Erotophobia‐erotophilia as a dimension of personality

This review discusses the measurement, antecedents, and consequents of erotophobia‐erotophilia—the disposition to respond to sexual cues along a negative‐positive dimension of affect and evaluation. Test construction procedures which resulted in a 21‐item measure of this personality construct are reported. Evidence indicates that the measure is internally consistent, shows acceptable degrees of convergent and discriminant validity, and is correlated as expected with related constructs such as authoritarianism, adherence to traditional sex roles, indices of value orthodoxy, and various measures of sex‐related evaluations. Retrospective surveys and group contrasts suggest that erotophobia‐erotophilia is a learned disposition based on one's exposure to sex‐related restrictiveness and punishment during socialization. Consequents of erotophobia‐erotophilia involve avoidance versus approach responses to sexuality in a wide range of situations; scores on this test predict differential sexual experience, responses to erotica, likelihood of engaging in sexual fantasy behavior, the tendency to learn about or teach others about sex, engaging in sex‐related health care, the probability of utilizing contraception, and behaving sexually during pregnancy and postpartum. Cross‐cultural research provides evidence for the generality of this construct beyond North America.     

Heritage corridors: transnational flows and the built environment of migration

ABSTRACT

In settler nations such as Australia, which have high migrant intakes, a category of cultural heritage practice has emerged that focuses on the material record of immigration. Currently, a nation-bounded approach tends to be taken to the recording and interpretation of this heritage, an approach that largely ignores the transnational social fields to which the immigrants who created the heritage places and buildings belonged. I propose the concept ‘heritage corridor’ to aid in conceptualising the transnational connectivity between migrant heritage sites in Australia and overseas locales as well as the bi-directional flow of ideas and capital that is often materially evident in the built environments, both rural and urban, encompassed by such a corridor. Focusing on Chinese overseas migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I describe how transnational remittances were instrumental in the building of houses, temples, schools, shops, roads and bridges in Guangdong Province, many of which are now regarded as heritage items. As an example of how the field of heritage studies may productively dialogue with migration studies, new thinking on material agency is drawn upon to account for the way remittance-built houses become entangled in the lives and aspirations of those at opposite poles of a heritage corridor.     

Exact short poisson confidence intervals

The authors propose a new method for constructing a confidence interval for the expectation θ of a Poisson random variable. The interval they obtain cannot be shortened without the infimum over θ of the coverage probability falling below 1 ‐ α. In addition, the endpoints of the interval are strictly increasing functions of the observed variable. An easy‐to‐program algorithm is provided for computing this interval.     

Physician incentive plan boosts physician/patient satisfaction. 5-year-old plan at priority health shows success

Physician involvement is crucial to creating a healthy physician incentive program. Look at how one large, Michigan-based managed care organization established their program.     

Money management,patient safety and customer service among top concerns for physician executives. Interview by Barbara Linney

Find out what's happening today and what the future may be like for physician executives. Seasoned physician executives and well-known physician executive recruiters share their insights on the profession.     

MS,exercise, and the potential for older adults

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system. The average onset of the disease is 30 years of age, and it afflicts women more often than men (ratio of approximately 2:1). The symptoms of the disease include fatigue, motor weakness, heat sensitivity, reduced mobility, abnormal gait mechanics, and poor balance. These symptoms decrease cognitive and physical functional capacity of an individual and tend to result in sedentary lifestyle behaviors. A sedentary lifestyle among individuals with MS increases the risk of secondary diseases such as coronary heart disease and obesity, particularly as one ages. The effect of exercise in treating symptoms of MS has been under explored, perhaps due to the fact that exercise was thought to magnify MS-related fatigue and other symptoms. Recent research has challenged this notion, advocating exercise as an effective therapy for the management of MS, as well as maintaining overall fitness and improving quality-of-life measures. While the research shows clear benefits, the barriers to exercise participation among MS patients are significant. Recommendations for various forms of exercise are provided, along with strategies for overcoming barriers to participation.     

Anti-homosexual prejudice . . . as opposed to what? Queer theory and the social psychology of anti-homosexual attitudes

This article uses Sedgwick's distinction between minoritizing and universalizing theories of sexuality to analyze variability in social psychologists' studies of anti-homosexual prejudice, focusing on studies of attitudes. Anti-homosexual prejudice was initially defined in conversation with gay liberationists and presumed, among other things, that fear of homoerotic potential was present in all persons. Later social psychologists theorized anti-homosexual prejudice in strict minoritizing terms: as prejudice towards a distinct out-group. In the first section of this paper we discuss corresponding shifts in the conceptualization of anti-homosexual attitudes. Next, using a universalizing framework, we re-interpret experiments on behavioral aspects of anti-homosexual attitudes which were originally conceptualized using a minoritizing framework, and suggest avenues for future research. Finally, we examine how queer theory might enrich this area of social psychological inquiry by challenging assumptions about the politics of doing scientific work and the utility of identity-based sexual politics.