Typen religiöser Sozialformen und ihre Bedeutung für die Analyse religiösen Wandels in Deutschland

The article examines different forms of institutionalization of religion in Germany since the 1950s. Going beyond the classical church-sect dichotomy, we discuss in a theoretical part communities, organizations, market relations, movements and events as possible candidates for the structuring of religious communication. In an empirical part, we outline recent changes of social forms in Germany. By addressing divergent trajectories in the major German churches, smaller Christian denominations, immigrant religions and the evolving spectrum of new religiosity, we show that a general trend is not observable. The developments do not prove the often claimed ‘end of religious communities’. It rather seems that modernity produces a variety of religious social forms that seem to balance the tension between communalization (Vergemeinschaftung) and socialization (Vergesellschaftung).     

Verbetrieblichung und betrieblicher Konflikt

Since the 1990s there is an ongoing process of decentralisation and ??Verbetrieblichung?? in German labour regulation. The opening of regional sector-level collective agreements for additional specific bargaining at the plant level is evaluated and discussed by practitioners and scholars very controversially. Critics of the decentralisation trends expect an increase of distributive conflicts inside plants and companies. The article analyses whether there are actually signs for an increase of conflicts in firm-level industrial relations in this context, and if so, under which conditions conflicts are likely to occur. Based in theoretical considerations, the article analyses the influence of different patterns of collective agreements on the incidence of conflicts and the relationship between employers and employees at firm level. Empirical data stems from a representative survey that includes interviews with management and employee representatives from German private sector companies. The data suggest some evidence on the conflict reducing function of industry-level collective agreements. Changes in a firm??s regulation structure appear to increase conflicts.     

Contextualizing the Governance of Community Co-operatives: Evidence from Austria and Germany

The article inquires into the role of the institutional context in explaining the governance of community co-operatives. These organizations do not solely focus on a member’s advantage but act on behalf of some collective identity. To enhance our understanding of the nature of co-operative governance on the neighborhood level, we draw on theoretical concepts that are context-sensitive, helping us to catch the institutional conditions in a specific place which are enabling individuals and groups to act and organize collectively. Thus, we enrich the abstract concept of governance put forward by New Institutional Economics. Based on a systematic analysis of case studies, the paper shows that the governance of community co-operatives is based on place-bound values. However, the encounter of divergent imaginations of the neighborhood results in different co-operative practices: e.g., either a government-directed practice to “discipline” the community or a community-initiated practice of self-organization.     

School-based prevention of bullying and relational aggression in adolescence: the fairplayer.manual

The fairplayer.manual is a school-based program to prevent bullying. The program consists of fifteen to seventeen consecutive ninety-minute lessons using cognitive-behavioral methods, methods targeting group norms and group dynamics, and discussions on moral dilemmas. Following a two-day training session, teachers, together with skilled fairplayer.teamers, implement fairplayer.manual in the classroom during regular school lessons. This chapter offers a summary of the program's conception and underlying prevention theory and summarizes the results from two evaluation studies. Standardized questionnaires showed a positive impact of the intervention program on several outcome variables.     

Obesity and hospitalization over the adult life course: does duration of exposure increase use?

Consistent with a new genre of research on life-course analyses of health-service use, this study explores the consequences of long-term exposure to a risk factor. Drawing from cumulative-disadvantage theory, the study examines whether obesity, especially chronic obesity, increases hospitalization admission and length of stay. Analyses make use of hospital records abstracted over 20 years from a national survey of adults 41 to 77 years of age at baseline (n = 4,574). Multiple measures of body weight are used to calculate adult obesity duration. Results reveal that obesity increased hospital admissions and length of stay over the 20 years studied. Among persons obese at any time during the study, years of obesity also led to longer stays. The findings highlight the utility of measures of the duration of risk exposure for both life-course studies of health and tests of cumulative-disadvantage theory.     

Perception vs. Circumstances of the Child Sexual Abuse Event in Relation to Depression and Post-traumatic Stress Symptomatology

The study examined the impact of the circumstances of childhood sexual abuse on post-traumatic stress symptoms and depression among female adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The sample consisted of 225 Israeli women divided into two groups according to the identity of the perpetrator (nonfamily perpetrator versus a family member perpetrator). A self-report questionnaire was used consisting of the following scales: demographic variables, the Traumatic Events Questionnaire, Childhood Sexual Experiences Scale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale, and Depression Scale. The findings indicated that the identity of the offender significantly differed between groups only if intercourse had occurred. Women who experienced coerced intercourse scored significantly higher on depression and post-traumatic stress compared to those who experienced other forms of childhood sexual abuse.     

Book Review

Affective forecasting refers to the process of predicting emotional reactions to future events. It plays an important role in decision making, but is also prone to errors, such as the ‘impact bias’: a tendency to overestimate the intensity of future reactions. The impact bias has been considered evolutionarily adaptive, as it performs a protective function in motivating people to avoid risky behaviour. Affective forecasting may be qualitatively different in a risk-taking population such as problem gamblers (PGs). In particular, PGs may fail to show the impact bias. This study was the first to examine affective forecasting in PGs. PGs (N = 25) and controls (N = 29) were asked to predict how they would feel after completing a guessing task. As hypothesized, controls exaggerated how bad they would feel after losing at the task, whereas PGs accurately predicted their reactions. Encouraging PGs to focus on anticipated emotions may be a novel target for treatment interventions.     

Nonlinear mixed‐effect models with nonignorably missing covariates

Nonlinear mixed‐effect models are often used in the analysis of longitudinal data. However, it sometimes happens that missing values for some of the model covariates are not purely random. Motivated by an application to HTV viral dynamics, where this situation occurs, the author considers likelihood inference for this type of problem. His approach involves a Monte Carlo EM algorithm, along with a Gibbs sampler and rejection/importance sampling methods. A concrete application is provided.     

Authors’ response: on the role of data,statistics and decisions in a pandemic

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis -