Erotophobia‐erotophilia as a dimension of personality

This review discusses the measurement, antecedents, and consequents of erotophobia‐erotophilia—the disposition to respond to sexual cues along a negative‐positive dimension of affect and evaluation. Test construction procedures which resulted in a 21‐item measure of this personality construct are reported. Evidence indicates that the measure is internally consistent, shows acceptable degrees of convergent and discriminant validity, and is correlated as expected with related constructs such as authoritarianism, adherence to traditional sex roles, indices of value orthodoxy, and various measures of sex‐related evaluations. Retrospective surveys and group contrasts suggest that erotophobia‐erotophilia is a learned disposition based on one's exposure to sex‐related restrictiveness and punishment during socialization. Consequents of erotophobia‐erotophilia involve avoidance versus approach responses to sexuality in a wide range of situations; scores on this test predict differential sexual experience, responses to erotica, likelihood of engaging in sexual fantasy behavior, the tendency to learn about or teach others about sex, engaging in sex‐related health care, the probability of utilizing contraception, and behaving sexually during pregnancy and postpartum. Cross‐cultural research provides evidence for the generality of this construct beyond North America.     

Family values and labor force participation: Ireland in international perspective

The large-scale entry of married women into the workforce has been a striking feature of the post-war period, particularly in the United States, Britain, and other Anglo-Celtic nations. Theory implies that this should happen in all developed nations. But there is a counter-example: Ireland. To discover whether this is truly an exception, we analyze data from large, representative samples of Ireland, the USA, Britain, and Australia (pooled n=8,240). We find that Irish are not especially traditional; they are especially devout, but the difference persists when this is controlled. Strikingly, the behavior of Irish immigrants is indistinguishable from other Anglo-Celts in their new societies. Thus it seems that Irish exceptionalism arises from an institutional setting uniquely hostile to women’s employment. She is currently coordinating a multi-national research project assessing the extent of ethnic discrimination in different societies. She and Jonathan Kelley are continuing their long-run international, comparative project on economic culture with special reference to inequality. He and M.D.R. Evans conduct their omnibus International Social Science Surveys, which include as their International Survey of Economic Attitudes, their Bioethics surveys, the Australian National Social Science Survey, and others. They are completing a book on time use and subjective well-being in later life. She researches intergenerational social mobility and occupational careers with special reference to gender, and also studies socio-political attitudes and their sources, particularly using International Social Survey Program data.     

Taking Tilly south: durable inequalities, democratic contestation, and citizenship in the Southern Metropolis

Drawing on Charles Tilly’s work on inequality, democracy and cities, we explore the local level dynamics of democratization across urban settings in India, South Africa, and Brazil. In all three cases, democratic institutions are consolidated, but there is tremendous variation in the quality of the democratic relationship between cities and their citizens. We follow Tilly’s focus on citizenship as the key element in democratization and argue that explaining variance across our three cases calls for analyzing patterns of inequality through the kind of relational lens used by Tilly and recognizing that patterns of contestation are shaped by shifting political relationships between the nation and the city. We conclude that Tilly’s theoretical frame is nicely sustained by the comparative analysis of cases very different from those that stimulated his original formulations.     

Older Professional Women's Views on Work: A Qualitative Analysis

This qualitative study reports on the career experiences of older professional women using consensual qualitative research. Thirteen women over age 50 were interviewed regarding the influences of gender and age on work. In general, all participants reported career adaptability, and many participants also reported specific subthemes of career adaptability (i.e., concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) as resources. These subthemes denote participants' future orientation, self‐discipline as evidenced by their conscientiousness in career decisions, active information seeking, and certitude that they have the ability to solve career‐related problems. Relationships with colleagues were also considered critical, and participants acknowledged the benefits and drawbacks of being a woman and being older. These women were able to achieve flexibility and autonomy in their work and spoke about the importance of work–family balance and boundaries. Practitioners are encouraged to consider how career adaptability is manifested within the interplay between gender and age, because this can influence career counseling with older women.     

Bayesian inference in two‐arm trials using relative belief ratios

Various methodologies proposed for some inference problems associated with two‐arm trails are known to suffer from difficulties, as documented in Senn (2001). We propose an alternative Bayesian approach to these problems that deals with these difficulties through providing an explicit measure of statistical evidence and the strength of this evidence. Bayesian methods are often criticized for their intrinsic subjectivity. We show how these concerns can be dealt with through assessing the bias induced by a prior model checking and checking for prior‐data conflict. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inflammatory effects and immune system correlates of rape

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of measuring stress hormones and immunity following rape. The long-term goal is to evaluate the predictive value of stress-immune-inflammatory responses to later health outcomes. Fifteen women reporting rape were compared with 16 control participants. Serum stress hormones, proinflammatory cytokines, acute phase proteins, functional assays, and lymphocyte subsets were measured in blood samples. Women reporting rape had higher cytotoxic cells, lower B lymphocyte counts, higher proinflammatory biomarkers, and decreased lymphocyte proliferation compared to the control group. This finding suggests that rape produces activation of the innate immunity and suppression of some aspects of adaptive immunity. If these immune changes persist, they may contribute to the pathophysiology of long-term health sequelae by provoking chronic inflammation and decreased cellular immunocompetence.     

Subjective experiences of stress workload, and bodily discomfort as a function of age and type of computer work

An increasingly older workforce and a growing emphasis on jobs involving interaction with computers have resulted in a need to more carefully examine the relationship between ageing and computer-based work. In this study, a sample of 394 subjects ranging in age from 20-75 years performed a computer task across a 3-day period. Three different types of computer-based jobs (data entry, information retrieval, and accounts balancing) performed at three large US companies were simulated. Age differences in the subjective experience of stress, workload, and bodily discomfort were evaluated. The results indicated that age effects for these measures varied according to task. The older subjects perceived greater workload for the more mentally challenging problem-solving oriented accounts balancing task (Which involved a graphical user interface) than the younger participants, even with increased exposure to the task. However, the older subjects generally experienced less stress than the younger subjects on an information retrieval task that involved a more socially interactive telephone component. A positive relationship between the frustration component of workload and the measure of stress was also found, suggesting an important link between the constructs of stress and workload. Overall, the outcomes of this study provide important insights into design interventions intended to accommodate older as well as younger persons in the workforce.     

Therapeutic Maps For Therapeutic Mazes: The ‘Time Sphere’ as an Interventive Mapping of Family Movements in Context

In this paper I want to describe the use of a technique which I have termed the ‘Time Sphere’. The combination of a life cycle model with the chronological mapping of closeness–distance has allowed for useful consideration of various relational events not previously explored by the family or therapist. By sharing the information visually with the client family we are able to explore context, family of origin influences and life cycle transitions within an extended family model. Ultimately my hope is to develop this model further as a creative means of exploring how family patterns and relationships are repeated, and how context is ultimately the key to understanding. To preserve confidentiality, my ‘case’ is an amalgam of several real client families.     

Student-Centered Teaching: The Analog to Client-Centered Practice

A team of faculty explain the use of a developmental curriculum design to teach a direct practice methods course. The design is based on the principles of andragogy, which highlights self-motivated adult learning. Students and faculty collaborate in setting and implementing course objectives. The authors differentiate between the developmental design and the more traditional structured curriculum. These two approaches are compared according to their course objectives, specific content, role of faculty, and learning process. Illustrations from the course are used for clarification purposes.