Dignity and Dirty Work: Nurses’ Experiences in Managing Genetic Termination for Fetal Anomaly

Qualitative research was conducted with forty-one female registered nurses from four Canadian hospitals who manage the genetic termination (GT) procedure for women who end a wanted pregnancy due to fetal anomaly. Based on the sociological concept of dirty work, interest focused on nurses experiences with work that is viewed as unpleasant and undesirable, work that others would prefer not to do or even know about. The absence of institutional support led to a number of problems for the nurses. They readily discussed situations fraught with dilemmas and frustrations, yet they described this work as professionally rewarding and personally gratifying. They found strategies to respond to the dirty work aspects of their job. Particularly, the quality of care they were able to provide transformed their job from dirty work and led them to find dignity and satisfaction.     

Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect on verbal language development of purposefully encouraging hearing infants to use simple gestures as symbols for objects, requests, and conditions. To this end, 103, 11-month-old infants were divided into three groups, all of whom were seen in the laboratory for a variety of assessments, including standardized language tests at 15, 19, 24, 30, and 36 months. Parents of those in the Sign Training group modeled symbolic gestures and encouraged their infants to use them. Parents of infants in the Non-intervention Control group knew nothing about symbolic gestures or our special interest in language development. As a control for training effects (i.e., effects attributable to families being engaged in a language intervention program), parents of a second control group of infants (the Verbal Training group) were asked to make special efforts to model verbal labels. After comparisons of the two control groups minimized concerns about training effects, comparisons between the Sign Training and the Non-intervention Control group indicated an advantage for the Sign Training group on the vast majority of language acquisition measures. These results provide strong evidence that symbolic gesturing does not hamper verbal development and may even facilitate it. A variety of possible explanations for such an effect are discussed.     

The Presentation of Self and the New Institutional Inmate: An Analysis of Prisoners' Responses to Assessment for Release*

This paper bases an analysis of the prison experience on Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life rather than on Asylums. It describes the situation of prisoners in an institution where release decisions are individualized and where release recommendations depend on official assessments of the character, background, and moral “change” of each prisoner. The paper then focuses on the work that prisoners do to demonstrate institutionally approved character and “change” to the prison staff or, in the words of prisoners, to “show them who you are.” The concepts and premises of dramaturgy are employed to analyse prisoners' techniques of self-portrayal and to analyse prisoners' resistance to institutional assessment through describing their behaviour as simply “conning” and “manipulating.”     

Adapting the jury trial for program evaluation: A report of an experience

A portion of the graduate program in clinical community psychology at SUNY Buffalo was subjected to a jury trial as a form of program evaluation. The theory of the trial as evaluation, the problems of implementation, and a posttrial evaluation are discussed. The trial, while time-consuming, especially in its pretrial phases, has the potential for presenting a dramatic picture of a program through the medium of human testimony. The jury was able to arrive at clear decisions on questions put to it, with a high degree of confidence. Decision makers accepted some of the jury's conclusions, and subjective evidence suggests that many of the controversial issues which generated the trial were resolved for the group by the procedure. The posttrial evaluation revealed limitations, such as evidence which was not presented at the trial. The experience proved useful for purposes of interdisciplinary education, providing another lens through which the evaluation problem could be viewed.     

Program evaluation of the CREST project: empirical support for kinship care as an effective approach to permanency planning

The number of children, especially from ethnic minority groups, in substitute care is growing rapidly even as the number of foster care homes is steadily decreasing. Kinship care has quickly become the permanency planning option of choice. This article describes a model kinship care project and the results of an extensive program evaluation. Results show that the project enhances functioning of relative caregivers and reduces the cost of care. Implications for contemporary permanency planning are presented.     

Tobacco use and quit behaviors among delinquent youth: a pilot study

With rates of adolescent tobacco use steadily increasing over the past 20 years, assisting youth to quit, particularly those youth most susceptible to tobacco use, has become a national focus. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine and profile the smoking patterns of a small sample (n = 37) of juvenile offenders in Texas. In contrast to anecdotal reports, the sample group from this study did not differ clinically from the general population of adolescent tobacco users. Importantly, the study participants indicated previous attempts to stop smoking. The authors conclude that delinquent youth may be responsive to cognitive behavioral smoking cessation programs that also address the management of peer networks.     

Passion and gambling: on the validation of the Gambling Passion Scale (GPS)

Vallerand and his colleagues (Vallerand & Blanchard, 1999; Vallerand, Blanchard, Koestner, & Gagné, 2001) have recently proposed a new concept of passion. According to these authors, passion refers to a strong inclination toward an activity that we like, find important, and in which we invest time. Vallerand et al. have identified two types of passion: obsessive and harmonious. Obsessive passion refers to an internal pressure that forces an individual to engage in the activity. Harmonious passion, on the other hand, refers to an internal force that leads an individual to choose freely to engage in an activity. While obsessive passion has been shown in some circumstances to lead to negative psychological and physical consequences, harmonious passion generally leads to positive psychological and physical consequences. The purpose of the present research was to validate a measure of passion toward gambling: the Gambling Passion Scale (GPS). The GPS consists of two subscales (obsessive passion and harmonious passion) comprising five items each. Results from two studies involving a total of 340 participants revealed satisfactory internal consistency and temporal stability indices, as well as a two-factor structure supported by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Finally, a series of partial correlational analyses between the two subscales and scales assessing behavioral measures related to gambling supported the construct validity of the GPS. The present results suggest that the GPS is a useful scale for research on gambling.     

The Reported Influence of Research Participation on Premarital Relationships

We examined the reported influence of participation in research on individuals in premarital relationships. Data were from a larger longitudinal study of 60 dating couples. We designed a questionnaire to evaluate the effects of participation. Responses to open‐ended questions revealed 3 major sources of influence: attention to relationship evaluation, effects on relationship activities, and indirect or no influence. Closed‐ended items yielded 2 dimensions: relationship‐defining influence and relationship‐evaluating influence. Relationship‐evaluating influence was greater the more respondents participated in the study. The higher were respondents' scores on relationship‐evaluating influence, the more their relationship satisfaction increased over the year long study. We conclude that the effects of participating in the research are primarily educational and enriching in nature, rather than therapeutic as suggested in previous research ( Rubin & Mitchell, 1976 ).