Student-Athletes and Gambling: An Analysis of Attitudes Towards Risk-Taking

Gambling scandals at Arizona State University, Boston College, and Northwestern University have made gambling prevention a point of emphasis in the NCAA and throughout colleges and universities across the nation. Despite this emphasis, there is minimal research at any level regarding gambling and student-athletes. This research examines attitudinal differences towards risk-taking among student-athletes who gamble on college sports and those who indicate no such gambling activity. Our findings indicate that student-athletes who gambled were more likely to have attitudes supportive of risk taking behavior than their student-athlete peers who did not gamble.     

The Decline of Orthodoxy among the Amish

Abstract

For the past decade, the study of social capital and civic involvement has been of primary importance to sociologists and other social scientists. Concern over perceived declines in civic participation has troubled many, since such participation has been linked to a variety of positive outcomes both for the individual and the broader social groups in which the person takes part. To date, most research on the factors influencing participation has focused on structural or community-level measures, such as state structure, increased suburbanization and changes in community institutional structures. We contribute to this literature by highlighting the important role of the family as a context for the transmission of civic skills, involvement, and knowledge between parent and child. This study draws upon theoretical and conceptual insights from the literature on social capital and civic involvement, as well as from earlier work on inter-generational status attainment and political socialization. We build an explanatory framework that traces the inter-generational transmission of civic involvement, skills, and action. We test this framework using data from the 1996 National Household Education Survey. Results indicate that both adult political and school involvement have a positive impact upon the level of child political interest, and that adult community and school involvement have a positive impact upon the level of child civic activities.     

Orthodoxy and heresy in self psychology: A Heretic's perspective

This paper discusses a trend in self psychology toward the establishment of a somewhat rigid orthodoxy. The conceptual problems that such a stance raises, such as the role of empathy in the treatment process and the incompatibility that this presents with the current self psychological view of the etiology of psychopathology, are discussed. The relationship of self psychology to existential theory is highlighted and a more open stance is advocated regarding divergent theorizing within the model.     

Sensation-Seeking,Risk-Taking,and Problematic Financial Behaviors of College Students

College students are at especially high risk for serious financial problems due to easy availability of credit cards, rising tuition, and a declining economy. Arnett (Am Psychol 55:469–480, 2000) proposed 18–25 year olds may be considered emerging adults and are characterized by less stable financial situations than those who perceive themselves to be adults. A survey was given to 450 students at two Mississippi universities. The results showed student financial behaviors were related to age, gender, public assistance, adult status, sensation-seeking, and potential for problem gambling. This study is unique in that it investigated the relationship of emerging adult/adult status and other individual and socio-demographic variables to financial behaviors among college students, a conceptualization that has not been explored in the past.     

OPTIMAL MARGINALITY: Innovation and Orthodoxy in Fromm's Revision of Psychoanalysis

The sociological study of intellectual innovation has long been polarized between romantic notions of the creative marginal intellectual and competing accounts stressing the benefits of national, organizational and network centrality in the production of knowledge. I offer the concept of “optimal marginality’ as an attempt to move beyond this longstanding but increasingly stale debate. The relationship between a certain type of marginality and intellectual creativity is discussed in the context of a case study on innovation within psychoanalysis. German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm's contributions to the modern revision of Freudian theory is highlighted to illustrate the conditions under which marginality is likely to lead to innovations within theoretical systems and intellectual organizations. What types of marginality lead to innovation? Under what conditions does marginality lead to insight, and when does it lead to marginal ideas? Four ideal types are outlined and a research agenda is called for that operationalizes and tests these theoretical ideas in the context of comparative sociological analysis of intellectual creativity.     

Certainty Broadcasts Risk Preferences: Verbal and Nonverbal Cues to Risk-Taking

People often attempt to ascertain how risky another person is willing to be. Even when this information is not purposely divulged, people may unwittingly broadcast their willingness to take risks by displaying cues to their level of certainty. Because subjective reports of feeling certain predict risk behavior, we examined whether targets’ certainty could be discerned unobtrusively and be used to predict their risky decision-making. In small groups, participants discussed two risk problems, made risk decisions, and then wrote an essay about their decision-making process. Participants’ nonverbal behavior and speech content during the group interaction, and their subsequent essay content were assessed by naïve coders and objective word-count software for cues to certainty. Subjective assessments of nonverbal behavior and objective assessments of language content revealed that certainty cues predicted greater risk propensity. Therefore, across the three communication modalities of nonverbal behavior, speech, and text, more certainty cues revealed risky behavior.     

Short- and Long-Term Self-Regulation and Sexual Risk-Taking Behaviors in Unmarried Heterosexual Young Adults

The goal of this study was to explore associations between short- and long-term self-regulation and dimensions of oral and coital sexual risk-taking in emerging adulthood. A total of 287 unmarried heterosexual young adults ages 18 to 26 years (62% female; 87% European American; 81% enrolled in college) provided study data via Internet surveys. High levels of long-term self-regulation predicted later initiation of oral sex and coitus, fewer lifetime coital partners, increased likelihood of condom and other contraceptive use at last intercourse, and low composite levels of coital risk. High levels of short-term self-regulation predicted reduced likelihood of condom use and high overall coital risk. The discussion focuses on the interpretation of these effects and potential directions for future research.     

Religious dominance and empathy

Theory and Society - Why do some religious authorities empathize with outsiders while others espouse xenophobia? This paper argues that church leaders are less likely to display empathy when their...     

Religious Transmission Versus Religious Formation: Preadolescent-Parent Interaction*

Religiousness on the part of youth can result from transmission across generations and it can stem from a nurturant parent-child relationship. Interaction could occur between these variables. These relationships were tested using data from 2724 adolescents in grades 4–8 in intact families in southern Minnesota. The dependent measure involves five items measuring religious attendance, belief, and devotional practice. Both parental religiousness and support were significant predictors of preadolescent religiousness, with the former the better predictor. There was no significant interaction between these two predictors, and this finding is discussed in the context of a culture supportive of religion. Females were more religious than males. Paternal and maternal measures were similar in their abilities to predict religiosity, although a significant interaction existed between sex of preadolescent and material religiousness, with sons scoring especially low on religion when their mothers also scored low.     

Religious affiliation and the family

The process of religious affiliation is mediated by institutions such as the family, which provide a network of ties to the public sphere. Variations in the likelihood of those with no religious affiliation in high school (N=900) becoming church members by the time they reach 30 are explained in terms of a combination of individual attributes, such as educational and spatial mobility, and changes in structural location, such as the transition to marital and parental status. Panel data from the Career Development Study show that women's chances of affiliation are more affected than are men's by parents' religious homogamy, getting married, and having children.     

Religious Culture and Political Action

Recent work by political sociologists and social movement theorists extend our understanding of how religious institutions contribute to expanding democracy, but nearly all analyze religious institutions as institutions; few focus directly on what religion qua religion might contribute. This article strives to illuminate the impact of religious culture per se, extending recent work on religion and democratic life by a small group of social movement scholars trained also in the sociology of religion. In examining religion's democratic impact, an explicitly cultural analysis inspired by the new approach to political culture developed by historical sociologists and cultural analysts of democracy is used to show the power of this approach and to provide a fuller theoretical account of how cultural dynamics shape political outcomes. The article examines religious institutions as generators of religious culture, presents a theoretical model of how religious cultural elements are incorporated into social movements and so shape their internal political cultures, and discusses how this in turn shapes their impact in the public realm. This model is then applied to a key site of democratic struggle: four efforts to promote social justice among low-income urban residents of the United States, including the most widespread such effort—faith-based community organizing.     

Integrating Religious and Sexual Identities: The Case of Religious Homosexual Men in Singapore

Abstract

The sexual and religious ecosystem in Singapore represents an intricate interplay of factors that religious homosexuals navigate to attain a well-adjusted personal identity. A qualitative research project was conducted to understand how Christian and Muslim homosexual men in Singapore integrate their religious and sexual identities. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine religious homosexuals to elicit responses on their dual-identity experience, and coping strategies. Narrative analysis revealed three themes (and a number of subthemes): (1) Intrapersonal factors (a personal journey, knowledge seeking, reinterpreting belief system, redemption by good deeds, and love prevails over sin), (2) Interpersonal factors (segregating social circles, involvement in the gay community, role models, and social support), and (3) Sociopolitical factors (state and societal tolerance of homosexuals, and homosexual events). Interestingly, the participants assigned positive attributes to being both religious and homosexual, and reported that embodying both identities was enriching than if they had possessed just one of the two identities. This suggests that integrating positive psychological frameworks (e.g., stress-related growth) to existing ones may provide a more holistic account of identity integration among religious homosexuals.     

A Mixed-Methods Approach to Refining and Measuring the Construct of Positive Risk-Taking in Adolescence

Adolescence is a peak period for risk-taking, but research has largely overlooked positive manifestations of adolescent risk-taking due to ambiguity regarding operationalization and measurement of positive risk-taking. We address this limitation using a mixed-methods approach. We elicited free responses from contemporary college students (N = 74, M_age = 20.1 years) describing a time they took a risk. Qualitative analysis informed the construction of a self-report positive risk-taking scale, which was administered to a population-based sample of adolescents (N = 1,249, M_age = 16 years) for quantitative validation and examination of associations with normative and impulsive personality. Sensation seeking predicted negative and positive risk-taking, whereas extraversion and openness were predominantly related to positive risk-taking. Results provide promising evidence for a valid measure of adolescents' engagement in positive risks.     

Explaining Entrepreneurial Behavior: Dispositional Personality Traits,Growth of Personal Entrepreneurial Resources,and Business Idea Generation

Applying a life‐span approach of human development and using the example of science‐based business idea generation, the authors used structural equation modeling to test a mediation model for predicting entrepreneurial behavior in a sample of German scientists (2 measurement occasions; Time 1, N= 488). It was found that recalled early entrepreneurial competence in adolescence predicted business idea generation. This link was mediated by entrepreneurial human and social capital. Moreover, an entrepreneurial Big Five profile was associated with early entrepreneurial competence and predicted entrepreneurial human and social capital. Results underscore the relevance of the long‐neglected developmental approach to entrepreneurship.