To be or not to be: the effects of aging stereotypes on the will to live

This study examined whether stereotypes of aging might contribute to decisions the elderly make about when to die. Old and young participants (N=64) were subliminally primed with either negative or positive stereotypes of old age and then responded to hypothetical medical situations involving potentially fatal illnesses. Consistent with our prediction, the aged participants primed with negative stereotypes tended to refuse life-prolonging interventions, whereas the old participants primed with positive age stereotypes tended to accept the interventions. This priming effect did not emerge among the young participants for whom the stereotypes were less relevant. The results suggest that societally-transmitted negative stereotypes of aging can weaken elderly people's will to live.     

关注美元的变化

如果房价下跌到平均价格水平之下……纸上财富的损失将超过2万亿美元，这将加剧经济衰退状况。住房市场泡沫的崩溃也将危及房利美和房地美的生存。     

拉达克人

克什米尔的拉达克地区原来受西藏管辖,1934年以前,这里一直向拉萨进贡,此后查谟国王吉拉布·辛格的军事长官佐拉瓦尔·辛格在此建立了政权。拉达克的东部和东北部与中国的西藏,新疆和巴基斯坦接壤,印度与这一边境地区的关系历来不甚融     

Attributions and coping in sexually abused adolescents referred for group treatment

This study aims to assess the predictive value of two sets of variables, self-attributions, and coping behaviors, on sexually abused (SA) teenagers' functioning, while controlling for abuse-related and family variables. A total of 103 female adolescents completed self-report measures to assess their psychological functioning in terms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, sexual concerns, dissociation, anger, their self-injurious behaviors, antisocial behaviors, and drug use. After controlling for SA and family characteristics, final regression models indicate that attributions and coping behaviors explained between 22% and 39% of additional unique variance for seven out of the nine measures of adolescent functioning. Attributions and coping behaviors did not significantly explain additional variance for scores of antisocial behaviors and drug use. Personal attributions of blame for negative events were the strongest predictors of adolescents' functioning. Implications for future research and interventions are highlighted.     

The role of coping and problem drinking in men's abuse of female partners: test of a path model

This article examines the relationship of coping and problem drinking to men's abusive behavior towards female partners. While previous research has demonstrated a consistent association between problem drinking and male abuse of intimate partners, virtually no studies have assessed the role of coping in relation to men's violence. Furthermore, multivariate studies have not examined how these factors operate together to increase risk for abusive behavior. An ethnically diverse sample of 147 men in a court-mandated program for domestic violence offenders completed questionnaires at the first session. Path modeling was conducted to test the extent to which coping and problem drinking predicted both physical and psychological abuse. In addition, the relationships of problem drinking and physical abuse to injury of the men's female partners were examined. Results indicated that both the use of avoidance and problem-solving coping to deal with relationship problems were related indirectly to abusive behavior through problem drinking. Greater use of avoidance coping strategies was more likely among problem drinkers. By contrast, men who used higher levels of problem-solving coping were less likely to be problem drinkers. Avoidance, but not problem-solving coping also was directly and positively related to physical and psychological abuse. Men identified as problem drinkers were more likely to use both physical and psychological abuse. Finally, greater use of physical violence was strongly related to higher levels of injury among female partners, and served to mediate the relationship between problem drinking and injury. Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to the identification of risk and protective factors for men's violent behavior toward intimate female partners and implications for developing intervention strategies.     

Lesbian discourses in mainstream magazines of post-war Japan: is onabe distinct from rezubian?

This paper elucidates the changes in the meanings associated with the term rezubian (the Japanese term for "lesbian") through an analysis of its discourse in magazines for general readership published in post-war Japan. The category of "rezubian" first appeared in mainstream magazines in the 1960s as a generic category that referred to both "masculinized women" and "women who engage in sexual acts with other women." Masculinized women, in particular, were called "onabe." At first "onabe" denoted "a tachi rezubian," meaning a lesbian who plays "top," but gradually a distinction came to be made between "rezubian who are onabe" and "rezubian who aren't." The early 1990s saw the differentiation of "onabe" as a category distinct from that of "rezubian." Focusing particularly on this process of differentiation, this paper traces the transitions in the signifying practices pertaining to the category rezubian. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_09.     

The effects of economic circumstances on British students' mental and physical health

Three-hundred sixty British university students completed a questionnaire providing information on demographic characteristics, financial circumstances, smoking, and drug and alcohol use. A 14-item inventory of physical symptoms, the short form 36 health survey (SF-36), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) were used to assess their physical and psychological well-being. Except for physical functioning, all subscales of the SF-36 and the GHQ indicated levels of health significantly below population norms matched for age and sex. Poorer mental health was related to longer working hours outside the university and difficulty in paying bills. Students who had considered abandoning study for financial reasons had poorer mental health, lower levels of social functioning and vitality, and poorer physical health as indicated by variables on the SF-36. They were also heavier smokers. Students' personal debt was significantly associated with their knowing people involved in prostitution, crime, or drug dealing to help support themselves financially.     

Reconciling Islam and feminism

This paper objects to the popular view that Islam supports a segregated social system where women are marginalized, and argues that certain Islamic texts are supportive of women's rights. The article proposes that Islam reconcile with feminism by returning to the Qur'an. The Qur'an provides rights which address the common complaints of women such as lack of freedom to make decisions for themselves and the inability to earn an income. One example is a verse in the Qur'an (4:34) that is frequently interpreted as giving women complete control over their own income and property. This article also explains how Islam has been used as a method of controlling women, particularly in the practices of veiling and purdah (seclusion). The article points out the need to engage in Islam from a position of knowing, and to ensure that Muslim women have access to this knowledge. It is only through this knowledge that women can assert their rights and challenge patriarchal interpretations of Islam.     

"Fundamental causes" of social inequalities in mortality: a test of the theory

Medicine and epidemiology currently dominate the study of the strong association between socioeconomic status and mortality. Socioeconomic status typically is viewed as a causally irrelevant "confounding variable" or as a less critical variable marking only the beginning of a causal chain in which intervening risk factors are given prominence. Yet the association between socioeconomic status and mortality has persisted despite radical changes in the diseases and risk factors that are presumed to explain it. This suggests that the effect of socioeconomic status on mortality essentially cannot be understood by reductive explanations that focus on current mechanisms. Accordingly, Link and Phelan (1995) proposed that socioeconomic status is a "fundamental cause" of mortality disparities-that socioeconomic disparities endure despite changing mechanisms because socioeconomic status embodies an array of resources, such as money, knowledge, prestige, power, and beneficial social connections, that protect health no matter what mechanisms are relevant at any given time. We identified a situation in which resources should be less helpful in prolonging life, and derived the following prediction from the theory: For less preventable causes of death (for which we know little about prevention or treatment), socioeconomic status will be less strongly associated with mortality than for more preventable causes. We tested this hypothesis with the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, which followed Current Population Survey respondents (N = 370,930) for mortality for nine years. Our hypothesis was supported, lending support to the theory of fundamental causes and more generally to the importance of a sociological approach to the study of socioeconomic disparities in mortality.