THE FREE-LANCE MUSICIAN AS A TYPE OF NON-PERSON: AN EXTENSION OF THE CONCEPT OF NON-PERSONHOOD

Free-lance musicians are professionally trained artists who lack permanent membership in any musical organization. Although trained to be creative artists, most frequently free-lancers play supporting music for operas, ballets and solo performers on stage, or provide background music for dinners or receptions. As a consequence, their technical skills are devalued by audiences; they often play music below their skill level; spontaneity in interpretation is extremely limited or impossible; they are anonymous to the audience and their playing generally receives an impersonal response; performances serve a functional rather than an aesthetic purpose; and players are interchangeable between groups. As a result of treatment as non-persons, free-lancers hold a sense of low prestige for themselves, and the occupation in many ways serves as a negative reference group for its members. Wide implications regarding non-personhood are drawn for an increasingly mechanized society. Contrary to Goffman's examples, non-personhood is not tied to occupations of limited skill, but rather, can occur in any occupational group under conditions in which individual interpretation, decision making, and power are nullified.     

Treatment of psychogenic seizures in adolescents

This article will review the problem of psychogenic seizures in adolescents and the impact of family therapy and individual therapy on treatment. Why particular individuals are prone to psychogenic seizures, the relationship between psychogenic seizures and family dynamics, and unresolved individual issues will be covered. The article will address a selected case, with a specific clinical paradigm for treatment.     

Discrepancies in Perceived Organizational Control: their Incidence and Importance in Local Churches*

The effects of discrepancies between preferred and perceived control among church members are investigated in terms of amount and distribution of control. For each dimension of control, three categories of respondents are identified: those who preferred a greater amount or wider distribution of control than they perceived to exist within their churches (deficit); those whose preferred and perceived control scores were identical (balance); and those who preferred a lesser amount or more concentrated distribution of control in their churches than they perceived to exist (surplus). For both amount and distribution of control, a perceived deficit is more common than a surplus. Respondents experiencing discrepancies in either direction are more dissatisfied and alienated than those with a balance in desired and perceived organizational control. A deficit is associated with more dissatisfaction (but not necessarily more alienation) than a surplus. Subsample comparisons show these findings hold for both officers and non-officers. Regression analyses show that discrepancies regarding organizational control are important even after other aspects of control have been introduced.     

The Perceived Threat of Nuclear War, Salience, and Open Questions

The most serious problem facing the United States, accordingto many scientific and political leaders, is the threat of nuclearwar. Yet the standard survey question on the most importantproblem facing the country has often shown little public concurrencewith this assumption. Our article uses experimentation in nationalsamples to test whether this difference can be traced to limitationsin either the form or the wording of the standard question.The results indicate that there are some important systematicdifferences between open and closed versions of the question,and also differences that result from reference to the nationas distinct from the world, but neither type of difference accountsfor the infrequent mention of nuclear war on the standard question.Instead, other evidence indicates that most Americans believethat nuclear war is not going to happen at all, or that if itdoes happen it will be too far in the distant future to be ofpressing concern to them personally.     

Alienation: a Discrepancy Approach*

A discrepancy measure of job-related alienation, labeled power discrepancy, is introduced. Power discrepancy was measured by the difference between the amount of job-related power workers feel they are able to exercise on their present jobs and the amount of power they feel they should be able to exercise. Three types were derived: workers whose perceived power was less than the amount they felt that they should have (deficit power); workers with as much perceived power as they felt they should have (balanced power); and workers whose perceived power exceeded what they believed they should have (surplus power). It is found that power deficit increases with the degree of functional specialization at work and that power deficit is the most common experience regardless of the extent of functional specialization. Instrumental work orientation and isolation from organizational goals is the most pronounced among workers with deficit power. Workers with surplus job-related power are on a par with those with a balance between perceived and desired power in terms of consummatory work orientation and commitment to organizational goals. Among workers with less job-related power than they feel they should have, instrumental work orientation and isolation from organizational goals are higher among less affluent, younger, and loss educated workers. Introduction of a measure of the importance of work-related power did not help in explaining this last finding.     

Academic incentives for students can increase participation in and effectiveness of a physical activity program

The authors sought to determine whether a greater academic incentive would improve the effectiveness and student adherence to a 12-week voluntary exercise program designed to decrease students' percentage of body fat. They randomly assigned 210 students to 1 of 2 groups with different academic reward structures. The group with the greater reward structure showed better exercise adherence and lost more body fat than those without the additional incentive. These findings suggest that an academic incentive can increase overall student adherence to a voluntary exercise program and can boost the effectiveness of the program in a university environment. The findings also have potential implications for on-campus promotion of physical activity.     

The Impact of Interdisciplinary Teams on Organizational Relationships

Based upon research in an alcoholism treatment organization, the study explores the impact of interdisciplinary team treatment on organizational participants and structure. The findings suggest that alternate organizational arrangements are necessary for organizations which use the team method. The implications of team treatment for professionals were confounded because of power relationships within the organization. Role bargaining between professionals was observed to be virtually non-existent because of the dominance of a single discipline. A surprising finding was the extent to which supervisory personnel were disadvantaged in the study. Caution is suggested for those organizations most likely to adopt the team method, large public health organizations.     

Alienation as a Process: Work as a Case in Point*

A theoretical framework is tested predicting that the lack of perceived status recognition within a status structure promotes social psychological withdrawal from that status structure. Scales of Powerlessness, Meaninglessness, and Normlessness were used as independent variables, representing aspects of the work status structure. Self-Evaluative Involvement in work and Instrumental Work Orientation scales were employed as two indicators of social psychological withdrawal from the work role. Some empirical support for the theoretical framework is presented.     

Separating batterers and guns: a review and analysis of gun removal laws in 50 States

Firearms play an important role in lethal domestic violence incidents. The authors review state laws regarding two policies to separate batterers from firearms: laws authorizing police to remove firearms when responding to a domestic violence complaint ("police gun removal laws") and laws authorizing courts to order guns removed from batterers through a protective order ("court-ordered removal laws"). As of April 2004, 18 states had police gun removal laws; 16 states had court-ordered removal laws. The authors examine relevant characteristics of the laws and recommend that these laws be mandatory, apply to all guns and ammunition possessed by an abuser, and include clear procedures to enhance implementation.