Responsible Gambling: General Principles and Minimal Requirements

Many international jurisdictions have introduced responsible gambling programs. These programs intend to minimize negative consequences of excessive gambling, but vary considerably in their aims, focus, and content. Many responsible gambling programs lack a conceptual framework and, in the absence of empirical data, their components are based only on general considerations and impressions. This paper outlines the consensus viewpoint of an international group of researchers suggesting fundamental responsible gambling principles, roles of key stakeholders, and minimal requirements that stakeholders can use to frame and inform responsible gambling programs across jurisdictions. Such a framework does not purport to offer value statements regarding the legal status of gambling or its expansion. Rather, it proposes gambling-related initiatives aimed at government, industry, and individuals to promote responsible gambling and consumer protection. This paper argues that there is a set of basic principles and minimal requirements that should form the basis for every responsible gambling program.     

The Interpersonal Relationships and Social Perceptions of Adolescent Perfectionists

This study investigated the relationship between multidimensional perfectionism, self‐reported interpersonal relationships, and peer‐reported prosocial, disruptive, and academic behaviors among a general sample of 984 9th‐grade adolescents. Cut‐scores from the Almost Perfect Scale‐Revised (APS‐R; Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001 ) classified adolescents as adaptive perfectionists, maladaptive perfectionists, and nonperfectionist. Adaptive perfectionists reported significantly higher levels of positive interpersonal relationships than maladaptive perfectionists or nonperfectionists. Further, peers rated both perfectionism groups as more prosocial and less disruptive than nonperfectionists. Adaptive perfectionists were more liked than maladaptive perfectionists. Implications of these findings, particularly as they pertain to the nomothetic understanding of multidimensional perfectionism among older, school‐aged adolescents conclude the paper.     

Race, punishment, and the Michael Vick experience

Objective. The relationship between race and crime has been contentious, focusing primarily on offending and incarceration patterns among minorities. There has been some limited work on public perceptions of criminal punishment, and findings show that while minorities believe in the role and rule of law, they simultaneously perceive the justice system as acting in a biased and/or unfair manner. Two limitations have stalled this literature. First, research has focused mainly on criminal punishments to the neglect of noncriminal punishments. Second, most studies have not examined whether race remains salient after considering other demographic variables or discrimination and legitimacy attitudes.Methods. Using data from 400 adults, we examine how race affects perceptions of criminal punishment and subsequent reinstatement into the National Football League in the case of Michael Vick, a star professional quarterback who pled guilty to charges of operating an illegal dog-fighting ring.Results. Findings show that whites are more likely to view Vick's punishment as too soft and that he should not be reinstated, while nonwhites had the opposite views. Race remained significant after controlling for other variables believed to be related to punishment perceptions.Conclusion. Attitudes toward both criminal punishment and NFL reinstatement vary across race such that there exists important divides in how individuals perceive the system meting out punishment and subsequently reintegrating offenders back into society. These results underscore that white and nonwhites perceive the law and its administration differently.     

Public Services and the Quality of Life

This is a report of the results of a survey of citizen beliefs and attitudes about public services and the quality of life in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada in the summer of 1997. Information is provided about the perceived frequency with which various services were used, the perceived satisfaction and value for tax dollars spent on the services as well as on levels of government officials generally, preferences for the provision of more or fewer services and for spending relatively more or less revenue on different services, views about user-fees, and views about smoke-free public places and the likely impact of bylaw changes on people's behaviour. Using such information, we examined correlations among perceived satisfaction, perceived value for money, use, spending preferences and demand, and, using multiple regression analysis, explained 66% of the variance in life satisfaction scores, 57% of the variance in satisfaction with the quality of life scores and 37% of the variance in happiness scores. Applying LISREL 8.14, it was shown that a model in which our three global indicators were explained by 13 domain indicators was superior to a model in which the latter indicators were explained by the former, i.e., a Bottom-Up model was superior to a Top-Down model. A simple linear model was also used to explain 32%, 20% and 19%, respectively, of the variance in satisfaction with municipal, provincial and federal government officials.     

Sexual risk-taking in the slums of Nairobi,Kenya, 1993-8

Relatively less attention has been paid to reproductive health problems facing deprived urban residents than to those facing rural residents in the sub-Saharan Africa. This is probably because the majority of Africans live in rural areas, where they are presumed to have poorer medical, educational, and other social services. Yet, the unprecedented rate of urbanization and the accompanying disproportionate growth in the proportion of poor city residents pose new challenges for health care in the region. This study examines differences in sexual behaviour between slum residents and non-slum residents in Nairobi city. The results show that slum residents start sexual intercourse at earlier ages, have more sexual partners, and are less likely than other city residents to know of or adopt preventive measures against contracting HIV/AIDS. The findings highlight the need to treat slum residents as a sub-population uniquely vulnerable to reproductive health problems and to expend more resources in slum settings.     

The sense of relative superiority — Central to well-being

QOL research appears to show that in nearly all countries which have been studied almost all sections of the community rate their subjective well-being (SWB) above the mid-point of scales. This paper suggests a partial explanation of this puzzling finding. It is that almost all human beings explicitly believe that their own performance in major life roles is well above average. We label this the human sense of relative superiority (SRS).In the 1985 Australian Quality of Life survey (N = 584) respondents rated their performance in seven major roles on a 7 point scale running from “way above average” to “way below average”. The percentages rating themselves above average ranged from 85.9% for main job to 49.8% for main spare time activity. Percentages rating below average ranged from 1% for main job to 11.5% for keeping fit and healthy. The median respondent rated himself/herself above average in five of seven roles. Differences between men and women, young and old, higher and lower status people, were slight.The later sections of the paper are concerned with the adaptive mechanisms by which large majorities manage to feel SRS. Differential weighting of sub-roles in assessment of overall role performance and use of restricted reference groups are suggested as two such mechanisms. The concluding section discusses the benefits and costs of SRS. Benefits include enhanced self-esteem and SWB. Costs include failure to perceive one’s own poor performance and hence to take corrective action.     

Satisfaction and happiness

I review the recent literature on satisfaction and happiness, identify some plausible next steps to take at the frontiers of the research field and offer some suggestions to facilitate those steps. Using partial correlation techniques, substantial levels of covariation are found among the variables that are used in predictions of satisfaction and happiness with life as a whole from satisfaction with specific domains (e.g. family life, health). Using path analysis, confirmation is found in a dozen domains for a model which has satisfaction as a function of a perceived goal-achievement gap, and the latter as a function of comparisons with previous best experience and the status of average folks. Using discriminant analysis, satisfaction with family life is found to be a powerful and predominant discriminator among three groups, identified as Frustrated (dissatisfied and unhappy), Resigned (satisfied and unhappy) and Achievers (satisfied and happy).     

Policing Services and the Quality of Life

In this paper results are reported of a randomsample survey of 698 residents of PrinceGeorge, British Columbia taken in May 2001.The main aim of the survey was to measurerespondents' assessments of local policeservices in Prince George, and their relativeimpact on the quality of respondents' lives.Generally speaking, the evaluations were quitefavourable. For example, in response to thequestion `what kind of a job do you think theRCMP are doing', 30% said a `very good job'and 38% said a `fairly good job', compared to2% who said they were doing a `very poor job'and 4% more a `fairly poor job'. Compared toa 1997 survey, fewer people thought that crimehad increased in the past few years, which isactually consistent with official crimestatistics. The biggest perceived problem waswith speeding and careless driving, althoughrespondents rated traffic and highwayenforcement as the least important of a dozenkinds of police activities. People mostappreciated police work aimed at preventingcrimes. Of the things people did to protectthemselves from becoming a victim, keepingitems in their cars out of sight headed thelist. As in previous surveys in thiscommunity, highest levels of satisfaction wereexpressed for living partners and familyrelations generally. Estimating the relativeimpact of three police/crime related variables(satisfaction with feelings of personal safetyaround one's home and in one's community, andwith local policing services) on the qualityof life measured in five different ways in thecontext of 12 other variables, it was foundthat only the last variable (satisfaction withpolicing services) had a statisticallysignificant association to the quality of lifemeasured in three of the five ways. Fortypercent of the variation in happiness scoresand 63% of the variation in life satisfactionscores could be explained by five and sixpredictors, respectively, without anysignificant association with satisfaction withpolicing services. Sixty-two percent of thevariation in satisfaction with respondents'overall quality of life scores could beexplained by eight predictors, withsatisfaction with policing services as thethird most influential predictor behindsatisfaction with respondents' self-esteem andfriendships. Sixty-one percent of thevariation in satisfaction with respondents'standard of living scores was explained byseven predictors, with satisfaction withpolicing services being least influential.Finally, 76% of the variation in an index ofsubjective well-being (summing the scores ofthe other four global indicators) wasexplained by nine predictors, withsatisfaction with policing services beingsecond least influential.     

Arts and the quality of life: an Exploratory study

The aim of this investigation was to measure the impact of the arts broadly construed on the quality of life. A randomly drawn household sample of 315 adult residents of Prince George, British Columbia served as the working data-set. Examining zero-order correlations, among other things, it was found that playing a musical instrument a number of times per year was positively associated with general health (r = 0.37), while singing alone a number of hours per week was negatively associated with general health (r = –0.19). The strongest positive associations with life satisfaction are satisfaction obtained from gourmet cooking and embroidery, needlepoint or cross-stitching, at r = 0.39 andr = 0.32, respectively. The satisfaction obtained from gourmet cooking (r = 0.35) and buying works of art (r = 0.32) were the most positive influences on happiness. The strongest associations with the Index of Subjective Well-Being are the satisfaction obtained from gourmet cooking (r = 0.37) and the satisfaction obtained from knitting or crocheting (r = 0.34). Examining multivariate relations, it was found that eight predictors combined to explain 59% of the variance in life satisfaction scores, with self-esteem satisfaction ( = 0.35) and friendship satisfaction ( = 0.27) most influential. Among the arts-related predictors in the eight, singing alone was fairly influential and negative ( = –0.18), while the satisfaction obtained from reading to others (=0.08) and the Index of Arts as Self-Health Enhancers ( = 0.11) were somewhat less influential. When the arts-related predictors were combined with a set of domain satisfaction predictors, total explanatory power was increased by only 3 percentage points. Seven predictors could explain 58% of the variance in satisfaction with the overall quality of life scores. Of the arts-related predictors, only time spent going to non-art museums was significant ( = 0.07). Arts-related predictors did not increase explanatory power at all beyond that obtained from domain satisfaction variables alone. Eight predictors explained 42% of the variance in happiness scores, with the most influential predictors including satisfaction with self-esteem ( = 0.37) and financial security ( = 0.21), followed by the Index of Arts as Self-Developing Activities ( = 0.18). Arts-related predictors added 3 percentage points of explanatory power to that obtained from domain satisfaction scores. Seven predictors could explain 65% of the variance in scores on the Index of Subjective Well-Being, led by self-esteem satisfaction ( = 0.35) and financial security satisfaction ( = 0.30). The Index of Arts as Community Builders had a modest influence ( = 0.11), but all together, arts-related predictors increased our total explanatory power by a single percentage point. Summarizing these multivariate results, it seems fair to say that, relative to the satisfaction obtained from other domains of life, the arts had a very small impact on the quality of life (measured in four somewhat different ways) of a sample of residents of Prince George who generally cared about the arts. Even in absolute terms, arts-related activities could only explain from 5% to 11% of the variance in four plausible measures of the self-perceived quality of respondents lives. By comparing the composition of our sample with census data from 2001, it was demonstrated that the sample was not representative of residents of our city. It would, therefore, be wrong to generalize our findings to the whole population of Prince George or to any larger population.     

A test of the utility of social indicators for behavioral health service planning

Given current imperatives for more effective, responsive, and economical government, policy planners and administrators are seeking increasing assistance from social scientists. Here the usefulness of social indicators to the processes of policy planning and implementation in the delivery of mental health, alcohol and drug abuse services is investigated to determine whether social indicator data can contribute to more effective policy planning. In a two part study, the relationship between social indicators and Specific sources of these data were: population total, subdivided by geographic area and race (Caucasian, Black, and Other, which in Arizona is virtually all Native Americans) from the 1975 special census; population by age and ratio of dissolutions to marriages from the Arizona Statistical Review for 1977; crime rates from the Arizona State Justice Planning Agency for 1975; and cause of death rates from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, Arizona Department of Health Services for 1975. Subjective measures of psychological well-being were not available for the internal validational component of the study. state wide service utilization rates and The Negative Affect Scale measures the individual's level of anxiety, worry, loneliness, and sadness, and is associated with other measures that have been used in epidemiological studies to identify persons with psychological difficulties. The Psychiatric Screening Inventory assesses an individual's level of psychiatric impairment as evidenced by the frequency with which he or she reports having experienced each of the 22 psychological and psychosomatic symptoms on the scale. It has also been used in numerous epidemiological studies to investigated levels of impairment among various populations. The Positive Affect Scale reflects the degree to which the person is involved with, interested in, and experiences control over his or her physical and social environment. Active involvement with the world and frequent social participation are considered to be conducive to the experience of positive affect. The Perceived Quality of Life Scale measures the degree to which the persons is satisfied with the quality of his or her life. The score on this scale is a composite of the respondent's level of satisfaction in different areas of life such as standard of living, health, personal functioning, and family life. The greater the satisfaction in these separate areas, the higher will be the individual's overall evaluation of the quality of his or her life. psychological well-being in the community is examined. Both objective and subjective social indicators were studied. Both types of indicators were found to be useful and complementary in identifying service needs and states of well-being in the community.