STANDARDS-MAKING ORGANIZATIONS AND THE RATIONALIZATION OF AMERICAN LIFE

Standards for products and procedures shape every facet of contemporary American life. Yet despite their pervasiveness and their centrality to the process of rationalization, standards have been virtually ignored by sociologists. This paper argues that the evolution of standards promulgating organizations and their struggle for control of the standards-making process is a neglected feature of societal rationalization. Specifically, the history of ANSI and other standards-making organizations illustrates how a shift in the engine of organizational rationalization may have taken place and how, as part of that shift, the "power to set premises" was successfully claimed by the private sector.     

The impact of mental health issues, substance use, and exposure to victimization on pregnancy rates among a sample of youth with past-year foster care placement

The purpose of this study is to (1) compare youth entering substance abuse treatment with and without a history of foster care placement to determine any differences in mental health, substance use, and exposure to victimization, and (2) determine if mental health, substance use, and/or exposure to victimization predict past pregnancy among the sample with a history of foster care placement. The pooled dataset consisted of 17,124 adolescents (12-17 years of age) who completed the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs at intake for substance abuse treatment in 2009. Of these, 366 (2.1%) reported having been in foster care in the past year. When compared with a non-foster care sample, the foster care sample reported significantly higher internal mental distress scores, behavior complexity scores, and general victimization scores, after controlling for race, gender, and level of care. Problems associated with substance use did not differ between groups, though regular tobacco use was present at a higher rate in the foster care sample. Multivariate logistic regression results revealed that, within the foster care sample, internal mental distress and gender predicted past pregnancy. There may be room for intervention within substance abuse treatment centers for youth with a history of foster care, who may be at risk for pregnancy if their levels of internal mental distress are high.     

Alcohol and drug use of inter-city versus rural school age children

The purpose of this study of seventy-nine children was to determine: 1) the prevalence and type of substance use in inter-city and rural eight to twelve-year-old children; and 2) the relationships between child substance use, self-esteem, peer substance use, and family climate. The conceptual framework for the study was a modification of Kumpfer and Turner's Social Ecology Model (1991). Nineteen percent of the children had used alcohol or drugs. Thirty-three percent of the children acknowledged having friends who used substances. Inter-city children reported more alcohol and marijuana use, while the rural children reported more use of inhalants. The responses of both inter-city and rural children also indicated that there were problems with substance use and family violence in the home. Self-esteem and affiliation with drug using peers were significantly correlated with substance use of the child.     

Stress,Depression, and Drug Use Among Aging Mexican American Men Living in the Barrio

Residing in Mexican American barrios might place individuals at heightened risk for chronic financial and acute stress, which are associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Stressors could be exacerbated for substance users. This research explores relations between chronic financial stress, acute stress, and depressive symptomatology among aging Mexican American heroin and other drug-using men. A prospective cohort study and field-intensive outreach methodology were used to recruit 227 men for in-depth interviews. Participants were categorized into depressed and nondepressed groups based on symptomatology measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Chronic financial stress (i.e., poverty) and acute stress (i.e., Life Events Questionnaire) associated with depressive symptomatology were tested using logistic regression. Findings suggest scores of depressive symptoms among substance users are highly related to chronic financial stress. Community-level interventions targeting chronic stressors present in the barrio could be especially salient in improving the mental health of Latino drug users.     

Multidimensionality of sexual attitudes

In four studies, we used the Sexual Attitudes Scale, a new multidimensional instrument, and (a) concluded final construction of the scale, (b) assessed the relationships between the scale and three criterion measures, and (c) provided initial construct validation of the instrument through demonstrated relationships with several relevant psychosocial variables and personality/attitude measures. The instrument was initially administered to a large sample (N = 807); the scores were factor analyzed, and scales were defined. A refined version was cross validated on another large sample (N = 567), with results that mostly replicated earlier results. The Sexual Attitudes Scale was then given to another sample (N = 105), along with the Sexual Opinion Survey, the Reiss Male and Female Premarital Permissiveness Scales, and the sex‐guilt subscale of the Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory. Results showed the Sexual Attitudes Scale to have moderate and conceptually consistent correlations with these other scales. Additional results from three studies revealed significant relationships between subjects' sexual attitudes and relevant demographic/psychosocial variables (e.g., gender, love experience) and demonstrated substantial links between the Sexual Attitudes Scale and measures of related concepts such as sensation seeking and love attitudes. The Sexual Attitudes Scale is a psychometrically sound new scale assessing Sexual Permissiveness, Sexual Practices, Communion, and Instrumentality.     

Coping with Guilt and Shame After Gambling Loss

In this study we examined the relations between guilt and shame and coping strategies in response to gambling loss. Based on H.B. Lewis’s (Shame & guilt in neurosis. New York: International Universities Press, 1971) account of guilt and shame, we proposed that unlike guilt, the experience of shame involves the attribution of gambling loss to stable and global internal factors (i.e., self-devaluation). We hypothesized that problem gambling severity would be more strongly associated with the intensity of shame than with the intensity of guilt following gambling loss. Further, we hypothesized that the intensity of shame would be positively associated with the use of avoidant coping strategies following gambling loss. Finally, we hypothesized that the intensity of shame would mediate the association between problem gambling severity and the use of avoidant coping. These hypotheses were supported by a retrospective survey of recent gambling losses. Our finding suggests that the experience of shame and the use of avoidant coping strategies to deal with this emotion are central to problem gambling severity.     

The fall and rise of ‘use of self’? An exploration of the positioning of use of self in social work education

‘Use of self’ was a central concept in social work in the middle of the twentieth century. Since then its emphasis in social work education has declined as more managerial, procedural and task-focused approaches have prevailed. A review of the degree and postgraduate diploma in social work in Scotland, initiated in 2014, incorporated a comparative content analysis of past and present UK National Occupational Standards (NOS) for social work. The analysis revealed many shifts in thinking and practice, including increased emphasis on ‘use of self’ in the 2013 Standards. This paper reports on this finding in the context of the fluctuating positioning of use of self in social work education, and the potential impact of these changes on qualified practice. It concludes that the changing standards reflect increasing interest in social workers’ ability to draw reflectively on ‘self’ in their day to day practice. Some of the drivers and challenges for a renewed focus on relationship-based practice and use of self are identified, as well as the opportunities presented by this review of the degree for evaluating the impact of changing educational policy on day to day social work practice.     

Christian faith and recovery from substance abuse,guilt, and shame

Although guilt and shame, on one hand, and spirituality, on the other, are known to relate to recovery from substance abuse, the connectedness of these emotions, spirituality, and recovery has hardly been touched in research. This study, drawing from rich qualitative data consisting of the interviews of 21 former substance abusers, each interviewed twice, targets this relationship and analyses how spirituality, in this case more precisely Christian faith, relates to guilt and shame during the process of recovery. Since self-conscious emotions are at least in part socioculturally constructed, Christian faith is seen as a cultural tool that is influencing the ways how to define and cope with guilt and shame in recovery. Both academic and practical conclusions are drawn from the data.     

Differences in sexual guilt and desire in East asian and euro-canadian men

Differences in sexual desire between individuals of East Asian and European descent are well-documented, with East Asian individuals reporting lower sexual desire. The mechanisms that underlie this disparity have received little empirical attention. Recent research has found that sex guilt, "a generalized expectancy for self-mediated punishment for violating or for anticipating violating standards of proper sexual conduct" (Mosher & Cross, 1971 , p. 27), mediates the relationship between culture and sexual desire in East Asian and Euro-Canadian women. The goal of this study was to explore this role of sex guilt in men. Male Euro-Canadian (n?=?38) and East Asian (n?=?45) university students completed online questionnaires. The East Asian men reported significantly lower sexual desire and significantly higher sex guilt. Sex guilt was a significant mediator of the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire, as well as a significant mediator between mainstream acculturation and sexual desire. Among the East Asian men, mainstream acculturation was significantly and negatively correlated with sex guilt such that increasing mainstream acculturation was associated with less sex guilt. The diagnostic and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Marihuana Perception Inventory: the effects of substance abuse instruction

This article reports the latest results of a continuing effort to develop a perceptual inventory of factors associated with the onset of marihuana use among youths and young people. In addition to better understanding why adolescents begin using marihuana, the inventory is intended to assist drug educators target their programs. This phase studied 617 students in three Midwest school districts prior to and after substance abuse instruction to determine the relationship between perceptions and demographic characteristics, and to learn if substance abuse instruction was related to changes in the student's perception of the relationships. Factor analysis again revealed a five-factor solution. All thirty-four inventory items were included in the final solution. Items appeared to group themselves among the scales in a fashion similar to that found in prior studies. However, the larger sample size permitted refinement of the scales: Maturational Difficulties; Excessive Pressure; Parental Failings; Rebelliousness; and Societal/Institutional Weaknesses. The inventory appears to be remarkably stable across demographic characteristics. Significant differences between pretest and posttest scores indicated that students perceived less of a relationship between Maturational Difficulties, Excessive Pressure, and Societal/Institutional Weaknesses and the onset of marihuana use after instruction, and more of a relationship between Parental Failings and the young person's decision to begin using marihuana. It appears that instructional programs can be expected to at least contribute to changes in perceptions concerning the relationship between societal and familial factors and the onset of marihuana use.     

Marital separation and extramarital sexual behavior

The factors related to the occurrence of extramarital coitus (EMC) among persons whose marriages terminate in separation or divorce and the impact of participation in EMC on postmarital adjustment were examined. It was hypothesized that premarital coital experience, quality of marital sex, length of marriage, religiosity, and physical attractiveness would affect the occurrence of EMC. Additionally, tests were performed to assess whether participation in EMC increased, decreased, or had no effect on postmarital adjustment. The data are from a study of 205 individuals, separated no longer than 26 months, who completed in‐depth, face‐to‐face interviews about their marriage, its failure, and its aftermath. Most respondents who experienced EMC report that it was an effect, rather than a cause, of marital problems. Yet respondents tend to report that their spouse's infidelity was a cause of marital problems. Guilt is a significant by‐product of EMC for men and women, but men experience somewhat less guilt. Guilt is inversely related to satisfaction with EMC. Women report a significantly greater emotional involvement with their extramarital partners than men. Females who blamed their spouse or another person for the breakup of their marriage were significantly less likely to have had EMC, but no such relationship was found among males. Religiosity does not predict EMC, but among those who have had EMC, religiosity is positively related to how long after marriage EMC first occurred. There is no relationship between the presence or absence of EMC and marital quality at time of separation. Furthermore, EMC does not appear to be related to postmarital adjustment. Other variables such as marital quality, lifestyle attitudes, perceived consequences of EMC, perceived responsibility for family members, and perception of opportunity to engage in EMC need to be studied to further elucidate the occurrence of extramarital relationships.     

Political and organizational preconditions for application of the standards for educational evaluation : The standards for educational evaluation seen in a wider perspective in relation to policy making and organization

Some of the standards for educational evaluation refer to the political and organizational context in which evaluation projects take place: “conflicting interests,” “political viability,” and various standards which have to do with the identification of the evaluation object and of the most important groups and persons involved. Whereas the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation seems to focus on the level of the individual research project, the present authors feel that in addition, contextual influences on evaluations should be analyzed at a higher level of aggregation. Political and organizational factors at the macro level can even be seen as preconditions for the application of the standards at project level. This point of view is illustrated by referring to a study of the functioning of evaluation research within some innovative programs in Dutch education.     

Standards and the Form of Agreement 2002 Presidential Address Western Economic Association

Contract stipulations tend to be subject to commodity standards. Standards make it clearer what transactors have agreed upon. They also bring stipulations from different contracts under a common denominator. The lower the cost of measuring an attribute and the wider the range of its application, the higher the likelihood that the attribute will become subject to new standards. New standards are predicted to increase the role of contracts in agreements and to reduce that of long-term relations; to lower the prices of the commodities that use the standards; to increase the rate of theft of these commodities; and, by making it clearer what it is that parties exchange, to reduce the level of vertical integration. Finally, new standards propel markets toward perfect competition.     

Bullying among urban Mexican-heritage youth: Exploring risk for substance use by status as a bully,victim, and bully-victim

Little is known about adolescent bullying behavior and its relationship to substance use in ethnic minority populations. In a sample of youth of Mexican heritage, the current study aimed to examine the prevalence of bullying behavior subtypes and its co-occurrence with recent alcohol, cigarette, and inhalant use. Data come from a school-based substance use prevention study in the Southwestern U.S. (n = 809). We explored the prevalence of bullying behavior by status among youth classified as bullies, victims, bully-victims, and rarely-involved bully-victims in an urban context. We also investigated risk of past 30-day use of alcohol, cigarettes, and inhalants by bullying behavior status. Compared to non-involved youth, rarely-involved bully-victims were more likely to use alcohol, bullies were more likely to engage in alcohol and cigarette use, and bully-victims were more likely to use alcohol, cigarettes, and inhalants. In contrast, victims were not significantly at risk of substance use compared to non-involved youth. Chronic bullies and bully-victims are particularly at risk for substance use, with chronic bully-victims reflecting the greatest risk of using multiple substances. Prevention and early intervention programs aimed to reduce bullying can also work to decrease other risky behaviors, such as substance use, and should attend to the growing ethnic diversity among youth.     

Standards of Care for the Treatment of Adult Sex Offenders

Summary

A proposed version of these standards was first produced and published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation through input from professional meetings (Coleman and Dwyer, 1990). Since that time, The Standards of Care were reviewed and revised by a group of professionals and unanimously endorsed by voice vote by the participants in the Third International Congress on the Treatment of Sex Offenders held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 20–22, 1994. These Standards were again published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation (Coleman, Dwyer, Abel, Berner, Breiling, Hindman, Honey-Knopp, Langevin, and Pfäfflin, 1996). Those Standards have been subsequently reviewed by the current authors at the Fifth International Conference on the Treatment of Sex Offenders held in Caracas, Venezuela, March 22–27, 1998 and minor modifications and changes were incorporated into this version. The authors invite feedback from readers. Further revisions are anticipated and will be reviewed by current committee members and at future International Conferences on the Treatment of Sexual Offenders.     

Applicability of standards for evaluations of educational programs, projects and materials in an international setting

This paper starts with a short discussion of the book Standards for Evaluations of Educational Programs, Projects and Materials by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (McGraw-Hill, 1981). It then goes on to examine the usefulness in countries other than the United States of these standards and argues that evaluation of “programs” is more complicated and more politically biased than evaluation of “projects” and “materials.” In Europe, evaluation of educational programs (school systems) has proved to be highly correlated with the overriding objectives of different political parties, e.g., conservative, liberal, socialist, whereas educational policy in the United States is less bound to political parties, varying rather from case to case. In order to show how generally agreed upon educational goals can be interpreted according to different values, the author has reanalysed some studies of mean achievement in reading comprehension and science for 10- and 14-year-old students in 15 countries (IEA Project, 1973). The rank order of these countries is changed if, instead of national mean achievement, one takes proportion of students under a minimum level or above a prescribed top level as the criterion. Also the national (program) standard is evaluated in terms of between-school variance in results and in proportion of single-school units with exceptionally low or exceptionally high mean results. The conclusion is that the book on standards for evaluations of educational programs provides a good checklist of prerequisites for a reliable and valid evaluation. However, it is also concluded that—due to differences in values of program outcomes—such standards do not guarantee that the result of the evaluation will be indisputable.     

SOCIALLY OPTIMAL PLEA BARGAINING WITH COSTLY TRIALS AND BAYESIAN JURIES

This paper investigates optimal plea bargaining when trials are costly, defendant guilt is uncertain, and juries rationally respond to the plea bargaining policy employed. The model shows that when innocence rates among the arrested are low, it is optimal to offer all defendants pleas that are acceptable to guilty and innocent defendants. However, as the innocence rate becomes more significant, optimal plea policy switches to one in which plea offers are only acceptable to guilty defendants. However, even when optimal, the societal benefits to such separating policies are limited due to constraints on the frequency such offers can be made. (JEL D6, D8, K4)     

Standards of Care for the Treatment of Adult Sex Offenders

Abstract

A proposed version of these standards was first produced and published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation through input from professional meetings (Coleman & Dwyer, 1990). Since that time, The Standards of Care were reviewed and revised by a group of professionals and unanimously endorsed by voice vote by the participants in the Third International Congress on the Treatment of Sex Offenders held in Minneapolis, MN, September 20–22, 1994. These Standards were again published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation (Coleman, Dwyer, Abel, Berner, Breiling, Hindman, Honey-Knopp, Langevin, & Pfäfflin, 1996). Those Standards have been subsequently reviewed by the current authors at the Fifth International Conference on the Treatment of Sex Offenders held in Caracas, Venezuela, March 22–27, 1998 and minor modifications and changes were incorporated into this version. The authors invite feedback from readers. Further revisions are anticipated and will be reviewed by current committee members and at future International Conferences on the Treatment of Sexual Offenders.