Implicit Family Process Rules in Eating-Disordered and Non-Eating-Disordered Families

Family environment has been shown to be one of the factors related to the presence of eating disorders among young-adult females. Clinical experience and theories about eating disorders postulate that implicit family rules are an intricate part of family process that may have a great effect on the creation and maintenance of such problems. This study compared implicit family process rules (specifically rules pertaining to kindness; expressiveness and connection; constraining thoughts, feelings, and self; inappropriate caretaking; and monitoring) in families with a young-adult female diagnosed with an eating disorder—either anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or eating disorder not otherwise specified—and families with a young-adult female without an eating disorder diagnosis. One hundred two families (51 eating disordered and 51 comparison) participated in the study. Mothers, fathers, young-adult female children, and siblings completed the Family Implicit Rules Profile ( Harper, Stoll, & Larson, 2007 ). Results indicated that eating-disordered families are governed by a greater proportion of constraining family rules than are non-eating-disordered families. Additionally, eating-disordered youth reported a lower proportion of facilitative family rules and a higher proportion of constraining family rules than did parents and siblings. Theoretical, research, and clinical implications are discussed.     

Adolescent Depression and Future Smoking Behavior: A Prospective Study

The aim of the study was to examine the associations between depressive symptoms and smoking, concurrently and prospectively, in adolescents in America, the evaluation of depressive symptoms according to different group’s smoking status, and the assessed associations between concurrent depressive level and success in smoking cessation. The participants were 2,735 boys and 2,890 girls from the Add Health data set. The prospective analysis indicated that participants with higher depressive symptoms in Wave I were more likely to start smoking and become regular smokers in Wave II. Moreover, regression analysis found that depressive symptoms in both Waves I and II predicted current smoking status. Findings are discussed within the context of the empirical and theoretical review and implications for social work practice are considered.     

A Comparison of Textual and Echoic Prompts on the Acquisition of Intraverbal Behavior in a Six-Year-Old Boy with Autism

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - A comparison of textual and echoic prompts was conducted to determine which form of prompts was more effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to a 6-year-old...     

Straw men and fairy tales: Evaluating reactions to a natural history of rape

In this paper we respond to two frequent criticisms of our book, A Natural History of Rape (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000). The first criticism portrays the book as little more than a “just‐so” story that human rape is an adaptation. We demonstrate that this portrayal is not accurate. The second criticism reflects a common response to the book's challenge of the popular assertion that rapists are not motivated by sexual desire but instead commit these crimes motivated by the urge to power, domination, and violence, and the urge to degrade and humiliate women. We demonstrate that such criticisms of our book are inherently contradictory and illogical. We believe it is important for sex researchers to understand that these sorts of criticisms are seriously flawed so that future research efforts toward understanding the causes of sexual coercion are not stalled.     

The Effects of Recent Welfare and Immigration Reforms on Immigrants' Access to Health Care1

This study investigates the impact of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, both passed in 1996, on the use of health‐care services in immigrant communities in five Texas counties. The study presents findings of interviews with public agency officials, directors of community‐based organizations, and members of 500 households during two research phases, 1997–1998 and 1998–1999. In the household sample, 20 percent of U.S. citizens and 30 percent of legal permanent residents who reported having received Medicaid during the five years before they were interviewed also reported losing the coverage during the past year. Some lost coverage because of welfare reform restrictions on noncitizen eligibility or because of changes in income or household size, but many eligible immigrants also withdrew from Medicaid “voluntarily.”     

Patterns and characteristics of adolescent gambling

Minnesota youth (15 to 18-years of age) were surveyed regarding their gambling experiences and psychosocial risk status. Gambling was reported by most of the subjects, with 8.7% classified as problem gamblers. Correlates of problem gambling included school difficulties, regular drug use, delinquency, parental gambling, and being male. Adolescent gambling is conceptualized as a normal experience of youth, yet those in the problem gambling group may be particularly vulnerable to future gambling problems.The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Minnesota Department of Human Services for their funding support of the study and to several colleagues, particularly Linda Harris, J. Clark Laundergan and Durand Jacobs, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

WORKING IN “HIGH-TECH”: RESEARCH ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE INDUSTRIAL SOCIOLOGIST*

This article outlines some issues concerning the organization of work in the new “high technology” industries. High technology industries are defined as industries involved in the manufacture of electronic information processing machinery and related products. Two central tensions are key to understanding work in the new high technology industries. First, a limited reduction in the prevalance of repetitive tasks is counterbalanced by increasing isolation of workers due to semi-automated production processes. This tension may be mediated by intentional efforts on the part of unions and/or management to recreate meaningful work environments. Second, potential empowerment arising from the creation of new job related skills is frequently offset by continuing high unemployment in the broader labor market that is to some extent a result of the very success of high technology production tcchniques. Difficulties in realizing potential aspects of empowerment may be further amplified by large-scale utilization of female and minority labor in high technology industries in the West and Southwest. Research techniques of addressing these issues are also surveyed and evaluated.     

Work Life and Social Fulfillment: Does Social Affiliation at Work Reflect a Carrot or a Stick?*

Objectives. Work life and home life appear to be in increasing competition for scarce time and attention. Does the workplace offer a social haven for people? And if so, for whom is it most attractive? Or does the increasing affiliation with work life result from heightened job insecurity, which demands that employees focus on work in order to keep their jobs? Methods. In this article we analyze a unique data set incorporating all book‐length workplace ethnographies (N=149) to address these questions. This data set provides rich measures of social life at work and related correlates. Results. We find that rich social lives are common at work and that these correlate strongly with fulfillment, pride, and meaning in work. Well‐paid employees are much more likely to experience a rich social life at work than are lower‐level employees. Job security appears to be a relative constant, unrelated to the richness of social life on the job. Men are more socially involved at work than women, reflecting their greater average involvement in work life relative to family life. This relationship, however, does not hold net of controls, suggesting that it reflects underlying differences in the jobs men and women hold. Conclusions. These findings suggest a bifurcated labor force in which upper‐status employees reap both greater material and greater social rewards from their jobs and, as a result, are more drawn to work, and to workaholism, than lower‐status workers.