The Role of Friendship,Trust, and Love in Happy German Marriages

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the role that friendship, trust, and love played in the courtship and marriages of eleven German heterosexual couples (twenty-two individuals, including three couples of mixed national heritage) who reported their marriages to be happy. A conceptual model is proposed of how the components of friendship, trust, and love (i.e., love experienced as emotion, behavior, and commitment) may form a foundation for happy German marriages. Identified themes inform suggestions for how these findings can be used by educators, practitioners, and clergy to support and strengthen German marriages.     

The politics of neoliberalism in Latin America: dynamics of resilience and contestation

Over the last two decades, academic debates around neoliberalism in Latin America have shifted from evaluations of the drawbacks and virtues of the application of neoliberal policies for achieving socioeconomic development, towards discussions imagining and implementing alternatives. After thirty years of neoliberal reform, even neoliberal advocates have increasingly recognised the pernicious effects that the process of neoliberalization have had on people's lives. The fleeting left and centre-left moment brought renewed hopes and expectations of a post-neoliberal future. However, post-neoliberal states could not solve the contradictions of neoliberalism and told us much about its resilience and adaptability. This article offers an overview of the dynamics of neoliberalism's resilience and contestation in Latin America as treated by extant literature as a way to account for the politics of neoliberalism in the region, its rise and its current status.     

Single-peaked preferences with several commodities

We consider the problem of allocating m commodities among n agents with single-peaked preferences. When m≥2 and n=2 any strategy-proof and efficient solution is dictatorial. We propose an extension of the Uniform Rule that (in the two-agents case) is the only one that satisfies strategy-proofness, envy-freeness, and a weak requirement related to efficiency. Alternatively, the envy-freeness property may be replaced by weak-anonymity. Received: 7 November 1997/Accepted: 1 August 2000     

Standard statistical tools for the breed allocation problem

Modern technologies are frequently used in order to deal with new genomic problems. For instance, the STRUCTURE software is usually employed for breed assignment based on genetic information. However, standard statistical techniques offer a number of valuable tools which can be successfully used for dealing with most problems. In this paper, we investigated the capability of microsatellite markers for individual identification and their potential use for breed assignment of individuals in seventy Lidia breed lines and breeders. Traditional binomial logistic regression is applied to each line and used to assign one individual to a particular line. In addition, the area under receiver operating curve (AUC) criterion is used to measure the capability of the microsatellite-based models to separate the groups. This method allows us to identify which microsatellite loci are related to each line. Overall, only one subject was misclassified or a 99.94% correct allocation. The minimum observed AUC was 0.986 with an average of 0.997. These results suggest that our method is competitive for animal allocation and has some interpretative advantages and a strong relationship with methods based on SNPs and related techniques.     

Analysis of Type I Error Rates of Univariate and Multivariate Procedures in Repeated Measures Designs

We compared the robustness of univariate and multivariate statistical procedures to control Type I error rates when the normality and homocedasticity assumptions were not fulfilled. The procedures we evaluated are the mixed model adjusted by means of the SAS Proc Mixed module, and Bootstrap-F approach, Brown–Forsythe multivariate approach, Welch–James multivariate approach, and Welch–James multivariate approach with robust estimators. The results suggest that the Kenward Roger, Brown–Forsythe, Welch–James, and Improved Generalized Aprroximate procedures satisfactorily kept Type I error rates within the nominal levels for both the main and interaction effects under most of the conditions assessed.     

Working life and retirement pensions in Spain: The simulated impact of a parametric reform

This article aims to offer an ex ante evaluation of the impact of a parametric reform of the Spanish pension system that would involve increasing the reference period used to calculate benefits, an approach proposed many times by various actors in the socio‐economic field. Such gradual change may be categorized as a non‐structural reform of the pension system. This contrasts with reforms of a structural nature that have been very popular in Latin America and elsewhere, involving the creation of defined contribution individual account schemes. As regards the parametric reform proposed in this article, the main findings indicate that it would have a small but negative impact on pension income for pensioners and would reduce income distribution.     

A general bootstrap algorithm for hypothesis testing

The bootstrap is a intensive computer-based method originally mainly devoted to estimate the standard deviations, confidence intervals and bias of the studied statistic. This technique is useful in a wide variety of statistical procedures, however, its use for hypothesis testing, when the data structure is complex, is not straightforward and each case must be particularly treated. A general bootstrap method for hypothesis testing is studied. The considered method preserves the data structure of each group independently and the null hypothesis is only used in order to compute the bootstrap statistic values (not at the resampling, as usual). The asymptotic distribution is developed and several case studies are discussed.     

Sexual Desire Inventory: Two or Three Dimensions?

The Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI), developed by Spector, Carey, and Steinberg in 1996, has been widely used to assess sexual desire in men and women throughout the world. This questionnaire categorizes sexual desire in two dimensions: dyadic sexual desire and solitary sexual desire. Our study addressed the factorial structure of the SDI, an aspect that until now has been largely neglected. We recruited two samples of Spanish men and women involved in stable heterosexual relationships. The first sample consisted of 3,417 subjects (1,600 males and 1,817 females), ages 18 to 84; the second sample consisted of 677 subjects (285 males and 392 females), ages 18 to 50. The results of an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) showed that instead of two dimensions the SDI should have three: (1) partner-focused dyadic sexual desire, (2) general dyadic sexual desire for an attractive person, and (3) solitary sexual desire. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the robustness of this new three-factor structure. No gender differences were revealed, except for dyadic sexual desire for an attractive person, for which men reported higher scores. Good validity and reliability values were obtained. Moreover, standard scores for men and women by different age groups were developed.     

What Do We Do When We Discuss? A Micro‐genetic Analysis of Couples’ Conflict

This article focuses on dialogic discursive dynamics present in couples’ conversations about unresolved conflicts. The phenomenon of conflict is addressed as a semiotically mediated process of co‐construction of the self and the relationship. The purpose of this article is to report on patterns of meaning construction in couples’ conflict, with the identification of strategies that promote or hinder resolution. A qualitative exploratory approach was used to focus on the interactional process at the micro‐processing level. Eight married couples participated in the study. The procedure considered asking the couple to discuss unresolved conflict. Recorded data of couples’ dialogues were transcribed to text and assessed through semiotic analysis using a microgenetic protocol (Molina, Del Río, & Tapia, 2015). The results document the use of strategies for conflict regulation such as psychological distancing, opposition, and generalisation on the border between protecting the bond and regulating tension. The dynamics of non‐resolution manifested in polarisation and rigid patterns with increased tension. The ‘in‐motion’ nature of dialogue about conflict is pushed by the semiotic tension that induces variations in subjective positions manifested in speech and actions.