Blacks, whites, and attitudes towards abortion

This article examines patterns of black and white support forabortion from 1972 to 1980. The findings reveal that black-whitedifferences are present on the abortion issue. Many of the differencesare due to the different demographic characteristics of blacksand whites and the greater degree of religiosity of blacks.     

The impact of revolution on social welfare in Latin America

Conclusion The foregoing analysis assessed ways that revolutions affected the social welfare of Latin Americans. It compared differences between societies of roughly similar levels of economic development that did and did not have revolutions, revolutions ushered in by different class alliances, revolutions instituting different modes of production, and revolutions occurring in countries differently situated within the world economy. The class transformations in Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, and Peru gave rise to more egalitarian societies than they displaced, but low income groups in each country gained most during the new regimes' consolidation of power. Subsequently, the interests of the popular sectors were sacrificed to those of middle and upper income groups. The rural masses benefited from revolution mainly in conjunction with agrarian reforms.Agrarian reforms have been promulgated in all the countries under study, but a much larger proportion of the agrarian population and a much larger proportion of the farmland has been redistributed in the four countries that had political upheavals than in the paired countries that did not. Whereas all the land reforms perpetuate minifundismo, recipients of land titles enjoy a modicum of security and the opportunity to appropriate the full product of their labor, which rural wage workers and peasants dependent on usufruct arrangements do not.Examining the countries that have had revolutions shows that peasants and workers do not necessarily benefit most when they participate in the destruction of the old order. Peasants and rural farm laborers gained land where they were disruptive, but in Mexico only after a global Depression weakened the ability of large landowners to resist expropriation. The Peruvian experience demonstrates that rural laborers may benefit even if they are politically quiescent at the time of the extralegal takeover of power, and that they may, under certain conditions, gain benefits sooner after revolutions from above than after revolutions from below. The level of development of the economy and the way the societies have been integrated into the world economy historically limit what Third World revolutions can accomplish, quite independently of how the upheavals originated. The four revolutionary governments adapted land policies to property relations under the anciens régimes, and they reorganized agriculture to profit from trade. Global constraints have also been one factor restricting labor's ability to improve its earning power and influence over the organization of production. Labor did benefit from the upheavals, but as the postrevolutionary governments became concerned with attracting foreign investment and foreign financial assistance, and with improving profits from trade, labor was marginalized. The Mexican-Brazilian comparison, however, suggests that the middle class and the small proportion of workers employed in the oligopolistic sector benefit more and the richest 5% less in societies where civilian groups have been incorporated into the political apparatus as a result of revolution than in equally industrialized societies where they have been excluded, in the absence of revolution.Revolutionary-linked forces may modify the income generating effect of capitalist industrial dynamics, though not to the advantage of the lowest income earners.The dominant mode of production instituted under the new order is the aspect of revolution most affecting patterns of land and income distribution and health care. To the extent that ownership of the economy is socialized the state has direct access to the surplus generated. Although the Cuban state has not consistently allocated the resources it controls to low income groups, because the Castro regime need not provide a favorable investment climate, it can more readily redistribute wealth downward than can the capitalist regimes. It accordingly has also been freer to redesign the health care delivery system in accordance with societal needs rather than business interests and market power. But the Cuban experience suggests that the distributive effects even of socialist revolutions can be limited. Although socialism allows certain allocative options that capitalism does not, the capacity to improve the welfare of Third World people by any revolutionary means is constricted by the weak position of less developed nations within the global economy, by investment-consumption tradeoffs, and by internal political and economic pressures.     

Are sex differences in nonverbal and verbal behavior generalizable to mentally retarded persons?

Sex differences in three communication behaviors consistently found to be more common among females than males — smiling, gazing at one's partner, and sentence complexity — were examined through analysis of interviews with 78 institutionalized mentally retarded adults. While females were significantly more likely than males to smile or laugh, and tended to use longer, more complex sentences, the commonly observed sex difference in gazing failed to generalize to a retarded sample. These findings clarify limits on the generalizability of sex differences beyond college students and other normal populations.This research was partially supported by a grant to the Texas Tech University Research and Training Center in Mental Retardation from the Rehabilitation Services Administration, Department of Health Education, and Welfare.     

The Big Five personality factors and team performance: implications for selecting successful product design teams

In the pursuit of faster product development, product design teams are a growing phenomenon in many organizations. In order to be successful, these teams must be composed of people who work well together. However, despite the benefit of selecting the optimal combination of team members, this topic has received little attention. Personality has been identified as a potentially helpful selection variable in the determination of optimal team composition. This study examines the relationships between the ‘Big Five’ personality factors (Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience) and objective team performance for three-member product design teams. In addition to this, the potential incremental contribution of personality to the variance in team performance over that accounted for by established selection measures such as general cognitive ability was investigated. In the short duration of the study, it became apparent that some teams were capable of success, and some were not. Successful teams were characterized by higher levels of general cognitive ability, higher extraversion, higher agreeableness, and lower neuroticism than their unsuccessful counterparts. In successful teams, the heterogeneity of conscientiousness was negatively related to increments in product performance. Implications for the selection of product design teams and future directions for research are discussed.     

Beyond Planning:: Strategies for Successfully Implementing Strategic Decisions

This article brings strategy back to managers and their organizations. It argues and demonstrates empirically that what managers do, and the kind of organization they lead, matter in terms of achieving stated objectives. Managerial action involves a set of activities from assessing the problem to prioritising action, and takes place within an organizational context which has two important elements for decision-making. First, organizations have an accumulated stock of experience, and the more managers can access and utilise this experience base the better. Secondly, the culture and structure of an organization may exhibit more or less readiness for the changes that decisions bring about, and contexts less ready for change pose problems for managers in the implementation of decisions.This long-term study of 55 decisions in UK firms shows that careful managerial planning does not of itself guarantee successful outcomes: the organizational context is crucial in framing actions and influencing achievement, and decisions may send a firm on a trajectory beyond the point at which it can plan with confidence. Where experience and readiness are strong, decisions achieve stated objectives—where both are lacking, decisions tend to fail. But, as examination of two illustrative cases indicates, strength in either domain may be enough: sound experience may win out in comparatively unreceptive situations, and decisions may still succeed where experience is lacking but the organization is ready for change. The article closes with some implications for managers.     

Why social status matters for understanding the interrelationships between testosterone,economic risk‐taking,and gender

We conduct an extensive review of the literature on testosterone and economic risk‐taking behavior. In sum, there is evidence of a positive association between testosterone and economic risk taking, although it is unlikely to be a strong association given the abundance of null results. However, we argue that the existing literature may overstate the causal effects of testosterone on economic risk taking (or even report a spurious correlation) because this research has not considered the potentially confounding role of social status. Status could concurrently influence both testosterone and economic risk taking, given that testosterone is a social hormone with a reciprocal relationship with social status, and social status has been found to drive risk‐taking behavior. We also argue against using findings from this literature to make gender essentialist claims, primarily because social phenomena influence the size—and existence—of gender differences in economic risk‐taking behavior. We conclude with suggestions for future research.     

What Drives Citizen Participation in Political Gatherings in Modern South Africa? A Quantitative Analysis of Self-Reported Behaviour

Social Indicators Research - Community and public gatherings are an important component of political participation in sub-Saharan Africa. Formal and informal community meetings and rallies are...     

“Open to all and everybody”? The Irish Film Board: accounting for the scarcity of women screenwriters

Despite the many social and cultural changes that have occurred in Irish society since the Irish Film Board was re-established in 1993, the Irish film industry remains strongly male dominated. Specifically, Irish women constitute a minority of produced screenwriters and writer/directors. This article contributes to an understanding of the discursive resources that key decision makers in the Irish Film Board draw upon in order to talk about gender. A number of interpretative repertoires are used to rationalize its position in relation to the dearth of women screenwriters, four of which are examined here: evasion and deflection; gender neutrality; project-led funding; and a difficulty making sense of entrenched gender issues, articulated here as “I don’t know.” Within the respondents’ repertoires an ideological dilemma can be identified in the conceptualization of gender as both relevant and irrelevant.