Adoption of an Outdoor Residential Hall Smoking Policy in a California Public University: A Case Study

Abstract

Objective: Because secondhand smoke is a public health concern, many colleges have adopted bans to ensure healthier environments. This study demonstrates how outdoor smoking policy change can be accomplished at a large public university. Participants: The participants were 1,537 students housed in residential communities at the University of California, Berkeley, who completed an online survey. Methods: A proposal for smoke-free residential communities that included student resident survey data was prepared. Results: The survey data indicated that most students (77%) were bothered by secondhand smoke, and most (66%) favored smoke-free environments. The data were used to advocate for a change in the residential community smoking policy. Conclusion: The survey data and institutional comparisons played a key role in administrators’ decision-making about campus smoking policy. Despite administrators’ concerns about students’ safety and freedom of choice, student-led advocacy was able to influence policy change.     

Associations Between Marital Meaning and Reasons to Delay Marriage for Young Adults in Romantic Relationships

Using symbolic interactionism we developed an open-ended question to examine marital meaning for young adults (N = 111). Themes to emerge were love and commitment. Participants were placed into clusters: contractual (low love, high commitment), optimistic-realistic (high love, high commitment), romanticizing (high love, low commitment), and casual (low love, low commitment). We examined marital meaning and associations with reasons to delay marriage, conceptualized as relational doubts and financial concerns. Optimistic-realistic and casual individuals reported fewer relational doubts than contractual individuals. Longer relationship length was associated with fewer financial concerns for optimistic-realistic individuals when compared with all others. We conclude that although love and commitment are central to marital meaning, for some, specific pairings of these themes have implications in understanding reasons young adults delay marrying.     

Prevention interventions of alcohol problems in the workplace

The workplace offers advantages as a setting for interventions that result in primary prevention of alcohol abuse. Such programs have the potential to reach broad audiences and populations that would otherwise not receive prevention programs and, thereby, benefit both the employee and employer. Researchers have implemented and evaluated a variety of workplace alcohol problem prevention efforts in recent years, including programs focused on health promotion, social health promotion, brief interventions, and changing the work environment. Although some studies reported significant reductions in alcohol use outcomes, additional research with a stronger and integrated methodological approach is needed. The field of workplace alcohol prevention also might benefit from a guiding framework, such as the one proposed in this article.     

“Battle of the Mei-Meis”

On May 7, 2011, Singapore held its 16th General Election. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) predictably secured a landslide victory, and yet the result was contextually historic, with the opposition winning six seats from a possible eighty-seven—the largest loss for the PAP since political independence in 1965. At the centre of the General Election was a persistent media buzz surrounding two young female candidates: Tin Pei Ling of the People’s Action Party and Nicole Seah of the National Solidarity Party. While the former suffered sustained criticism, the latter received sustained praise. This article seeks to analyze the manner in which these two women were positioned as inverse feminine subjects within the mediascape. The analysis emerges from data collected from 194 sources which appeared online between March 29, 2011 and May 8, 2011, comprising political blogs, discussion forums, articles, and reports from online news sites. It aims to reveal how the gendered media constructions of, and public responses to, both women interpolate a diametrically opposed positive and negative binary of womanhood which functions to: (1) reify national discourses of ideal femininity; and (2) corroborate regional conceptualizations of “good” and “bad” feminine subjectivities.     

Consumer processing of hazard warning information

Using data obtained from a field experiment involving 957 consumers, this study investigates the linkage between hazard warnings and precautionary behavior, as well as the structure of the information about product usage and risks that consumers store in their memories. Through the use of a methodology based on an open-ended memory recall task, we measure how consumer recall of information on product labels is affected by the type and format of the information and infer the structure by which this information is stored in their memory. The methodology also allows us to explore the importance of limitations on consumers' cognitive abilities. In particular, we find that consumers substitute greater recall of risk information for recall of usage information, indicating a tradeoff among the different types of information conveyed on a product label. We also found that in the case of cluttered labels, as typified by many existing product labels, information overload results, which may make labeling ineffective in achieving its intended informational objective.     

Interviewer as instrument: accounting for human factors in evaluation research

This methodological study examines an original data collection model designed to incorporate human factors and enhance data richness in qualitative and evaluation research. Evidence supporting this model is drawn from in-depth youth and adult interviews in one of the largest policy/program evaluations undertaken in the United States, the Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Education evaluation (77 districts, 118 schools). When applying the explicit observation technique (EOT)--the strategic and nonjudgmental disclosure of nonverbal human factor cues by the interviewer to the respondent during interview--data revealed the observation disclosure pattern. Here, respondents linked perceptions with policy or program implementation or effectiveness evidence. Although more research is needed, it is concluded that the EOT yields richer data when compared with traditional semistructured interviews and, thus, holds promise to enhance qualitative and evaluation research methods. Validity and reliability as well as qualitative and evaluation research considerations are discussed.     

Transformational Leadership Education and Agency Perspectives in Business School Pedagogy: A Marriage of Inconvenience?

We critique transformational leadership education in university business schools based on a literature review, a study of the websites of 21 leading business schools, and an analysis of two presentations to business school students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University by the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. Our critique draws attention to the unresolved tension between two motivating ideas that underpin much teaching in business schools: collective interest ideas that permeate transformational leadership education; and self-interest ideas derived from agency theory. Transformational leadership tends to be depicted as a process by which leaders exert a 'top-down' influence over the activities of others, while simultaneously asserting that their organizations have a common purpose and pursue a collective interest. We highlight the risk that business schools are producing graduates who will attempt to appeal to common needs (guided by precepts of transformational leadership) but who will simultaneously enact contradictory performance management systems (guided by agency theory). We encourage business school educators in leadership to adopt approaches which are more critical, relational and reflexive. We suggest some general directions for an alternative leadership prospectus, based on followership, the promotion of critical upward communication within organizations, and the recognition of leadership as a contested, discursive and co-constructed phenomenon.