Called to Medicine: Physicians’ Experiences of Career Calling

Using consensual qualitative research methodology, the authors explored physicians’ (N = 17) career calling experiences through semistructured interviews. Eight domains emerged: definition of calling, development of calling, calling's fit with career, maintenance of calling, emotional well‐being, relationships, recreation, and future. Within these domains, 17 general and 40 typical categories emerged. Results suggest physicians’ callings were influenced by others, met with both support and barriers, and chosen because of fit with interests, prosocial motivation, or religious/spiritual influences. Calling positively and negatively influenced emotional well‐being, relationships, and recreation and was expected to continue after retirement. Counselors are encouraged to use a narrative lens to conceptualize clients’ calling development, use job crafting techniques to support calling maintenance, and prepare clients for postretirement career calling development. Future research might examine when and why a medical calling's strength may change over time.     

‘The Realm of Maiden Beauty’: Spectres of Slavery,Rebellion, and Creolisation in the Landscape of Cable’s Louisiana

Using a creative interdisciplinary method of enquiry, this article seeks to exorcise the spectres of revolutionary creolisation embedded in George Washington Cable’s 1880 novel The Grandissimes. It probes, in particular, the secreted traces of the Creole diaspora triggered by the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, and attempts to peel back the manifold layers of ideological occlusion embedded in the (ostensibly white, Anglo-American) narrative frame of Cable’s omniscient narrator and his protagonist Joseph Frowenfeld, which suppress the connections between inter-American identities across diverse, revolutionary, creolistic worlds in Louisiana and the Gulf South. Unlike other studies examining traces of the Haitian Revolution in The Grandissimes, which tend to focus on the parallels between fictional and historical figures in Cable’s southern romance, this article dissects the subtle allusions to the revolution and the attendant diaspora found in the plantation infrastructures and the urban landscape of Cable’s Louisiana. In so doing, it demonstrates how Saint-Domingan migrants affirmed and reinvigorated the cultural landscape of the ‘Creole’ South and ‘circumvented’ the ideological spread of ‘Americanness’ at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, and during successive moments thereafter.     

“Understanding” as Support for Emerging Adults Whose Parents Have Chronic Health Conditions: A Life-Span Communication Perspective

To better understand the “chronic burden of care” in the United States, we focused on an underrepresented demographic of youth caregivers in families, emerging adults (EAs). EAs are a newly recognized population of youth, 18–25 years of age, who are developmentally between adolescence and young adulthood. Guided by the life span communication perspective, we interviewed 98 EAs (30 males and 68 females, M age = 19.09, SD = 1.72) about their experiences providing support to a parent with a chronic health condition. Many EAs in this study said they provided “understanding” and our interpretive thematic analyses uncovered two broad meanings of the word: it is a form of support that EAs both have and communicate. When EAs have understanding, they have knowledge about the health condition and how it affects their parent. They also have acceptance to some degree that the health condition is a fixture of their lives and that their parents are imperfect and fallible people. They communicate the understanding they have through reciprocating support, sacrificing, being obedient, avoiding sensitive topics, and projecting emotional strength. We discuss the findings and their implications for emerging adult development as well as parent-child relational development parallel to difficult long-term health issues in families.     

Beyond conventional wisdom: community cultural wealth and the college knowledge of African American youth in the United States

African American youth are generally as likely as their peers from other racial and ethnic groups to aspire to earn a college degree; yet, in spite of their aspirations these students remain under-represented in college enrollment and graduation. Part of the disparity between these students’ aspirations and the realization of their goals may lie in their minimal college knowledge and nominal participation in postsecondary preparatory activities that have frequently been caused by the historic, and ongoing, systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans. During interviews, college students reflected on how similarly-aged family members, peers, co-workers, and parishioners assisted with various aspects of college preparation and enrollment. The community cultural wealth framework helps us understand the reason for, and importance of, this ‘lateral mentorship’ in the fulfillment of these students’ college aspirations. Consequently, educators and educational systems are challenged to be more responsive to the college preparatory needs of traditionally under-represented college-going populations.     

New developments in behavioral pricing research

Behavioral pricing extends traditional price theory by exploring consumers’ reactions to prices from a psychological perspective. With the constant and substantial evolution of this research field, we review the progress on the state of knowledge on consumers’ processing of price information and price behavior. To this end, we develop a framework to classify the advances made in behavioral pricing research during the past decade. We discuss conceptual developments, the contribution of the adoption of new theories, and new relationships and pricing phenomena. We show that several concepts have undergone conceptual developments (e.g., price search) while other concepts are new to the literature (e.g., participative pricing mechanisms). Regarding theoretical developments, the adoption of theories from other disciplines has contributed to enhance understanding of price-related effects. Finally, new pricing phenomena, such as the zero price effect or the placebo effect of price promotions, challenge the traditional view of consumers’ response to price information. Furthermore, a number of recent empirical findings contradict existing knowledge on price-related concepts and phenomena. Thus, it is of prime importance to integrate the latest findings with prior literature. From the key findings in the literature, we derive directions for future research.     

Identity boxes: using materials and metaphors to elicit experiences

This paper considers the use of identity boxes as a data collection method to elicit experiences. Participants were asked to respond to questions using objects to represent their answers. The rationale for using identity boxes was to allow for a more embodied, less textual approach. The identity boxes were then also used to create an artistic installation as one form of data analysis. The reflection section in this paper shows that the approach posed potential risks around the emotional vulnerability of participants, with participants experiencing the project as cathartic and therapeutic. Some participants struggled with the process of thinking through objects as difficult. Although using a less conventional approach to research led to deeper, richer reflections and thus relevant, interesting data, concerns were raised around relevance, generalisability, and more generally the evaluation of the research. The paper concludes with a reconsideration of the identity boxes as a method.     

The association of infant crying,feeding, and sleeping problems and inhibitory control with attention regulation at school age

Regulatory problems in infancy and toddlerhood have previously been associated with an increased risk of developing attention problems in childhood. We hypothesized that early regulatory problems are associated with attention problems via reduced inhibitory control. This prospective study assessed 1,459 children from birth to 8 years. Crying, feeding, and sleeping problems were assessed at 5 and 20 months via parent interviews and neurological examinations. At 20 months, inhibitory control was tested with a behavioral (snack delay) task. Attention regulation was assessed at 6 and 8 years using multiple instruments and informants. Detrimental effects of crying, feeding, and sleeping problems on attention regulation were partly mediated by children's ability to inhibit unwanted behaviors (β = ?0.04, p = 0.013). Accounting for cognition diminished this indirect effect (β = ?0.01, p = 0.209). Instead, the effects of crying, feeding, and sleeping problems on attention regulation were fully mediated by children's cognitive functioning (β = ?0.10, p < 0.001). These results support that inhibitory control abilities partly mediate effects of crying, feeding, and sleeping problems. However, these effects may be accounted for by children's general cognitive abilities. Early regulatory problems may set infants on a course of under control of behavior into school age, and such trajectories are highly associated with general cognitive development.     

Talking about work stress: Discourse analysis and implications for stress interventions

This study used discourse analysis to explore the way in which employees understand work stress. Twenty-two female clerical workers in a Canadian city participated in focus group meetings where they talked about and made sense of their experiences of work stress. The women's accounts were analysed using discourse analysis methods (i.e. an examination of how talk is constructed). The findings revealed that talking about being stressed provides a socially acceptable way of expressing discomfort and regaining a sense of importance that is lost through feeling under-valued and under-appreciated in the organization. In contrast, admitting to being unable to cope with stress was considered to be 'abnormal'. The stress discourse fosters a sense of helplessness and ambiguity by not acknowledging external influences on clerical workers' experiences, such as their place within the power structure of the organization, and by limiting their sense of agency and control over problems experienced at work. The implications of these findings for organizational culture and interventions are discussed. For example, employers are encouraged to be conscious of the messages being sent to employees about how negative emotions or distressing experiences at work are to be addressed (i.e. how 'stress' is to be managed). Recommendations are made for future research using discourse analysis, such as the examination of alternative discourses that aim to improve conditions at work.     

The sociology of social classes

Comme son titre l'indique, cet article tente de récapituler les travaux les plus importants sur les classes sociales dans la sociologie québécoise des cinquante dernières années. Ces travaux se rattachent à divers courants de pensée théorique qui ont suivi des voies parfois parallèles et parfois opposées les unes aux autres: problematiques d'inspiration weberienne, parsonienne, marxiste, gurvitchienne, tourainienne, etc. En meme temps, la sociologie des classes s'est integree dans plusieurs conjonctures politiques successives, toutes marquees par la question nationale. Ses debats scientifiques eclairent les principaux enjeux de ces conjonctures eu egard au changement social et aux groupes qui en sont l'avant-garde.
As its title indicates, this article attempts to summarize the most important work on social classes in Quebecois sociology during the last 50 years. Social class research in Quebec has been associated with various theoretical approaches (Weberian, Parsonian, Marxist, Gurvitchian, Tourainian, etc.) which have taken either parallel or conflicting paths with each other. At the same time, the sociology of classes has been associated with many successive political conjunctures, each of which has been marked by the national question. These scientific debates illustrate the most important stakes involved in these conjunctures, especially with regard to social change and avant-garde social groups.