Combining the Social Relations Model and Behavioral Genetics to Explore the Etiology of Familial Interactions

SUMMARY

This review focuses on the Social Relations Model (SRM) and a genetic extension of this model as one approach for identifying the processes by which genetic factors influence familial exchanges (Kenny & La Voie, 1984). The basic SRM and its ability to decompose dyadic measures of family interaction into actor, partner and dyadic relationship effects is described followed by findings from 3 recent studies. Results indicate that much of familial interaction is in fact relationship specific, and not due to individual-level effects. We also discuss why and how the basic SRM is enriched through the incorporation of genetically sensitive designs and present results that suggest the importance of nonshared environmental contributions for both individual and dyadic level effects. Finally, directions for future family research are proposed including the use of genetically informative designs, the collection of round-robin robin data, and the incorporation of more diverse samples.     

The evolutionary dynamics of postcolonial Englishes: A Hong Kong case study

Schneider's ( 2007 ) ground‐breaking Dynamic Model is widely regarded as the most comprehensive and coherent theory to account for the evolution of postcolonial Englishes, but has yet to be validated by evidence from detailed historical research. This article seeks to bridge this gap by presenting an empirically‐grounded case study of the evolution of Hong Kong English based on the four parameters in Schneider's ( 2007 ) framework, viz. sociopolitical background, identity constructions, sociolinguistic conditions, and linguistic effects. Whereas previous applications of the framework have relied on synchronic data, this study draws on sets of primary data spanning 170 years. These diachronic datasets make it possible to demarcate distinct phases in the use of English in society and the evolution of its community of users. The study casts doubt on the accuracy of Schneider's account of the evolution of Hong Kong English and, more generally, the applicability of the Dynamic Model to Outer Circle contexts.     

Traversing the swampy terrain of postmodern communities: Towards theoretical revisionings of community development

This paper engages with recent theoretical explorations of 'community' and situates community development within a futures framework which emphasizes creative possibilities for traversing the often contested, paradoxical terrain of postmodernism. Such an engagement is posited as important given that practice traditions such as community development have continued to rely predominantly on modernist reference points, which are increasingly showing signs of inadequacy in relation to contemporary issues and contexts. Some recent arguments have suggested that the material base of 'community' (and therefore of 'community practice') is under attack from both political and ideological processes such as globalization and postmodernism. Paradoxically, in social theory more generally, there is a simultaneous renewed interest in notions of 'community', and potentials for the development of new local sites of resistance in relation to these very same processes. Primarily a theoretical contribution to the creation of possibilities for re-visioning community development under conditions of globalization and postmodernity, this paper presents and explores three signposts which signal a range of challenges for the futures of community development: interpreting 'community' as a VERB--not a NOUN--and thereby bringing meaning, context and relationality to the centre; integrating the personal, the local and the global and thereby placing community development in a wholistic framework; and, accepting different ways of knowing, doing and being in community development, and thereby opening spaces for difference and mystery in praxis.     

The ‘right time’ – negotiating the timing of interviews with vulnerable young people

Participant retention is a key factor in determining the success of longitudinal research. Challenges in re-locating and retaining participants over the long term are major issues for researchers working with young people who face adversity and experience frequent changes in circumstances. This article reports on a study of vulnerable young people and their transition into adulthood. Rather than the more conventional schedule-based approach to locating and re-interviewing young people, a relational process, the ‘right time’ framework, was used to facilitate young people's involvement in the study. Embedded in the ‘right time’ framework is recognition of the diverse and fluctuating circumstances that shape young people's availability for interviews. Several case examples are considered which amplify the way that the ‘right time’ framework allowed the research to navigate around these circumstances. The case examples highlight the value young people attached to being involved in the research, the influence on the ‘right time’ of wider relational tensions for young people and the need to negotiate researcher status as a different sort of adult. The ‘right time’ framework contributed to a high retention rate in the study generating a more representative sample and enhancing the subsequent data analysis by providing valuable insights into the lives of these vulnerable young people.     

Integrating Individual Differences in Career Assessment: The Atlas Model of Individual Differences and the Strong Ring

Career assessment methods often include measures of individual differences constructs, such as interests, personality, abilities, and values. Although many researchers have recently called for the development of integrated models, career counseling professionals have long faced the challenge of integrating this information into their practice. The authors examine the use of integrated models to enhance the career counseling process, including Armstrong, Day, McVay, and Rounds's (2008) RIASEC‐based Atlas Model of Individual Differences (using Holland's 1997, typology of 6 interest types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional [RIASEC]) and Armstrong, Smith, Donnay, and Rounds's (2004) basic interests‐based Strong Ring. These models provide a structured framework for presenting clients with assessment feedback that emphasizes connections between interests, personality, and abilities.     

Masturbation and Sexual Health

Abstract

In this study we applied research examining the hypothesized benefits of masturbation in dealing with sexual problems to the urgent health crisis posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This is the first study to test the hypothesized relationship between masturbation and HIV risk as predicted by the Sexual Health Model, a sex-positive approach to sexual health developed in response to the need for a more explicit focus on sexuality and relationships in HIV prevention. This is also the first study to examine the relationship between several masturbation variables (i.e., masturbation guilt, lifetime masturbation, and current masturbation) and HIV-related sexual behaviors and attitudes in a sample of African American women (N =239). Data was collected using face-to-face structured interviews as part of the Women's Initiative for Sexual Health (WISH), a randomized, controlled trial of an HIV prevention intervention based on the Sexual Health Model, targeting low income, adult African American women. Contrary to expectations, results showed that participants who reported masturbating were more likely to report having multiple partners, being in a nonmonogamous relationship and engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors. There was no significant relationship between level of masturbation guilt and HIV risk nor between masturbation and consistent condom use or attitudes toward condoms. This study adds to the growing empirical support for associations between sexual health variables and safer sex and argues for a more explicit focus on sexuality in HIV prevention.     

The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity: “Real” Identities and Intergroup Relations in a Transylvania Internet Forum

Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross‐fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interactionist theories of authenticity. We first disambiguate two forms of authenticity that are commonly studied but not clearly differentiated in symbolic interactionist research—self‐authenticity, which emphasizes selves, and social authenticity, which emphasizes social identities. We then argue that relationality and its three pairs of interactional tactics—verification and denaturalization, adequation and distinction, and authorization and illegitimation—are particularly useful in conceptualizing social authenticity. We draw on data from an interethnic internet forum to show how members of two ethnic groups, Hungarian and Romanian, employ these relational tactics to authenticate their own ethnicity as the rightful inheritors of a place‐based Transylvanian identity, and to limit the other ethnicity's similar identity work. We then clarify the significance of social authenticity for the interactional study of category‐based identities by widening our discussion to other contestations over social identities in everyday life.     

Developmental outcomes among Korean adolescents in out-of-home care: A longitudinal study comparing kinship foster care and institutional care

Kinship foster care has recently become the new main form of Korean out-of-home care, and has reached similar usage proportions as the more traditional form, institutional care. To compare the effectiveness of the two care types, we focused on adolescents' developmental outcomes. We also examined changes over time in the outcomes and group differences in the changes. We analyzed five-year longitudinal data from 244 adolescents who participated in the Panel Study on Korean Children in Out-of-Home Care. A repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used as the major analytic method. The study results revealed that the kinship group was better off at the baseline for covariates than was the institution group for almost every development measure. However, the group differences observed at baseline disappeared or reversed in direction, which indicated better longitudinal outcomes for the institution group. In terms of changes over time, self-esteem and delinquency of all adolescents, no matter to which group they belong, changed in a positive way. However, there were no group differences in the patterns of changes. Based on these results, we discuss the limitations of the Korean out-of-home care system, such as the lack of assessment and monitoring, and support for kin caregivers.Ethical approvalWe obtained informed consent from the participating adolescents and Sookmyung Women's University IRB (the first through the third wave panel research) and Ewha Womans University IRB (the fourth and the fifth wave) approval before we began this research.     

The Social Relations Model in Family Studies: A Systematic Review

The Social Relations Model (SRM) allows for examination of family relations on three different levels: the individual level (actor and partner effects), the dyadic level (relationship effects), and the family level (family effect). The aim of this study was to present a systematic review of SRM family studies and identify general patterns in the results. Results of reanalyses of 17 data sets showed that characteristics of the person who reports on the relationship and the unique characteristics of the relationship were most important explanations of differences in family relationships. The present systematic review contributes to a better understanding of who is driving relationship outcomes in families and provides suggestions concerning the application of the SRM to family data.     

Effects of positive attitude and optimism on wage and employment: A double selection approach

Using two samples from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), a longitudinal data set from the United States, and following a double selection approach, the current study estimates the worker's employment and wage equations simultaneously with positive attitude and optimism as additional explanatory variables. Modeling employment as a bivariate decision process, the study examines different factors that influence the worker's labor market participation decision, the employer's hiring decision and the wage rate. The study finds the evidence that the worker's positive attitude and optimism affect the worker's employment probability from different angles: the former through the participation decision and the latter through the hiring decision. Following an alternative approach, this study also provides strong support to the earlier finding that positive attitude affects the worker's wage positively. Interestingly, the effects of attitude variables on the worker's wage are found to be quite comparable in magnitude to the wage effects of the traditional human capital variables.     

Parenting Success and Challenges for Families of Children with Disabilities: An Ecological Systems Analysis

This article examines factors that are associated with parenting success for caregivers of children with disabilities using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems framework. Although numerous studies have investigated risk factors for negative parenting among caregivers of children with disabilities, there are relatively few research findings on parenting success. More specifically, we examine factors for parenting success within the context of micro- (parenting practices, parent-child relations), meso- (caregivers' marital relations, religious social support), and macro-systems (cultural variations, racial and ethnic disparities, health care delivery system), which is then followed by implications for social work practice.     

Traumas versus Strens

Children aged eight to 13 from mother custody families (n = 22) and two-percent families (n = 44) were compared on measures of risk (mothers' life strains), resistance (enacted support, support satisfaction, and problem-focused coping), and self-esteem (family, peer, scholastic, and general). A longitudinal design was used to gather data at three different times over an 18-month period. In making between group comparisons, income was used as a covariate. It was found that income, not family type, was inversely related to mothers' life strains and children's self-esteem. It was also found that the risk and resistance factors were correlated with various dimensions of children's self-esteem in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. The results were discussed in terms of previous research on family stress.     

Longing for Recognition Commentary on the Work or Jessica Benjamin

This essay considers Jessica Benjamin's conception of recognition and relationality, concentrating on the role of destruction and of dyadic relations. I argue that Benjamin has tended in her recent work to posit clinical practice as an area in which the destructiveness in relations can be transformed into more productive and even harmonious experiences of difference. Benjamin has also provided a dyadic alternative to the triangular conception of desire and relationality, offering an important alternative to schemes that are restricted to the oedipal model. I ask whether forms of triangulation are nevertheless central to the workings of desire that exceed the purview of Oedipus, in particular, whether understanding the coconstitutive relations of homosexuality and heterosexuality offer a queer approach to triangularity.     

Intergenerational Experiences of Discrimination in Chinese American Families: Influences of Socialization and Stress

In this longitudinal study, we investigated the mechanisms by which Chinese American parents' experiences of discrimination influenced their adolescents' ethnicity‐related stressors (i.e., cultural misfit, discrimination, attitudes toward education). We focused on whether parents' ethnic‐racial socialization practices and perpetual foreigner stress moderated or mediated this relationship. Participants were 444 Chinese American families. Results indicated no evidence of moderation, but we observed support for mediation. Parental experiences of discrimination were associated with more ethnic‐racial socialization practices and greater parental perpetual foreigner stress. More ethnic‐racial socialization was related to greater cultural misfit in adolescents, whereas more perpetual foreigner stress was related to adolescents' poorer attitudes toward education and more reported discrimination. Relationships between mediators and outcomes were stronger for fathers than for mothers.     

Studying University as Social Systems Using the Viable System Model: mApp and Semantic Web Technologies at the Industrial University of Santander†

The purpose of this paper is to build on Systemic and Organizational Cybernetics (OC) through the Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) in order to study university analyzing them as social systems. A representation of the self-assessment process is provided through a model that allows university decision markers to diagnose or design information systems for self-evaluation process of graduate programs. The developed systemic framework could offer practical guidelines for decision makers in public or private universities in applying the concepts of organizational and systemic cybernetics in order to strengthen the viability of postgraduate programs and to perform processes for self-evaluation in collective decisions. This research also presents a case study carried out at the Industrial University of Santander, in Bucaramanga, Colombia. This article is an original attempt to fill the conceptual and practical gap on Organizational Cybernetics, existing in the design of self-assessment models graduate programs. Another contribution is the introduction of a Viable System Model of the higher education system in Colombia through the Organizational Cybernetics.     

TO DETER OR TO MODERATE? ALLIANCE FORMATION IN CONTESTS WITH INCOMPLETE INFORMATION

We consider two players' choice about the formation of an alliance ahead of conflict in a framework with incomplete information about the strength of the potential ally. When deciding on alliance formation, players anticipate the self‐selection of other players and the informational value of own and other players' choices. In the absence of these signaling effects, strong players have an incentive to stand alone, which leads to a separating equilibrium. This separating equilibrium can be destabilized by deception incentives if beliefs are updated on the basis of endogenous alliance formation choices. Weak players may find it attractive to appear strong in order to deter competitors from positive effort choices. Strong players may find it attractive to appear weak in order to give their competitors a false sense of security and then beat them with little effort. Moreover, appearing weak allows players to free‐ride when alliances are formed. (JEL D72, D74)     

“Sex,Gender, and Love on a Global Scale. A Review of: Love and Globalization: Transformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World. edited by Mark B. Padilla,Jennifer S. Hirsch,Miguel Muñoz-Laboy,Robert E. Sember, & Richard G. Parker.”

We investigated the sexual relationships of married Chinese men and women living in Beijing and Shanghai. Within the framework of the Interpersonal Exchange Model of Sexual Satisfaction (IEMSS), we also examined factors related to sexual satisfaction. Completed questionnaires were returned by 193 men and 231 women. In general, respondents reported moderate levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction. Overall, respondents were neither erotophobic nor erotophilic and reported a frequency of affectionate and sexual behavior between “2 or 3 times a month” and “once or twice a week” and at least one sexual concern and for problem. Contrary to predictions based on the cultural message that sexual pleasure is restricted to men, the women reported significantly greater sexual satisfaction than did the men, and men and women did not differ in their reports of sexual rewards or relationship satisfaction. Further, men described their sexual relationship as more costly than did women. However, women reported more sexual concerns than did men and were also more erotophobic. Men reported more sexual concerns for their partner than women did for their partner. Strong support was found for the IEMSS, such that the more that rewards exceeded costs, relative rewards exceeded relative costs, one's levels of rewards and costs were perceived to be equal to one's partner's, and the greater the relationship satisfaction, the greater the level of sexual satisfaction. Greater sexual satisfaction was also associated with a greater frequency of affectionate and sexual behavior, fewer sexual concerns and problems, and greater relationship satisfaction. These results are discussed in the context of the impact of official repression of many forms of sexual expression in China in the past and the need for enhancement of the sexual relationships of Chinese men and women.     

Ties That Protect

SUMMARY

An ecological risk and resiliency framework was applied to explore how social contexts, especially the role of families and schools, are affecting Latino/a pre-adolescent substance use in the urban Southwest. A mixed research design, using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, guided the study. Quantitative data were collected through surveys administered as part of a school-based prevention intervention experiment (N = 2,125). Individual interviews conducted with a randomly selected number of matched students (N = 60) provided the qualitative data. The main theme emerging throughout both data sets was a strong resilience against drug use of the participating 7th grade urban youth. The vast majority of students did not use hard drugs, and agreed that alcohol use was inappropriate at their age. A high degree of attachment and strong ties to their parents and their school environment emerged as a shared protective factor. Recommendations include social work interventions that support the resiliency characteristics of urban Latino/a youth in different social contexts such as communities, schools, and families. Limitations of the study are reviewed and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Unveiling the mantra. The salience of network-based community belonging in understanding the structural and agentic conditions of the migration-development nexus

There is more and more evidence that migration and development cannot be considered as two dimensions, whose nexus emerges naturally as a mantra with reciprocal advantages both in developing and in developed countries. This article investigates the theoretical framework of a migration-development nexus as a double time-dependent process of social change, at the same time embedded both in the long durée of the reproduction/innovation of social practices and in the short durée of an agent's personal reflectivity. I argue that the wide scenario of this interplay is the place for the cultural, symbolic, and moral dimensions of a migrant's membership of a network-based community, which acts as a cultural compass in determining migrants' attitudes towards the development of their home country. Strong community membership can be associated with real engagement in the development issues of members left behind (as part of the collective self), only if we assume that membership and belonging are not necessarily shaped by kinship or ethnic considerations, but vary according to the structural features of migrants' social networks – for example the way in which migrants define networks as their own communities, the results of past community memories, and how they imagine their future community on the basis of current experience and perception. The paper discusses these issues in the light of the structure-agent debate in social sciences and migration studies.