Test of the demands, supports-constraints framework in predicting psychological distress amongst Australian public sector employees

This paper describes the demands, supports-constraints framework originally articulated by Payne (1979) for predicting psychological distress, and reports the results of an empirical study involving 2452 white-collar, public sector employees in Australia. The study uses hierarchical regression to test for the interaction effects of the demands and constraints variables, having applied suitable controls for instance by including trait anxiety and removing curvilinear effects. The results reveal little evidence of an interactive effect but moderately strong main effects and modest support for the value of controlling for curvilinear effects. Trait anxiety is shown to have a strong effect on psychological distress and considerably reduces the size of the relationship between demands, supports-constraints and psychological distress when statistically controlled for. However, it still accounts for 18.7% of the variance when entered last in the regression and it is recommended that its effects be explored in all studies of stress that rely on self-report data.     

Selecting social work students: lessons from research in Scotland

The issue of selection of students to social work programmes is one that remains highly contested. While it is clear that there is no single way of choosing the next generation of social work students, nevertheless, there are a number of strongly held beliefs about what ‘best practice’ means in this fraught field. These can be difficult to challenge, and even harder to shift, in spite of contrary evidence. This paper presents research conducted in Scotland in 2016 as part of the Scottish Government-sponsored Review of Social Work Education. The research set out to consider what selection processes were being used in Scotland and why; more fundamentally, it sought to explore the views of those involved in social work education alongside evidence about the outcomes of the selection processes (that is, data on student retention and success). The article concludes that while there is little evidence that one method of selection to social work programmes is intrinsically better than another, issues of fairness and transparency in selection, as well as diversity, remain pressing.     

Buddhist extremism,anti-Muslim violence and civil war legacies in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

A post-civil war country may cease military activity, but the social rupture impacts political discourse and ethnic relations, and can lead to collective violence against minorities. Sri Lanka has witnessed multiple examples of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence since the civil war termination, most infamously in 2014 when ethnic riots affected large numbers of people. Buddhist monks appeared to play a prominent role. The lengthy war and ethnonationalist ideologies have produced politico-religious shifts associated with ‘Buddhist extremism’, implicated in these riots and other aggressions. This paper uses interview data to explore the question: what causal mechanisms link post-civil war and extremist ideologies, and how this can lead to ethnic rioting. Interview respondents argue that promoting a monolithic national identity in a heterogeneous country enhances divisions, which can be politically expedient. An outright war victory, militarization of society and lack of peacebuilding sustain ethnic tensions that can be mobilized for further anti-minority violence.     

Job design and levels of physical and mental strain among Australian prison officers

Abstract

Over the past 15 years much has been made of the moderating influence of job discretion and support in occupations that are perceived to be high in demands. Such an effect seems to be most prevalent when subject populations are large and heterogeneous. One aim of this study was to examine the influence of subjective perceptions of these variables on strain reactions among a group of relatively homogeneous workers such as, in the present study, prison officers (n = 274). A second aim was to extend previous research and examine the joint influence of negative affectivity and perceptions of demands, discretion, and support on mental and physical well-being. It was hypothesized that those high in negative affect would be particularly strained by jobs perceived as being demanding. The hypothesized relationship between job demands, discretion and support were found to be weak and at times inconsistent. Social support, in particular, was found to have both positive and negative consequences for different aspects of well-being. Those high in negative affect were in general found to suffer lower mental well-being. More importantly, the interactive effect of negative affectivity and job demands was found to significantly predict the majority of the dependent variables used in this study. The valences of these relationships were inconsistent and are interpreted in light of Warr's (1987) vitamin model of stress.

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from the present study. Negative affectivity appears to have a truly interactive effect with job components, job demands in particular, to influence a range of variables relating to physical and mental health as well a job-related attitudes. The nature of these effects, however, suggests a dissociation in the ways that different independent variables influence a range of indices of well-being and affect. This result requires further investigation since there are important theoretical implications which will follow if the data are replicable.

In order to examine such complex effects, in addition to the need for more longitudinal studies, it is also important that standardized measures of job components are developed so that levels of stress exposure can be equated and their impact assessed across organizational settings.

Finally, the data reported in this study suggest that some effective stress management may be undertaken by adopting selection strategies which take into consideration individual characteristics. In view of the fact that individual stress management programmes are of unproven benefit (Murphy 1986, 1988) such an approach is recommended especially for those organizations which are highly constrained in the services that must be performed.     

The importance of knowing the affective meaning of job demands revisited

This paper starts with the assumption that when people are asked to describe the level of demands they face at work, it cannot be assumed that those demands are necessarily stressful, even if they are rated as strong or high demands. Thirty demand questions were designed for use with a sample of 2,253 public sector employees in Western Australia. As well as rating frequency of demand the respondents were asked to rate their level of dissatisfaction with the demand. For only 16 of the demands was there a correlation high enough to assume that the demand might be a stressor. Having demonstrated this, the rest of the paper compares different ways of combining the two scores to predict the level of psychological distress as measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12). The results support the claim in the title, that it is important to know the affective meaning of job demands.     

Institutions and Policies for Pro‐poor Agricultural Growth

Global experience with pro‐poor growth and empirical work spanning India, Malawi and Zimbabwe demonstrates the importance of agricultural growth for poverty reduction in poor rural areas, while also pointing to the need for complementary non‐farm sector growth. Theoretical arguments, historical evidence and livelihoods modelling in poor medium‐potential rural economies suggest that, contrary to thinking dominating much of current development policy, subsidies to relieve critical seasonal credit and cash restraints and reduce market and input supply uncertainties need to help in ‘kick‐starting’ agricultural markets if increased smallholder productivity in food‐grains is to drive rural non‐farm growth. Establishing the base conditions for these to work, designing and implementing them to be effective, and then phasing them out are major challenges facing policymakers.     

Inequality and Deliberative Development: Revisiting Bolivia's Experience with the PRSP

The deliberative‐development approach to policy‐making has gained popularity in both academic and policy circles. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the requirements necessary for deliberation to have beneficial effects on policy, some of which are detailed in this article, in particular the need for equality among deliberators. The article examines Bolivia's 2000 National Dialogue and demonstrates the effects of inequality — not between elites and non‐elites, but between groups within civil society — on the legitimacy of the outcome. Its findings have important implications for the design of deliberative‐development institutions.     

A Descriptive Study of Home Modifications for People with Dementia and Barriers to Implementation

This study describes home environmental features, safety issues, and health-related modifications in a community dwelling sample of 82 elderly people with dementia. Main barriers to the accessibility of the homes were steps both inside and outside the home. The majority of the caregivers had made home modifications that pertained mainly to physical limitations. Home modifications to support cognitive deficits were made to a lesser extent. The main barrier to the implementation of home modifications to accommodate the care recipient's memory loss was skepticism about their usefulness. Regarding the removal of physical barriers, financial constraints were most frequently mentioned.     

SCOAP3 and Open Access

SCOAP3 is an innovative Open Access initiative for publishing in high-energy physics. The model is viewed by many as a potential solution to multiple issues related to the financial crisis, the peer review system, scholarly communication, and the need to support institutional repositories. This installment of “The Balance Point” presents articles written by three Open Access advocates, outlining the SCOAP3 proposal, benefits of participation, and some of the roles libraries, publishers and scientists can play in making important changes to scholarly communication. Contributors discuss scalability and transferability issues of SCOAP3, as well as other matters of concern.     

Targeting Spatial Clusters of Elderly Consumers in the U.S.A

For business demographers, a noteworthy aspect of national population aging is the course of its onset at local scales, such as neighborhoods and individual city blocks. Across the U. S., particular neighborhoods are evolving through aging in place into de facto retirement communities, populated by elderly residents who continue to live independently. An increasingly common manifestation of this development is the so-called naturally occurring retirement community (NORC)—a neighborhood where adults have stayed on and grown old while younger people have drifted away. NORCs materialize gradually over time where initial cohorts settle in close proximity and age in place, while subsequent younger cohorts move away. These settings offer novel opportunities for prolonging independent living in old age. They constitute distinctive readymade consumer markets as well, especially for businesses that rely on word of mouth. We present a general approach to spotting NORCs. We then consider such enclaves as potential target markets, both for community planners aiming to centralize service delivery to the elderly and for businesses offering types of services that can be bundled profitably for these residential concentrations of elderly.