Dimensions of the psychosocial work environment in a sample of the US metropolitan population

The present study investigates the dimensional structure of the psychosocial work environment as assessed by Karasek's job characteristics scales and a set of factorial scales derived from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) observers' ratings of occupational characteristics for census occupations. Scale scores on the Karasek and DOT were linked to information on occupation from the Epidemiologc Catchment Area (ECA) study sample. Scale intercorreladons and factor analysis were performed on those ECA subjects who reported ever having a full-time job (n=11,789). DOT'sS Substantive Complexity scale was positively correlated with Karasek's Skill Discretion and Decision Authority scales, and DOT's Physical Demands and Hazards scale was positively correlated with Karasek's Physical Demands scale. In addition, the DOT system compared to the Karasek system seems to assess psychosocial work domains less characteristic of traditional industrial jobs (interpersonal stress, expressive work). The content validity of the Karasek scales might be increased with the assessment of these domains. Giving support to Karasek's Demand/Control Model, the factor structure of the psychosocial work enviromnent in the probability sample of five US metropolitan populations yielded two major dimensions: Control, and Physical Demands.     

Collective violence as social control

Collective violence is often social control: self-help by a group. It typically defines and responds to conduct as deviant. When unilateral and nongovernmental, it appears in four major forms—lynching, rioting, vigilantism, and terrorism—each distinguished by its system of liability (individual or collective) and degree of organization (higher or lower). Following Donald Black's paradigm of pure sociology, the central assumption is that collective violence varies with its location and direction in social space—the conflict structure. I offer ten propositions that predict and explain the likelihood and severity of collective violence in general and the four forms of collective violence in particular. Conflict structures with a high degree of relational distance, cultural distance, functional independence, and inequality between the adversaries are associated with collective violence in general. Each of the four forms depends on the degree of social polarization between the parties as well as the continuity of the deviant behavior to which the violence responds. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1992, and the Centennial Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, University of Paris (Sorbonne), Paris, June 1993.     

Binomial Mixture Modeling of University Credits

The paper reviews finite mixture models for binomial counts with concomitant variables. These models are well known in theory, but they are rarely applied. We use a binomial finite mixture to model the number of credits gained by freshmen during the first year at the School of Economics of the University of Florence. The finite mixture approach allows us to appropriately account for the large number of zeroes and the multimodality of the observed distribution. Moreover, we rely on a concomitant variable specification to investigate the role of student background characteristics and of a compulsory pre-enrollment test in predicting gained credits. In the paper, we deal with model selection, including the choice of the number of components, and we devise numerical and graphical summaries of the model results in order to exploit the information content of the concomitant variable specification. The main finding is that the introduction of the pre-enrollment test gives additional information for student tutoring, even if the predictive power is modest.     

Union–Firm Bargaining as a Repeated Game and the Behaviour of Wages over the Business Cycle

This paper studies a repeated game between a union and a firm in the presence of revenue fluctuations. The simple setup, mainly based on Schultz’s (1995) model, gives support to the idea that the existence of a long-term relationship may change the predictions of the static one-shot model of wage and employment determination in unionized labour markets. In particular, when revenue is fluctuating and the discount factor is moderate the players can commit themselves to some ‘second best’ strategies, rather than playing non-cooperative strategies. As a consequence of the enforcement problems a flat wage over the business cycle may arise. This analysis suggests that ‘second best’ strategies allowing for a pro-cyclical wage as well as for a counter-cyclical wage are feasible. However, when the discount factor decreases and approaches a certain threshold value the parties cannot do better than play a wage constant over the cycle. Moreover, the resulting wage varies less than the employment level, in accordance with the empirical evidence.     

International issues of the design and usage of websites for e-commerce: Hotel and airline examples

Technology has globalized businesses. International business is difficult due to differences in languages and cultures. In terms of technology, in some countries, it is difficult to get data; while in others, data is input in different ways. This paper examines how international differences affect website design, implementation and usage. We analyze websites of airlines and hotels. While some websites take into consideration language and culture differences, we find significant room for improvement in both industries. We found support for localization strategy in marketing, communication and transactions. Theoretical and practical implications, including language translators, currency converters and pull-down fields, are discussed.     

Male Infertility: Integrating an Old Psychoanalytic Story with the Research Literature

Male infertility, different from female infertility, is characterized by anxiety about sexual adequacy, potency, and manliness. This assault on a man's sense of self revives feelings of competition, castration, and experiences of developmental trauma. In this article we review the literature on male factor infertility and its relationship to psychogenic impotence and to psychological fertility in the larger sense. We also discuss spermatogenesis, sperm donation, and the emotional implications for men of the new reproductive technologies. Finally, we consider the effect on the couple relationship and the value of psychological treatment.     

“The People Have No More Love Left for the Commonwealth”: Media,Migration and Identity in the 1961–62 British Smallpox Outbreak1

In the last days of 1961, with a Conservative government gingerly guiding highly controversial immigration restrictions through Britain's Parliament, another unwanted immigrant to the UK suddenly made its presence felt: smallpox. Media reportage, in both Pakistan and Britain, immediately intertwined legislation and outbreak. This article explores the interplay between these two sets of events, and their mutual impact on public, political, and medical perceptions of and responses to post-colonial immigration and immigrants in Britain.     

Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans: What Might a Sociological Embeddedness Perspective Offer Disaster Research and Planning?

The Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans situation was commonly called a "natural disaster"—an anomalous "event" that disrupted lives, spaces, and organizations. Research and planning attention then focused on particular aspects of the event and on restoring order. In contrast, sociologists and similar-thinking scholars have increasingly viewed disaster situations from multiple locations and histories, often using systems theory. Here, reanalysis of empirical material from ethnographic research in New Orleans pre- and post-Katrina suggests that a sociological embeddedness perspective illustrates the dynamic seamlessness of past, present, and future economic contexts and social actions. The perspective's constitutive concepts of weak, strong, and differentiated ties highlight the role of local knowledge, intermediary-led workforce networks, and sustained participatory planning in creating a robust economic environment. Toward this end, disaster research, planning, and theory building could incorporate network tie assessments into social vulnerability protocols, compare embeddedness with other perspectives, and learn from related international experiences.     

Re-bounding EU citizenship from below: practices of healthcare for ‘(Il)legitimate EU Migrants’ in Italy

Since multiple crises are currently affecting Europe, interest on changes in intra-EU mobility patterns, policies and EU movers’ strategies of integration has re-emerged in academic debates. What seems to still lack to date is a focus on the chaining actors linking the macro level of policies and the micro level of individual strategies, that is, civil servants who are in charge of implementing national policies in their daily encounters with EU citizens. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of formal policies and daily practices in the field of healthcare for EU citizens in Piedmont, in the North of Italy, this contribution analyses how EU citizens’ right to free movement and equal access to social protection is officially framed and concretely enacted within the boundaries of the Italian National Healthcare System and the role of health workers as de facto citizenship-makers. It suggests that, along with managerial orientations, different evaluations of the Italian economic and financial situation, and of EU citizens’ root motivations behind their decisions to move across Europe play a crucial role in shaping health workers’ assessments of EU citizens’ deservingness of healthcare.     

People in a World Between: Psychodynamic Themes in the Treatment of Bisexual Patients

Normal sexual behavior is on a continuum—with homosexuality at one end, heterosexuality at the other, and bisexuality at the midpoint. Most people have some bisexual potential. A bisexual person is capable of having intimacy with either a man or women but may be made uncomfortable by the ambiguity of their libidinal longings, feel different, isolated, and long to make a clearer gender choice—homosexuality or heterosexuality. The sacrifice to the self and the psychic conflicts that block such a lifestyle resolution brings these bisexuals into treatment and clinicians are confronted with a need to apply psychodynamic theory in new and more flexible ways. Using two case studies this paper discusses forms of androgynous transference, pregnancy fantasy, and dream interpretation that can unfold in the psychotherapy of bisexual patients.