Using Objectification Theory to Examine the Effects of Media on Gay Male Body Image

Research has increasingly noted that gay male adults are more at risk for developing body image dissatisfaction than other male populations. Body image issues warrant attention, particularly since they have been connected to the development of disordered eating patterns. Studies have often traced gay male body dissatisfaction to various sociocultural elements and phenomena, particularly the media. In fact, various media genres have been implicated as being instrumental in propagating idealized male physiques, which in turn may negatively influence observers. Using objectification theory, this paper aims to review the process by which media imagery are internalized by some gay men and how such internalizations harmfully impact their body image. The clinical implications and treatment of body dissatisfaction will be reviewed in terms of social work practice with gay male populations.     

Temporal Responsiveness in Mother–Child Dialogue: A Longitudinal Analysis of Children with Normal Hearing and Hearing Loss

Dialogue between conversational partners, including mothers and their children, is precisely timed. The predictability of this timing is important for establishing and maintaining interaction, communication, and learning. This longitudinal study examines changes in the response latency of utterances in dialogue between mothers and their normal hearing and hearing‐impaired children between 4 and 60 months of age. Mothers and their children showed parallel developmental trends, responding to each other more quickly at older ages. Beyond these age‐related group effects, significant dyadic effects were found in which individual children's latencies were related to those of their mothers, and vice versa. Developmental patterns did not significantly differ across hearing status groups, which may reflect the role of early identification and intervention in promoting positive developmental outcomes.     

Measuring and Analysing the Wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous Population

According to most standard socioeconomic indicators (for example employment, income and education), Indigenous Australians tend to have worse outcomes than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Most objective health indicators including life expectancy also tend to be worse. Traditionally, these two domains and associated objective indicators have been the focus of research, government policy and evaluation. There has been less research, however, on differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in subjective measures of wellbeing. In this paper, I attempt to answer three related research questions on Indigenous wellbeing—What is the average level of emotional wellbeing and satisfaction with life for the Indigenous and non-Indigenous population of Australia? How do the differences between the two populations change once other characteristics have been controlled for? What are the factors associated with emotional wellbeing within the Indigenous population? With regards to the first two questions, Indigenous Australians are less likely to report frequent periods of happiness and more likely to report periods of extreme sadness than the non-Indigenous population. Surprisingly, given these results for emotional wellbeing, a major finding from the analysis was that Indigenous Australians were significantly more likely to report above-average satisfaction with their life. The main finding with regards to the third question is that using retrospective measures, those in remote areas report higher levels of happiness than those in non-remote areas. This is different to the results for socioeconomic status and objective measures of health found elsewhere and has important implications for government policy in Australia.     

More on the ontological status of autism and double empathy

This response to Milton’s recent article on the ontological status of autism and double empathy also explores, through the lens of ‘double empathy’ and ‘theory of mind’, the issues of relationality and interaction that researchers in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and psychology hardly acknowledge. I go on to consider Wittgenstein’s criteriological view of mind, propose a synthesis of theory to describe autism, and suggest that public criteria of a non-autistic ontology enable many autistic people to eventually develop the understanding of other (non-autistic) minds that, in turn, enables them to survive, and even thrive.     

Is Valuing Equality Enough? Equality Values, Allophilia, and Social Policy Support for Multiracial Individuals

We conducted a field study to investigate positive intergroup attitudes (i.e., allophilia) and equality values as potential antecedents of social policy support for multiracial individuals. Participants (N = 97) reported their social policy support for multiracial individuals in two ways—support for the recognition of "multiracial" as a distinct racial category (recognition) and support for multiracial individuals' access to programs and policies (assistance). Results revealed that allophilia motivated those who held equality beliefs to support social policies for multiracial individuals. Implications of these findings for theories of positive intergroup relations, as well as the processes that may underlie progress for multiracial individuals, are discussed.     

The Effects of Multitasking on Operations Scheduling

This study considers a typical scheduling environment that is influenced by the behavioral phenomenon of multitasking. Under multitasking, the processing of a selected job suffers from interruption by other jobs that are available but unfinished. This situation arises in a wide variety of applications; for example, administration, manufacturing, and process and project management. Several classical solution methods for scheduling problems no longer apply in the presence of multitasking. The solvability of any scheduling problem under multitasking is no easier than that of the corresponding classical problem. We develop optimal algorithms for some fundamental and practical single machine scheduling problems with multitasking. For other problems, we show that they are computationally intractable, even though in some cases the corresponding problem in classical scheduling is efficiently solvable. We also study the cost increase and value gained due to multitasking. This analysis informs companies about how much it would be worthwhile to invest in measures to reduce or encourage multitasking.     

Ranking of the Most Prolific Authors,Universities, and Organizations in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management

ABSTRACT

Over the years, reviews in behavior analysis have sought to identify the most prolific researchers and institutions. The goal of these reviews was to offer one resource for behavior analysts to identify experts in behavior analysis and quality graduate programs. However, most of these reviews omitted the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), making the results less relevant to those who work in organizational behavior management. The purpose of this review was to extend previous findings and identify the most published researchers, academic institutions, and organizations in JOBM since its inception. Furthermore, we calculated the citation rate (per year, per article) for each of the top 20 most published authors. The results, implications, and opportunities for further analysis are discussed.     

The construction and validation of the homopositivity scale: an instrument measuring endorsement of positive stereotypes about gay men

Social scientists appear to focus on negative beliefs about, and attitudes toward, gay men and lesbian women. This emphasis, though understandable in view of the widespread oppression of gay and lesbian individuals, is somewhat myopic because it ignores what might be referred to as the positive dimension of stereotypes. Although such a concept may appear oxymoronic, it is widely recognized that individuals may endorse a mixture of positive and negative stereotypes toward stigmatized groups such as African Americans and women. The purpose of the current series of studies (Study 1, N = 212; Study 2, N = 105) was to devise an instrument measuring endorsement of positive stereotypes about gay men (Homopositivity Scale; HPS). Two versions of the HPS (of varying length) were evaluated, with scale scores on both appearing to be internally consistent and factorially distinct from scales measuring negative stereotypes and prejudices about gay men. These studies also suggest that females are more likely than males to endorse positive stereotypes about gay men, and that such endorsement is negatively associated with need for uniqueness and need for cognition, and positively associated with media contact and benevolent sexism. The limitations of the two studies are outlined and the importance of assessing positive stereotypes about gay men in conjunction with oft-examined homonegativity is discussed.