On the MacMahon cube law for election results

This note was prompted by remarks of Stanton (1980) which suggest a procedure MacMahon may have used in arriving at the cube law for election results. We begin by briefly reviewing the law and the mystery surrounding its original motivation. We end by assessing Stanton's contribution to the solution of the mystery and pointing out alternative laws.     

Role‐Playing and Playing Roles: The Person,Player, and Persona in Fantasy Role‐Playing

In fantasy role‐playing games, participants collectively create and play fantasy personas in an imaginary universe by using a vast system of rules that function as guidelines for make‐believe action and interaction. Consequently, role‐playing games obligate participants to occupy a liminal role located in the boundaries of persona, player, and person. This study, based on approximately ninety hours of participant observation and forty interviews with thirty role‐players, explores how role‐players actively negotiate these symbolic boundaries: how role‐players carve out distinct spheres of meaning between themselves, their fantasy personas, and status as players of these games. It also illustrates how these distinctions fail. Boundaries erupt and role‐players prove unable to compartmentalize themselves so discretely. Through the lens of these games, we can examine simplified and exaggerated dynamics and entertain the possibility that we are all players located at the liminal margins between the people we believe ourselves to be and the personas we perform in situated social encounters.     

THE INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS AND TREATMENT OF DUAL TRAUMA COUPLES

Many trauma survivor dyads pose intense challenges for couples and marital therapists. Interpersonal reactivity, transference, emotional withdrawal, and associated responses complicate these difficult yet often rewarding cases. Unique aspects and interpersonal dynamics of these couples include specific themes, characteristics, and patterns. Treatment approaches focus on the systemic influences of trauma on interpersonal dynamics and offer interventions to challenge disruptive interactions, attend to the original traumas, and develop healthy relationship patterns.     

Boredom: Where the Future Isn't

This article examines the experience and meaning of boredom in modern society. Boredom is understood as an experience of a lack of momentum or flow in a person's life. Boredom is conceptualized as an interactional phenomenon that is inextricably connected to social rhythm. The communication of boredom is examined with respect to its consequences in self and motive presentation. The article also describes those features of contemporary American life that appear to facilitate the experience and communication of boredom.     

The relative validity of actuarial- and consensus-based risk assessment systems

In an effort to improve decision-making in child protective services (CPS), most states have, over the last two decades, implemented risk assessment systems to guide staff faced with making critical decisions in limited time frames. Generally, these systems are characterized as consensus-based or actuarial models. This study is the first to directly compare the relative validity of these two approaches. Three risk assessment instruments, two consensus-based and one actuarial, were completed on cohorts of cases from four different jurisdictions and outcome information was collected over an 18-month follow-up period. Rates of subsequent investigations, substantiations, and placements were computed for cases classified at low, moderate, and high risk levels in each model. Results clearly demonstrate that the actuarial approach more accurately classifies cases to different risk levels. These actuarial models, therefore, have the greatest potential to improve CPS decision making and better protect America's at risk children.