A Preliminary Investigation of the Effectiveness of Attachment Therapy for Adopted Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder

The purpose of this preliminary investigation was to examine the effectiveness of attachment therapy for adopted children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). Although attachment therapy is widely utilized in the practice community, outcomes of such therapy have not been well documented. In this study a pretest–posttest one-group design was used with a sample of 24 adopted children who received attachment therapy from trained, licensed therapists. Therapy was funded by the Georgia Office of Adoptions under a contract with a non-profit adoptive parent advocacy group which provided training of therapists and direct services to families. RAD was measured with the Randolph Attachment Disorder Questionnaire (RADQ), Third Edition; functional impairment was measured with the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS). Statistically significant decreases in scores on the RADQ and CAFAS from pretests to posttests indicate improvement for the children who received therapy. In spite of methodological limitations, the current study adds to the limited knowledge about effective treatment for RAD.     

Supervisor humor styles and employee advocacy: A serial mediation model

This study examines how supervisor humor styles influence employee advocacy by building the linkage between affiliative humor, aggressive humor, supervisor authenticity, employee-organization relationships, and employee advocacy. Through a quantitative survey with 350 employees who work for a variety of organizations, the study’s results indicated that the relationship between supervisor humor style and employee advocacy is fully mediated by supervisor authenticity and employee-organization relationships. Significant theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Big Data Analytics Capabilities and Innovation: The Mediating Role of Dynamic Capabilities and Moderating Effect of the Environment

With big data analytics growing rapidly in popularity, academics and practitioners have been considering the means through which they can incorporate the shifts these technologies bring into their competitive strategies. Drawing on the resource‐based view, the dynamic capabilities view, and on recent literature on big data analytics, this study examines the indirect relationship between a big data analytics capability (BDAC) and two types of innovation capabilities: incremental and radical. The study extends existing research by proposing that BDACs enable firms to generate insight that can help strengthen their dynamic capabilities, which in turn positively impact incremental and radical innovation capabilities. To test their proposed research model, the authors used survey data from 175 chief information officers and IT managers working in Greek firms. By means of partial least squares structural equation modelling, the results confirm the authors’ assumptions regarding the indirect effect that BDACs have on innovation capabilities. Specifically, they find that dynamic capabilities fully mediate the effect on both incremental and radical innovation capabilities. In addition, under conditions of high environmental heterogeneity, the impact of BDACs on dynamic capabilities and, in sequence, incremental innovation capability is enhanced, while under conditions of high environmental dynamism the effect of dynamic capabilities on incremental innovation capabilities is amplified.     

Between the village and the global city: the production and decay of translocal spaces of Thai migrant workers in Singapore

This paper explores the mobilities and structural moorings of Thai labour migrants in Singapore from a translocal perspective. We argue that combining the mobilities paradigm with the concept of translocality offers a fruitful avenue of investigation not only of the production of translocal spaces, but also of their temporality and mutability. Through a multi-sited research approach we shed light on the genesis as well as the decay of translocal connections. This paper shows that translocal structures are important moorings of migration, and raises the question of what happens to translocal spaces when migration flows dissolve.     

Guilds in the transition to modernity: The cases of Germany,United Kingdom,and the Netherlands

One important aspect of the transition to modernity is the survival of elements of the Old Regime beyond the French Revolution. It has been claimed that this can explain why in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries some Western countries adopted national corporatist structures while others transformed into liberal market economies. One of those elements is the persistence or absence of guild traditions. This is usually analyzed in a national context. This article aims to contribute to the debate by investigating the development of separate trades in Germany, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands throughout the nineteenth century. We distinguish six scenarios of what might have happened to crafts and investigate how the prevalence of each of these scenarios in the three countries had an impact on the emerging national political economies. By focusing on trades, rather than on the national political economy, our analysis demonstrates that in each country the formation of national political economies and citizenship rights was not the result of a national pattern of guild survival. Rather, the pattern that emerged by the end of the nineteenth century was determined by the balance between old and new industries, and that between national and regional or local government.     

An Initial Investigation of Individual Rate-of-Play Preferences and Associations with EGM Gambling Behavior

Electronic gambling machines (EGMs) show a strong association with gambling problems. The high speed of gaming offered by modern EGMs allows playing numerous games in a short span of time, which is thought to contribute to attentional distraction, increased spending and prolonged play. However, the relationship between EGM speeds and potentially risk-related gambling behavior remains unclear. We introduce a novel approach to investigating the role of gaming speed in EGM gambling behavior by examining ‘individual rate-of-play’ (I-ROP) during simulated EGM gambling. A community sample of male regular gamblers (N = 72) played virtual slot machines in pairs offering sequentially adjusted game speeds towards the estimation of a behaviorally expressed preference speed, or I-ROP. This initial experiment aimed to explore the variability of I-ROPs during simulated EGM gambling, and examine behavior while playing EGMs at speeds relative to their I-ROP. Estimated I-ROPs ranged from less than one half second to over seven seconds and were negatively associated with cognitive ability, but not related to problem gambling severity, impulsiveness, or gambling-related cognitions. Subsequent gambling sessions on EGMs offering individually calibrated faster and slower gaming speeds were associated with greater and reduced risk-related gambling behaviors respectively. I-ROPs represent a potentially informative construct for exploring influences of gaming speed on gambling behavior, and may lend insight into potential risk-related behavior an individual vulnerability with respect to commercially available EGMs that warrants additional research.     

Predicting child safety: the effect of custodial grandparents’ depressive symptoms,home safety,knowledge, and gender

There are over 2.5 million custodial grandparents raising 4.8 million grandchildren in the U.S. These grandparents face many major struggles, including increasing financial costs, physical disabilities, and deteriorating home environments. Our study investigates grandchild well-being, particularly the safety of custodial grandparents’ homes and its relation to injury prevention. This is crucial, as unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children. Our model predicted child safety based on grandparent gender, depressive symptoms, and safety knowledge. Our model fit well and explained 23% of the variance in child injuries. Several gender differences were also present, for both grandparent and grandchild gender.     

Alcohol,Sex, and Screens: Modeling Media Influence on Adolescent Alcohol and Sex Co-Occurrence

Alcohol use and sexual behavior are important risk behaviors in adolescent development, and combining the two is common. The reasoned action approach (RAA) is used to predict adolescents’ intention to combine alcohol use and sexual behavior based on exposure to alcohol and sex combinations in popular entertainment media. We conducted a content analysis of mainstream (n = 29) and Black-oriented movies (n = 34) from 2014 and 2013–2014, respectively, and 56 television shows (2014–2015 season). Content analysis ratings featuring character portrayals of both alcohol and sex within the same five-minute segment were used to create exposure measures that were linked to online survey data collected from 1,990 adolescents ages 14 to 17 years old (50.3% Black, 49.7% White; 48.1% female). Structural equation modeling (SEM) and group analysis by race were used to test whether attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control mediated the effects of media exposure on intention to combine alcohol and sex. Results suggest that for both White and Black adolescents, exposure to media portrayals of alcohol and sex combinations is positively associated with adolescents’ attitudes and norms. These relationships were stronger among White adolescents. Intention was predicted by attitude, norms, and control, but only the attitude–intention relationship was different by race group (stronger for Whites).