Evaluating the Effectiveness of Risk-Reduction Strategies for Consumer Chemical Products

Communication about risks offers a voluntary approach to reducing exposure to pollutants. Its adequacy depends on its impact on behavior. Estimating those impacts first requires characterizing current activities and their associated risk levels, and then predicting the effectiveness of risk-reduction strategies. Characterizing the risks from chemical consumer products requires knowledge of both the physical and the behavioral processes that influence exposures. This article presents an integrated approach that combines consumer interviews, users' beliefs and behaviors, and quantitative exposure modeling. This model was demonstrated in the context of consumer exposure to a methylene chloride-based paint stripper, showing how it could be used to evaluate current levels of risk and predict the effectiveness of proposed voluntary risk-reduction strategies.     

Initial Validation of the Open Adoption Scale: Measuring the Influence of Adoption Myths on Attitudes Toward Open Adoption

All adoptions, including those facilitated by public agencies, should be evaluated for openness. Although there are no national figures related to openness in public welfare, there are indications that it is not considered in all cases. Adoption myths may be one of the reasons that adoption workers do not always assess a family's ability to maintain a more open adoption arrangement. The following study is the initial validation of a multidimensional psychometric instrument developed to measure myths as they relate to open adoption. Based on a sample of 547 university students, the results indicate very good reliability and acceptable factorial and construct validity. The instrument was designed as a training and research tool to inform child welfare personnel and policy makers of the influence of adoption-related myths on child welfare adoption practice.     

Locally quadratic log likelihood and data-based transformations

The investigation of multi-parameter likelihood functions is simplified if the log likelihood is quadratic near the maximum, as then normal approximations to the likelihood can be accurately used to obtain quantities such as likelihood regions. This paper proposes that data-based transformations of the parameters can be employed to make the log likelihood more quadratic, and illustrates the method with one of the simplest bivariate likelihoods, the normal two-parameter likelihood.     

Three Journeys Toward The Reflecting Team

The experience of familiestrainee and supervisory therapists involved in reflecting team work are explored through the metaphor of ‘journey’ and by asking a small number of our colleagues and clients about their experiences. Ideas gained from this approach are tentatively used to raise some questions about the reflecting team specifically and the current direction of family therapy. More rigorous research into this area is invited.     

The Effect of Gender Context on Children's Social Behavior in a Limited Resource Situation: An Observational Study

Knowing when to compete and when to cooperate to maximize opportunities for equal access to activities and materials in groups is critical to children's social and cognitive development. The present study examined the individual (gender, social competence) and contextual factors (gender context) that may determine why some children are more successful than others. One hundred and fifty‐six children (M age=6.5 years) were divided into 39 groups of four and videotaped while engaged in a task that required them to cooperate in order to view cartoons. Children within all groups were unfamiliar to one another. Groups varied in gender composition (all girls, all boys, or mixed‐sex) and social competence (high vs. low). Group composition by gender interaction effects were found. Girls were most successful at gaining viewing time in same‐sex groups, and least successful in mixed‐sex groups. Conversely, boys were least successful in same‐sex groups and most successful in mixed‐sex groups. Similar results were also found at the group level of analysis; however, the way in which the resources were distributed differed as a function of group type. Same‐sex girl groups were inequitable but efficient whereas same‐sex boy groups were more equitable than mixed groups but inefficient compared to same‐sex girl groups. Social competence did not influence children's behavior. The findings from the present study highlight the effect of gender context on cooperation and competition and the relevance of adopting an unfamiliar peer paradigm when investigating children's social behavior.     

Losing Selves: Dementia Care as Disruption and Transformation

Caregiving is a process of transformed identities and reconstructed relations. The disruption of Alzheimer's disease affects both the individual with dementia and the person providing care. One becomes enselfed in dementia, the other transformed into a caregiver. Using data from twenty qualitative interviews with family caregivers, this article traces the transformative process by which the previous relational selves of both participants become casualties of the disease. Findings suggest that the ill person in this dyad is silenced through dementia, leaving the caregiver narratives to become the morality tales of transformation from disorder to order, from havoc to meaningful interaction. By becoming caregivers, family members construct value in their struggles to negotiate the disorder of illness and recreate meaningful and affirming selves and relationships.