Personality, drug preference, drug use, and drug availability

This study examined the relationship between drug preference, drug use, drug availability, and personality among individuals (n = 100) in treatment for substance abuse in an effort to replicate the results of an earlier study (Feldman, Kumar, Angelini, Pekala, & Porter, 2007) designed to test prediction derived from Eysenck's (1957, 1967) theories. Drug preference was measured by the method of paired-comparison and personality was measured with the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire-50 CC. Contrary to expectations, high compared with low scorers on Sociability and Impulsive-Sensation Seeking preferred depressants. Surprisingly, low compared with high scorers on neuroticism did not differ in preference for alcohol. As in the previous study, drug preference, use, and availability were highly correlated, although ease of availability was slightly more predictive of drug use than drug preference. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Advertising Phuket's nightlife on the Internet: a case study of double binds and hegemonic masculinity in sex tourism

One significant human rights violation in Southeast Asia is the exploitation of women through sex tourism. Such sexual exploitation occurs in Thailand because institutions are complacent and society accepts the practice. This case study, guided by the concepts of double binds and hegemonic masculinity, sought to understand if Thai culture is symbolically constructed in ways to portray Thailand as a desirable "sex tourist" destination. Websites portray Phuket as a patriarchal world where men can live their fantasies of being perfect hegemonic males because Thai bar girls are young nymphomaniacs that have no need to be talked to or understood.     

Cities,unions, and the privatization of sanitation services

We analyzed 740 cities to determine whether they considered or adopted the contracting out of their sanitation collection service. The presence of a municipal sanitation union reduces the likelihood that a city considers the contracting-out option and the likelihood of adoption of the privatization alternative, but only in those cities which have cooperative relations with the union. The authors thank the Governmental Refuse Collection and Disposal Association and the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations and the Research Board at the University of Illinois for generously supporting this research; Penni Falkinburg for some excellent research assistance; and John Delaney and Wally Hendricks for some very helpful comments.     

Myth and the construction of foreign ethnic identity in early and medieval China

Early Chinese histories sometimes record two extremely different myths about the origins of a foreign people: a native version and a Sinicised version. This is the case with myths about the Xiongnu, Xianbei and Korean peoples. Native and Sinicised origin myths had different functions. Sometimes, Chinese wanted to create psychological distance between themselves and potentially dangerous foreign peoples. Recounting a native myth bolstered Chinese ethnic pride by making other peoples seem strange and exotic, in contrast to normative Chinese culture. In other instances, Chinese told Sinicised myths to assimilate foreign peoples into Chinese culture. These myths legitimised Chinese expansion and conquest, but could also be used against China by foreign invaders. The coexistence of native and Sinicised versions of ethnic origin myths in early historical records shows the mutability of ethnicity in early China, and the manipulation of ethnic identity for political and military ends.     

Holding a looking-glass to the ‘Movement’: A response to Worth and Abbott

This article explores the presence of US institutions of higher education in Eastern Europe as one facet of the neoliberal global environment. It draws on policy documents, institutional statistics, materials produced by interest groups and NGOs, official mission statements, press releases and media coverage, and personal narratives. The American University in Bulgaria is examined as a case of this wider phenomenon. Exclusively structuralist, critical analyses of such institutions can easily lead to conclusions of homogenization and dominance through the hegemony of ‘exporter’ education institutions and programs. Post-structural analysis—attuned to multiplicities of meanings, nuances of context, and complex interplays of power and knowledge claims—allow for more attention to the local dynamics, while human interpretation and agency may point the way to more hopeful roles for US institutions of higher education abroad. In turn, these roles may challenge the one-way deterministic flow of influence suggested by structuralist analyses.

Este artículo indaga la presencia de las instituciones de E.E.U.U. de educación superior en Europa oriental, como una faceta del medioambiente neoliberal global. Se sirve de documentos de política, estadística institucional, materiales producidos bajo grupos de interés y ONGs, declaraciones de emisiones oficiales sobre los objetivos, comunicados de prensa y cobertura de los medios y testimonios personales. Se ha examinado a la Universidad Americana en Bulgaria como un caso de este amplio fenómeno. Los análisis críticos de tales instituciones exclusivamente estructuralistas, pueden conducir fácilmente a unas conclusiones de homogenización y dominio a través de la hegemonía de instituciones de educación y programas ‘exportados’. Un análisis estructural a posteriori—adaptado a una multiplicidad de significados y matices de contexto, y las interacciones complejas de afirmaciones de poder y conocimiento—permite mayor atención a la dinámica local, mientras que la interpretación y la actividad humana pueden señalar el camino para que las instituciones de educación superior de los E.E.U.U., logren papeles más esperanzadores en el extranjero. A su vez, estos papeles pueden desafiar la corriente determinista de influencia de una sola vía, como lo sugiere el análisis estructural.

本文探讨了美国高等教育机构作为全球新自由主义环境的一个侧面在东欧的存在。本文根据政策文件、机构统计数据、利益团体和非政府组织提供的资料、正式使命声明、新闻稿和媒体报道,以及个人记述写成,以位于保加利亚的美利坚大学作为这一更广泛现象的个案进行了考察。作为一种完全的结构主义,对这些机构的批判性分析很容易得出通过“出口”教育机构和各种项目的霸权实现同质化、获取支配力的结论。后结构主义分析——切合多重意义,语境的微妙变化,以及权力与知识的宣称之间复杂的相互作用——使人们更多地关注当地的动力学,而人的解释及动因可能为海外美国高等教育机构发挥更加充满希望的作用指明方向。反过来,这些角色可能挑战结构主义分析所提出的影响流的单向决定性。     

The death of hope? Affirmation in the Anthropocene

This article engages with the imaginary that the great age of hope as critique is finally at an end. For hope's detractors, the Anthropocene is imagined to be a gain in ethical and political possibilities at the price of the eclipse of both the modernist imaginary (with its optimistic telos of universal knowledge and progress) and its romantic critical counterpart of re-enchantment and hope. Hope can have no place in the Anthropocene if re-enchantment is no longer possible and we no longer maintain the belief that the world was ever there, in some way, ‘for us’. It is argued here that, for hope to survive, it is necessary that the world be imagined as one in which it is possible for humans to find a sense of purpose or meaning.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization in Maltreating and Non-maltreating Families: Implications for Children's Emotion Regulation

This study investigated the socialization of children's emotion regulation in physically maltreating and non‐maltreating mother–child dyads (N = 80 dyads). Mother–child dyads participated in the parent–child emotion interaction task ( Shipman & Zeman, 1999 ) in which they talked about emotionally‐arousing situations. The PCEIT was coded for maternal validation and invalidation in response to children's emotion. Mothers were also interviewed about their approach to emotion socialization using the meta‐emotion interview‐parent version ( Katz & Gottman, 1999 ). The meta‐emotion interview‐parent version was coded for maternal emotion coaching. Mothers also completed measures that assessed their child abuse potential and abuse‐related behaviors as well as children's emotion regulation. Findings indicated that maltreated children demonstrated fewer adaptive emotion regulation skills and more emotion dysregulation than non‐maltreated children. In addition, maltreating mothers engaged in less validation and emotion coaching and more invalidation in response to children's emotion than non‐maltreating mothers. Finally, maternal emotion socialization behaviors mediated the relation between maltreatment status and children's adaptive emotion regulation skills.