Longitudinal Relations of Economic Hardship and Effortful Control to Active Coping in Latino Youth

How Latino youth cope with stressors may have implications for their adjustment. We examined how a temperamental characteristic (effortful control) and a contextual factor (economic hardship) were associated with Latino youth's coping. Individual differences in effortful control, a core facet of self‐regulation, may contribute to coping as effortful control is consistently linked to adaptive behaviors during adolescence. We examined relations of effortful control and economic hardship to active coping in a sample of Mexican‐origin youth (N = 674) across three time points (fifth to ninth grades). Although economic hardship negatively predicted coping and effortful control, effortful control positively predicted coping (controlling for prior levels). Findings support a resilience perspective by suggesting that effortful control may contribute to coping and thus counteract the negative effects of economic hardship.     

Snake communities on the urban fringe in the Sonoran Desert: influences on species richness and abundance

Sonoran Desert habitat in southern Arizona is increasingly altered by urban development near metropolitan areas. Understanding how reptiles respond in these impacted habitats is critical to conservation efforts to retain intact biotic communities, especially those with a high diversity of reptile species. We surveyed snakes at one impacted site on the northern edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area in desert/urban interface, and at another site in a desert/rural interface near Florence, Arizona. The site near Phoenix was lower in species richness (15 spp.), and evenness: two snake species accounted for 75 % of all snakes encountered (total = 420). The site near Florence was higher in species richness (19 spp.), and a more even community: no species accounted for more than 20 % of snakes encountered (total = 594). Sampling methodology had a strong influence on species richness and abundance of snakes at the respective sites: road riding, coverboards, and traps each provided evidence of unique species missed by other methods. These results were compared with inventories at three other sites in the central Sonoran Desert of Arizona, and are consistent with the view that the impacted site near Phoenix is uneven, potentially as a result of a single species reacting to shifts in prey availability.     

Shared housing among young adults: avoiding complications in domestic relationships

One pathway by which young adults in the Western world are navigating housing difficulties is to pragmatically share costs by living or flatting with peers. The current study sought to add to the limited literature on this lifestyle through the application of discursive psychology to understanding the social dynamics of relationships in the intimacy of these households. Data was drawn from interviews with experienced New Zealand house sharers aged 20–35. Analysis is presented of two spontaneous discourses, which emerged, both dealing with competing tensions on the merits of living with couples or single people and friends or strangers. Whereas couples are not averse to sharing with other couples, single people tend to elect to share with unattached individuals. Favouring friends as housemates was the norm among town dwellers, while city folk were more open to flatting with strangers. Talk was driven by the unquestioned value associated with having a working living arrangement, demonstrating the acute awareness young adults have of potential problems that can destabilise or sustain domestic harmony. Valuable insight is provided into the complexity of shared housing relationships as well as contemporary young adulthood.     

Social media and political discussion: when online presence silences offline conversation

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the relationship between the use of social media, attitudinal strength, perceived opinion agreement with social ties, and willingness to discuss a political issue in different online and offline contexts. Unlike the anonymous environment of some Internet forums, social media are closely tied to the relationships and activities of everyday life. Social media increasingly make ties from offline contexts persistent online, and, because of the ambient nature of these technologies, awareness of the opinions, interests, and activities of social ties has become pervasive. As such, the use of social media is likely to affect everyday conversation about political issues in on- and offline contexts, including the home, workplace, social gatherings with friends, community meetings, and on social network sites (SNSs). Based on a national probability survey, we find that the use of SNSs (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) has a direct, negative relationship to deliberation in many offline settings. Some uses of these platforms are associated with having a lower, perceived opinion agreement with social ties. As part of a spiral of silence, this further reduces the willingness of social media users to join political conversations in some offline settings. Only those with the strongest attitudes on an issue are immune.     

Increasing the sample size at interim for a two‐sample experiment without Type I error inflation

For the case of a one‐sample experiment with known variance σ²=1, it has been shown that at interim analysis the sample size (SS) may be increased by any arbitrary amount provided: (1) The conditional power (CP) at interim is ?50% and (2) there can be no decision to decrease the SS (stop the trial early). In this paper we verify this result for the case of a two‐sample experiment with proportional SS in the treatment groups and an arbitrary common variance. Numerous authors have presented the formula for the CP at interim for a two‐sample test with equal SS in the treatment groups and an arbitrary common variance, for both the one‐ and two‐sided hypothesis tests. In this paper we derive the corresponding formula for the case of unequal, but proportional SS in the treatment groups for both one‐sided superiority and two‐sided hypothesis tests. Finally, we present an SAS macro for doing this calculation and provide a worked out hypothetical example. In discussion we note that this type of trial design trades the ability to stop early (for lack of efficacy) for the elimination of the Type I error penalty. The loss of early stopping requires that such a design employs a data monitoring committee, blinding of the sponsor to the interim calculations, and pre‐planning of how much and under what conditions to increase the SS and that this all be formally written into an interim analysis plan before the start of the study. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Task-related and Partner-related Selection Criteria in UK International Joint Ventures

This paper identifies partner selection criteria in a sample of UK international joint ventures with Western European, US and Japanese partners. Rankings of selection criteria are derived for the sample using a typology that distinguishes between task-related and partner-related selection criteria. The most important task-related criteria are found to be access to knowledge of local market, access to distribution channels, access to links with major buyers and access to knowledge of local culture. The most important partner-related selection criteria are trust between the top management teams, relatedness of partner's business and reputation. A parsimonious set of selection criteria for the sample is provided by means of factor analysis. Hypotheses are tested on the relationship between the relative importance of selection criteria and a number of characteristics of the sample—partner nationality, industry of the joint ventures, joint-venture purpose, geographical location of the venture, initial approach for joint-venture formation and relative partner size. The greatest variation in the relative importance of selection criteria occurs with the geographic location of the joint venture.     

The diluted working classes of rural England and Wales

This paper asks, what are the attributes of the rural working class population in England and Wales? Drawing on the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Longitudinal Study (LS), household and personal attributes at both the 1991 and 2001 Censuses are examined, with a view to exploring how far the rural working classes can be conceptualised as a cohesive occupational group; in other words, is the traditional vision of the rural working classes, as comprising a cohesive occupational community, still accurate? The results show this understanding is inaccurate. Social dynamism turns out to be high in rural areas, with little uniformity in the rural population with working class occupations, not simply due to occupational change but also as a result of cohabitation with those of other occupational grades and as a consequence of population turnover through migration. The paper indicates that caution is needed over messages in the rural studies literature concerning the magnitude of disadvantages that the rural working classes face, in good part because the composition of rural households with working class constituents is so dynamic.