Does Problem Focused Coping Buffer the Effects of Trait Anxiety on Depressive Symptoms of Chronic Urticaria Patients?

The present study examined the moderating role of problem-focused coping in trait anxiety—depressive symptoms' relationship in patients with chronic urticaria (CU). Eighty-eight CU patients, who applied to an outpatient clinic of Clinical Immunology and Allergic Diseases, filled out a questionnaire set including State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Ways of Coping Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory. The results suggested that CU patients high on trait anxiety reported more depressive symptoms, and the ones using more problem-focused coping (PFC) strategies reported less depressive symptoms. Also, PFC strategies moderated trait anxiety-depressive symptoms relation. Accordingly, PFC strategies did not lead to any significant difference in CU patients who were low on trait anxiety in terms of the level of depressive symptoms. However, CU patients with high trait anxiety experienced significantly less depressive symptoms if they used more PFC strategies. The findings were discussed in the light of the relevant literature.     

Gender,Religiosity, Sexual Activity,Sexual Knowledge,and Attitudes Toward Controversial Aspects of Sexuality

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of gender, religiosity, sexual activity, and sexual knowledge in predicting attitudes toward controversial aspects of sexuality among Turkish university students. Participants were 162 female and 135 male undergraduate students who were recruited on a volunteer basis from an urban state university in Turkey. The SKAT-A Attitude Scale along with background information form, sexual activities inventory, and sexual knowledge scale were administered to the participants. Simultaneous multiple regression analyses revealed that religiosity, particularly attendance to religious services was the most significant predictor in explaining university students’ attitudes toward masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and sexual coercion.     

Formal analyticity

In this paper, I introduce and defend a notion of analyticity for formal languages. I first uncover a crucial flaw in Timothy Williamson’s famous argument template against analyticity, when it is applied to sentences of formal mathematical languages. Williamson’s argument targets the popular idea that a necessary condition for analyticity is that whoever understands an analytic sentence assents to it. Williamson argues that for any given candidate analytic sentence, there can be people who understand that sentence and yet who fail to assent to it. I argue that, on the most natural understanding of the notion of assent when it is applied to sentences of formal mathematical languages, Williamson’s argument fails. Formal analyticity is the notion of analyticity that is based on this natural understanding of assent. I go on to develop the notion of formal analyticity and defend the claim that there are formally analytic sentences and rules of inference. I conclude by showing the potential payoffs of recognizing formal analyticity.     

Donate More,Be Happier! Evidence from the Netherlands

It is hypothesized that charitable donation provides psychological benefits collectively referred to as the “warm glow”. This study aimed to determine the magnitude of the “warm glow” of charitable donors based on subjective wellbeing data and real-world donation totals obtained from two surveys: the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) and the Giving in the Netherlands Panel (GINP). Fixed effect estimates showed that when controlling for such major shocks to happiness as changes in marital status, income, and employment, charitable donors had higher happiness scores. To account for the endogeneity of donating, variation in the types of solicitation by charities was exploited. Some specifications from instrumental variable estimation showed that donating higher amounts of money increases life satisfaction significantly. The results show the local average treatment effect (LATE) for individuals who donate an extra Euro because they are solicited and these individuals would not donate this extra Euro if they were not solicited.     

Schools as Socialisation Contexts: Understanding the Impact of School Climate Factors on Students’ Sense of School Belonging

Education is a top priority of the European Union (EU). The EU Education Council has declared that to be the world leader in terms of the quality of education and training systems by 2010, fundamental transformations in education should be carried out in each country according to its national context and traditions. As a candidate country, Turkey shares this common objective. Yet, the mean school attainment and net education enrollment rates in Turkey are still behind the EU averages. The education literature indicates students’ sense of school belonging as an important predictor of school attainment. This study aims to identify the policy manipulable social aspects of schools that can be instrumental in increasing students’ sense of school belonging in a sample of 799 middle school students attending public schools in Istanbul, Turkey. The conceptual model posits that students’ satisfaction with both the social relationships in the school and the school environment has consequences for their sense of school belonging. The results of the structural equation model analysis revealed a plausible model. Satisfaction with social relationships emerged as a stronger predictor of sense of school belonging than satisfaction with the school environment. Further comparisons of the same conceptual model for schools with low and high socioeconomic conditions yielded different associations among the study variables. The findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to the education system in Turkey and other less affluent societies with similar social, cultural, and economic conditions. L’éducation est une priorité majeure de l’Union Européenne (UE). Le Conseil de l’Education de l’UE a déclaré que pour devenir le leader mondial de la qualité de l’éducation et de la formation en 2010, il fallait opérer des réformes d’importance dans le système d’éducation de chacun des pays dans le respect de leurs traditions et de leur contexte national. En tant que candidate pour intégrer l’Union, la Turquie partage cet objectif commun. Pourtant, les performances scolaires moyennes et le taux de scolarisation sont en Turquie toujours en‐dessous des moyennes européennes. La littérature concernée montre que la conviction de l’élève d’être intégréà l’école est un prédicteur important de ses résultats scolaires. Cette étude cherche à définir les possibilités d’action politique sur les variables sociales scolaires susceptibles d’améliorer le sentiment d’appartenance à l’école, cela sur un échantillon de 799 élèves de collège fréquentant des établissements publics d’Istanbul. Le modèle pose que la satisfaction des élèves relative aux relations sociales à l’école et à l’environnement scolaire est en relation avec leur sentiment d’intégration à l’établissement. Les résultats de l’analyse en modèle d’équation structurale fournissent une structure plausible. La satisfaction liée aux relations sociales ressort comme un prédicteur du sentiment d’appartenance plus puissant que la satisfaction relative à l’environnement scolaire. Des manipulations complémentaires de ce même modèle à partir de conditions socio‐économiques élevées ou basses débouchèrent sur de nouvelles associations entre les différentes variables. Ces résultats sont évalués sur la base de leur pertinence pour le système scolaire turque et celui d’autres pays moins prospères présentant des conditions économiques, sociales et culturelles analogues.     

Turkish Migrants�� Organizations in Germany and Their Role in the Flow of Remittances to Turkey

Various studies, including ?stergaard-Nielsen (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), Pries and Sezgin (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag f??r Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), Thr?nhardt and Wei? (Freiburg: Lambertus, 2005), and Yurdakul (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2009) have examined the aims, activities, functions, and structures of migrant organizations in Germany. Among others, Daume et al. 2007, Kausch (Nr. 28: 21?C25 (http://www.service-eine-welt.de/images/text_material-1049.img). Accessed 23 October 2009, 2007), and Schmelz (Eschborn: GTZ, 2007) illustrated that some migrant organizations aim at supporting the development of their countries of origin. These organizations invest in infrastructure and agriculture, facilitate funding for development projects, provide post-disaster humanitarian aid, and offer social and financial assistance to their counterparts and to certain religious and/or political movements. A research gap, however, persists concerning the role of Turkish migrants?? organizations (TMOs) in the flow of remittances to Turkey. Particularly, it is not clear how organizational characteristics of TMOs influence their potential in attracting and transferring remittances. Combining approaches from organizational sociology and migration research, this paper intends to generate empirically founded knowledge about TMOs in Germany, while highlighting their need to legitimate themselves in multiple organizational fields. This paper illustrates that the potential of TMOs in attracting and transferring remittances depend on multiple factors such as the demographic characteristics of the Turkish migrants, Turkish and German governmental policies, and the organizational characteristics of TMOs. It also shows that the role of TMOs in the flow of remittances is limited as: (1) Turkish migrants?? social and economic resources are restricted, (2) TMOs?? competency in mobilizing migrants, fundraising, project development, and management has not been fully developed, and (3) Turkish and German governments do not actively cooperate with TMOs in transferring remittances.