Strategies for implementing a tobacco-free campus policy

This report examines the rationale for creating a tobacco-free campus to utilize in passing antitobacco policies, and recommendations for overcoming barriers. As with any type of advocacy effort, a variety of impediments exist, including lack of administrative and staff support, absence of student involvement, and sparse resources. A variety of potential remedies and advocacy opportunities are explored and delineated.     

Economic crisis and the employee: The effects of economic crisis on employee job satisfaction,commitment, and self-regulation

Greece has been suffering a severe crisis starting in about 2009. This paper examines the impact of the recent economic crisis in Greece on employee work-related attitudes via changes in regulatory focus. We collected data in a large and heterogeneous sample of employees (N = 1024) during the crisis and compared them with a matched sample of employees surveyed (N = 882) half a decade earlier, i.e., before the crisis. Participants reported their job satisfaction, organizational commitment and their self-regulatory focus. Results show, as expected, that participants after start of the crisis were lower in extrinsic job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and were also (unexpectedly) lower in normative commitment, while these attitudinal changes were explained by decreased promotion orientation and increased prevention focus. Rather unexpectedly, pre-crisis and crisis samples did not differ in levels of continuance commitment. This paper makes a relevant contribution by showing that the threatening crisis event does not only have negative effects on work-related outcomes, but also that changes in regulatory foci occur and explain attitudinal change indicating an adaptive mechanism to the threatening situation of an economic crisis.     

Educational and employment outcomes of adults formerly placed in foster care: Results from the Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study

This study evaluated the intermediate and long-term effects of family foster care on adult functioning using a sample of 659 young adults from two public and one private child welfare agencies, case record reviews, structured interviews, and a survey response rate of 76%. Foster care alumni completed high school at a rate comparable to the general population, but a disproportionately high number of them completed high school via a GED. Alumni completion rates for postsecondary education were low. Consequently, many alumni were in fragile economic situations: one-third of the alumni had household incomes at or below the poverty level, one-third had no health insurance, and more than one in five experienced homelessness after leaving foster care. Two foster care experience areas were estimated to significantly reduce the number of undesirable outcomes in the Education outcome domain: positive placement history (e.g., high placement stability, few failed reunifications), and having broad independent living preparation (as exemplified by having concrete resources upon leaving care). For the Employment and Finances outcome domain, receiving broad independent living preparation (as exemplified by having concrete resources upon leaving care) was estimated to significantly reduce the number of undesirable outcomes.     

Social Psychologists' Expertise in the Public Interest: Civilian Morale Research During World War II

By reviewing the careers of three prominent social psychologists, Floyd Henry Allport, Daniel Katz, and Rensis Likert, this article describes the theoretical and practical psychological expertise that American psychologists developed before, during, and after World War II and describes how this expertise resulted in significant gains for the field of social psychology. Prior to World War II, Allport, Katz, and Likert made pioneering contributions to understanding issues relevant to society, to the science of social psychology, and to methods of attitude measurement and poll design. In response to World War II, each of the three pursued research topics more immediately connected to the war effort. Similar to other prominent social psychologists, Allport, Katz, and Likert were able to parlay their prewar reputations into significant, high-level roles in the service of the World War II effort. In turn, these successes helped to lay the foundation for a postwar boom in social psychology that had implications for training in and research on social psychology. Nonetheless, social psychology's and society's utilization of the knowledge gained during World War II appears to have been less than optimal.     

Watching the Watch: The UK Fire Service and its Impact on Sexual Minorities in the Workplace

This empirical study in one UK Fire Service explores the experiences of sexual minorities in the workplace, an under‐researched area of diversity, but one that has a growing focus of interest. The article aims to show that the organizational culture has an impact on sexual minorities in a number of different ways. The UK Fire Service is an organization which is fragmented into regional brigades, fire stations and watches (shifts) and it is at the level of the Watch that firefighters interact very closely. This article shows the complexities and dynamics of sexual minorities living and working in the Watch culture in the Fire Service. In particular, it highlights the different dimensions of the Fire Service culture which have an impact on sexual minorities. These are: the work environment, discourse, ways of working, rules, association, signs and symbols.     

Reconciling Reality With Fantasy: Exploration of the Sociocultural Factors Influencing HIV Transmission Among Black Young Men Who Have Sex With Men (BYMSM) Within the House Ball Community: A Chicago Study

Studies involving the House Ball Community (HBC) have found high rates of HIV prevalence and undiagnosed HIV infection, as well as unique social and sexual network-related HIV risk and protective behaviors (Murrill et al., 2008; Sanchez, Finlayson, Murrill, Guilin, & Dean, 2010). Efforts to understand culturally appropriate and effective methods of HIV prevention services within the relatively understudied HBC are scarce (Phillips, Peterson, Binson, Hidalgo, & Magnus, 2011). This qualitative study, utilizing a diffusion of innovation theoretical framework, aimed to explore social norms regarding HIV and accessibility of HIV prevention services within the HBC. Thirty-seven participants (16 community leaders and 21 youths) engaged in focus group discussions. Participants discussed the perceptions of HIV and stigmatization within the HBC, general and HBC-specific risk factors for HIV transmission, as well as HIV prevention needs and strategies for culturally appropriate HIV interventions. Findings from this qualitative study highlight both the vulnerability of the HBC to HIV transmission and the corresponding support for HIV prevention interventions.     

Regulating food safety: the power of alignment and drive towards convergence

Food safety is a complex policy domain: it involves a variety of stakeholders, touches upon a variety of issues and disciplines, and has an important international dimension. While countries are free to set their own standards, their policy autonomy in the process of regulating food safety is restricted by a number of factors. The EU and each member state are confronted with two aspects of compliance: the power of alignment with Codex standards, and the drive towards convergence with standards developed by trading partners. The importance attributed to the WTO and its reference organization, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, sheds light on the institutional constraints inherent in the international framework governing food safety while revealing the indirect power of alignment with international standards. Equally important, on the other hand, are the standards adhered to or required by key trade partners. This is often a stronger factor pointing towards convergence in the mid to long term. These constraints are inherent components of the present-day European regulatory framework governing food safety.     

Welfare Reform in America: A Clash of Politics and Research

The 1996 welfare reform law radically changed welfare as we knew it, after many years of debate and concerns across the ideological spectrum. Research should have provided essential information to revise the program, but instead, research was used as an ideological weapon to support conflicting points of view. President Clinton promised to end welfare as we know it but his welfare reform plan was superceded by the election of a Republican majority of the House and Senate in 1994. The resulting welfare bill included key elements from the Republican Contract with America. The purpose of this article is to describe how political pressures resulted in a dramatic change in law, despite doomsday predictions and almost no solid information about the law's likely impact.