The relationship between sex guilt and sexual desire in a community sample of Chinese and Euro-Canadian women

Many studies have documented significant differences in sexual desire between individuals of European and Chinese descent, but few have examined the mechanisms that underlie these differences. A recent study of university students found that sex guilt is one mechanism by which culture influences sexual desire among Chinese and Euro-Canadian women. The goal of this study was to examine whether sex guilt also mediates the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire in a sample that is more representative of women in the general population. Euro-Canadian (n = 78; mean age = 42.1 years) and Chinese (n = 87; mean age = 42.8 years) women were recruited from the community. Euro-Canadian women reported greater sexual desire and less sex guilt. In the entire sample, sex guilt mediated the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire such that the Chinese women reported greater sex guilt, which, in turn, was associated with lower sexual desire. Among the Chinese women, sex guilt mediated the relationship between mainstream acculturation (degree of Westernization) and sexual desire such that more Westernized Chinese women reported less sex guilt, which, in turn, was associated with greater sexual desire. These results support recent findings and further suggest that sex guilt may be one mechanism by which ethnicity affects sexual desire.     

STUDENTS WHO CHOOSE AND THE SCHOOLS THEY LEAVE: Examining Participation in Intradistrict Transfers

Data from one urban school district is analyzed to examine equity‐based arguments about school choice as they pertain to intradistrict transfer policies. We specifically examine which factors influence the propensity for parents to participate in choice, and how choice schools differ from the schools that students are zoned to attend. We find that advantaged and disadvantaged parents make similar choices in that they are both likely to choose more affluent schools with better academic records than the schools they are zoned to attend. However, these choices operate in different spheres, as advantaged parents choose the most affluent schools with the best academic records, and disadvantaged parents choose away from the least affluent schools with the worst academic records to schools that are slightly better.     

Money-metric utilitarianism

We discuss a method of ranking allocations in economic environments which applies when we do not know the names or preferences of individual agents. We require that two allocations can be ranked with the knowledge only of agents present, their aggregate bundles, and community indifference sets—a condition we refer to as aggregate independence. We also postulate a basic Pareto and continuity property, and a property stating that when two disjoint economies and allocations are put together, the ranking in the large economy should be consistent with the rankings in the two smaller economies (reinforcement). We show that a ranking method satisfies these axioms if and only if there is a probability measure over the strictly positive prices for which the rule ranks allocations on the basis of the random-price money-metric utilitarian rule. This is a rule which computes the money-metric utility for each agent at each price, sums these, and then takes an expectation according to the probability measure.     

Influencing behaviour: The mindspace way

The ability to influence behaviour is central to many of the key policy challenges in areas such as health, finance and climate change. The usual route to behaviour change in economics and psychology has been to attempt to ‘change minds’ by influencing the way people think through information and incentives. There is, however, increasing evidence to suggest that ‘changing contexts’ by influencing the environments within which people act (in largely automatic ways) can have important effects on behaviour. We present a mnemonic, MINDSPACE, which gathers up the nine most robust effects that influence our behaviour in mostly automatic (rather than deliberate) ways. This framework is being used by policymakers as an accessible summary of the academic literature. To motivate further research and academic scrutiny, we provide some evidence of the effects in action and highlight some of the significant gaps in our knowledge.     

Accuracy of Inferring Self- and Other-Preferences from Spontaneous Facial Expressions

Participants?? faces were covertly recorded while they rated the attractiveness of people, the decorative appeal of paintings, and the cuteness of animals. Ratings employed a continuous scale. The same participants then returned and tried to guess ratings from 3-s videotapes of themselves and other targets. Performance was above chance in all three stimulus categories, thereby replicating the results of an earlier study (North et al. in J Exp Soc Psychol 46(6):1109?C1113, 2010) but this time using a more sensitive rating procedure. Across conditions, accuracy in reading one??s own face was not reliably better than other-accuracy. We discuss our findings in the context of ??simulation?? theories of face-based emotion recognition (Goldman in The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006) and the larger body of accuracy research.     

Enclosed versus open nursing stations in adult acute care psychiatric settings: does the design affect the therapeutic milieu?

Specific efforts by hospital accreditation organizations encourage renovation of nursing stations, so nurses can better see, attend, and care for their patients. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of nursing station design on the therapeutic milieu in an adult acute care psychiatric unit. A repeated cross-sectional, pretest-posttest design was used. Data were collected from a convenience sample of 81 patients and 25 nursing staff members who completed the Ward Atmosphere Scale. Pretest data were collected when the unit had an enclosed nursing station, and posttest data were collected after renovations to the unit created an open nursing station. No statistically significant differences were found in patient or staff perceptions of the therapeutic milieu. No increase in aggression toward staff was found, given patients' ease of access to the nursing station. More research is needed about the impact of unit design in acute care psychiatric settings.     

The History of the Social Constructions of Dönmes (Converts)*

This paper investigates the history of social constructions, principally conspiracy theories, about a crypto‐Jewish group, the Dönmes, in Turkey. It considers the socio‐political reasons for the conspiracy theories and their significance by analysing their contents in different periods. The findings suggest that the fluid identity of Dönmes makes them stranger figures, in a sociological sense, creates public mistrust and encourages conspiratorial explanations. Moreover, the study shows that the conspiracy theories surrounding Dönmes are also fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish politics, and that conspiracy theories tend to have appeal for alienated groups during major social transformations.     

The Third Way Reconfigured: How and Why Nonprofit Organizations are Shifting Their Human Resource Management

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are facing increasing demands to become more efficient and effective, especially given increasing financial cutbacks, the rising demand for services and the push toward performance-related management. Human resource management (HRM) is claimed to play an important role in coping with these challenges. Yet, within the field of nonprofit management, little is known about the configuration of HR architectures in NPOs, let alone their impact on performance. To bridge this gap, we conduct an exploratory multiple case study in ten health and social services NPOs. The case study data indicates a shift toward a dominant strategic orientation in the configuration of HRM. Our article makes a central contribution by uncovering a third way in which NPOs seek a specific configuration of HRM to confront the challenges they face in their internal and external environments.