The Upside to Hooking Up: College Students’ Positive Hookup Experiences

Objectives: Popular media and research have predominately focused on the risks of hooking up, which may stigmatize young people. In the current study, we identify factors that facilitate positive hookups. Methods: College students (N = 250) in the United States reported hookup motives, sexual self-concept, sexual satisfaction, and emotional reactions to a hookup. Results: Emotional reactions were more positive than negative. Intimacy and pleasure motives predicted sexual satisfaction; self-affirmation motives predicted positive emotional reactions. Hookups with a previous partner were rated as more satisfying. Conclusions: Understanding qualities associated with positive hookups may better equip young adults to make informed decisions about their sexual lives.     

The new genetics: professionals' discursive boundaries

In this paper we examine new genetics professionals’ accounts of the social context of their work. We analyse accounts given in interview by an ‘elite’ group of scientists and clinicians. Drawing on the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), we consider interviewees’ discourse about knowledge, exploring the way in which they separate science from society through the use of what we have called the ‘micro/macro split’. We then go on to consider the reasons for such a discursive boundary, exploring the interviewees’ wider discourse about expertise and responsibility for the social implications of the new genetics. We argue that interviewees’ discursive boundaries allow them to appeal variously to their objectivity, to dismiss bad science and to characterize the public as ignorant. However, these discursive boundaries are permeable and flexible, and are employed to support the new genetics professionals’ role in guiding education and government policy, whilst at the same time deflecting ultimate responsibility for the use of knowledge on to an abstract and amorphous society. Responsibility is flexibly embraced and abrogated. These flexible discursive boundaries thus promote rather than challenge the cognitive authority of new genetics professionals as they engage in debates about the social implications of their work. We end by challenging the replication of these discursive boundaries, noting some of the implications of such a critique for evaluation of the new genetics.     

Marriage,Money, and African American Mothers’ Self‐Esteem

This study examined the effects of marital status and family income on the self‐esteem of 292 African American mothers. Counter to previous studies with European American mothers, family income moderated the effects of marital status. Those mothers with higher family income had higher self‐esteem, regardless of their marital status. For those with less family income, married mothers had much higher self‐esteem than unmarried mothers. Low‐income married mothers had the same levels of self‐esteem as high income mothers. It was concluded that financial resources can buffer the effects of being single, and being married can buffer the effects of being low income. Policy initiatives that focus on reducing the financial hardship on single mothers and increasing the marriage rate among lower income parents were also discussed.     

Interpersonal consequences of legal handgun carrying on college campuses

Abstract

Objective: This study assessed whether college students felt less safe or were less likely to work with another student when they thought the person they would work with was carrying a handgun than when they did not.

Participants: Seventy participants were recruited from a public US university where campus carry was legal.

Methods: Participants were led to believe a confederate was carrying a handgun or not. Participants’ perceived safety and willingness to work with others was assessed.

Results: No difference was found in participants’ perceived safety. Participants who believed another student was carrying a concealed handgun reported they would be less likely to perform certain tasks with the handgun carrier than they would with the non-carrier.

Conclusions: People do not feel less safe around a handgun-carrying confederate and that allowing concealed handguns on campus might affect handgun carriers’ interpersonal interactions with others in suboptimal ways.     

Disability and conflict: exploring how the peace process in Northern Ireland assesses and addresses the needs of persons with disabilities

This article suggests that attempts to address the needs of persons with disabilities in the post-conflict setting have been largely characterized by a medicalized understanding of disability. In so doing, it neglects an assessment and comprehensive attempt to address the impact of structural and cultural violence on the opportunities and quality of life of persons with disabilities. Accordingly, the article suggests an elicitive approach to post-conflict efforts informed by the social model of disability to better assess and address the needs of persons with disabilities in a post-conflict society.     

The housing fulcrum: Balancing economic and social factors in housing research and policy

Abstract

We discuss the pivotal role that housing plays for both social and economic outcomes. All people need to be housed, and housing circumstances help determine social outcomes, especially for vulnerable groups. We outline an analytical framework that treats housing as a dynamic system, incorporating the life‐cycles of both individuals/households and houses. Each is long‐lived; decisions impact on housing for decades. This approach is relevant to the development of housing research and housing policy. We illustrate the issues with reference to the relationship between rental yields and measures of deprivation across New Zealand. The surprising nature of this relationship has consequences regarding potential poverty traps and wealth disparities. While highlighting an important housing market issue, any policy response to this issue is complicated by the need to take account of the life‐cycles of both individuals and of houses, and by the long‐lasting impacts of decisions.     

Exploring the relationship between gambling,debt and financial management in Britain

The issue of how and why gamblers end up in debt has received comparatively little attention in the literature. Data from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) revealed that although problem gamblers were more likely than non-problem gamblers to have forms of financial debt, just under two-thirds of problem gamblers (62%) reported having no debt. Using a qualitative approach, this study aimed to explore the issue from the perspective of gamblers themselves through interviews with 27 purposively sampled gamblers drawn from participants who took part in the APMS and the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010. Analysis, using the Framework method, suggested the existence of four kinds of gamblers categorized by their approach to gambling spending and their approach to their general spending: ‘controlled gamblers’, ‘uncontrolled gamblers’, ‘uncontrolled spenders’ and ‘chaotic spenders’. Also proposed on the basis of these data is an ecological model which aims to capture the different levels of personal and environmental factors that influenced people's financial decisions, including cognitive factors, control and compulsion, normative spending, resource and financial management, and the credit environment. The implications for practice are also discussed.     

Does proximity matter? Distance dependence of adolescent friendships

Geographic proximity is a determinant factor of friendship. Friendship datasets that include detailed geographic information are scarce, and when this information is available, the dependence of friendship on distance is often modelled by pre-specified parametric functions or derived from theory without further empirical assessment. This paper aims to give a detailed representation of the association between distance and the likelihood of friendship existence and friendship dynamics, and how this is modified by a few basic social and individual factors. The data employed is a three-wave network of 336 adolescents living in a small Swedish town, for whom information has been collected on their household locations. The analysis is a three-step process that combines (1) nonparametric logistic regressions to unravel the overall functional form of the dependence of friendship on distance, without assuming it has a particular strength or shape; (2) parametric logistic regressions to construct suitable transformations of distance that can be employed in (3) stochastic models for longitudinal network data, to assess how distance, individual covariates, and network structure shape adolescent friendship dynamics. It was found that the log-odds of friendship existence and friendship dynamics decrease smoothly with the logarithm of distance. For adolescents in different schools the dependence is linear, and stronger than for adolescents in the same school. Living nearby accounts, in this dataset, for an aspect of friendship dynamics that is not explicitly modelled by network structure or by individual covariates. In particular, the estimated distance effect is not correlated with reciprocity or transitivity effects.     

Promoting walking among older adults living in retirement communities

The authors tested the feasibility and acceptability, and explored the outcomes, of 2 walking interventions based on ecological models among older adults living in retirement communities. An enhanced intervention (EI) was compared with a standard walking intervention (SI) among residents in 4 retirement facilities (N = 87 at baseline; mean age = 84.1 yr). All participants received a walking intervention including pedometers, printed materials, and biweekly group sessions. EI participants also received phone counseling and environmental-awareness components. Measures included pedometer step counts, activities of daily living, environment-related variables, physical function, depression, cognitive function, satisfaction, and adherence. Results indicated improvements among the total sample for step counts, neighborhood barriers, cognitive function, and satisfaction with walking opportunities. Satisfaction and adherence were high. Both walking interventions were feasible to implement among facility-dwelling older adults. Future studies can build on this multilevel approach.