Social service purchasing in China: Rationale,features, and risks

As part of a broader program of market reform, China's local governments are progressing an agenda of purchasing child welfare and other social services from the nongovernment sector, primarily to expand capacity and address vast unmet need. This paper draws on current research evidence to explore the approaches to purchasing emerging in China, examining the rationale for purchasing and models of supply, competition, and regulation. While some approaches are modeled on direct service contracting, direct purchasing of social service “posts” is also used, aimed at achieving goals of professionalization alongside service expansion. Overall, the review shows purchasing is helping to rapidly expand service scale and capacity; however, regulatory strategies for managing and mitigating risks to quality and access appear lacking. This highlights the need for further scholarship aimed at developing the robust risk management strategies which are required to support high quality, sustainable provision of purchased services.     

An Examination of the Communication Styles Associated with Psychopathy and Their Influence on Observer Impressions

Psychopathic individuals are characterized as “intra-species predators”—callous, impulsive, aggressive, and proficient at interpersonal manipulation. For example, despite their high risk for re-offending, psychopathic offenders often receive early release on parole. While reputed to be social chameleons, research suggests that even naive observers can accurately infer high levels of psychopathic traits in others with very brief exposures to behavior, but accuracy degrades with extended observation. We utilized a lens model approach to examine the communication styles (emotional facial expressions, body language, and verbal content) of offenders varying in levels of psychopathic traits using “thin slice” video clips of psychological assessment interviews and to reveal which cues observers use to inform their evaluations of psychopathy. Psychopathic traits were associated with more (a) Duchenne smiles, (b) negative (angry) emotional language, and (c) hand gestures (illustrators). Further, psychopathy was associated with a marked behavioral incongruence; when individuals scoring high in psychopathic traits engaged in Duchenne smiles they were also more likely to use angry language. Naïve observers relied on each of these valid behavioral signals to quickly and accurately detect psychopathic traits. These findings provide insight into psychopathic communication styles, opportunities for improving the detection of psychopathic personality traits, and may provide an avenue for understanding successful psychopathic manipulation.     

Changes in Family Relationships among Substance Abusing Runaway Adolescents: A Comparison between Family and Individual Therapies

Eligible adolescents (12–17 years old) were recruited from a short‐term crisis shelter for runaway adolescents in a large Midwestern city. Adolescents (N = 179) were randomly assigned to Ecologically‐Based Family Therapy (EBFT, n = 61), the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA, n = 57), or brief Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET, n = 61) with the primary focus on substance abuse. A significant increase in perceived family cohesion and a significant reduction in perceived family conflict were found among all treatment conditions from baseline to the 24‐month follow‐up. Adolescents who received EBFT demonstrated more improvement in family cohesion after treatment than those who received CRA or MET, and more reduction in family conflict during treatment than those who received MET.     

Sexual Victimization and Sex-Related Drinking Motives: How Protective is Emotion Regulation?

One in five college women experience sexual victimization (SV), and SV severity is associated with subsequent psychological distress, including sex-related distress. SV severity may also be associated with drinking motives to cope with sex-related distress and to enhance sex (sex-related drinking motives [SRDMs]), particularly if individuals suffer from emotion regulation (ER) difficulties. College women (N = 151) completed a survey assessment of ER, SV history, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and SRDMs. Twelve regression models assessed six facets of ER as moderators between SV severity and SRDMs. Among women with no or low levels of prior SV severity, women with greater access to ER strategies were less likely to endorse drinking to cope SRDMs. At higher levels of SV severity, women at all levels of access to ER strategies were equally likely to endorse drinking to cope SRDMs, suggesting that access to ER strategies did not mitigate motivations to drink to cope with sex-related distress for these women. Women with severe SV histories may benefit from interventions that build on existing ER strengths or address other factors. However, greater access to ER strategies may serve as a protective factor against SRDMs when SV severity is low.     

The differential gender effect of internalized racism on abdominal obesity in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

This research examined the effect of a psychosocial variable, internalized racism, on abdominal obesity, as measured by waist circumference. Results show that the effect of internalized racism on waist circumference persists net of other controls among women, but not among men. Also, among women who had high levels of internalized racism and high educational levels, a positive relationship to abdominal obesity is evident despite the tendency of education to be protective of abdominal obesity. This study supports other research findings that internalized racism is related to waist circumference among adult women but not among men in Western Hemisphere blacks. It also supports past research findings of a gendered reaction to psychosocial stress. It also illustrates that this relationship occurs on the continent of Africa, an area where research on this phenomenon is scarce.     

"Couples as Partners and Parents over Children's Early Years"

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how couple relationship quality and parental engagement are linked over children's early years-when they are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Our sample included 1,630 couples that were coresident over years 1 to 3 and 1,376 couples that were coresident over years 3 to 5 (1,196 over both periods). Overall, we found that better relationship quality predicted greater parental engagement for both mothers and fathers-especially in the infant to toddler years; in contrast, we found little evidence that parental engagement predicted future relationship quality. Married and cohabiting couples were generally similar in how relationship quality and parenting were linked.     

Social Inclusion and Sport: Culturally diverse women's perspectives

Sport and recreation can help communities to build social inclusion and celebrate diversity. Yet some sport and recreation activities require conformity to social and cultural norms, risking suppressing difference and reinforcing inequality and exclusion. This paper explores these tensions by examining access and barriers to sport and recreation for a large group of Australian women: those from culturally diverse backgrounds. Qualitative data shows that while sport industry representatives justify catering primarily for a mainstream participant base, culturally diverse women identify barriers requiring strategic and targeted policy and program intervention. Implicating the spatial organisation of sport and recreation as sources of marginalisation, culturally diverse women highlight how access‐enhancing initiatives in public, commercial and community sport facilities can play key roles in promoting social inclusion.