REGION, RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT, AND LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG BLACK AMERICANS

Using data from the National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA), this research examines three sets of hypotheses regarding the effects of religious commitment on life satisfaction. Further, given evidence of historical geographical differences in black culture and social structure, this study explores the regional specificity of religious influences on life satisfaction. Religious participation contributes to subjective well-being only among non-southern blacks, while private religiosity is unrelated to well-being in any analysis. There are also denominational effects: non-southern members of traditional black denominations (i.e., Baptists and Methodists) and southern Catholics report particularly high levels of life satisfaction. In addition, the effects of religion on life satisfaction are contingent upon age for non-southerners only. This study concludes with a discussion of directions for future research on religion and mental health.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Use of Internal State Talk with their Young Children

The present study extends previous results demonstrating a relation between maternal discourse and child social understanding to include paternal discourse. Emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were considered as two distinctive aspects of social understanding. Participants were 106 children (54 boys and 52 girls) studied at 3.5 and 5 years. Discourse measures came from separate parent–child conversations during a picture‐book task; measures of EU and ToM came from children's performance on social cognition tasks. Differences in parental talk translated into important differences in the influence of each parent on children's social‐cognitive understanding. Mothers' references to emotion and emotion causal explanatory language predicted children's concurrent EU. Fathers' use of causal explanatory language referring to desires and emotions predicted children's concurrent and later ToM. These results highlight important differences between mothers and fathers in their use of internal state language and its impact on children's social‐cognitive understanding.     

Bandwidth-based nonparametric inference

Nonparametric curve estimation is an extremely common statistical procedure. While its primary purpose has been exploratory, some advances in inference have been made. This paper provides a critical review of inferential tests that make fundamental use of a key element of nonparametric smoothing, the bandwidth, to determine the significance of certain features. A major focus is on two important problems that have been tackled using bandwidth-based inference: testing for the multimodality of a density and testing for the monotonicity of a regression curve. Early research in bandwidth-based inference is surveyed, as well as recent theoretical advances. Possible future directions in bandwidth-based inference are discussed.     

Guidance,counselling, therapy: responses to ‘marital problems’ 1950–901

This paper makes a contribution to the still relatively undeveloped literature on the sociology of counselling, using a detailed case study of one organisation. Styles of intervention are explored in the work of the National Marriage Guidance Council/Relate. The paper rejects a simple linear development model based on transitions from ‘guidance’, to ‘counselling’ to ‘therapy’ Influences deriving from Rogerian models of counselling, from psychodynamic and behavioural theory are explored and are placed in the context of wider organisational factors. Attention is given to the varying fortunes of the medical model within Marriage Guidance. The paper concludes with an examination of the contradictions thrown up by recent attempts to develop an eclectic model of marital counselling, which appear to founder on the absence of any clearly defined goals for intervention.     

Union wage differentials and the effects of industry and local union density: Evidence from the 1980s

This study finds that the real union-nonunion wage differential has declined only slightly since 1985, a period of falling unionism. The study also finds that, in contrast to earlier research, local (geographic) union density positively affects union and nonunion wages. This paper has benefited from discussions with Bill Even and Barry Hirsch. The research support of the School of Business Administration Research Committee is greatly appreciated.     

Reliance on sources of information for water-saving practices by irrigators in the High Plains of the U.S.A.

Who do farmers trust? Irrigators in the High Plains are confronted with a wide range of information sources with respect to water-saving practices. From a survey of 709 irrigators in 10 countries the most widely accepted sources are identified, regional variability of information is examined, the role of irrigator characteristics on source selection is determined, and the level of association between adoption and source preference is analyzed. Differences in irrigators' reliance on specific sources are more associated with location than irrigator characteristics. Information sources viewed as important by many irrigators frequently influence adoption decisions less than sources having a wide range of preference among irrigators. Mass media and advisor-oriented sources are much more significantly linked to adoption than inter-personal sources such as friends and neighbors. The three sources that best discriminate adoption behavior are private agricultural consulting firms, university research stations, and trade magazines.     

What's in a name? named doctor in child protection—interpretation and implementation of the role

Child protection issues are reported in the media with uncomfortable regularity, highlighting that all paediatricians need to be competent in dealing with cases of child abuse. The named doctor in child protection was introduced to improve this, but implementation of the role has varied widely. This paper describes how the role of the named doctor in child protection has been put into practice in Nottingham City Hospital and discusses some of the challenges that can arise. The importance of training and audit in maintaining the quality of service for the trust is emphasized and developments for the future and important avenues for research are suggested. We have shown that with three designated sessions in a large district general hospital (without an accident and emergency department), the named doctor can combine with the named nurse to increase the awareness and effectiveness of child protection in all parts of the hospital. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.