Economic distress and mental health: The role of family coping resources and behaviors

Relationships among economic distress, family coping resources and behaviors, and mental health are examined among a sample of 203 married men and 207 married women. Economic distress is negatively associated with mental health. Although family coping resources are lower among those experiencing economic distress and are generally positively related to mental health, their role as mediators of relationships between economic distress and mental health is limited. Economic distress is positively related to family coping behaviors. However, these behaviors do not have positive relationships with mental health and do not counteract the effects of economic distress on mental health. Some coping resources and behaviors have buffering effects on relationships between economic distress and mental health while others have exacerbating effects.This article is a revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August, 1986. The research was supported by grant 84–164 from the Office of Program Evaluation and Research, Ohio Department of Mental Health. Additional support was provided by the Office of Computing Activities, University of Dayton.Patricia Voydanoff is Director of the Center for the Study of Family Development, University of Dayton. Dr. Voydanoff holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Wayne State University. Her research interests include work and family life and coping with economic distress.Brenda W. Donnelly is a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Family Development, University of Dayton. Dr. Donnelly received her Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. She is currently conducting research on adolescent childbearing and religion and family life.     

Perceptions of cross-sex and same-sex nonreciprocal touch: It is better to give than to receive

Observers' perceptions of actors engaged in cross-sex and same-sex nonreciprocal touch vs. no-touch interactions were assessed. Touchers were rated significantly higher than recipients on dimensions of status/dominance, instrumentality/assertiveness, and warmth/expressiveness. Furthermore, touchers were rated higher, and recipients were rated lower, on these dimensions than no-touch controls. Female observers rated actors involved in touch interactions as more attractive than those involved in no-touch interactions, whereas male observers did the reverse. Results suggest that nonreciprocal touch conveys several messages, and appears to benefit the toucher more than the recipient. Implications of these results for evaluations of the nonverbal communication patterns of women and men were discussed.     

Tobacco, depression, and lifestyle choices in the pivotal early college years

The author explored the correlates of tobacco use among 18- and 19-year-old students at a major midwestern university. A sample of 203 randomly selected freshmen and sophomore students completed a survey that included questions about tobacco use, other drug use, mental health issues, eating disorders, stress, smoking environment, and healthy lifestyles. The prevalence rate for tobacco use was 29% for the past year and 32% for the past month. Multivariate analyses suggested that students with a lifetime diagnosis of depression or treatment for depression were 7 times as likely as other students to use tobacco. In addition, marijuana and alcohol use and weekend exposure to smoke increased the likelihood of being a tobacco user. Stress and diet behaviors were found not to be significantly associated with tobacco use. Implications for health promotion among high school and college populations are drawn from the study findings.     

Urge to Gamble in a Simulated Gambling Environment

Cue reactivity, while increasingly recognized as a central feature of drug and alcohol addiction, is not well studied in gambling. We evaluated the urge to gamble in a simulated casino environment among frequent gamblers who alternated between cycles in which they observed others playing ten hands of Blackjack (first, third and fifth cycle) and cycles in which they played ten hands of Blackjack themselves (second and fourth cycle). The played cycles served as a manipulation for the observed cycles in terms of “priming” (having previously gambled in the environment vs. not) and “anticipation” (expecting more opportunities to gamble in the environment vs. not) and, thus, allowed these conditions: observed cycle 1 = anticipation (+) and prime (−); observed cycle 2 = anticipation (+) and prime (+); and observed cycle 3 = anticipation (−) and prime (+). Subjects’ urge to gamble was greater in the gambling environment than in a neutral setting and both positive anticipation and positive priming increased cue reactivity within the gambling environment. The frequency of gambling outside of the study did not affect cue reactivity. However, a preference for Blackjack (vs. other types of gambling) and observing winning (vs. losing) hands were both associated with stronger cue reactivity in the study. These findings contribute to our understanding of pathological gambling.     

State-Level HIV Criminalization Laws: Social Construction of Target Populations?

Applying Schneider and Ingram’s social constructionist framework that places people living with HIV (PLWH) in the intersection of both minimal power and negative social construction, this study investigates whether HIV criminalization laws are more likely to be present in states that have a relatively larger percentage of socially marginalized populations. A database was assembled of state-level variables related to HIV criminalization laws and indicators of social marginalization. Analyses show that states with HIV criminalization laws have relatively larger African American populations. Future research is needed to further clarify the racial component of HIV criminalization.     

Debt,precarity and gender: male and female temporary labour migrants in Singapore

As one of Asia’s key hubs for transient workers, Singapore’s migration regime creates particularly gendered streams of labour, especially among lower skilled occupations, as is apparent in two key sectors – domestic work and construction work. Drawing on surveys with Bangladeshi construction workers and Indonesian domestic workers based in Singapore, as well as in-depth interviews with each group, this paper examines gendered issues of temporary labour migration, precarity and risk, as they occur against a backdrop of migrant indebtedness. In this paper, we argue that migrant indebtedness occurs along a spectrum that ranges from less visible, or what we call ‘silently’ incurred forms of debt, through to more ‘resonant’ types of debt that are acquired upfront and thus more readily quantifiable. Using this spectrum of migrant indebtedness, we aim to complicate debates about debt-financed migration by underscoring the ways in which notions of debt and unfreedom can be imbricated with both constraints and opportunities for migrants’ agency.     

Perceptions of Equal Opportunity among Women and Minority Army Personnel

Equal opportunity (EO) is recognized by the Department of Defense (DoD) as being crucial to maintaining a high state of military readiness. In the last two and a half decades, a number of EO initiatives have been employed by the DoD and each of the military services in an effort to promote fair treatment of minorities and women. Social science literature suggests that the integration of racial minorities, particularly African American males, is a military success story. Some social scientists argue convincingly that the military has far surpassed civilian organizations in integrating African Americans. While the U.S. military has had a long history of addressing racial issues, problems concerning gender have only recently been addressed on a large scale. Some scholars assert that the military is the last male bastion in the United States. It lags behind the civilian sector in integrating women. This study examines the perceptions of active‐duty men and women in the U.S. Army to determine whether minority men are more satisfied with the equal opportunity climate than women and whether minority women are less satisfied with the equal opportunity climate than non‐minority (White) women. The purpose of this study is twofold: One objective is to examine differences within the gender category, i.e., African American, Hispanic, and White women. The other objective is to explore differences across gender. Degree of satisfaction is measured by responses to items on the Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey (MEOCS). The data were stratified by rank level, officer and enlisted, and a General Linear Model (GLM) was performed with race, gender, and the interaction of race and gender as independent variables. In the final analysis, the data were stratified by paygrade, and a GLM was performed on each part separately. Among the findings, race is a more powerful predictor of the attitudes of active‐duty men and women toward the EO climate in their units than either gender or the interaction of race and gender. While gender is significant in most of the statistical models, and the interaction of gender and race is sometimes significant, these variables explain less than one percent of the variance. Although African American men are generally more satisfied with the EO climate than African American women, they are less satisfied than White and, in some cases, Hispanic men and women.     

Non-parametric Curve Estimation by Wavelet Thresholding with Locally Stationary Errors

An important aspect in the modelling of biological phenomena in living organisms, whether the measurements are of blood pressure, enzyme levels, biomechanical movements or heartbeats, etc., is time variation in the data. Thus, the recovery of a 'smooth' regression or trend function from noisy time-varying sampled data becomes a problem of particular interest. Here we use non-linear wavelet thresholding to estimate a regression or a trend function in the presence of additive noise which, in contrast to most existing models, does not need to be stationary. (Here, non-stationarity means that the spectral behaviour of the noise is allowed to change slowly over time). We develop a procedure to adapt existing threshold rules to such situations, e.g. that of a time-varying variance in the errors. Moreover, in the model of curve estimation for functions belonging to a Besov class with locally stationary errors, we derive a near-optimal rate for the -risk between the unknown function and our soft or hard threshold estimator, which holds in the general case of an error distribution with bounded cumulants. In the case of Gaussian errors, a lower bound on the asymptotic minimax rate in the wavelet coefficient domain is also obtained. Also it is argued that a stronger adaptivity result is possible by the use of a particular location and level dependent threshold obtained by minimizing Stein's unbiased estimate of the risk. In this respect, our work generalizes previous results, which cover the situation of correlated, but stationary errors. A natural application of our approach is the estimation of the trend function of non-stationary time series under the model of local stationarity. The method is illustrated on both an interesting simulated example and a biostatistical data-set, measurements of sheep luteinizing hormone, which exhibits a clear non-stationarity in its variance.     

Physical victimization of rural methamphetamine and cocaine users

Substance use and physical violence often coincide, but little has been published on the correlates associated with receipt of partner versus nonpartner physical violence for rural users of methamphetamine and/or cocaine. In this study, participants' substance use, depression and past-year physical victimization were assessed. In separate logistic regression models, received partner violence in females was associated with age; alcohol, cocaine, and methamphetamine abuse/dependence; and number of drugs used in the past 6 months. In males, received nonpartner violence was associated with age, cocaine abuse/dependence, and being Caucasian. Findings suggest a relationship between stimulant use and received violence among rural substance users and a need for victimization screenings in settings where such individuals seek health care.     

Gender differences in correlates of recent physical assault among untreated rural and urban at-risk drinkers: role of depression

This study examined gender-specific correlates of past 6-month physical assault victimization among 468 men and 229 women at-risk drinkers recruited from both urban and rural settings. Both alcohol dependence and depression were associated with physical assault, but there were differences for women and men in the pattern of significant correlates. Specifically, for women the presence of alcohol dependence, depression or their comorbidity all were associated with physical assault. For men, depression by itself was not associated with physical assault, but alcohol dependence and especially alcohol dependence comorbid with depression were significant predictors. Further, there were stronger relationships between demographics and physical assault for men. The results have implications regarding identification of risk factors for physical assault victimization among at-risk drinkers. Overall, the results of this study suggest that screening and prevention interventions for physical assault among at-risk drinkers should target both alcohol use disorders and depression.