A synergetic view of institutions

In this paper we attempt to demonstrate how, in the course of human cooperation, compulsions and forces come into existence which compel individuals into regularities of behavior. These behavioral regularities are labelled institutions; the approach selected is called synergetic, since it considers institutions to be the result of combined human actions. The compulsions and forces which emerge from human cooperation are generated by the individuals' dependencies, struggles for independence, and preferences. Whereas individuals act freely as subjects, they become objects under the compulsions and forces of compressed social interdependence.     

Hypotheses testing for generalized order statistics with simple order restrictions on model parameters under the alternative

In applications of generalized order statistics as, for instance, reliability analysis of engineering systems, prior knowledge about the order of the underlying model parameters is often available and may therefore be incorporated in inferential procedures. Taking this information into account, we establish the likelihood ratio test, Rao's score test, and Wald's test for test problems arising from the question of appropriate model selection for ordered data, where simple order restrictions are put on the parameters under the alternative hypothesis. For simple and composite null hypothesis, explicit representations of the corresponding test statistics are obtained along with some properties and their asymptotic distributions. A simulation study is carried out to compare the order restricted tests in terms of their power. In the set-up considered, the adapted tests significantly improve the power of the associated omnibus versions for small sample sizes, especially when testing a composite null hypothesis.     

Health Care and Female Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Health Professionals' Perspectives

The present study explored health professionals' experiences with adult survivors of child sexual abuse in New Zealand. Face-to-face, semistructured interviews of up to an hour took place with 13 health professionals. The participants were asked about training, screening practices, their response to disclosures, and advice to other health professionals. A model—transition to ethical practice—emerged from the data, where delivering more sensitive health care to child sexual abuse survivors sits on a continuum from lack of awareness of child sexual abuse to delivery of care where all patients are comfortable. We recommend making sensitive care for all as the standard care of practice and providing training for health professionals on how to deal with disclosures.     

Correlates of Sexual Abuse in a Sample of Adolescent Girls Admitted to Psychiatric Inpatient Care

We examined correlations of child sexual abuse among 300 adolescent girls in psychiatric inpatient treatment. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.)-based psychiatric diagnoses were obtained from the Schedule for Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children—Present and Lifetime and from data on family and behavioral characteristics from the European Addiction Severity Index (EuropASI). A total of 79 girls (26.3%) had experienced child sexual abuse during their lifetime. Child sexual abuse was associated with an adolescent’s home environment, sibling status, smoking, posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis, self-mutilating behavior, and suicidal behavior. At least 62% of the perpetrators were acquaintances of the victims. Correlates of child sexual abuse can be used to identify child sexual abuse victims and persons at heightened risk for child sexual abuse.     

Health Professionals' Responses to Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse History: Female Child Sexual Abuse Survivors' Experiences

This study reports on a postal questionnaire, conducted in 2004, with female survivors of historic child sexual abuse. The questionnaire explored their experiences of health professionals' responsiveness to disclosure of child sexual abuse history. Of 61 participants, aged between 22 and 65, 69% had disclosed to health professionals. Those who had not disclosed reported that they would have liked to but were not asked about child sexual abuse. Thirty-five percent of participants suggested routine questioning about child sexual abuse. Most participants related a fear of common medical examination procedures to their experience of child sexual abuse, and 64% said this stopped them from attending regular health checks. The current study suggests the development of guidelines for dealing with possible child sexual abuse survivors would be useful for health professionals.     

Life-Span Pretend Play in Two Communities

Two studies sought to determine if pretend play has occurred throughout the lifespans of two communities of young Western adults. First, 10 improvisers were asked to define the words “play” and “pretend,” recount episodes of pretend play in their early childhood, elementary school, adolescence, and adulthood, and relate the benefits of their engagement in pretend play. Second, 49 graduate students answered open-ended and dichotomous-response questionnaire items modeled after the first study. In both studies, participants offered meanings of pretend and play that align with definitions of children's play and offered personal, life-span episodes and benefits of pretend play.     

Terror as potentiality – the affective rhythms of the political

ABSTRACT

The paper addresses the ways in which the cultural, the affective and the political intersect, counter and/or feed upon one another in the context of contemporary terror. Initially, building upon Machiavelli and Hobbes, we deal with the political significance of terror (and the fear it provokes), emphasizing its potentiality, which inscribes future within the present. Then we turn to an analysis of terror in the prism of securitization. Terror, in this respect, amounts to de-materialization (the enemy as spectre), de-temporalization (the erasure of the temporal difference between the present and the future), and de-territorialisation the breakdown of the distinctions between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Following this, we observe how these three processes are dealt with at the subjective and objective (social) levels. Regarding the first, subjective, level we differentiate three attitudes as paranoid, panic and rational. Regarding the latter, we consider terror in terms of accident, risk and catastrophe. Then, discussing the rhythmic relations between these conceptualizations and their spatio-temporal consequences, we focus on the notion of catastrophe. We end with articulating the aporias emerging in this context     

A 1,408 km bicycle tour with prostate cancer patients—results of a pilot study

Negative psychological and physical effects of prostate cancer and its medical treatment may persist many years after diagnosis. The influence of a long cycling tour on rehabilitative or health-related effects with prostate cancer patients has not yet been studied. In practice, physicians and therapists rarely recommend cycling to prostate cancer. In May 2010, eight prostate cancer patients rode their bikes for over 1,408 km from Cologne to Marseille within 5 weeks. Endurance test, blood examinations (prostate-specific antigen (PSA), total testosterone, interleukin-6, oxidative stress, and antioxidant capacity) and quality of life questionnaires were completed before and after the tour. All eight subjects reached Marseille. Significant improvements could be observed in physical performance and certain quality of life scores (p?=?0.008), as well as a reduction of total testosterone (p?=?0.19). PSA levels did not change. This pilot study suggests that long bicycle tours with prostate cancer patients are feasible. Due to the missing control group and the small sample size, the results of this pilot study are limited.     

Religiöse Diversität und Sozialintegration im internationalen Vergleich

Following Robert D. Putnams (2007) thesis that ethnic diversity weakens social cohesion, this study addresses the social consequences of religious diversity. Instead of contrasting social-psychological mechanisms it takes a macro-sociological perspective that focuses on different structural forms of religious diversity and relates them to the trust relations within a population. The empirical results based on a cross-national comparison of 41 European and Non-European societies show that religious macro-structures are indeed related to social trust. But contrary to Putnam’s “hunkering down” thesis religious diversity does not lead to social anomia and isolation but has different effects on social trust toward religious in- and out-groups. Key is the result that different macro-structural forms of religious diversity have different consequences for social cohesion. The question, whether religious diversity poses a threat or opportunity for the social integration of society, therefore crucially depends on its concrete form.     

Psychometrics of the students´ attitudes towards addressing sexual health scale for students in social work

Previous research regarding social work related to sexual health and sexuality shows the importance of competence in this field for social workers and therefore is a need to explore students´ attitudes, knowledge and view on working with sexual health in their future profession. This project aims to psychometrically test the questionnaire Students’ Attitudes towards Addressing Sexual Health (SA-SH) for students in social work. The results show good content validity, construct validity, internal consistency and intra-rater reliability for the SA-SH for students in social work (response rate of 91%, 242 students).

The SA-SH can therefore be recommended to be used to measure attitudes, believed competence, and knowledge regarding sexual health among social work students, and to follow up educational interventions.