Obsessive-Compulsive Features in Pathological Lottery and Scratch-Ticket Gamblers

The results of this study support the notion that pathological gamblers drawn from the community would score higher on all three scores from the YBOCS than light gamblers. Consistent with hypotheses, pathological gamblers (lottery and scratch ticket) reported more obsessions, compulsions, and avoidance behavior than the light gamblers, and also reported having more urges to engage in injurious behaviors to themselves and others. These findings provide evidence that pathological gambling falls in a spectrum or family of disorders which have obsessive-compulsive disorder at its core. These findings support McElroy, Hudson, Philips, et al.'s (1993) suggestions of similarities between OCD and Impulse Control Disorders, and extend Blaszczynski (1999) findings of overlap between pathological gamblers and OCD in a treatment population. Heavy gamblers also reported significantly more hoarding symptoms and compulsive buying than light gamblers. More research in this area may show further evidence of a spectrum of disorders with obsessive compulsive disorder at its core, and show further links between impulse control disorders (such as pathological gambling) and OCD.     

Religious Communities,Immigration, and Social Cohesion in Rural Areas: Evidence from England*

Religious communities are important sources of bridging and bonding social capital that have varying implications for perceptions of social cohesion in rural areas. In particular, as well as cultivating cohesiveness more broadly, the bridging social capital associated within mainline religious communities may represent an especially important source of support for the social integration of new immigrant groups. Although the bonding social capital associated with evangelical communities is arguably less conducive to wider social cohesion, it may prompt outreach work by those communities, which can enhance immigrant integration. This article examines these assumptions by exploring the relationship between mainline and evangelical religious communities, immigration, and residents' perceptions of social cohesion in rural areas in England. I model the separate and combined effects of religious communities and economic in‐migration on social cohesion using multivariate statistical techniques. The analysis suggests that mainline Protestant communities enhance social cohesion in rural England, while evangelical communities do not. The social integration of immigrants appears to be more likely where mainline Protestant and Catholic communities are strong, but is unaffected by the strength of evangelical ones.     

Iterated full partitions

Algebraic calculations that depend upon a full partition can be automated through the use of an operator P for the derivation of such a partition. Calculations that require the repeated use of P are automated by simply iterating the operator. The resulting output is general and contains sufficient structure to identify the result of a calculation for a variety of settings.     

Native American Food Security and Traditional Foods: A Review of the Literature

This piece explores the emergent themes and subthemes represented within the recent contemporary discourse on Native American food security. Analysis revealed traditional foods as the most common theme present within the sampled literature. We offer a review of this theme (and related subthemes such as food access and human and environmental health) to illuminate the primary concerns, opportunities, preferences, and barriers associated with Native American food security. Our assessments also provide a nuanced understanding of existing literature related to food security and sovereignty, as well as key dimensions of environmental and social equality.     

Contradictions of commitment in the new economy: Insecurity, time, and technology

The new flexible, 24/7 economy is characterized by employment insecurity, time pressure, and technologies that increase employees’ accessibility to their workplace. Accompanying these changes is a changing social contract between employees and their employers. Labor process and organizational theories suggest that these employment characteristics will undermine the attachment component of organizational commitment that remains an important feature of contemporary workplaces. We use an unpublished dataset of a nationally representative sample of employed individuals from the Families and Work Life Institute to test hypotheses linking the attachment component of organizational commitment to organizational insecurity, time pressure, and technologically created accessibility. Our expectation is that these changes will be particularly important for decreasing older cohorts of workers’ attachment to the organization since they have experienced a change in the social contract. The data are largely consistent with these expectations.     

General equilibrium with information sales

Consider a general equilibrium model in which information is an indivisible differentiated commodity for which satiation occurs at one unit. Suppose that uncountably many types of information are possible which can be costlessly combined by agents who desire information only because it helps them to maximize state dependent utilities under uncertainty. Similarity of information is expressed by a metric which reflects substitution possibilities among different information structures. Such a large pure exchange economy in which prices for (differentiated) information structures and (finitely many) ordinary commodities are determined simultaneously is consistent - equilibrium distributions exist.     

Social Status as a Predictor of Race and Gender Stereotypes in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

We examined race and gender stereotypes in fourth‐, sixth‐ and eighth‐grade White and Black children. The participants reported their perceptions of the competence of Black, White, female and male children in academic domains, sports and music. In general, low‐status groups (girls and Black children) did not endorse stereotypes that reflected negatively on their own group but were likely to report stereotypes that favored their social group. High‐status groups (boys and Whites) endorsed most traditional stereotypes, whether negative or positive, for their social group. Where age differences appeared, older children were more likely than younger children to report traditional stereotypes and status effects were more pronounced. The results are discussed in terms of group enhancement and relationships between social stereotypes and self‐views.     

'My Mum and Dad said it Calms You Down': Children's Perceptions of Smoking as a Coping Strategy

While studies have shown that adults use smoking to deal with stress, little research has been carried out with children to explore their perceptions of smoking as a coping strategy. Qualitative questionnaire and interview data were generated with children aged 9–11 years. Participants perceived that adults smoked to relieve boredom and stress, and suggested that children might smoke for the same reasons. Children were more likely to know that adults smoked to deal with stress if they lived in a deprived area. Girls were more likely to believe that some children need to smoke as a coping strategy.