AFFECT IN MARITAL THERAPY

Affect has been conceptualized in various ways. These conceptualizations have influenced the manner in which emotion is dealt with in marital therapy. Using a network theory of emotion, the role of the evocation of emotion in emotionally focused marital therapy to create intimacy and facilitate conflict resolution is discussed. Accessing underlying primary emotional responses in partners makes available adaptive action tendencies which promote problem solving and helps change self- and relationship definitions. The role of emotion in creating change in cognitions, motivation and communication patterns in marital therapy is discussed.     

Nation speaking unto nation? Newspapers and national identity in the devolved UK

There are two problems with the existing account of the relationship between newspapers and national identity in the UK. The first is that although it is widely assumed that the mass media are central to the reproduction and evolution of national identity this has never been empirically demonstrated. The second is that exactly what comprises the relevant ‘national’ context in the UK is unclear. Content analysis of 2,500 sampled articles, together with qualitative comparison of different editions of the same newspaper titles and interviews with editors and journalists are used to show the extent and nature of ‘national’ frames of reference in newspapers in England and Scotland. Paradoxically, devolution may have reduced the spatial diversity of news stories in the press in England and Scotland.     

Stress and role satisfaction experienced by employed and nonemployed mothers with young children

The associations between employment status, role choice, social support, stressful events, and mothers' experiences of stress and role satisfaction were investigated. Interviews and questionnaires were used to obtain information from 105 mothers with two-year-old children. Role choice, social support, and stressful events each predicted the amount of stress mothers experienced in their lives, although not all did so independently. Employment status, role choice, and social support predicted role satisfaction.Thanks are extended to Lynn Arner, Susan Goodwyn, and Cindy Litman for their contributions to the project, and to Curt Acredolo and Leanne Friedman for their assistance with statistical analysis and computer programming.Susan B. Crockenberg received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is now a Professor, Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616. Research interests include the developmental, contextual, and child determinants of maternal role adjustment, maternal behavior, and their impact on the child's social-emotional development.     

Perceptions of nonreciprocal touch in romantic relationships

College students attributed meaning on a questionnaire to 31 types of nonreciprocal touch occurring in opposite-sex romantic relationships. Subject sex and origin of touch (self vs. partner) had minor effects on attributed meanings. Subjects most often perceived these touches as expressing warmth/love, and rarely as expressing dominance/control.The authors are grateful to Richard Heslin and Jeffrey Fisher for their assistance in designing the study, and to C. Van Nelson for assistance in data analysis.     

Changing Old Habits: Dress of Women Religious and Its Relationship to Personal and Social Identity

Dress has played a critical and visible role in constructing social and personal identities of Roman Catholic nuns, or as those in noncloistered orders prefer to be called, women religious. This research utilizes symbolic interaction theory to examine how social identity, symbolized by the religious habit, communicated an image that was incompatible with the personal identities of the women religious who wore habits. To explore this issue, the author uses the concepts of identity distancing and embracing. During the 1960s and 1970s, following the mandates of Vatican II in 1962, the process of identity distancing was evidenced by relinquishing the habit. Identity embracing was at first symbolized by the ambivalence expressed in wearing the modified habit and more clearly conveyed through secular dress.     

Using housing items to indicate socioeconomic status: Latin America

This note explores the possibility of using physical housing quality information from censuses to help indicate socioeconomic status, particularly that of children, elderly people and women in developing areas such as Latin America. We develop a comparative scale from six housing items (wall material, floor material, roof material, availability of electricity, type of sewerage and water facilities) since these items are recommended by the U.N., tend to be present in most housing censuses, tend to be highly related to each other and tend to have a similar valuation. A more basic three-item scale, consisting of the last three items listed above, is also discussed because this scale might be even more widely available while providing valuable, aggregated, information. The six-item and three-item scales correlate highly with each other. There is a wide range among Latin American countries in people's distribution along the scales but the scales themselves seem applicable everywhere. Not only have they been proving useful in our own research, but both scales correlate fairly well with a country's infant mortality rate on the aggregate level and with an individual's educational attainment among men and women 15 to 59 and among elderly people 60 years of age and older.     

Strength in Process: Using Concept Mapping to Inform Community Coalition Development

This study reports on the use of Concept Mapping to delineate a conceptual framework germane to the planning and initial formation of tri-county rural diabetes coalition in a southeast US community. The focus of the tricounty coalition is to reduce diabetes-related inequalities in vulnerable populations. After a review of pertinent literature on community coalitions, this article explicates Concept Mapping processes utilized to plan and organize the formation of a coalition, offers analyses of the results, and discusses implications for current and future practices pertaining to community coalition work.     

Accounting for the value of volunteer contributions

There is a need for an accounting paradigm that properly illustrates the value that nonprofits generate. Much of that value comes from volunteer contributions, which are significant but for the most part are not included in financial accounting statements, even though our research indicates that they account for almost a third of the value added by these organizations. This article reports the results of two studies related to measuring volunteer value in the accounting of nonprofits and then draws some policy implications from the research. The first study, a survey of 156 nonprofits in Canada, found that although about one‐third of the sample kept records of volunteer hours, only 3 percent included a value for them in their accounting statements. The second study, of nonprofit accountants, found that they did not feel that financial accounting statements properly represented the contribution of their organizations. A series of policy recommendations are presented, including suggestions for revising the regulations of accounting bodies for imputing volunteer value and creating accounting statements that better represent the contribution of nonprofits.     

“I Didn't Leave Y'all on Purpose”: HIV-Infected Mothers' Videotaped Legacies for Their Children

The authors analyzed twelve videotapes made by HIV-infected women for their children. Using grounded theory methods the concept of eternal mothering provides a framework to study the interactive aspects of mothering, and the significance of impending maternal death from a stigmatizing illness. In creating these videotape legacies, the mothers drew on personal experiences of gender, class, race, ethnicity, family configurations, and other social conditions. There is tension between women's self-presentation in an attempt to control the impressions they make on their children, and their decision to disclose stigmatizing secrets with the potential consequential loss of maternal authority and children's loyalty, as well as inherited shame by association.