine for enhancement, and whether they would be willing to prescribe a series of potential interventions that might be considered enhancements. We find that many physicians occasionally prescribe enhancements, but doctors hold nuanced and ambiguous views of these issues. Most express concerns about the potential effects of enhancements on social equity, yet many also believe specific enhancements that are safe and effective should be available but not covered by insurance. These apparently contradictory views might reflect inherent tensions between the values of equity and liberty, which could make crafting coherent social policies on medical enhancements challenging.     

Risk communication of terrorist acts, natural disasters, and criminal violence: comparing the processes of understanding and responding

Risk communication is an important vehicle for the scientific understanding of the perception of and response to various kinds of threats. The present study provides apparently the first empirical attempt to compare perceptions, decision‐making, and anticipated action in response to threats of three kinds: natural disaster, violent crime, and terrorism. A total of 258 college undergraduates were surveyed using a vignette‐based, 2 × 2 × 3 between‐subjects design that systematically manipulated threat imminence (high vs. low), risk level (high vs. low), and nature of the threat (natural disaster vs. crime vs. terrorism). There were substantial differences in participants' perceptions and reported actions in response to natural disaster, relative to the other domains of risk, under conditions of high risk. The risk of natural disaster was more likely to lead participants to report that they would change their daily activities and to relocate. It was also more likely than terrorism to lead to action securing the home. It appears that the mechanisms for perception, decision‐making, and action in response to threats cannot be generalized in a straightforward way across these domains of threat. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How goal instrumentality shapes relationship evaluations

Findings from 6 experiments support the hypothesis that relationship evaluations and behavioral tendencies are goal dependent, reflecting the instrumentality of significant others for the self's progress toward currently active goals. Experiments 1 and 3 found that active goals can automatically bring to mind significant others who are instrumental for the activated goal, heightening their accessibility relative to noninstrumental others. Experiments 2-5 found that active goals cause individuals to evaluate instrumental others more positively, draw closer to them, and approach them more readily, compared with noninstrumental others. Experiment 6 found that people who engage in goal-dependent interpersonal evaluations are more successful, receiving higher grades. Implications for understanding the social nature of self-regulation and the impact of personal goals on interpersonal relationships are discussed.     

Message content,group identification and the intergroup sensitivity effect: Responses to the message and recognition memory

An intergroup sensitivity effect (ISE) is people's tendency to react more negatively to a criticism when it was made by an outgroup member than when the same criticism was made by an ingroup member. The present study investigated variation in ISE when the criticism was varied in terms of valence (absence of positive qualities or presence of negative qualities) and level of abstraction (traits or behaviours). Dependent measures were emotional reactions to the criticism, perceived constructiveness, ingroup bias, and recognition memory for the criticism. All participants showed an ISE to the negative abstract criticism. In addition, consistent with the social identity account of ISE, participants' levels of identification with their ingroup moderated the ISE in some of the measures.