Status, role, and resource explanations for age patterns in psychological distress

Using data from the 1996 and 1998 General Social Surveys, we explore the relationships among age, age-linked personal and social qualities, and two measures of psychological distress: depression (1996) and generalized distress (1998). Our study has three aims: (1) to replicate the u-shaped age-distress relationship in two recent U.S. data sets, (2) to confirm and elaborate on the mediators of the parabolic association, and (3) to explore the possible suppressor effects. In 1996, depression decreases from young adulthood into midlife and increases among the oldest-old. Less education, lower control, and widowhood contribute to old-age upturn; however, fewer time demands and greater financial satisfaction suppress the upward curve. Conversely, greater control, less shame, and greater religious attendance contribute to the decline through midlife; however, poorer health in midlife suppress that decline. Age patterns in distress are similar in the 1998 sample. Greater satisfaction with finances and fewer religious doubts contribute to the downward slope; however, declining levels of health suppress that downturn. Less education and retired status contribute to the old-age upturn. In sum, personal and social conditions have opposing influences on the parabolic relationship between age and distress.     

Culture as a Moderator of Overall Life Satisfaction – Life Facet Satisfaction Relationships

The purposes of this study were to (a) provide additional competitive tests between three models of relationships between overall and life facet satisfaction [Bottom-Up (BU), Top-Down (TD), and Bidirectional (BD) models], and (b) explore whether culture moderates these relationships. Models were tested using data collected as part of Michalos' (1991) global study of student well-being from samples of college students in 32 different countries. The BD model received strongest support in 29 of the 32 samples (countries); the TD model was most strongly supported in the remaining 3 samples. Cluster analyses of samples in which the BD model was supported indicated a 7-cluster solution of reasonably homogeneous sets of OLS-LFS relationships. However, clusters were not easily interpretable in terms of evident cultural commonalities. We conclude that (a) a BD model describes OLS-LFS relationships globally, (b) and although culture appears to moderate OLS-LFS relationships, (c) additional research is needed to explain why.     

Strategic planning—Which style do you need?

Strategic planning is now a large and diverse activity practised in many different kinds of organizations. This article provides an overview of the field with a summary of the five main schools of thought each with its own business philosophy and a range of practical approaches and techniques. These basic styles are concerned with planning as a central control system, a framework for innovation, an organizational change process, a political activity, and a way of exploring the future. Most planning systems have a dominant style or focus and this emphasis needs to be adjusted in response to changes which are occurring continually in the organization and in the external environment. The article is designed to help the senior manager or corporate planner to assess the state of planning in his organization and to see where there are important gaps in the enterprise's capability for planning which might be filled by the launching of new initiatives. The article also offers an agenda of approaches for consideration by the executive who wishes to move his enterprise from a conventional 5-year planning and budgeting system towards a more comprehensive process of managing organizational change and development.     

Relationships between overall and life facet satisfaction: A multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) study

We extended research on the construct validity of overall and life facet satisfaction measures by (a) estimating relations among satisfaction constructs disattenuated for measurement error, and (b) controlling for spurious effects of common method variance, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) data. Results indicated strong support for convergent and discriminant validity, as well as for significant method effects. Results also indicated that corrected correlations among latent satisfaction variables were similar to their observed counterparts, suggesting that the attenuating effects of measurement error tend to balance spuriousness interjected by common method variance. Suggestions for future research include determining boundary variables which influence the direction of the relationship between overall and life facet satisfaction, and for identifying subgroups of individuals within which these relationships are homogeneous.     

Comparative trials in classification of image data

In this paper, we describe some results of an ESPRIT project known as StatLog whose purpose is the comparison of classification algorithms. We give a brief summary of some of the algorithms in the project: discriminant analysis; nearest neighbours; decision trees; neural net methods; SMART; kernel methods and other Bayesian approaches.We focus on data sets derived from images, ranging from raw pixel data to features and summaries extracted from such data.     

Proruralism values and migration behavior

Population and Environment - The article looks more closely at migration to small cities and towns by studying the relative influence of proruralism value orientations on migration behaviorvis...