The availability of personal and external coping resources: Thier impact on job stress and employee attitudes during organizational restructuring

This study examines the relationships among personal coping resources, social support, external coping resources, job stressors and job strains in a sample of 110 American Telephone and Telegraph employees undergoing a major organizational restructuring. The study expanded on a model suggested by Ashford (1988) by defining another category of coping resources that employees may draw upon to deal with the stressors and strains which occur during major organizational changes. External coping resources were defined as those which provided employees with a sense of 'vicarious control' in stressful situations. Results indicated that personal coping resources, social support and external coping resources had a direct effect upon job stressor and strain levels. No 'buffering' effect of these coplng resources was found. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that external coping resources added to the prediction of job stressors and strains even when pertonal coping resources and social support were entered first into the prediction questions.     

Values and Vegetarianism: An Exploratory Analysis1

The American diet has changed substantially over the last few decades. These changes provide a test for social theory and have substantial effects on the demand for various food products, thus impacting U.S. agriculture. In this paper a rapidly growing dietary choice—vegetarianism—is explored. Prevalence of various forms of vegetarianism is estimated in a representative sample of a suburban population and factors that influence choice of a vegetarian diet are examined. About 7 percent of the sample report they are vegetarians. The prevalence of vegetarianism is not influenced by age, gender, or education, but individuals holding traditional values are less likely to be vegetarian than others. There also is some evidence mat individuals holding altruistic values are more likely than others to be vegetarians.     

Making ends meet: perceptions of poverty in Sweden

During the era after the Second World War, Sweden has built a welfare system based on labor market participation and income maintenance. Low unemployment and decent wages are supposed to guarantee people a labor market income or income maintenance, which in turn should provide a proper standard for everyone. However, a rapid increase in unemployment and economic problems have made the future of the Swedish welfare state more uncertain than ever. These circumstances have, among other things, led to the suggestion that Sweden should abandon the income maintenance policy and create a social policy system with the more limited ambition of guaranteeing everyone a minimum income. In that case, one central question must be answered: what constitutes a decent minimum income in today's Sweden? Where should we draw the poverty line under which people will not be forced to live? These questions are central in the current debate. The consensual poverty line method is used in this article to derive a poverty line relevant for today's Sweden. The results shows that more than every fifth household has an income below the consensual poverty line. That is, they have an income that most Swedes would argue is too low to make ends meet. The level of the consensual poverty line was compared with the National Board of Health and Welfare's guidelines for social assistance. The consensual poverty line was shown to be more generous to small households and the norm for social assistance was more generous to larger households. Finally, the expenditure for guaranteeing all Swedish household a minimum income equal to the consensual poverty line was estimated: more than SEK 25 billion per year. The results in the article casts serious doubt on the ability of the Swedish welfare state to secure a decent income to all citizens.     

A modified false discovery rate multiple-comparisons procedure for discrete data, applied to human immunodeficiency virus genetics

Summary.  To help to design vaccines for acquired immune deficiency syndrome that protect broadly against many genetic variants of the human immunodeficiency virus, the mutation rates at 118 positions in HIV amino-acid sequences of subtype C versus those of subtype B were compared. The false discovery rate (FDR) multiple-comparisons procedure can be used to determine statistical significance. When the test statistics have discrete distributions, the FDR procedure can be made more powerful by a simple modification. The paper develops a modified FDR procedure for discrete data and applies it to the human immunodeficiency virus data. The new procedure detects 15 positions with significantly different mutation rates compared with 11 that are detected by the original FDR method. Simulations delineate conditions under which the modified FDR procedure confers large gains in power over the original technique. In general FDR adjustment methods can be improved for discrete data by incorporating the modification proposed.     

A theory of prudential values and a rule utilitarian theory of morality

Ethics can be divided into a theory of prudential values and a theory of morality in a narrower sense. My paper proposes a utilitarian — a rule-utilitarian — theory of morality. But it deviates from most of the utilitarian tradition by rejecting the hedonistic and subjectivistic accounts of prudential values favored by many utilitarian writers. While economists tend to define people's utility levels in terms of their actual preferences, ethics must define them in terms of their informed preferences. To prefer A over B does not mean to have a stronger desire for A than for B. Rather, it means to regard one's access to A as being more important than one's access to B. Even though different people often have quite different preferences, their basic desires seem to be much the same. We must choose our moral rules, and our society's moral code as a whole, by their social utility. An important factor in determining their social utility are their expectation effects. Unlike the rule — utilitarian more code, the act — utilitarian moral code would be unable to give proper weight to these expectation effects. It would also unduly restrict our individual freedom. Finally, I shall argue against Kant that morality is primarily a servant of many other human values rather than itself the highest value of human life.     

Characteristics of smokeless tobacco use among high school football players as related to type of smokeless tobacco and period of use.

The present study was conducted to assess differences in the behavioral and demographic characteristics of snuff (dip) users as compared to users of chewing tobacco. High School football players (1116) were surveyed concerning their use and perceptions of smokeless tobacco. Adolescent athletes who tried smokeless tobacco were more likely to be white, to use cigarettes, alcohol, and cigars and to have family users than those who never tried. Initial use was highest before the age of fourteen years and was influenced by friends, curiosity and family. Dippers tended to initiate use because of friends, while chewers started because of family users. Users of both dip and chew started primarily because of curiosity. Users of both were more likely to consume greater amounts to alcohol and cigarettes and to smoke cigars and pipes. It appears that the longer smokeless tobacco is consumed, the more likely both dip and chew will be used. Users of smokeless tobacco for more than two years tended to consume more of the product each week, used it for more hours/day, initiated use at an earlier age, and used it more often at school and work than those using it for less than two years. Use of cigars/pipes, consumption of alcohol, and quantity of cigarette consumption increased significantly with longer duration of smokeless tobacco use. Intervention and prevention programs would be helped by understanding differences between users of various smokeless tobacco products and differences related to the duration of use. In addition, further analyses of smokeless tobacco users should study chewers, dippers, and users of both separately.