Bike Messengers and the Really Real: Effervescence,Reflexivity, and Postmodern Identity

Out of more than two thousand bike messengers in New York City, a few hundred participate in alleycats—illegal races held in open traffic. Surrounding this racing scene is a vibrant messenger community. Messengers who race in or attend alleycats carry their messenger identity into all aspects of their lives. Through direct participant observation, this article proposes that alleycats function as Durkheimian rituals for these messengers. Alleycats express the central values of the social world. Lost in collective effervescence, the individual confronts these values as objectified truths, which allow messengers to form stable identities. Further, bicycles, messenger bags, and other objects become sacred symbols within this ritualization process. The ability of messengers to construct such nonreflexive identities is juxtaposed with theories about the self in postmodernity.     

Are Peer Educators Really Peers?

Objective, Participants, and Methods: To determine whether peer educators are considered peers by their audiences, the authors compared 28 peer educators and 28 college students on their personal qualities using self-report surveys. Results: Students who wanted to become peer educators reported higher self-esteem, greater leadership skills, and fewer risky health behaviors than did demographically similar college students. However, peer educators appeared similar to their colleagues in terms of personal values and personality temperament. Conclusions: Although peer educators are natural leaders with strong self-esteem and more healthy behaviors, they appear to be quite similar to their audiences in regard to values and temperaments, making them successful role models and arguably true peers.     

Culture,Context, or Religion: What Really Gets Single Mothers down the Aisle

Abstract

This article examines whether the relationship between religious participation and marriage behaviors for low-income single mothers is influenced by social norms and structural factors that promote the formation of traditional families. Specifically, we test whether religious participation encourages marriage generally or whether a specific type of marriage is encouraged (e.g., marriage to the baby's biological father). Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,491), we examine the likelihood that religious participation increases marriage in single mothers. We find that the likelihood of marriage within four years after an unwed birth is not only related to church attendance but that the influence of church attendance seems to encourage the creation of biological families rather than simply two-parent households. Further, religious participation differentially influences the likelihood of marriage and a marriage partner based upon the mother's race and employment history. These findings highlight the importance of social context when analyzing marriage behaviors in single mothers.     

How People Really Suspect and Discover Lies

Previous research suggested that real-world lies are detected through hard evidence, such as physical evidence or a direct confession, and not via nonverbal clues. However, we argue that discovering a lie is a process, and nonverbal clues are an important source of information that can induce suspicion, which then triggers the search for hard evidence. We replicated an original study suggesting the irrelevance of nonverbal clues, but experimentally manipulated the wording of the critical question as ‘discovering’ a lie versus ‘suspecting’ a lie. A second study was conducted that further manipulated the phrasing to ask about ‘events’ versus ‘clues’ that led one to detect the lie. Results of both studies showed that those asked about suspecting a lie cited nonverbal behaviors significantly more often than those asked about discovering a lie. Thus, in contrast to previous research, these findings suggest the importance of behavioral clues (e.g. verbal and nonverbal behavior), specifically in the early stage of lie detection.     

What Really Happens in Kobylians’ka’s Land,and Why It Matters

Since the publication of OlTia Kobylians’ka’s novel Zemlia (Land, 1902), the consensus of Ukrainian critics and scholars, both non-Soviet and Soviet, has held that the novel’s central event, and the element of the plot offering the main challenge to interpretation, is the murder of a young peasant by his brother. Attentive reading, however, reveals that the murder is constructed in the novel as a deed whose perpetrator remains unknown. Readings of the novel as an illustration of social or psychological causation in human affairs corresponded to the predispositions of populist critics of various periods. Readings more respectful of the text, and more in keeping with Kobylians’ka’s oeuvre as a whole, need to acknowledge that the world-view consistent with the novel is one that despairs of demonstrable causes. Narrative voice and implied readership in Land are managed so as to exclude the construct of an omniscient narrator authorizing a final, knowable version of past events. Instead, the novel may be seen as reflecting upon the irrationality of diverse models for explaining human behaviour. Common-sense social and psychological notions of causality are found inadequate to explain the murder in Land, as are racial determinism, accident, divine intervention, and the Nietzsche-inspired model of humankind as divided into strong and weak, free and enslaved.     

Do Social Networks Really Matter in Contentious Politics?

A considerable number of studies in the social movement literature stress that social networks are a key factor for those participating in political protest. However, since empirical evidence does not universally support this thesis, we propose to examine three core questions. Do networks really matter for participants in political protest? Are social networks important for all types of protest? Finally, what are social networks and in which ways are they important? By answering these questions this paper aims to provide three contributions to social movement literature: first, we want to put networks in their place and not reifying their influence on participation processes; second, we describe and explain variations of networks influence on protest participation; third, to pursue the theoretical reflection initiated by Kitts, McAdam, and Passy on the specification of network effect on contentious participation, that is, to disentangle the different processes at stake. Many scholars argue for empirical works analyzing the link between networks and cognition, but this remains a pious wish. Here, we propose to systematically examine the effect of social interactions on activists' cognitive toolkit.     

The AFL-CIO Split: Does It Really Matter?

In 2005, the AFL-CIO split and the Change to Win Coalition (CtW) was founded because of the personal ambition of dissident union leaders and their frustration with the severe and continuing decline in union membership. The CtW was build on a shared faith that only a fresh start could lead the unions out of their crisis. But a convincing case has not been made that the seceding unions would be more successful outside of AFL-CIO. When it is seen against the backdrop of the crisis in the labor movement and the enormity of the task of union organizing and revival, the AFL-CIO split does not really matter.     

Does International Outsourcing Really Lower Workers’ Income?

We analyze the impact of international outsourcing on income, if the domestic labor market is imperfect, i.e. there is a bilateral bargaining between a firm and a labor union. In our analysis we distinguish between the cases where the parties negotiate over the wage only and where they negotiate over both wage and profit sharing. We find in the first case that outsourcing has an ambiguous effect on the workers’ income, while it increases the workers’ income in the second case. For the optimal amount of international outsourcing, we find that, depending on the wage effect of outsourcing, in a pure wage bargaining system it can be higher or lower than the level where domestic and foreign marginal labor costs are the same. In contrast, in a wage and profit share bargaining system, the amount of outsourcing lies below this level.     

Really not god: Secularization and pragmatism in Gamblers Anonymous

The paper argues that despite maintaining the image of a twelve-step organization, the central theme of the history of Gamblers Anonymous (GA) in the United States is the increasing secularization of the program of the recovery. The paper documents the increasing secularization and pragmatism of Gamblers Anonymous, as reflected in key documents, despite the spiritual vision of its founding member. The author speculates on why Gamblers Anonymous took a secularized development path. Further research is called for.This research was supported in part by NIAAA post-doctoral grant, 2 T32 AA07240-11, at the Alcohol Research Group (ARG), Berkeley, California. I would like to thank ARG, Mary Phillips, the anonymous reviewers and editor of theJournal of Gambling Studies, Kathy Deierlein, Bob Yamashita, and anonymous members of Gamblers Anonymous. This paper is a revision of one presented at the Fifth National Conference on Gambling Behavior in Duluth, Minnesota during July, 1991.     

Interpersonal Affect: Does It Really Bias Performance Appraisals?

Interpersonal affect, a like-dislike relationship between a supervisor and his/her subordinate, has traditionally been conceptualized as a source of bias in performance appraisals. However, some researchers have argued that affect may not be a bias, especially where it develops as a result of past performance. In this field study, using data from 190 supervisors, we further delineate the relationship between affect and performance ratings. Both affect and performance level were found to have significant effects on performance ratings. Results also indicated that raters are able to separate their liking for a subordinate from actual performance when assigning performance ratings, suggesting that affect may not operate as a bias in the appraisal process.     

Children's Perceptions of Families: What Do They Really Think?

The perceptions of 111 New Zealand children from different family structures and cultures were examined. Lone‐parent families, blended families, extended family, non‐residential parents and couples with children were highly endorsed. No great distinctions were made between married and cohabiting couples when the relationship included children. Definitions of family frequently mentioned affective factors. In comparing ethnic groups and family structures some differences were noted, but in general children have many similarities in their family concepts. Comparisons with a recent study of adolescents did not reveal clear‐cut developmental sequences in young people's perceptions. Overall, an inclusive and realistic view of families was expressed. © 2006 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2006 National Children's Bureau.     

When Twos are Really Threes: The Triangular Dance in Couple Conflict

In counselling couples therapists frequently observe a pattern of interaction in which one person wants greater intimacy and closeness, whereas the other wants increased distance. This paper examines the distancer-pursuer pattern and its relationship to the triangulation of children, grandparents, in-laws or friends. In therapy, interventions target the distancer-pursuer pattern and problematic triangles. Therapy is based on an understanding of the evolution of the pattern in relation to gender, the initial context of the relationship and “life-time” and “situational” positions.     

Does Size Really Matter? Organizational Size and Innovations in Nonprofit Organizations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between size and innovation in a sample of nonprofit organizations. The author employed a number of size estimates (personnel and financial) and assessed different types of innovations (administrative and technological). Additionally, since the failure to take into consideration important contextual variables has been attributed to producing misleading conclusions about the relationship between size and innovation, the author controlled for those variables (formalization, centralization, specialization, leadership, board size, and organization's age) when assessing this relationship. The results of hierarchical multiple regressions showed that although the personnel size estimates were important predictors by themselves, their significance disappeared when contextual variables were introduced. Board size and organization age were significant predictors of administrative innovations. Board size was the only significant predictor of technological innovations, as well as of a total number of innovations.