Relationships Between Drinking and Type of Practice Among U.S. Female and Male Attorneys

Abstract

The author investigated the relationship between drinking and type of practice among U.S. attorneys. Participants were attorneys from 2 large midwestern cities, chosen through stratified random sampling from bar-association membership lists. Type of law practice was related to whether the participants drank in business-related situations but not to the frequency or the quantity of consumption. The participants in solo, corporate, or government practices were more likely than were those in private group practices to report no business-related drinking in the past 30 days. Female and male attorneys in similar practices reported similar abstention rates and quantities of consumption in business situations, suggesting that occupational norms were strongly salient for both genders. Criminal trial work was related to drinking only for the women. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of occupational culture on drinking.     

Stability,Change, and Informant Variance in Newlyweds' Physical Aggression: Individual and Dyadic Processes

Individual and dyadic stability models of newlyweds' physical aggression were evaluated in a sample of 394 newlywed community couples recruited at engagement and followed for 2.5 years. Aggression in young couples was hypothesized to be a stable, enduring trait, consistent with a latent state–trait conceptualization. However, the findings indicated that aggression can more parsimoniously be conceptualized as a “somewhat stable” trait with strong short‐term correlations that gradually decrease at increasing intervals. Aggression was significantly dyadic. Men and women's aggression were consistently associated with one another across time beginning at engagement, with little evidence that one person's aggression evoked aggression in the partner in the time intervals studied. Consistency in a person's reporting of aggression, not shared with the partner, was strongest for self‐reports. Aggr. Behav. 38:1‐15, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Generational Differences as a Determinant of Women's Perspectives on Commitment

Differences between 116 graduate and undergraduate women, representing 4 generations (i.e., Baby Boomers, Transitionals, Generation Xers, and Millennials), were studied to categorize earliest awareness and definitions of commitment in relationships. More than 63% of participants in each generation viewed relationship commitment in terms of constraints rather than attractions.     

男同性恋的身体意象：特点与理论分析

对男同性恋身体意象的研究有近30年的历史。男同性恋比男异性恋更容易出现负面身体意象、身体不满意和进食障碍等。男同性恋追求瘦而有肌肉的理想身体。针对这些特点, 研究者提出一些理论假设进行解释, 包括性客观化理论、内化同性恋污名、性别角色假设、进化心理学假设和AIDS/HIV假设等。未来研究要进行整合的和多样化的研究取向, 方法上采用以网络调查为主的定量研究和以现象学分析为主的定性研究。最后, 国内研究要更注重文化特异性。     

Socioemotional selectivity and psychological health in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and caregivers: a longitudinal,dyadic analysis

Abstract

Objective: Socioemotional selectivity theory predicts that as the end of life approaches, goals and resources that provide immediate, hedonic reward become more important than those that provide delayed rewards. This study tested whether these goal domains differentially affected psychological health in the context of marital dyads in which one partner had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a life-limiting disease.

Design: ALS patients (N?=?102) being treated in three multidisciplinary clinics and their spouses (N?=?100) reported their loneliness, financial worry and psychological health every 3 months for up to 18 months.

Main Outcome Measure: Psychological health composite.

Results: In multilevel dyadic models, patients and spouses had similar levels of financial worry and loneliness. Both patients and spouses had worse psychological health with higher loneliness, but only spouses had worse psychological health with higher financial worry. Significant interactions with age and disease severity indicated that older spouses were more affected by loneliness than were younger spouses, and patients with less severe disease were more affected by financial worry than patients with more severe disease.

Conclusion: The results provide good support for socioemotional selectivity theory’s implications for psychological health in a strong test of the theory.     

Application of a modified health belief model to hiv preventive behavioral intentions among gay and bisexual men

Abstract

The utility of a modified health belief model (Janz and Becker, 1984) for predicting the intention to use condoms was tested in a study among gay and bisexual men. The model explained a reasonable amount of variance. It was found that younger men's decision to have safe sex was guided by factors other than those that influenced older men. Among younger men, the intention to use a condom was positively related to the relative number of persons with AIDS in their social environment (cues to action) and to the perceived benefits of HIV preventive behavior. Among older men, this behavioral intention was much more determined by their perception of the prevalence of HIV and by their perception of their vulnerability to HIV infection. These findings are important because they may partly explain the recent increase in AIDS-risk behavior among young gay and bisexual men. The discussion focuses on these findings and on the implications for interventions aimed at promoting safe sex.     

Book review of The psychology of eating. J. Ogden. Oxford: Blackwell publishing, 2003. i–xii + 302 pages ISBN 0-631-23373-3 (hbk) 0-631-23374-1 (pbk)

Abstract

This study examined the importance of the nature of the relationship between sexual partners in predicting types of sexual practices for 293 gay and bisexual men. Demographics, personal beliefs, substance use, and variables from the health belief model, theory of self-efficacy, and theory of reasoned action were used to predict sexual behaviors. Sexual practices varied by type of partner relationship and duration, with a higher probability of risky behaviors occurring with primary partners than with non-primary partners; relationship status also moderated the effects of safer sex partner norms and denial on sexual risk-taking. In addition, men who were younger, had less education, and used alcohol or drugs prior to sex engaged in higher risk behaviors. This study indicates that a more comprehensive assessment of dimensions of partner relationship will lead to greater understanding of sexual risk-taking.     

The ABC of Social Desires: Affiliation,Being Alone,and Closeness to Partner

We propose a triadic model of social desires directed at appetence/aversion of affiliation with friends (A), being alone (B), and closeness to one's partner (C) that account for individual differences in subjectively experienced needs for proximity and distance in serious couple relationships. The model assumes that A, B, and C can be conceptualized at the individual level as correlated latent factors measured by appetence and aversion indicators with opposite factor loadings and low shared method variance and at the couple level assuming the same measurement model and identical (co)variances for men and women. The model was confirmed with confirmatory factor analyses in a sex‐balanced internet sample of 476 individuals and a longitudinal sample of both partners of 578 heterosexual couples by assessing the ABC desires with brief appetence/aversion scales. In both samples, the desires showed expected unique associations with the Big Five personality traits, loneliness and relationship satisfaction, perceived available support by friends and partner, and attachment style toward the partner and high 1‐year stability in the longitudinal sample. We suggest that the ABC model helps to integrate research on couples' distance regulation along the lines of communal and agentic motivation. Copyright © 2012 European Association of Personality Psychology     

A Systemic Analysis of the Dynamics and Organization of Urban Street Gangs

Street gangs function as ongoing, open social systems in relation to their surrounding sociocultural context. Fundamentally, gangs are comparable to some family systems. In fact, most gangs do consider themselves to be “families.” The same concepts used to describe family systems may also be applied to street gangs. Street gangs usually exhibit a highly complex organization, structure, process, and functionality. All of these aspects intertwine within and around the gang to form a web of interconnectedness and continuity. To better understand street gangs and provide effective intervention plans, they must be viewed from this systematic and holistic perspective.