Verbal Discrimination: A Neglected Chapter in the Social Psychology Of Aggression

While in our culture it is a common experience that hurting others is done more frequently by means of words than by physical force, the phenomena of verbal aggression and verbal discrimination have largely been neglected in the psychology of aggression. Connecting the research fields of aggression, discrimination, and discourse, and discussing the common definition of aggression as intentional harmdoing, it is argued that verbal discrimination, i.e., the verbal treatment of others as members of an allegedly inferior group or category, must be considered a case of aggression as this practice is a violation of other persons' rights or dignity.     

A Generic Semantic Grammar for Quantitative Text Analysis: Applications to East and West Berlin Radio News Content from 1979

In a semantic text analysis the researcher begins by creating one of two types of semantic grammars, each of which provides one or more templates that specify the ways concepts (or more general themes) may be related. On the one hand, a phenomenal semantic grammar can be created to extract phenomenon-related information from a text population (e.g., "Among the population's grievances [the phenomenon of interest in this case], which were ones for the abolition of taxes?"). On the other hand, a generic semantic grammar may be developed to yield data about the text population itself (e.g., "Among all clauses in the text population, how many were grievances for the abolition of taxes?"). This paper describes a generic semantic grammar that can be used to encode themes and theme relations in every clause within randomly sampled texts. Unlike the surface-grammatical relations mapped by syntax grammars, the theme relations allowed in this grammar only permit unambiguous encoding according to the meanings that clauses were intended to convey within their social context. An application of the grammar provides a concrete illustration of its research potential.     

On a multiple endpoints testing problem

In a clinical trial comparing drug with placebo, where there are multiple primary endpoints, we consider testing problems where an efficacious drug effect can be claimed only if statistical significance is demonstrated at the nominal level for all endpoints. Under the assumption that the data are multivariate normal, the multiple endpoint-testing problem is formulated. The usual testing procedure involves testing each endpoint separately at the same significance level using two-sample t-tests, and claiming drug efficacy only if each t-statistic is significant. In this paper we investigate properties of this procedure. We show that it is identical to both an intersection union test and the likelihood ratio test. A simple expression for the p-value is given. The level and power function are studied; it is shown that the test may be conservative and that it is biased. Computable bounds for the power function are established.     

TARGETING WORKING PROFESSIONALS: A MASTER'S OF ARTS IN GERONTOLOGY

This overview of an online degree programme aims to develop a concrete illustration of an exploding array of courses and programmes. The approach at the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, at the University of Southern California, seeks to address a targeted audience and to build on the special strengths and more unique degree programmes of the University.     

Gone Missing? Disabled children living away from their families

Many disabled children spend most of their childhood in 'care', but not formally 'in care'. Research concerning disabled children has been dominated by a medical model of disability and by a failure to include the subjective reality of children themselves. There is also inadequate statistical information available concerning children who spend most of their time away from a family setting. The article looks at what we do know about such experiences, identifying some issues for future research.     

Regression Modelling of Disease Risk in Relation to Point Sources

We describe a class of models for the investigation of possible raised risk of disease around putative sources of environmental pollution. An adaptation of the point process method suggested by Diggle and Rowlingson is presented, allowing the use of routinely available aggregated data and incorporating the more general distance–risk model suggested by Elliott and co-workers. An application to data on cancers of the stomach around municipal solid waste incinerators is presented.     

Exponential Family Models for sampled and census Network data

Much progress has been made on the development of statistical methods for network analysis in the past ten years, building on the general class of exponential family random graph (ERG) network models first introduced by Holland and Leinhardt (1981) . Recent examples include models for Markov graphs, "p*" models, and actor‐oriented models. For empirical application, these ERG models take a logistic form, and require the equivalent of a network census: data on all dyads within the network. In a largely separate stream of research, conditional log‐linear (CLL) models have been adapted for analyzing locally sampled ("egocentric") network data. While the general relation between log‐linear and logistic models is well known and has been exploited in the case of a priori blockmodels for networks, the relation for the CLL models is different due to the treatment of absent ties. For fully saturated tie independence models, CLL and ERG are equivalent and related via Bayes' rule. For other tie independence models, the two do not yield equivalent predicted values, but we show that in practice the differences are unlikely to be large. The alternate conditioning in the two models sheds light on the relationship between local and complete network data, and the role that models can play in bridging the gap between them.     

Shame,Sexual Compulsivity,and Eroticizing Flirtatious Others: An Experimental Study

Clinical observation and correlational studies with nonclinical samples suggest that a linkage between negative affective states (especially shame) and engagement in erotic pursuits typifies sexual compulsivity. The present study tested whether experimental induction of shame leads to increased interest in erotically suggestive targets among more sexually compulsive individuals. A total of 74 age-traditional heterosexual university students first recalled either an emotionally neutral or a shame-inducing personal experience, then completed a nonpredictive gaze-cueing task featuring flirtatious or emotionally neutral faces of the same or opposite sex. They also rated the faces’ attractiveness and completed a validated sexual compulsivity scale and two control measures (executive control, sociosexuality). Higher (versus lower) sexual compulsivity predicted weaker gaze-triggered attentional orienting in response to the flirtatious opposite-sex face in the shame (versus neutral) condition, and this was accounted for by (higher) attractiveness ratings of the flirtatious opposite-sex face. Shame thus appears to increase sexualization (i.e., reduces salience of agentic features and increases appeal of physical attributes) of erotically suggestive targets among more sexually compulsive individuals.     

Adoption and Termination of Employee Involvement Programs

Using an interview survey of manufacturing establishments that provide 10 years of retrospective data on labor practices, we investigate factors associated with the adoption and termination of employee involvement programs and the relation between these and other human resource policies. In the period studied, more firms introduced than terminated such programs but a sufficiently large number chose to eliminate such programs to indicate that employee involvement does not fit in all business settings. Our results show that business strategy and the use of other complementary human resource policies affect the dynamics of employee involvement use in US manufacturing establishments.     

On the Edge: the Financial Situation of Older Renters in the Private Rental Market in Sydney

In this study, based mainly on 17 in‐depth interviews, I explore the financial implications of being an older private renter in Sydney. I illustrate that there are three key factors which determine their degree of financial stress – the actual rent being paid; the degree of support from family members and whether the older renter is living in a single or couple household. It is shown that several of the older renters interviewed found it hard to maintain their physical and mental health. The purchasing of basic items such as nutritious food and clothes was difficult. Having to devote such a substantial part of their income to cover the rent and never knowing when there would be another rent increase had a serious impact on the psychological health of some interviewees. The lack of finances encouraged isolation as interviewees found it financially difficult to participate in social activities.