Subjective well-being among Russian students

The subjective well-being of 116 Soviet students at two locations in the Soviet Union was assessed with traditional self-report measures and with an event memory task. Both measures showed the Soviet students to be low in well-being compared to students in most of 38 other countries. Soviet well-being was especially low when considered in relation to per capita GNP. The single domain which best predicted global well-being in the Soviet Union was leisure satisfaction. Soviet students were most satisfied with their religion, living partner, friendship, and family relations, and least satisfied with transportation, education, and finances. The structure of well-being was very similar in the C.I.S. (U.S.S.R.) as in the U.S. For example, the Satisfaction with Life Scale formed a unitary factor, as it does in the U.S., and the PANAS formed two clear affect factors, as has been uncovered by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1984) in the U.S. and Japan. Overall, the measures divided into life satisfaction, peasant affect, and negative affect components, replicating data in the U.S. (Andrews and Withey, 1976). These results suggest the structural invariance of well-being across cultures. The paper discusses several potential reasons that Russian students report low levels of well being.     

Motivations and Differential Participation in a Community Currency System: The Dynamics Within a Local Social Movement Organization1

Community currency is an understudied, alternative social movement. These local networks are grassroots, collective efforts to form an alternative market with the hopes of empowering the economically marginalized and building social capital. Original data collected from members of a local currency system are employed to investigate their motivations to join and the congruence between motivating factors and various forms of participation. Four categories of motivations are identified and multivariate models are estimated to assess which are the most salient predictors of differential participation. The results provide some support for the congruence hypothesis. As Knoke (1988) predicted, member motivations play a role in shaping forms of participation. This evidence is used to draw larger implications for social movement research.     

新年伊始,常敲安全之钟

<正>刚刚过去的2010年,对于生活在上海这座都市的每一个中国人,"安全"二字显得那么刻骨铭心:正是因为安保工作部署得极其严谨、周密、细致,我们得以胜利举办了一届成功、精彩、难忘的世博会;而在世博会刚刚落下帷幕不久,不幸发生的"11·15"特大火灾之所以猝不及防,伤亡惨重,恰恰是缘于某些行业管理部门对安全管理工作的懈怠。可以说,经历了大喜大悲的2010年,我们无论把安全问题提到一个怎样的高度,都不为过:     

National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur?

There are marked variations between nations in reported subjective well-being (SWB), but the explanations for this diversity have not been fully explored. It is possible that the differences are entirely due to true variability in SWB, but it is also reasonable that the differences may be due to factors related to self-report measurement such as variation across nations in whether it is desirable to say one is happy. At a substantive level, there might be differences in the norms governing the experience of emotion such that cultural differences in SWB are due to affective regulation. Pacific Rim countries (e.g., Japan, the People's Republic of China, and S. Korea) appear to have lower SWB than their material circumstances warrant, and the U.S.A. has higher SWB than is predicted based on its income per person. The genesis of these differences was explored by comparing students in S. Korea, Japan, and the People's Republic of China to students in the U.S.A., and it was concluded that: (1) The Pacific Rim subjects score lower on both happiness and life satisfaction in both absolute terms and when income is controlled, (2) There probably is not a general negative response set in the Pacific Rim which causes lower SWB, as evidenced by the fact that the Asians express dissatisfaction in some areas (e.g., education and self) but not in other areas (e.g., social relationships), (3) Artifacts are not causing the lower reported SWB, (4) The general suppression of mood in the Pacific Rim is unlikely to be the cause of SWB differences, but Chinese students do appear to avoid negative affect, (5) SWB is no less important and salient in Japan and S. Korea, but does appear to be a less central concern in China, and (6) There are different patterns of well-being depending on whether life satisfaction or hedonic balance are considered.     

MEASURING QUALITY OF LIFE: ECONOMIC,SOCIAL, AND SUBJECTIVE INDICATORS

Thinkers have discussed the “good life” and the desirable society for millennia. In the last decades, scientists offered several alternative approaches to defining and measuring quality of life: social indicators such as health and levels of crime, subjective well-being measures (assessing people's evaluative reactions to their lives and societies), and economic indices. These alternative indicators assess three philosophical approaches to well-being that are based, respectively, on normative ideals, subjective experiences, and the ability to select goods and services that one desires. The strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches are reviewed. It is argued that social indicators and subjective well-being measures are necessary to evaluate a society, and add substantially to the regnant economic indicators that are now favored by policy makers. Each approach to measuring the quality of life contains information that is not contained in the other measures.     

Algorithms and agenda-setting in Wikileaks’ #Podestaemails release

ABSTRACT

In the month before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Wikileaks released 37 serialized batches of e-mails authored by former Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. Each release was announced using a unique PodestaEmail related hashtag (#PodestaEmails2, #PodestaEmails3, etc.). In total, Podesta e-mail related hashtags hit town-wide, country-wide, or worldwide Trending topics lists a total of 1,917 times, remaining on Trending Topic lists everyday within the U.S. for 30 days before election day. In this article, we discuss how Wikileaks’ release methodology increased the potential reach of Podesta E-mail related content. We describe how Wikileaks’ tweets spoke to two audiences: Twitter users and Twitter algorithms. In serializing its content and using new hashtags for each release, Wikileaks increased the potential persistence, visibility, spreadability, and searchability of this content. By creating the possibility for this content to remain persistently visible on the Trending Topics list, Wikileaks was able to potentially realize a greater degree of agenda-setting than would have been possible through singular hashtag use.     

Empowering Leadership,Psychological Empowerment and Employee Outcomes: Testing a Multi‐level Mediating Model

This study examined the effects of empowering leadership on employees in a customer service organization, using data from 266 employees and their supervisors from 41 work teams in a division of a large Hong Kong telecommunications corporation. Empowering leadership had acceptable levels of within‐group agreement and between‐group variability, providing support for its analysis as a group‐level construct. Testing a multi‐level model in which psychological empowerment was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between both within‐group and between‐group empowering leadership and individual outcomes, empowering leadership was associated with psychological empowerment at both levels. There was evidence of significant mediation effects at both the individual and group levels. These findings underline the importance of analysing both within‐group and between‐group differences in empowering leadership and their effects on individual attitudes and behaviours.     

Strategy consultants—Do they add value?

To improve their strategy decision-making, managers have sought the assistance of strategy consultants. Strategy consultants differ in the degree to which they focus on content or process, the degree to which they are transactive or participative in their consulting approach and their level of specific expertise. Research on the benefits of strategy consulting is limited and inconclusive. While individual firms show concern about monitoring effectiveness, their approach is rarely comprehensive and often ignores measurement of company benefits. Recommendations for both clients and the profession are set out to improve the benefits of strategy consulting assignments.     

Enrichment Role-Playing as a Step in the Training of Family Therapists

In recent years increasing attention has been devoted to the training of family therapists. This paper focuses on the difficulties inherent in such training, and the benefits provided by an alternative model based on enrichment role-playing. This technique provides a much needed step in the systemization of family therapy training. Specific benefits include: (a) an optimal environment for teaching basic relationship skills, (b) security for the student and clarity of perceptions for the supervisor, and (c) an opportunity for the trainee to learn family diagnostics. A brief review of family therapy training, marital and family enrichment, and role-playing precedes discussion of the enrichment role-playing technique. Case material is presented to illustrate the trainee's experience.