Celibacy and Its Implications For Autonomy

This paper connects celibacy to autonomy, which is derived from economic, emotional, and sexual self-determination. Although society attempts to control and define women's sexuality, the celibate woman who masturbates can retrieve her sexuality without the massive social rearrangements which are necessary for economic and emotional liberation. Because masturbation is accessible and singular, sexual autonomy is available to a woman who chooses celibacy, regardless of the other exigencies in her life, as illustrated in the example here from popular literature.     

Judging a Book by its Cover: The Effects of Candidate Party Label and issue Stands on Voting Behavior

Americans vote party lines; nothing predicts election outcomes as well. People may vote party lines because party candidates have views that accurately reflect the positions of their members, because party identification acts as a convenient cue that eliminates the need for greater information search or cognitive processing, or because party classification biases interpretation of other information people have about the candidates. To investigate these competing hypotheses for party effects on voter decision making, participants were presented with a choice between 2 candidates whose policy positions were more inconsistent than consistent with their party identification (Study l), or completely inconsistent with their party identification (Study 2). People voted as a function of party label in Study I, but issue stand emerged as a stronger predictor in Study 2 (although Democrats were more likely to cross party lines than Republicans). These results suggest that party identification influences how other information about the candidate is perceived and processed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Violent behavior in adolescents and young adults: A person and environment model

We explore a model that examines how personal and environmental variables explain violent behavior by adolescents. Repeated interviews with youths from 1984–1992 from 10 cities across the United States provided the data. These interviews first occurred with 2,787 youths when they were adolescents (1984–85 and 1986–87) and the interviews were repeated on a subsample of 602 youths when they were young adults (1989–90 and 1991–92). Longitudinal multivariate analyses showed that almost a third of the variance in adolescent violent behaviors was predicted by a combination of personal variables (gender, substance misuse) and environmental variables (history of child abuse, stressful events, traumatic events, and city rates of unemployment). Further, almost a third of the variance in change in violent behaviors from year to year was predicted by prior violent behavior and a combination of personal variables (gender, suicidality, and substance misuse) and environmental variables (stressful events).     

Causal attributions of high and low achievement motivation college students for performance on examinations

College students high and low in test anxiety attributed their performance on each of four examinations in a course to ability, test difficulty, preparation, and luck. Individuals high and low in test anxiety typically evidence systematic predispositions to account for their achievement-related behavior in different terms. The present research substantially replicated these earlier (laboratory and Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Scale) findings in an actual achievement setting. In addition, however, the present findings differed from the earlier evidence in some important respects. Specifically, (a) high test-anxiety students' attributions for failure were far less self-deprecating than in the laboratory evidence, and (b) high test-anxiety students' attributions (for both success and failure) became more personally flattering, or comforting, as the semester progressed. Results were discussed in terms of the laboratory — field distinction and of the influence of a temporal, or time of measurement, factor, hitherto ignored in the causal attribution literature.This research was facilitated by a grant from the Research Council of the Graduate School, University of Missouri-Columbia, and the National Institute of Mental Health (1 R08 31910), both to the first author.     

Sex-role aspects in the development of children's vocational knowledge

Recent research suggests important age and sex differences in the sex-typing of children's vocational interests. The present study adds to this area by examining several dimensions of job choices in children of four age groups (early and late preschool, second and fourth grade). The 120 children interviewed were asked three fixed-choice questions regarding nine jobs, along with open-ended job choice items. Analysis of age effects on several predetermined dimensions showed that older children were more selective in personal job choice, especially in regard to jobs attributed to the opposite sex. Avoidance of choices associated with the other sex was stronger in boys, but other sex differences were dependent on mode of inquiry rather than on sex. Girls were less limited than boys in job interests when asked about specific jobs but expressed more restricted choices on open-ended items. Implications of these findings both for further research and educational practices are considered.     

Cognitive and Behavioural Attention in Children with Low-Moderate and Heavy Doses of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Attention problems are thought to be a hallmark feature of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). Despite decades of research however, these findings have never been pooled to...     

What policymakers need and must demand from research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities

Enabling persons with disabilities to prepare for and engage in gainful employment has become a priority concern in U.S. society. As a result, federal and state policymakers are adopting employment-related initiatives designed to enhance the employment rate of persons with disabilities. Policymakers need credible evidence in order to assess and reform these initiatives. This recognized need, however, begs the question of what constitutes 'credible evidence.' Of particular concern in the disability policy arena is the debate over the types of conclusion about employment rates that can and cannot be drawn from analyses of national survey data sets. This article connects standard research methodology concepts with the complexities of evaluating disability policy to help stakeholders appreciate the issues involved in this debate. This appreciation can help policymakers (1) recognize unwarranted cause-and-effect conclusions based solely on existing national survey data and (2) demand better data and stronger research designs to complement the potential over-reliance on correlational studies using problematic survey data to estimate policy impacts. To this end, the article concludes with a practical framework with a checklist for assessing the adequacy of research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities.     

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Need for Subtypes

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an important condition confronting patients, clinicians, and researchers. This article provides information concerning the need for appropriate diagnosis of CFS subtypes. We first review findings suggesting that CFS is best conceptualized as a separate diagnostic entity rather than as part of a unitary model of functional somatic distress. Next, research involving the case definitions of CFS is reviewed. Findings suggest that whether a broad or more conservative case definition is employed, and whether clinic or community samples are recruited, these decisions will have a major influence in the types of patients selected. Review of further findings suggests that subtyping individuals with CFS on sociodemographic, functional disability, viral, immune, neuroendocrine, neurology, autonomic, and genetic biomarkers can provide clarification for researchers and clinicians who encounter CFS characteristically confusing heterogeneous symptom profiles. Treatment studies that incorporate subtypes might be particularly helpful in better understanding the pathophysiology of CFS. This review suggests that there is a need for greater diagnostic clarity, and this might be accomplished by subgroups that integrate multiple variables including those in cognitive, emotional, and biological domains.     

Assessing aggression in adolescent romantic relationships: can we do it better?

Almost all research on aggression in adolescent romantic relationships makes use of 1-time, retrospective assessment methods. In the present research, the authors compared data on the experience of adolescent relationship aggression (physical aggression and threatening behavior) collected from 125 high school students via 2 methods: (a) a 1-time, 2-month retrospective assessment and (b) a cumulative method based on four 2-week retrospective assessments, each spaced 2 weeks apart. For the cumulative method, data from the 4 assessments were aggregated to cover the same time period as the single, 2-month retrospective assessment. A greater proportion of the sample (48.0%) reported experiencing physical aggression using the cumulative method compared with the single, 2-month retrospective method (27.0%). The prevalence of threatening behavior was also higher using the cumulative method (48.8% vs. 24.8%). Adolescent trauma and anxiety symptoms correlated more strongly with physical aggression data derived from the cumulative method than from the 1-time assessment method.