A theory of happiness-wealth relationship with status-sensitive communication

Personal happiness might not solely depend on the individual's level of wealth but also on the individual's level of sincere social capital. This paper argues that if sincere interpersonal communication is sensitive to economic status disparities, the accumulation of personal wealth beyond the community's average erodes the individual's sincere social capital. A measure of sincere social capital that is based on such sensitivity is constructed. Its consideration leads to the depiction of the individual's happiness-wealth relationship as an inverted U-shaped curve that peaks at personal wealth that is greater than the community mean.     

Attitudes of nursing students toward death and dying: A research note

Fear, denial, and the avoidance of death and dying appear to be products of life in modern society. While society insulates most people from contact with the death and dying of others, there are professions that come into repeated contact with dying individuals. The present study uses the Collett‐Lester Fear of Death Scale to analyze the Fear of Death and Dying for Self and Others (four subscales) among a sample of registered nurses (BA level). Over a 10‐year period, nurses’ fears concerning death and dying were measured at three points—before a course on death and dying (Pretest), after the course (Posttest), and at a point in their professional nursing practice (Retest). The results suggest that these nurses’ fears of death for self and others change at a statistically significant level over the Pretest and Posttest observations; however, the changes are temporary. The Fear of Dying for Self and Others tends to decline significantly over the Pretest and Retest observations. Age, religion, religiosity, and employment factors were also analyzed vis‐à‐vis the Fear of Death and Dying Subscales. Some directions for additional research into nurses’ fears about death and dying are given.     

Framing the experiences of BME social work students within a narrative of Educating for a Culturally Diverse Workforce

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) has noted that a higher percentage of black and minority ethnic (BME) students fail or take longer to complete their social work degrees, compared with the white majority student population. In response to this and related evidence, a national study was carried out in 2013 to explore this phenomenon and ways to support BME students in social work education in Scotland. BME students from five Scottish universities were interviewed, along with lecturers from six Scottish Universities, and practice educators from around Scotland. The background to the study is discussed and a review of the literature on race, whiteness, diversity and a strengths-based perspective is provided. The methodology of the study is explained, followed by a presentation of some of the key findings covering the themes of cultural difference, discrimination and valuing student strengths. To prepare social work students to practice in a culturally diverse and culturally aware workforce the paper argues for framing of social work education within a strengths-based perspective, of valuing diversity and other knowledges and for this approach to be embedded within a critique of both race and whiteness.     

Organizational Identity and Legitimacy under Major Environmental Changes: Tales of Two UK Building Societies

We studied how organizational identity (OI) and organizational legitimacy (OL) interplayed within two British building societies during drastic environmental changes over two decades. Four salient phases of environmental changes were identified in the British building society sector over the last two decades (introduction of new regulatory framework, recession, demutualization threats and post‐demutualization era). Comparative analysis of the two firms' responses to the environmental changes found that, employing distinct specific strategies, both firms accorded tremendous attention and efforts to OI narration and re‐narration in order to regain OL. Four properties were identified regarding the interplay between OI narrative and OL: level, locus, mechanism and approach. Our study contributes to the literature by (a) empirically demonstrating the role of the OI/OL interplay in understanding the relationship between organizations and external changes; (b) empirically demonstrating the valence of a narrative approach to OI as a useful perspective to study organizational change and OL; and (c) identifying the role of narrative in leading and directing such changes.     

Diagnostics for multivariate imputations

Summary.  We consider three sorts of diagnostics for random imputations: displays of the completed data, which are intended to reveal unusual patterns that might suggest problems with the imputations, comparisons of the distributions of observed and imputed data values and checks of the fit of observed data to the model that is used to create the imputations. We formulate these methods in terms of sequential regression multivariate imputation, which is an iterative procedure in which the missing values of each variable are randomly imputed conditionally on all the other variables in the completed data matrix. We also consider a recalibration procedure for sequential regression imputations. We apply these methods to the 2002 environmental sustainability index, which is a linear aggregation of 64 environmental variables on 142 countries.     

To be or not to be: the effects of aging stereotypes on the will to live

This study examined whether stereotypes of aging might contribute to decisions the elderly make about when to die. Old and young participants (N=64) were subliminally primed with either negative or positive stereotypes of old age and then responded to hypothetical medical situations involving potentially fatal illnesses. Consistent with our prediction, the aged participants primed with negative stereotypes tended to refuse life-prolonging interventions, whereas the old participants primed with positive age stereotypes tended to accept the interventions. This priming effect did not emerge among the young participants for whom the stereotypes were less relevant. The results suggest that societally-transmitted negative stereotypes of aging can weaken elderly people's will to live.     

On the definition and varieties of attitude and wellbeing

In a paper published in Social Indicators Research in 1975, Levy and Guttman proved the proposition that wellbeing is a special case of attitude. They exploited this result for establishing a certain lawfulness for wellbeing behavior, and built on this for revealing more specialized features of the lawfulness. Five years later in this same journal, Andrews and McKennell published two papers on exactly the same proposition, but without proving it, without building on known relevant lawfulness of attitudinal behavior, and without mentioning (neither positively nor negatively) the Levy-Guttman work. The Andrews-McKennell papers are shown to be a retrogression rather than a scientific advance, being conceptually confused, using inappropriate data analysis, and dealing with arbitrary assumptions which are either untested, untestable or false.     

Integrating risk assessment and life cycle assessment: a case study of insulation.

Increasing residential insulation can decrease energy consumption and provide public health benefits, given changes in emissions from fuel combustion, but also has cost implications and ancillary risks and benefits. Risk assessment or life cycle assessment can be used to calculate the net impacts and determine whether more stringent energy codes or other conservation policies would be warranted, but few analyses have combined the critical elements of both methodologies In this article, we present the first portion of a combined analysis, with the goal of estimating the net public health impacts of increasing residential insulation for new housing from current practice to the latest International Energy Conservation Code (IECC 2000). We model state-by-state residential energy savings and evaluate particulate matter less than 2.5 microm in diameter (PM2.5), NOx, and SO2 emission reductions. We use past dispersion modeling results to estimate reductions in exposure, and we apply concentration-response functions for premature mortality and selected morbidity outcomes using current epidemiological knowledge of effects of PM2.5 (primary and secondary). We find that an insulation policy shift would save 3 x 10(14) British thermal units or BTU (3 x 10(17) J) over a 10-year period, resulting in reduced emissions of 1,000 tons of PM2.5, 30,000 tons of NOx, and 40,000 tons of SO2. These emission reductions yield an estimated 60 fewer fatalities during this period, with the geographic distribution of health benefits differing from the distribution of energy savings because of differences in energy sources, population patterns, and meteorology. We discuss the methodology to be used to integrate life cycle calculations, which can ultimately yield estimates that can be compared with costs to determine the influence of external costs on benefit-cost calculations.