Knowledge-Based Representations of Risk Beliefs

Beliefs about risks associated with two risk agents, AIDS and toxic waste, are modeled using knowledge-based methods and elicited from subjects via interactive computer technology. A concept net is developed to organize subject responses concerning the consequences of the risk agents. It is found that death and adverse personal emotional and sociological consequences are most associated with AIDS. Toxic waste is most associated with environmental problems. These consequence profiles are quite dissimilar, although past work in risk perception would have judged the risk agents as being quite similar. Subjects frequently used causal semantics to represent their beliefs and "% of time" instead of "probability" to represent likelihoods. The news media is the most prevalent source of risk information although experiences of acquaintances appear more credible. The results suggest that "broadly based risk" communication may be ineffective because people differ in their conceptual representation of risk beliefs. In general, the knowledge-based approach to risk perception representation has great potential to increase our understanding of important risk topics.     

An idea whose time has not come: comparable worth and the market salary problem

This article analyzes the most recent decision by a U.S. court to reject implementing the doctrine of comparable worth under the disparate impact approach to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case involved an employer that based compensation for employees upon competitive market rates. The disparate impact model would appear on the surface to be the appropriate vehicle to address wage inequalities that result from a market rate system, since market rates would seem to qualify as a facially neutral employer policy which has a discriminatory impact. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, however, found the model was inappropriate to challenge wide-ranging general compensation policies and particularly the practice of basing compensation for employees upon the competitive market.     

THE STRUCTURE OF SEPARATED WOMEN'S COMMUNICATION WITH THEIR NONPROFESSIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL NETWORKS

This study assessed separated women's communication with their social network members—family, friends, clergy, attorneys and therapists. Women and their social network members were asked about the frequency and timing of their communication pre- and post-separation. Of particular interest to therapists is the finding that women seem to communicate with therapists before they begin to seriously think about separating and after they have made the decision, but not during the decision-making process. Implications of this finding are discussed.     

A different kind of caregiving support group

1. Support groups are an important and frequent source of help for caregivers of older adults who experience a high degree of physical and emotional stress. However, not every participant feels comfortable speaking in a group setting. 2. Writing is a form of emotional expression that has been shown to produce both physiological and psychological benefits. Use of narrative writing as an adjunct to traditional group therapy methods has not been studied. 3. In this pilot project, use of writing within the support group format provided caregivers with an additional strategy for coping with the stressors of caregiving. Participants' physical and mental health improved significantly after participating in the group. 4. Therapeutic writing can be used independently or in a group to enable emotional expression. Nurses who work with caregivers can help develop interventions that use narrative writing as a method to improve coping.     

Impulsiveness,impulsive aggression,personality disorder,and spousal violence

Impulsiveness has become a key concept in thinking about the determinants of violence and aggression. In this study of spouse abusers, the relationship between impulsiveness, impulsive aggression, and physical violence is confirmed. Impulsiveness and impulsive aggression have significant correlations with physical aggression. Impulsiveness and impulsive aggression are also correlated with measures of Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. In addition, the measures of Borderline and Antisocial Personality Disorder (PD) are significantly correlated with physical aggression. The violent and non-violent groups differed on impulsive aggression and on Borderline Personality Disorder. A partial replication of Tweed and Dutton's findings (1998) revealed sub-groups of high- and low-violence men. The high-violence group was very different from the low-violent and the non-violent groups. The high-violence group had higher pathology scores on all clinical scales, except Mania, of the Personality Assessment Inventory. These findings have implications for violence prediction and for treatment of violent men.     

Building effective working relationships across culturally and ethnically diverse communities

Amherst H. Wilder Foundation's Social Adjustment Program for Southeast Asians is implementing two collaborative, best practice, mental health and substance abuse prevention service models in Minnesota. It faced several issues in effectively bridging multiple cultural groups, including building a diverse collaborative team, involving families and youth, reconciling cultural variation in meeting styles, and making best practice models culturally appropriate. Researchers and program staff used multiple strategies to address these challenges and build successful partnerships. Through shared goals, flexibility, and a willingness to explore and address challenges, collaboratives can promote stronger relationships across cultural communities and improve their service delivery systems.     

Emotion work and emotion rules: The case of exams

Arlie Hochschild has shown that there is a set of rules governing most life situations concerning the emotions that people involved in these situations should experience, and particularly the optimum pitch at which these emotions should be expressed. She shows further that people who experience emotions at a pitch lower than the optimum or higher, do work to come up to the optimum or down to it as the case may be. The fact that some people in the same situation, experience emotions at a pitch higher than the optimum and others lower calls for an explanation. Symbolic interactionists suggest that the level of the pitch experienced by the person is a function of the extent to which self is at risk. Where the person perceives his/her self concept to be at great risk, the emotional pitch experienced will be likely to be higher than the optimum expected in the situation. Conversely, where the person perceives little risk to his/her self concept, the emotional pitch is likely to be lower than the optimum. The focus of the paper is on the work done by students at examination times to cope with over anxiety (i.e. higher than optimum pitch) or, sometimes, what they perceive as an abnormal lack of anxiety in themselves (i.e. lower than optimum pitch). A great number of cases will be described and classified in an attempt to formulate generalizations concerning strategies that may be applied, not merely to the examination situation, but to the wider universe of emotional situations. Hypotheses are also offered to explain why more of the emotion work done is in the direction of suppressing over anxiety rather than the opposite.This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1987 Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Annual Meetings, McMaster University. We thank D. Rennie and R. Clifton, the editors and anonymous reviewers forQualitative Sociology for their insightful comments and suggestions.     

Act Your Age

With the aim of contributing to a sociology of age, this essay develops a framework for understanding age as accomplished, i.e., as something that is both a process and the outcome of ongoing interactional work. The common expression act your age provides the useful metaphor of performance. We perform our own age constantly, but we also give meaning to other ages and to age more generally in our actions and interactions, our beliefs and words and feelings, our social policies. This essay offers two routes to the conclusion that age is accomplished. The first involves drawing parallels between the study of age and the study of gender. The second route uses existing scholarship, which recognizes that age is far more social than chronological. I draw on work in the social constructionist, symbolic interactionist, and life course traditions to develop the framework of age-as-accomplished and to show its potential to organize much of what we already have learned about age and aging.     

Women with disabilities making the transition back to work: Psychosocial barriers and interventions

The economic impact of disability on employment, earnings, and education appears to be more devastating for women than for men. Women with disabilities who are making the transition either back into the workforce or into the workforce for the first time often face barriers that are unique to this population. Many researchers have described women with disabilities as having a "double disadvantage" that results in social and psychological barriers to their transition back to work. The purpose of this article is to help vocational and career development programs better address the psychosocial needs of women with disabilities by (a) describing key psychosocial barriers faced by women with disabilities in their transition back to work and (b) providing career development strategies designed to ease this transition process for women with disabilities and enhance their employment outcomes.