The Use of Humor With Older Adults Aging in Place

As more older adults seek ways to remain in their homes during their “golden years,” humor has proven to be a worthwhile intervention that reduces stress and provides a hopeful, playful, and optimistic environment. Development of creative and supportive housing situations for older adults combined with the use of modern technology (e.g., the Internet and computer devices used in the home), aid in bringing humor to the older adult. This article addresses some of the challenges that older adults face and the way that the use of humor can assist them to meet these challenges.     

Sexual Assault Risks Among Gay and Bisexual Men

The goal of this study was to examine lifetime patterns of sexual assault and associated risks among a purposive sample of gay and bisexual men (N = 183; 18 to 35 years old, M = 24.3). Cross-sectional data were collected via written, self-administered questionnaires and face-to-face, event-based qualitative interviews. Alcohol severity scores indicated high rates of hazardous drinking (53.0%) and possible dependence (14.2%) among participants. One-half of men (50.8%) reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and 67.2% reported adult sexual assault (ASA). Average age at most recent ASA was 21 years. Most perpetrators (83.9%) of recent ASA incidents were male; 67.0% of participants reported consuming alcohol and/or drugs prior to the most recent incident. Regression findings indicated more severe CSA experiences and past alcohol-related problems predicted recent severe ASA. Although we found similarities between gay and bisexual men in lifetime sexual assault history, we found some distinct differences in ASA risk factors. Bisexual men reported higher alcohol severity scores, more female ASA perpetrators, higher internalized homophobia scores, and fewer male sexual partners than gay men. Findings suggest the need for interventions that reduce ASA risk among sexual minority men—and the potential benefits of focusing on alcohol consumption in risk reduction efforts.     

Where College‐Bound Students Send Their SAT Scores: Does Race Matter?*

Objective. I examine where Texas students send their SAT scores in 1998 to identify their revealed preferences for higher education and determine if race/ethnicity influences their decision. Methods. Using data from the Texas Schools Microdata Panel, I estimate the influence of race/ethnicity on various college choice sets using a multinomial logit model. Results. The empirical estimation indicates that minorities perceive their opportunities at Texas public institutions to be different from whites. Furthermore, although blacks and Hispanics are less likely than whites to send their SAT scores to selective Texas institutions, they are more likely to send their scores to selective institutions out of state. Conclusion. Although the reasons for this are currently unclear, a possible suspect is the Hopwood v. Texas decision, a court ruling ending affirmative action initiatives in the admissions decisions of all Texas public colleges and universities.     

Psychological and cultural factors in the process of occupational achievement

An eight-equation model embodies the hypothesis that cultural differences among ethnic-religious groups give rise to differences in psychological dispositions, which, though not directly observable, influence occupational achievement, directly or via educational attainment, while being subject to feedback from one or the other of these endogenous variables. Dispositions are reflected in three fallible indicators, constructed from items in a survey interview of native white men in the Detroit area; the survey also secured socioeconomic measures and an estimate of intelligence. The model is block recursive and over-identified. Parameter estimates are secured by a sequence of ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares procedures, after solving out the structural equations to eliminate the unobservable variables. Numerical results do not strongly support the “Protestant Ethic” theory of achievement, but do suggest that the influence of education on occupation is mediated by motivational as well as cognitive and institutional factors.     

A note on deriving rank-dependent utility using additive joint receipts

Luce and Fishburn (1991) derived a general rank-dependent utility model using an operation ⊕ of joint receipt. Their argument rested on an empirically supported property (now) calledsegregation and on the assumption that utility is additive over ⊕. This note generalizes that conclusion to the case where utility need not be additive over ⊕, but rather is of a more general form, which they derived but did not use in their article. Tversky and Kahneman (1992), conjecturing that the joint receipt of two sums of money is simply their sum, criticized that original model because ⊕=+ together with additive utility implies the unacceptable conclusion that the utility of money is proportional to money. In the present generalized theory, if ⊕=+, utility is a negative exponential function of money rather than proportional. Similar results hold for losses. The case of mixed gains and losses is less well understood.     

On Being a Strength Coach: Child Welfare and the Strengths Model

Strength coaches help athletes assess their strengths and build on them. Likewise, social workers dealing with children and families in the child welfare system, rather than looking for pathology, can learn to help clients discover and develop their strengths, even while dealing with a child welfare bureaucracy. This article gives examples of the strength coach approach.     

Institutional Diversity and Performance in African Cotton Sectors

This article analyses the performance of cotton sectors across East, Southern, and West Africa, paying particular attention to the wide diversity of institutional arrangements that they now exhibit. It finds strong support for earlier contentions regarding trade‐offs between competition and coordination, and between the roles of public and private sectors. New insights provide concrete and context‐specific guidance to policy‐makers and stakeholders regarding the key challenges they will face and the risks they will need to manage as they work to improve productivity and ensure an equitable division of benefits within cotton sectors.