Unpacking the Power of the Mommy Wars

In recent years, Mommy Wars discourse, or an expressed judgment between mothers who work for pay and those who stay at home with their children, has emerged as a significant part of American culture. Yet knowledge about both its substantive underpinnings and the breadth of its influence across racial groups is limited. On these points, some research has suggested that racial differences regarding adherence to particular mothering ideologies will drive Mommy Wars discourse among white, middle‐class mothers but not among African American, middle‐class mothers. This study investigates 125 middle‐class yet racially diverse mothers about the content and prevalence of Mommy Wars discourse among their peers. Contrary to expectations, Mommy Wars discourse, although based on strong beliefs regarding appropriate maternal practices, was limited in its scope. In addition, Mommy Wars discourse was a minority perspective among the peers of white, middle‐class mothers, but a plurality perspective among the peers of African American, middle‐class mothers.     

Does the transtheoretical model predict attrition in domestic violence treatment programs?

Attrition in intervention programs for domestically violent men is considered to be a serious and enduring problem. Researchers have found a number of sociodemographic variables that partially explain this phenomenon; however, models based on these variables have a limited predictive power. Scott (2004) argues that a firm theoretical base is needed in future investigations of the problem and suggests the use of the transtheoretical model of behavior change (TTM), which was found to predict dropout with accuracy in other areas of behavioral change. This study investigated the relationship between four TTM constructs (Stages of Change, Decisional Balance, Self-Efficacy, and Processes of Change) and premature termination with a sample of Canadian French-speaking men (N = 302) in five domestic violence treatment programs. Contrary to the initial hypotheses, the TTM constructs did not predict dropout. Discussion investigates how social desirability bias affects results being obtained by current TTM measures and whether more motivation to change at intake necessarily relates to involvement in treatment for longer periods of time.     

What Does Sexual Arousal Mean to You? Women With and Without Sexual Arousal Concerns Describe Their Experiences

Sexual arousal is frequently characterized by both subjective (i.e., mental) and physiological (e.g., genital) components. The nuances of these components, however, are difficult to capture via self-report instruments. Asking women to describe sexual arousal in their own words may therefore enhance our understanding of this construct. In the present study, women with (n = 190) and without (n = 610) arousal concerns were recruited online and wrote about their experience of sexual arousal. Seven clusters of words were extracted using automated text analysis, and the prominence of these clusters was compared between groups of women. The autonomic arousal cluster differed between groups such that women with arousal concerns invoked this cluster significantly less than did women with no such concerns. Furthermore, the context cluster significantly predicted group membership (odds ratio [OR] = 1.063); greater scores on this cluster were associated with arousal concerns. Results suggest that autonomic arousal and relationship factors may play important roles in arousal concerns. It is suggested that clinicians assess for aspects of the sexual relationship that may facilitate or hinder sexual arousal. Clinicians may also consider inquiring about the presence or appraisal of autonomic arousal (e.g., one’s interpretation of an increase in heart rate or respiration) during sexual activity.     

Collaborative sliced inverse regression

Sliced inverse regression (SIR) is an effective method for dimensionality reduction in high-dimensional regression problems. However, the method has requirements on the distribution of the predictors that are hard to check since they depend on unobserved variables. It has been shown that, if the distribution of the predictors is elliptical, then these requirements are satisfied. In case of mixture models, the ellipticity is violated and in addition there is no assurance of a single underlying regression model among the different components. Our approach clusterizes the predictors space to force the condition to hold on each cluster and includes a merging technique to look for different underlying models in the data. A study on simulated data as well as two real applications are provided. It appears that SIR, unsurprisingly, is not capable of dealing with a mixture of Gaussians involving different underlying models whereas our approach is able to correctly investigate the mixture.     

Should It Be Easy? Divorce Process Attitudes Among Those Who Have Split Up in Midlife

This grounded theory analysis examines the gray divorced population’s attitudes about the divorce process, that is, whether those who have experienced a divorce at age 50 or older believe divorce should be easier or harder to obtain in U.S. society. Among the 40 men and 40 women interviewed in this analysis, there were divorce delayers, who wanted to make divorce laws stricter; divorce facilitators, who championed more flexible divorce laws; divorce ambivalents, who held mixed views; and marriage gatekeepers, who advocated on behalf of status quo divorce laws but tougher relationship-strengthening requirements before marriage. The diversity of these participants’ views reflects those voices in the general population who continue to see divorce as a complex decision for most couples.     

The why and how of volunteering

Volunteers: A Social Profile, by Marc A. Musick and John Wilson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. 680 pp., $39.95 cloth. The Decision to Volunteer: Why People Give Their Time and How You Can Engage Them, by Beth Gazley and Monica Dignam. Washington, D.C.: ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership, 2008. 144 pp., $89.85 paper. Challenges in Volunteer Management, edited by Matthew Liao‐Troth. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age, 2008. 292 pp., $73.99 cloth, $39.99 paper.     

Variance estimation for two‐phase stratified sampling

The authors consider variance estimation for the generalized regression estimator in a two‐phase context when the first‐phase sample has been restratified using information gathered from the first‐phase sample. Simple computational expressions for variance estimation are provided for the double expansion estimator and the reweighted expansion estimator of Kott & Stukel (1997). These estimators are compared using data from the Canadian Retail Commodity Survey.     

Constructing Victims: The Erasure of Women's Resistance to Sexual Assault

How do the news media portray women's resistance to sexual assault? We analyze articles from a systematic sample of 16 U.S. newspapers across 1 full calendar year to assess whether and how newspapers describe women's resistance. We find that in most cases, newspaper reports reinforce the belief that women are incapable of effectively defending themselves. Most articles fail to mention women's resistance or do so only to note its failure; the longer the article, the more likely it is to follow these patterns. Headlines exaggerate these patterns, presenting virtually no evidence that the articles that follow, or that assaults themselves, contain any female resistance or agency. In only a very small minority of cases are women described as strong, competent actors with the ability to defend themselves against violence. We conclude with a discussion of the potential individual and societal consequences of these patterns.     

Religious and Secular Voluntary Participation by Immigrants in Canada: How Trust and Social Networks Affect Decision to Participate

Participation in voluntary associations is an important part of an immigrant’s integration into a host country. This study examines factors that predispose an immigrant’s voluntary involvement in religious and secular organizations compared to non-immigrants (“natives”) in Canada, and how immigrants differ from natives in their voluntary participation. The study results indicate that informal social networks, religious attendance, and level of education positively correlate with the propensity of both immigrants and natives to participate and volunteer in religious and secular organizations. Immigrants who have diverse bridging social networks, speak French and/or English at home, and either attend school or are retired are more likely to participate and volunteer for secular organizations. Further, social trust matters to native Canadians in their decision to engage in religious and secular organizations but not to immigrants. Pride and a sense of belonging, marital status, and the number of children increase the likelihood of secular voluntary participation of natives but not of immigrants. These findings extend the current understanding of immigrant integration and have important implications for volunteer recruitment.     

Charitable Giving: What Influences Donors’ Choice Among Different Causes?

While the literature is replete with studies that identify factors explaining why people are likely to make monetary contributions, less is known about which particular charitable causes they are likely to choose and how much they donate to them. This article examines donor choice among eight different causes using survey data collected in 2011 for a nationally representative sample in Austria. In particular, the study investigates the role of individual-level factors: subjective dispositions such as empathic concern, trust, and religiosity, and resources such as education and income. We find that subjective dispositions rather predict a donor’s incidence of giving among causes but not the amount donated. Human resources, in contrast, are associated with both the incidence and the amount donated to particular causes, and they also mediate the impact of subjective dispositions. What is more, the study reveals that being asked to donate has the highest explanatory power regarding the incidence of giving among all causes investigated.