Indirect Effects of Maternal Sensitivity on Infant Emotion Regulation Behaviors: The Role of Vagal Withdrawal

The potential indirect effect of observed maternal sensitivity at 5 months on the development of infants' behavioral regulation of emotion from 5 to 10 months (i.e., distraction and maternal‐orientation behaviors) via infant's vagal withdrawal was investigated (N = 230). Results indicated that maternal sensitivity at 5 months was not directly associated with behavioral regulation at 10 months. However, greater maternal sensitivity at 5 months was associated with greater vagal withdrawal at 10 months, after controlling for vagal withdrawal at 5 months. Further, vagal withdrawal at 10 months was associated with greater orientation toward the mother at 10 months, after controlling for 5‐month orientation behaviors. The indirect effect of maternal sensitivity on maternal‐orientation behaviors was significant, suggesting that infant's vagal withdrawal may be one potential mechanism through which maternal sensitivity is related to behavioral regulation.     

Moral Incongruence and Pornography Use: A Critical Review and Integration

Internet pornography use (IPU) remains a controversial topic within sexual behavior research fields. Whereas some people report feeling dysregulated in their use of pornography, mental health and medical communities are divided as to whether IPU can be addictive. The present review sought to examine this issue more closely, with a focus on how variables other than pornography use, such as moral disapproval and moral incongruence (i.e., feeling as if one’s behaviors and one’s values about those behaviors are misaligned), might specifically contribute to self-perceived problems around pornography use. Through an examination of recent literature, the present work reviews evidence that moral incongruence about IPU is a common phenomenon and that it is associated with outcomes relevant to current debates about pornography addiction. Specifically, moral incongruence regarding IPU appears to be associated with greater distress about IPU, greater psychological distress in general, greater reports of problems related to IPU, and greater reports of perceived addiction to IPU. The implications of this body of evidence for both clinical and research communities are discussed, and future directions for research are considered.     

Catch,class and bureaucracy: the meaning of Joseph Heller's Catch 22

The expression‘Catch 22’has become part of the language, routinely employed without further explanation in newspapers, television programmes and everyday speech, and invoked without further reference in the learned papers of both British and American authors.¹ A related, but less common tendency, which serves to identify admirers of the novel, is the predisposition to see particular incidents and characters as exemplars of the world beyond its pages.² Ransacking the text for such Goffmanesque parallels can, at a minimum, contribute to a kind of world weary higher gossip and a repertoire of novel epithets for characterising faculty committees. This is clearly not what so perceptive a political theorist as John Schaar had in mind when he located Catch 22 between Horatio Alger and Goodman's Growing Up Absurd as one of those books which, for Americans at least, has ‘had important effects on our political life’.³ Indeed one critic has even suggested that Yossarian, the central character, was a role model for those Vietnam war draft resisters, evaders and AWOL veterans who chose exile in Sweden and elsewhere.⁴ Whatever the status of this and similar contentions (and prescience seems a more plausible claim than influence) my intention is not to establish the precise impact of Catch 22 on attitudes and action. I am, however, concerned to explain the basis of its popularity. Hence my tactics are to reconstruct how the novel works on its reader and to suggest the ways in which this connects with, and selects for, a public which occupies a distinctive social and cultural situation. That public, it is argued, is all but coextensive with Gouldner's ‘New Class’,⁵ and the form style and structure of Catch 22 dramatises the sociolinguistic implications of the contradiction which characterises the New Class's social position. Moreover the book provides a symbolic solution to that contradiction. For Heller, method, ideas and sensibility are linked in a strategy which both uncovers the use of language as a bureaucratic resource and uses the resources of language to uncover bureaucracy.⁶     

Making coal pay: The conversion of natural resources to economic resources in Southern Appalachia: The case of eastern Kentucky

This analysis follows up earlier empirical research in Appalachian Kentucky on how coal production influences socioeconomic development and still earlier research on dimensions of development. The research issue approached here is what factors affect counties' ability to convert a natural resource, coal, to an economic resource, income. The answer appears to be that counties that are more effective are more developed and those less effective are less developed.     

At the Heart of Therapy: A Conversation With Ron Perry

Ron Perry has recently retired from his position as Director of the Institute of Counselling in Sydney, a position that he held for 35 years. Over the course of his career, his interest in all aspects of counselling, and his enthusiasm for family therapy, led him to attend numerous training programs and workshops overseas as well as in Australia. Like others at the time, he progressed through the ‘new’ models of therapy as they evolved over the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He has been a consultant to many individuals and groups across Sydney, and was a trainer and supervisor for 10 years with Margaret Topham's Family Therapy Institute of Australia. In 2005 Ron was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for ‘service to the community as a counsellor, particularly as one of the founders of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia’.     

The Effects of Free Trade on Development, Democracy, and Environmental Protection

Much literature in the social sciences addresses the relationship between economic development and democracy. Many large-scale surveys have found a strong relationship between economic development and democracy, while others indicate a more complex dynamic involving education and inequality. Comparative studies of fewer cases indicate ambiguous results but suggest the importance of historical contingencies, class conflict, unionization, and opposition parties. Free trade advocates argue that trade leads to economic development, which leads to increased demands for and gains in environmental protection. I argue, however, that the relationship needs to be understood in a more complex and dynamic way that takes into account a variety of political, cultural, and economic developments resulting from freer trade. Accordingly, I raise several reasons to be skeptical about claims linking free trade, development, democracy, and environmental protection. I further argue that free trade acts as a cultural constraint upon democratic and environmental protection initiatives.     

The Role of Ethnicity in the Emergency Decision-Making Process*

Although sociologists have studied for decades the process whereby citizens make emergency decisions in response to disaster warnings, very little attention has been given to understanding the role of ethnicity in this process. Data derived from fatality and injury counts following disasters, though sparse, documents that minority group citizens tend to suffer disproportionately high negative consequences in connection with the impact of disasters. On the basis of this information, it is inferred that differences exist between the emergency decision-making processes of minority and majority citizens. This paper lays the theoretical groundwork for beginning to revise existing conceptual models of warning response behavior to more adequately address the variation associated with minority group status. This goal is accomplished through pursuing three general tasks: (1) examining the process through which personal emergency decisions are made, (2) delineating social factors which impinge upon the outcomes of this decision-making process, and (3) integrating into an existing model of warning response behavior, additional variables which are related to minority status.     

The sexual partnerships of people with serious mental illness

We compared the sexualities of people with serious mental illness and the general population using the National Health and Social Life Survey (Laumann et al, 1994) and the Indiana Mental Health Services and HTV Risk Study (Wright, 1999). We investigated whether and how the sexual behaviors and relationships of people with serious mental illness differ from the general populations’ and identified factors differently influencing the organization of sexuality in these two groups. We found evidence that the relationships of people with serious mental illness are characterized by less intimacy and commitment than those of the general population. Additionally, although people with serious mental illness use condoms more consistently, they are also more likely to have concurrent relationships and tend to have sex sooner with new partners, which may contribute to a higher risk of contracting HFV. Our findings point to a need for a paradigm shift in the way that clinicians and researchers conceptualize and manage client sexuality. A less individualistic approach that takes into consideration the relationship context and social and institutional constraints is needed.     

Multiracial Church Attendance and Support for Same‐Sex Romantic and Family Relationships

Research has found that attending a racially diverse congregation promotes more favorable attitudes toward interracial dating, marriage, and adoption, but does participation in an integrated faith community promote tolerance toward other non‐traditional romantic and family forms? This study examines the relationship between involvement in a racially diverse congregation and support for same‐sex romantic and family relationships. Data are taken from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey. I fit logistic regression models to estimate the effect of attending a multiracial church on support for homosexuality, same‐sex marriage, and same‐sex adoption, net of sociodemographic and religious controls. Results indicate that persons who attend churches where between 25 and 75 percent of attendees are of another race are more likely to support gay sex, marriage, and adoption compared with those who attend more racially homogenous churches. This relationship generally holds when models are estimated for evangelicals and mainline Protestants separately, but not for Catholics. Findings suggest a link between religion‐based racial prejudice and heterosexism/homophobia and that increased exposure to racial diversity may promote a general tolerance toward non‐traditional romantic couples and families.