Turn it off! the effects of exposure to male-male erotic imagery on heterosexuals' attitudes toward gay men

Despite the recent proliferation of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) thematic content in U.S. media, there have been relatively few empirical investigations examining its impact on heterosexuals' attitudes toward LGB individuals. This study examined the effect of one type of content, male-male homoerotic imagery, on male and female heterosexuals' attitudes toward, stereotypes about, and affective reactions to gay men. One hundred ninety-eight undergraduate students were assigned to either a male-male or male-female erotica condition, and their corresponding attitudes toward gay men were assessed. Results revealed that the effect of erotic imagery (male-male vs. male-female) on participants' stereotype and affect scores differed for men and women at varying levels of sexual anxiety. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the literature on exposure to erotic imagery and attitudes toward gay men. In particular, the study highlights the need for additional research that acknowledges within-gender heterogeneity with respect to antigay attitude valence, extremity, and function.     

Understanding the experience of Black clients in marriage and family therapy

Past research on Black clients' utilization of therapy focused on the barriers that prevent Black clients from attending therapy and the reasons for these barriers. However, few studies have been conducted that focus on how Black clients attending therapy actually experience these barriers. This study utilized both Likert and open-ended questions to examine the obstacles 16 Black clients face in their attempts to attend family therapy. The most frequently identified obstacles were related to concerns over family member response and cultural barriers to therapy. Participants also reported concerns about racial and/or cultural differences and a lack of understanding by non-Black therapists. The implications of this study addressed how to effectively meet the therapeutic needs of Black clients.     

Extending the Symbolic Interactionist Theory of Interaction Processes: A Conceptual Outline

This article outlines the elements of a more robust symbolic interactionist theory of interpersonal processes. I argue that George Herbert Mead's conceptualization of interaction processes can be extended to explain not only micro‐level social processes but also key elements of meso‐ and macro‐level dynamics. By expanding Mead's and more recent symbolic interactionist theorizing, and incorporating key ideas from other theoretical traditions outside symbolic interactionism proper, it becomes possible to develop a theory of interaction that fills in important conceptual gaps in theories on the dynamics of micro‐, meso‐, and macro‐level social phenomena.     

When do leaders matter? Ownership,governance and the influence of CEOs on firm performance

Leadership and strategic management research suggests that the extent to which CEOs influence performance largely depends on the presence or absence of certain factors. These factors may include the characteristics of the task at hand, subordinates, the organization itself or the external environment. Among these factors, a fundamental contingency that has received little empirical attention is an organization's ownership and governance structure—that is, who owns and monitors the organization. In this paper, we outline how different ownership and governance structures can present the opportunity for, or limit, leader influence and empirically examine the extent to which CEO effects on financial performance depend on these structures. Examining organizations in the same industry but with different ownership and governance structures, our results suggest that these structures are closely aligned with the degree to which CEOs influence firm performance. Our findings support the notion that leaders matter most when ownership and governance structures correspond with a weak or ambiguous institutional logic. This study contributes new insight into the “opportunity structure” of CEO influence, that is, the organizational factors that shape leader discretion and, hence, condition the CEO's level of influence over firm performance.     

An Index of Child Well-being in the European Union

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children’s overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children’s material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children’s relationships, civic participation and risk and safety.     

I agreed to go because........examining the Agency of Children within a phenomenon conceptualised as trafficking in Ghana

The legal and policy framework on child trafficking is dismissive of children's agency and regards them as vulnerable personalities. This paper examines the scope of children's agency in their transportation to other communities for fishing in Ghana. Using a phenomenological design, 17 child returnees' views were elicited on their movement for fishing activities. Findings revealed that children's agentive capabilities progressed primarily from consent giving to negotiation. Highlighting the relational and material context within which children's agency unfolds, the study suggests that it is erroneous to generally ascribe the discursive label of ‘innocence’ to children who are considered as trafficked.     

Child Well-Being in Advanced Economies in the Late 2000s

This paper aimed at comparing the well-being of children across the most economically advanced countries of the world while discussing the methodological issues involved in comparing children’s well-being across countries. A Child Well-being Index was constructed to rank countries according to their performance in advancing child well-being. The Index used 30 indicators combined into 13 components, again summarised in 5 dimensions for 29 rich countries. Data from various sources were combined to capture aspects of child well-being: material well-being, health, education, behaviour and risks, housing and environment. The scores for the countries on all variables and combinations of variables were discussed in detail. The Child Well-being Index revealed that the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries (excluding Denmark) did relatively better than the other countries while Romania and the United States performed well below the average. Overall, serious differences existed in child well-being across countries suggesting that in many, improvement could be made in the quality of children’s lives.     

Embedding effects: Stimulus representation and response mode

Thecontingent valuation (CV) methodology assigns prices to environmental amenities by asking people how much they would be willing to pay in order to preserve or acquire those amenities. If this measurement procedure is valid, then responses should be sensitive to relevant changes in the amenities being judged and insensitive to irrelevant changes. One apparent demonstration of inappropriate insensitivity is theembedding effect: the observation that people are apparently willing to pay the same amount of money for a good as for a minor subset of that good. This study examined the possibility that the source of this effect lies with each of two (potentially treatable) methodological problems: 1) subjects have difficulty using quantitative (dollar) response modes to express their values; and 2) subjects have difficulty absorbing the essential details of the CV scenarios describing those goods. The study found that 1) subjects showed considerable embedding both with a simple paired-comparison response mode and with a more demanding one requiring direct dollar estimates; 2) embedding was much reduced with the simpler response mode; 3) subjects' preferences with the two response modes were usually inconsistent; 4) when asked to describe the CV scenario that they had just heard, subjects often reported key task details inaccurately; and 5) there was less embedding when tasks were reinterpreted in terms of the questions subjects reported having answered (as opposed to what had actually been asked). These results are discussed in terms of the match between the questions that investigators would like to ask and the ones that subjects are capable of answering.     

Collective Decision-Making: the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a method to improve decision making whose application here is to complex environments. “A.H.P.” involves structuring a decision into a hierarchy, determining relative priorities for the elements in the hierarchy, and combining the numbers into overall weights estimating each decision outcome. The need for decision aids such as AHP, is supported by the literature, which suggests that even experts can contend with only limited amounts of information and tend to arrive at decisions in a simple fashion. AHP allows for using more information to make decisions in more complex ways. This leads to more coherent decisions. In the case presented AHP helped a committee make resource allocation decisions in an urban renewal project in Israel. The example highlights the usefulness of AHP in group settings. Areas of disagreement were easily identified and discussed. This diffused much of the tension typical of these proceedings.