Development of the Drake Beliefs about Chance Inventory

The present research describes the development and validation of a cognitive assessment instrument, the Drake Beliefs about Chance (DBC) inventory, designed to determine and quantify erroneous beliefs about games of chance. Principal components analyses showed that the DBC assesses two primary dimensions, Illusion of Control and Superstition. Correlation analyses showed that scores on these two dimensions are related to higher frequency of gambling behaviors in both adults from the general population and clients from gambling treatment centers. Of the two sets of erroneous beliefs, Illusion of Control was a better predictor of gambling than Superstition. This investigation provides additional evidence that participants in games of chance such as casino gamblers possess certain classes of erroneous beliefs regarding the games they play.     

How Will Reforms of Marital Institutions Influence Marital Commitment? A Theoretical Analysis

Many recently policy proposals are intended to alter the incentives to establish or terminate family relationships, often with the goal of encouraging marriage. This paper develops a model of family structure decisions and uses it to argue that some such reforms may actually have the opposite effect. A pro-marriage reform raises both the value of marrying ones current partner and the value of search. When the latter effect dominates, singles are less likely to form a match, and couples are more likely to separate and optimally make fewer commitments to their relationships.This paper has benefitted from conversations with Gary Becker, Robert Michael, Victor Lima, Janice Compton, Emek Basker, Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman (the editor), several anonymous referees, and the participants of workshops at the University of Chicago and the Midwest Economics Association. I also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the University of Chicago and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (Grant number T32HD07302). Any remaining deficiencies are solely my responsibility.     

Working with parents to reduce juvenile sex offender recidivism

Although there is very little research in the area of including parents in juvenile sex offender treatment, one of the factors that might be worth exploring is how the parental relationship may aid in successful relapse prevention. Since the family environment is a potential risk factor for adolescent sex offenders, integration of relapse prevention into daily family life may be a significant part of these youths' success or failure in the community. This article focuses on the concept of including parents in juvenile sex offender treatment. Issues addressed include what treatment providers can do to involve parents in relapse prevention, treatment providers' misconceptions about the inclusion of parents in treatment, a rationale for including parents in treatment, and research regarding different parenting styles.     

Sexual activity and risk taking in young heterosexual men: the relevance of sexual arousability, mood, and sensation seeking

In this research we explored three aspects of personality relevant to sexual activity and sexual risk taking in heterosexual men. Men with low inhibition of sexual arousal in the face of risk (low SIS2) reported more partners with whom they use no condoms and more lifetime "one night stands." Men who experience increased sexual interest in states of depression (MSQ) reported more partners in the past year and more one night stands. The disinhibition subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale was predictive of whether sexual intercourse had occurred in the past 6 months, and also of the number of sexual partners in the past year. A measure of an intention to practice safer sex was strongly related to measures of sexual arousability and inhibition (SIS/SES). We discuss some clear similarities and also some interesting differences with a parallel study of gay men. Individual differences in sexual excitation and inhibition proneness and the relation between mood and sexuality are clearly relevant to high-risk sexual behavior and should be taken into consideration when designing behavioral interventions.     

The Government and Statutory Bodies in Hong Kong: Centralization and Autonomy

Over the past decade in Hong Kong, the relationship and accountability of statutory bodies to core government, to the legislature, and to the broader public have been the subject of continuing and, as yet, unresolved debate. Faced with scandals and other serious problems in a number of the major statutory bodies, and in the context of its own problems of lack of political support and legitimacy, the Tung administration tended to reduce the autonomy of the statutory bodies by increasing central control and integrating their functions with those of core government. Legislators have seen the problems of statutory bodies from a rather different perspective, arguing that they result from a lack of accountability and transparency. The government’s eventual concession to the need for reform has resulted, since 2003, in a review of the principles governing the work of all advisory and statutory bodies and of specific statutory bodies which have experienced serious problems. This article examines the principles contained in the review and assesses whether they are likely to lead to increased autonomy and improvements in governance standards.     

Impulsiveness,impulsive aggression,personality disorder,and spousal violence

Impulsiveness has become a key concept in thinking about the determinants of violence and aggression. In this study of spouse abusers, the relationship between impulsiveness, impulsive aggression, and physical violence is confirmed. Impulsiveness and impulsive aggression have significant correlations with physical aggression. Impulsiveness and impulsive aggression are also correlated with measures of Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. In addition, the measures of Borderline and Antisocial Personality Disorder (PD) are significantly correlated with physical aggression. The violent and non-violent groups differed on impulsive aggression and on Borderline Personality Disorder. A partial replication of Tweed and Dutton's findings (1998) revealed sub-groups of high- and low-violence men. The high-violence group was very different from the low-violent and the non-violent groups. The high-violence group had higher pathology scores on all clinical scales, except Mania, of the Personality Assessment Inventory. These findings have implications for violence prediction and for treatment of violent men.     

Race differences in depressive symptoms: a dynamic perspective on stress exposure and vulnerability

The existence, nature, and strength of race differences in mental health remain unclear after several decades of research. In this research, we examine black-white differences in the relationship between acute stressors and depressive symptoms. We reframe the stress exposure and differential vulnerability hypotheses in the context of long-term trajectories of stress and depression, and we hypothesize that trajectories of stress growth will be associated with trajectories of depressive symptom growth. Using latent growth curve analysis of a sample of 1,972 older persons interviewed three times at three-year intervals, we test the hypotheses that (1) growth in exposure to loss-related events will predict growth in depressive symptoms, and (2) African Americans will experience greater stress growth than whites. Results support the hypotheses. Stress growth exhibited a linear increase for blacks but not for whites, and predicted depression growth for both races, but explained more variance for blacks than for whites.