The Performance Effects of an Ability-Based Approach to Goal Assignment

Some organizations have begun to target their goal-setting method more closely to the ability levels of their employees. In this article, we report the results of a laboratory study of 138 undergraduate students, which shows that these “ability-based” goals are more effective at improving performance than a “one goal for all” approach, where everyone is assigned the same performance target. Results from repeated measure tests and other analysis of variance tests show that lower-ability individuals in the ability-based goal condition outperform those in the one goal for all condition. Lower- and moderate-ability participants in the one goal for all condition also experienced larger decreases in performance in later rounds.     

Projections and Policies for Volunteer Programs: The Implications of the Serve America Act for Volunteer Diversity and Management

This article explores the limits of public policy as it affects volunteerism in the United States. Our analysis focuses on the potential of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (2009), the most sweeping volunteer legislation in U.S. history, to raise the level of volunteering and national service in the United States, particularly among young people, older people, and minorities—the primary target populations of the act. The Serve America Act aims to increase service‐learning opportunities and national service placements substantially. However, the long‐term impact of these changes on the rate of volunteering and the composition and character of the volunteering population remains unclear. Using data from the Current Population Survey's annual Supplement on Volunteering, we examine a variety of reasonable policy scenarios to see how the Serve America Act might affect future volunteering through the year 2050. The findings suggest that even if the Serve America Act is fully funded and implemented, it is unlikely to have a long‐term impact on the overall volunteering rate and, consequently, that altering the national volunteering rate might be an unrealistic public policy goal. Nevertheless, the analysis shows that because of naturally occurring changes in the population, the composition of the volunteer pool is likely to change as we move toward 2050—a demographic shift that will present increased challenges for volunteer managers. We discuss these challenges and how managers might deal with them effectively.     

Sibling Sexual Abuse: An Empirical Analysis of Offender,Victim, and Event Characteristics in National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Data, 2000–2007

Sibling sexual abuse is identified as the most common form of familial sexual abuse. Extant literature is plagued by definitional inconsistencies, data limitations, and inadequate research methodology. Trivialized as “normal” sexual exploration, sibling sexual abuse has been linked to psychosocial/psychosexual dysfunction. Research has relied on retrospective, convenience, and/or homogenous samples. This work drew on eight years of National Incident-Based Reporting System data (2000–2007) to provide aggregate level baseline information. This work extended prior research exploring victim-, offender-, and incident-based characteristics. Results highlight the need for expanded definitional criteria relating to both age and gender to better inform risk assessment and prevention. Findings both corroborate and contrast prior work and suggest victim- and offender-based gender differences.     

Urban growth patterns and growth management boundaries in the Central Puget Sound, Washington, 1986–2007

Many regions of the globe are experiencing rapid urban growth, the location and intensity of which can have negative effects on ecological and social systems. In some locales, planners and policy makers have used urban growth boundaries to direct the location and intensity of development; however the empirical evidence for the efficacy of such policies is mixed. Monitoring the location of urban growth is an essential first step in understanding how the system has changed over time. In addition, if regulations purporting to direct urban growth to specific locales are present, it is important to evaluate if the desired pattern (or change in pattern) has been observed. In this paper, we document land cover and change across six dates (1986, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2002, and 2007) for six counties in the Central Puget Sound, Washington State, USA. We explore patterns of change by three different spatial partitions (the region, each county, 2000 U.S. Census Tracks), and with respect to urban growth boundaries implemented in the late 1990’s as part of the state’s Growth Management Act. Urban land cover increased from 8 to 19% of the study area between 1986 and 2007, while lowland deciduous and mixed forests decreased from 21 to 13% and grass and agriculture decreased from 11 to 8%. Land in urban classes outside of the urban growth boundaries increased more rapidly (by area and percentage of new urban land cover) than land within the urban growth boundaries, suggesting that the intended effect of the Growth Management Act to direct growth to within the urban growth boundaries may not have been accomplished by 2007. Urban sprawl, as estimated by the area of land per capita, increased overall within the region, with the more rural counties within commuting distance to cities having the highest rate of increase observed. Land cover data is increasingly available and can be used to rapidly evaluate urban development patterns over large areas. Such data are important inputs for policy makers, urban planners, and modelers alike to manage and plan for future population, land use, and land cover changes.     

The insufficiency of fairness: The logics of homeless service administration and resulting gaps in service

This paper reports on discursive justifications of homeless service institutions in the USA, illustrating a conceptualization of service founded on economic logics of industry and the marketplace. Emerging from ethnographic data, we found that homeless service administrators utilized economic logics of justification to legitimize the exclusion of the street homeless by framing delivery within western notions of fair exchange and efficient production. When these logics are used exclusively to frame justifiable criteria for receiving services, certain people are empowered to participate in social welfare institutions, while others are disfranchised. We conclude that addressing gaps in service requires legitimizing varied administrative models, which, although underpinned by different, perhaps even oppositional, justifications, will engender a service sector responsive to the diversity of the homeless population.     

The Danger of Desire: Anal Sex and the Homo/Masculine Subject

Anal eroticism between men has been a recurrent focus in psychoanalytic theory for over a century. Many theorists conflate anal eroticism with danger, particularly danger to masculinity and male gender identity. Defensive resistance to aggressive penetration and fear of receptivity are repeatedly invoked to understand anal erotic excitement and actions. The author reviews numerous papers on this topic from a broad spectrum of psychoanalytic theories, including drive theory, queer theory, and relational psychoanalysis and seeks to expand the discourse on anal eroticism between men.

Although danger and dangerousness may be an aspect of individual anal erotic experience, it is not an essential or obligatory aspect of it; its construction as dangerous restricts the meanings that anal sexuality can carry. This imposes a defensive function on anal erotic desire or marginalized identity upon the practitioner when this is unwarranted.