SEX ROLE CONSIDERATIONS AND BEHAVIORAL MARITAL THERAPY: EQUAL DOES NOT MEAN IDENTICAL*

Despite the egalitarian position espoused in behavioral marital therapy, little attention has been paid to sex role issues and female-male differences. This paper explores advantages and disadvantages of behavioral marital therapy vis à vis the treatment of women and men. Features of behavioral marital therapy implicated as important in the consideration of sex role issues include underlying assumptions of egalitarianism, assumptions of external causality, and orientation toward action, as well as specific procedures such as goal setting, behavioral exchange and training in communication and problem-solving skills. Each of these features is evaluated with respect to clinical considerations as well as to research findings on female-male differences in marriage. The paper concludes with recommendations as to how behavioral marital therapy could become more sensitive to sex role issues.     

Beyond a Simple Case of Black and White: Searching for the White Male Effect in the African-American Community

Prior research focusing on risk perceptions has led to the observation that well‐educated and politically conservative white males tend to systematically perceive lower levels of risk from a wide range of hazards when compared to other members of society (e.g., white women, nonwhite women and men). While this “white male effect (WME)” is quite striking given that many policymakers fall into this group, a byproduct of this finding is that it deflects attention from the heterogeneity, in terms of people's concerns about risks, that exists in African‐American and other minority communities. The research reported here set out to explore this heterogeneity by asking a simple question: Can a phenomenon similar to the WME be found in the African‐American community? It can, and its implications for research and practice in risk management are discussed.     

Multiversity of the twenty-first century – examining opportunities for integrating community engagement in planning curricula

Abstract

This paper examines student-community engagement activity in planning. This is a subset of university–community engagement, and is a point of overlap between such engagement and planning education. Community engagement activity enables students to learn in situ practical skills within live projects, while community partners may benefit from technical knowhow, and labour input. Based on a UK-wide survey and three in-depth case studies, the paper explores the pedagogical designs underpinning community engagement activities involving students, as well as the various capacities in which the different participants – students, instructors and community members – act. The analysis reveals considerable diversity in approaches. An alignment of student engagement activities in the planning curriculum with emerging transformative co-learning models of university-community engagement could offer novel opportunities for the discipline of planning and their impact on communities as well as the fields standing in today’s multiversities.     

Baby boomlet for older mothers?

In recent years, a number of celebrities have begun childbearing after age 35. The phenomena of older first-time mothers has received a great deal of attention in the popular press. Are these celebrities indicative of a national trend? Does the increase in fertility portend a reversal of the declines in fertility which have been occurring since the baby boom? The present paper uses central and cumulative birth rates for cohorts of American white women born between 1882 and 1953 to investigate childbearing between ages 35 and 50. While there has been a noticeable upsurge in first birth rates for cohorts in their mid to late 30s in recent years, overall central birth rates for women in their 30s are among the lowest on record, with cumulative birth rates at record low levels. A major reason for this is that these women are having relatively few third and higher order births. These cohorts will need to have a relatively high proportion of births in their older years of childbearing in order to reach replacement level. However, attaining replacement level is unlikely because such a high proportion of women have remained childless at ages 35–40 and a relatively low proportion are having three or more children.     

Improving Closing Task Completion in a Drugstore

A within-subject ABAB reversal design was utilized to investigate the effects of graphic feedback and goal setting on employee closing task completion. Goal setting was contingent upon baseline performance and graphic feedback was posted weekly. It was found that goal setting and graphic feedback improved employee closing task completion.     

Young Carers,The Overlooked Caregiving Population: Introduction to a Special Issue

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal -     

Body Image and Self‐Esteem Among Adolescent Girls: Testing the Influence of Sociocultural Factors

In Western cultures, girls' self‐esteem declines substantially during middle adolescence, with changes in body image proposed as a possible explanation. Body image develops in the context of sociocultural factors, such as unrealistic media images of female beauty. In a study of 136 U.K. girls aged 11–16, experimental exposure to either ultra‐thin or average‐size magazine models lowered body satisfaction and, consequently, self‐esteem. Self‐esteem was also lower among older than among younger girls. Structural equation modeling showed that this age trend was partially accounted for by a corresponding downward trend in body satisfaction; this, in turn, was fully accounted for by upward age trends in awareness and internalization of sociocultural attitudes toward appearance, and in social comparison with media models. Results support calls for early educational interventions to help girls to deconstruct advertising and media images.     

DISSECTING THE MONTY HALL ANOMALY

We assess competing explanations of irrational behavior in the Monty Hall problem by creating new variants of the problem. Some variants employ a feature that automates the merging of probabilities, thus rendering transparent the probabilistic advantage of the rational choice. That feature also enables systematic variation in informational asymmetry, and in ordering of actions. Data from 77 subjects, each of whom makes 30 binary decisions, indicate that automated merging raises the fraction of rational choices from around 40% to over 80%. Other features examined have much less impact, indicating the importance of a Bayesian updating failure. (JEL C91, D02, D81, D83)