What Determines Trust in Information About Food-Related Risks? Underlying Psychological Constructs

Trust in risk information about food related-hazards may be an important determinant of public reactions to risk information. One of the central questions addressed by the risk communication literature is why some individuals and organizations are trusted as sources of risk information and others are not. Industry and government often lack public trust, whereas other sources (for example, consumer organizations, the quality media, medical doctors) are highly trusted. Problematically, previous surveys and questionnaire studies have utilized questions generated by the investigators themselves to assess public perceptions of trust in different sources. Furthermore, no account of the hazard domain was made. In the first study reported here, semistructured interviewing was used to elicit underpinning constructs determining trust and distrust in different sources providing food-related risk information ( n = 35). In the second study, the repertory grid method was used to elicit the terminology that respondents use to distinguish between different potential food-related information sources ( n = 35), the data being submitted to generalised Procrustes analysis. The results of the two studies were combined and validated in survey research ( n = 888) where factor analysis indicated that knowledge in itself does not lead to trust, but that trusted sources are seen to be characterised by multiple positive attributes. Contrary to previous research, complete freedom does not lead to trust—rather sources which possess moderate accountability are seen to be the most trusted.     

Old Structures,New Relations: How Community Development Credit Unions Define Organizational Boundaries

Studies of organizational dynamics examine the manner in which an organization's immediate environment defines the rules and requirements to which individual organizations must conform in order to receive legitimacy and support (Scott, 1992:132). In this paper we consider the question of how an organization can achieve legitimacy and support without necessarily compromising its organizational forms or practices to isomorphic pressures. We frame the question in terms of the boundaries between organizations and their environments. Where the population ecology studies show the survival value of adopting known organizational forms and practices, and neoinstitutionalism addresses the need to display compliance with accepted forms, our case study demonstrates the possibility of removing an organization or set of organizations from the familiar interaction by naming it as a subfield of the organizational field, sharing the environment, but out of the way of predefined norms and practices.     

The Chicago School,So-Called

Many sociologists believe in the myth of a Chicago School, a unified and coherent body of thought and research practice carried on at the University of Chicago from the 1920s through the 1960s. Chicago never constituted such a coherent system and is better understood as a school of activity, a group of people who cooperated in the day-to-day running of a major department.     

A Comparison of the Effect of Two Computer-Based Counseling Interventions on the Career Decidedness of Adults

This article describes two computer-based career counseling interventions provided for adults who are auto workers in career transition. It was found that these workers can increase their level of career decidedness and make progress in their commitment to occupational choice through the use of a computer-based career counseling program. Supporting previous research, this study indicated that computer-plus-counselor intervention is more effective in this type of career counseling than the computer-only intervention.     

Liberation groups and life philosophy

Social liberation movements are significant arenas for cultural value growth. I discuss two forms of value growth that occur on the social liberation front-life philosophy value growth and life-style value growth. I show how life philosophy values are personal identity instilling values while life-style values are social identity instilling values. Unfortunately, within many social liberation movements, the two sorts of values often get confused with one another. I discuss some of these confusions within both the black liberation and feminist liberation movements. I also discuss some proper value growth models that work appropriately within these movements.     

In sickness but not in health: self-ratings, identity, and mortality

Self-rated health as a predictor of mortality has been studied primarily in large, representative populations, with relatively little progress toward understanding the information processing that individuals use to arrive at these ratings. With subsamples of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) data for respondents with circulatory system disease (N = 3,709) and respondents with no diagnosable disorders (N = 1,127) at baseline, we test the idea that individuals with experience of chronic disease of the circulatory system will have more predictive self-ratings of health than healthy individuals. Poor or fair self-rated health increased the adjusted hazard of all-cause mortality for respondents with circulatory system disease, but not for respondents who were healthy. Additional analyses confirm that poor or fair self-rated health is particularly predictive for respondents with self-reported history of circulatory system diagnoses and perception of symptoms, but not for respondents without symptoms or diagnoses prior to the NHANES physical exam.     

Child maltreatment in families experiencing domestic violence

This study examined the association between physical domestic violence (PDV) and reported child maltreatment in a cohort of children at risk for maltreatment. Participants were 219 6- to 7-year-old children and their caregivers. PDV was measured by combining caregivers' self-reports and children's reports, while child maltreatment was based on state Division of Social Services Central Registry records. Among 219 child-caregiver pairs studied, 42 (19.2%) had at least one maltreatment report in the 2 years following the interviews. PDV consistently predicted child maltreatment, with adjusted odds ratios ranging from 2.96 to 3.46. In addition, we investigated interactions between PDV and other predictors of child maltreatment. Among Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) participants, PDV was highly associated with child maltreatment. However, this pattern was not observed among subjects who did not have AFDC. There is an increased incidence of child maltreatment reports in families experiencing PDV. AFDC participation intensified the probability of child maltreatment in the presence of PDV. Findings also suggest that in households experiencing PDV, social supports may protect children from maltreatment.     

Long-term care policy for the elderly in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine: a case study of social development following the collapse of Communism

In this paper, we review the status of social policy for the elderly in Ukraine since the fall of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union. We specifically address the problem of "rebuilding" an income and services policy for the at-risk elderly after the unraveling of the system that existed prior to the fall of Communism. Also, we address some existing problems faced by the elderly in the health care system. Within this context, we present a case study of the current status of long-term care policy for the elderly in one province of Ukraine, the eastern province of Zaporozhye, encompassing the industrial city of Zaporozhye on the Dnieper River. This case study particularly pays attention to current attempts to promote a social development process of long-term care services for the elderly. It examines recent developments with respect to public sector organizations and voluntary sector organizations that are trying to provide necessary services to the needy elderly. With respect to the voluntary sector, the paper pays particular attention to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) model of a largely externally funded NGO that provides comprehensive and integrated social supports, while emphasizing local empowerment and the use of volunteers, for the needy Jewish population in the province of Zaporozhye. Based on our findings, we make some proposals regarding the improvement of income and services policy with respect to the elderly in Zaporozhye and Ukraine.