The Effect of External Influences on Mate Selection Necessity Traits: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Chinese and American Men and Women

In the current study we conducted hierarchical regression analyses to examine the extent to which influences from parents, peers, and the media explained participants’ perceptions of their possible mates’ criteria and their own criteria for age, attractiveness, social status, and wealth in choosing a spouse. Participants included 333 Chinese individuals and 339 Americans. We found that the three external influences accounted for a significant amount of the variation in the perceptions of and the criteria for the four mate selection necessity traits. In particular, media influence was the most significant and consistent external influence predictor. We discussed the cultural and gender differences observed in this study and how our findings might fit into the existing mate selection literature.     

“Knowing Your Status and Knowing Your Partner’s Status Is Really Where It Starts”: A Qualitative Exploration of the Process by Which a Sexual Partner’s HIV Status Can Influence Sexual Decision Making

Gay and bisexual men are at disproportionate risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. While prevention efforts often emphasize consistent condom use, there is growing evidence that men are using seroadaptive safer-sex strategies, such as serosorting and seropositioning. This qualitative analysis of 204 HIV-negative and HIV-positive gay and bisexual men explored the ways that a sexual partner’s HIV status can influence safer-sex strategies and sexual decisions. The majority of the respondents reported that they were influenced by their partners’ HIV status. Those respondents who reported no influence discussed adhering to safer-sex rules that were not dependent on partner status and a lack of concern about HIV. Conversely, respondents who reported influence identified three primary areas of influence: psychological impacts, partner preference and selection, and specific behavioral intentions and strategies. A conceptual model explicating a potential process by which respondents use partner serostatus information in shaping sexual decisions is presented.     

Doing Testing: How Concrete Competence can Facilitate or Inhibit Performances of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This article contributes to the sociology of science and technology through the study of language use and social interaction. As an analysis of how clinicians examine children to diagnose developmental disabilities, it involves the sociology of testing and standardization, with our particular focus on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Whereas previous research has concentrated primarily on the outcomes of testing, such as diagnostic trends, little has been written about the tests by which these trends are produced. Our analysis shows how psychometric tests operate to shape the interactive environments (those established by the test instrument, scoring metrics, etc.). Additionally, the interactional environment (the practices by which protocols are implemented as clinician and child do the test) exerts an influence on performance. In short, the interactive and interactional environment may affect the measurement of ability and difference in children. We propose that the emphasis of clinical tests on measuring second-order, abstract competence—or the ability to produce general answers to theoretical questions—may obscure various kinds of first-order, concrete competence and “autistic intelligence” a child displays. As forms of first-order, concrete competence, we examine orientation in situ to testing history, narrative combinations of test items, and using filler words for test item answers.     

Function-Altering Effects of Rule Phrasing in the Modulation of Instructional Control

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - This study evaluated the effects of four instructional variants on instruction following under changing reinforcement schedules using an operant task based on...     

I Am Woman,Hear Me Tweet! Gender Differences in Twitter Use among Congressional Candidates

This study synthesizes two theoretical literatures to explain gender differences in Twitter usage and effectiveness among US Congressional candidates. The first suggests that candidates in perceived disadvantaged positions, females in this case, innovate to improve their chances of success, and the second, that female politicians often adopt stereotypically masculine behaviors to be successful. On the basis of these theories, we hypothesize and confirm that female candidates are more likely than males to integrate Twitter into their campaigns, but our results are less conclusive regarding a difference in the likelihood that females use negative campaigning tactics via Twitter. Our results also indicate that those females who use Twitter more than their male counterparts tended to do better electorally, but this difference is conditional. Female Republican candidates who tweeted more increased their vote share, but the opposite is true for Democrats. We speculate that this differential effect may be a product of different audiences for social media in each party’s electorate.     

Collective Power to Create Political Change: Increasing the Political Efficacy and Engagement of Social Workers

Because social workers are called to challenge social injustices and create systemic change to support the well-being of individuals and communities, it is essential that social workers develop political efficacy: belief that the political system can work and they can influence the system. This study explored the impact of an intensive political social work curriculum on political efficacy and planned political engagement among social work students and practitioners. The findings suggest this model of delivering a political social work curriculum effectively increases internal, external, and overall political efficacy, and that increasing political efficacy has promise for increasing future political engagement.     

The Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug Development Model: a case study in Bayesian clinical trial simulation

The development of a new drug is a major undertaking and it is important to consider carefully the key decisions in the development process. Decisions are made in the presence of uncertainty and outcomes such as the probability of successful drug registration depend on the clinical development programmme. The Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug Development Model was developed to support key decisions for drugs in development for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. It is configured to simulate Phase 2b and 3 trials based on the efficacy of new drugs at the end of Phase 2a, evidence about the efficacy of existing treatments, and expert opinion regarding key safety criteria. The model evaluates the performance of different development programmes with respect to the duration of disease of the target population, Phase 2b and 3 sample sizes, the dose(s) of the experimental treatment, the choice of comparator, the duration of the Phase 2b clinical trial, the primary efficacy outcome and decision criteria for successfully passing Phases 2b and 3. It uses Bayesian clinical trial simulation to calculate the probability of successful drug registration based on the uncertainty about parameters of interest, thereby providing a more realistic assessment of the likely outcomes of individual trials and sequences of trials for the purpose of decision making. In this case study, the results show that, depending on the trial design, the new treatment has assurances of successful drug registration in the range 0.044–0.142 for an ACR20 outcome and 0.057–0.213 for an ACR50 outcome. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Financial Responsibilities Toward Older Parents and Stepparents Following Divorce and Remarriage

We assessed beliefs about adult children’s responsibilities to financially assist parents and stepparents following later-life divorce and remarriage using a multiple-segment factorial vignette with a national sample (N = 1,121). Ordered logistic regression analyses indicated that beliefs about financial responsibilities to older adults declined after marital transitions, and responsibilities to assist stepparents were more tenuous than to parents. Beliefs about intergenerational responsibilities were affected by adult children’s financial resources and by changes in older adults’ marital statuses. Kinship obligation norms, the adult children’s financial resources, and reciprocity norms were the most common reasons used to explain beliefs about responsibilities to financially assist older parents and stepparents, but these reasons became less salient following divorce and remarriage of the older adult. After marital transitions, beliefs about intergenerational financial responsibilities were more often based on the older adult’s culpability for being in a position of need, relationship quality, and diminished kinship obligations.