Testosterone and men's depression: the role of social behavior.

Medical research suggests that testosterone has positive effects on mood (thereby reducing the chances of depression), and social science research finds testosterone to be related to antisocial behavior, risk behavior, unemployment and low paying jobs, and being unmarried--factors known to be positively related to depression. Analysis of a sample of 4,393 men finds a parabolic model best fits the data. The relationship between testosterone and depression is inverse for men with below average testosterone and direct for those with above average testosterone. The relationship disappears for those with above average testosterone when controls for antisocial and risk behaviors and the absence of protective factors such as marriage and steady employment are in the equation. The relationship is unchanged for those with below average testosterone. The results help explain the difference between medical and social research findings. Mechanisms accounting for the findings are explored.     

Emotional Reactivity and Emotional Regulation Strategies as Predictors of Social Behavior with Peers During Toddlerhood

Fifty-six mothers and their 24-month-old toddlers were observed on two occasions in a series of laboratory procedures designed to assess relations between emotional functioning (emotional reactivity and emotion regulation) in an individual assessment and social behavior with a same-sex peer. Emotional reactivity was assessed using two frustration tasks designed to elicit distress. Emotional regulation was assessed by examining the child's behaviors (venting, distraction, focal-object focus, self-orientation, and mother-orientation) when confronted by the two distress-eliciting tasks. Peer play behaviors were coded for social participation and peer-directed conflict (aggressive) behavior. The results indicated that both emotional reactivity and emotion regulation were important predictors of at least two types of social behavior: conflict and cooperation. Distress to frustration, when accompanied by high venting or high focal-object focus, was significantly related to conflict with peers but not when accompanied by distraction, mother-orientation or self-focused behaviors. These findings are discussed in terms of the adaptive value of emotion regulation skills in early development, and the importance of identifying the causal relations between child regulation and early social competence.     

A hierarchical theory of occupational segregation and wage discrimination

Becker's model of discrimination is extended to the case where men exhibit distastes for working under female managers. The distribution of women in the resulting occupational hierarchy depends on the number of women in lower occupations, the wages of male workers in lower occupations, and male distastes for female management. Thus, there exists an occupational sorting function, related to wages, that determines the occupational distribution of women. We integrate this sorting function into a standard wage equation to derive a new decomposition of male-female wage differentials and apply it to a sample of insurance industry workers from the 1988 CPS.     

The Timing of Cohabitation and Engagement: Impact on First and Second Marriages

Using a multistate sample of marriages that took place in the 1990s, this study examined associations between premarital cohabitation history and marital quality in first (N = 437) and second marriages (N = 200) and marital instability in first marriages (intact N = 521, divorced N = 124). For first marriages, cohabiting with the spouse without first being engaged or married was associated with more negative interaction, higher self‐reported divorce proneness, and a greater probability of divorce compared to cohabiting after engagement or marriage (with patterns in the same direction for marital positivity). In contrast, there was a general risk associated with premarital cohabitation for second marriages on self‐reported indices of marital quality, with or without engagement when cohabitation began.     

The Virtuality of Virtual Worlds,or What We Can Learn from Playacting Horse Girls and Marginalized Developers

This article discusses the emergence of Habbo Hotel as a large‐scale virtual world and its changing versions through time. We consider how social events taking place within the hotel are conditioned by designed‐in symbolic resources and how, in turn, with creative processes of symbolization, novel social objects emerge out of particular interactions. We then discuss how the membership trajectories of hotel members are essential in understanding how these interactions are shaped and evolve. We also look at how the digital infrastructure and its evolution lends itself to being material for actualizing particular social worlds within the hotel and how the trajectory of the infrastructure reflects the relationship between the user and the developer communities of Habbo. Finally, we discuss why, to understand more fully what virtual worlds consist of at large, analysts should look into the mutually constitutive interactions among users, developers, and surrounding business models over longer periods of time in the constantly varying actualization of any given virtual world.     

Reproductive health and domestic violence: Are the poorest women uniquely disadvantaged?

We use Demographic and Health Survey data from Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to compare women in different poverty and violence categories in terms of their experience of selected reproductive health outcomes. "Poor" women are those who belong to the bottom quintile of households arrayed according to a widely accepted asset-based wealth index. The results suggest that women who are both poor and have experienced violence are not unique in their reproductive health disadvantage. In particular, for all three reproductive health outcomes we consider the negative association with having experienced violence cuts across all women, poor and wealthy.     

Statewide Implementation of “Reducing Disability in Alzheimer’s Disease”: Impact on Family Caregiver Outcomes

There have been few replications of efficacious evidence-based programs for dementia caregivers offered in community settings. This study highlights the replication of the evidence-based Reducing Disability in Alzheimer’s Disease program and explores the changes in outcomes for participating caregivers and whether those changes are related to level of program utilization. With data from 219 caregivers, regression results indicate that more exercise sessions are associated with a decrease in caregiver strain and more behavior management sessions are associated with a decrease in unmet needs after 3 months. Findings demonstrate how a multicomponent program can have positive benefits for family caregivers.