Characteristics of smokeless tobacco use among high school football players as related to type of smokeless tobacco and period of use.

The present study was conducted to assess differences in the behavioral and demographic characteristics of snuff (dip) users as compared to users of chewing tobacco. High School football players (1116) were surveyed concerning their use and perceptions of smokeless tobacco. Adolescent athletes who tried smokeless tobacco were more likely to be white, to use cigarettes, alcohol, and cigars and to have family users than those who never tried. Initial use was highest before the age of fourteen years and was influenced by friends, curiosity and family. Dippers tended to initiate use because of friends, while chewers started because of family users. Users of both dip and chew started primarily because of curiosity. Users of both were more likely to consume greater amounts to alcohol and cigarettes and to smoke cigars and pipes. It appears that the longer smokeless tobacco is consumed, the more likely both dip and chew will be used. Users of smokeless tobacco for more than two years tended to consume more of the product each week, used it for more hours/day, initiated use at an earlier age, and used it more often at school and work than those using it for less than two years. Use of cigars/pipes, consumption of alcohol, and quantity of cigarette consumption increased significantly with longer duration of smokeless tobacco use. Intervention and prevention programs would be helped by understanding differences between users of various smokeless tobacco products and differences related to the duration of use. In addition, further analyses of smokeless tobacco users should study chewers, dippers, and users of both separately.     

Ethnomethodology and sociology: an introduction

Arising as a powerful challenge to programmatic views of sociology that sought to determine stable laws underpinning social order, ethnomethodology set out an alternative programme to reveal social order as a dynamic, contingent ‘ongoing accomplishment’. This programme was neither micro nor macro, but was concerned with different contexts of accountability in which both individuals and institutions are given identity and reproduced. Recognising everyday life as an achievement, collective sense making, and the central importance of talk as a social process, ethnomethodology had an impact on all those arenas of sociology where ordinary interaction is an element. This introduction to the special section discusses the contributions of each of the papers – which cover mundane reasoning, social learning, the early acquisition of social competence, and the application of membership categorization analysis to gender – in relation to the continuing relevance of Garfinkel's legacy to contemporary sociological theory and practice.     

Conditioning effect of prior reputation on perception of corporate giving

Prior corporate reputation, one responsibility of a public relations department, affects public perceptions toward corporate philanthropic messages and ultimately affects public attitudes toward the company. Using an experiment that emulates the sort of news consumption individuals normally undertake, participants inferred corporate charitable giving as a mutually beneficial activity when a company had a good reputation (H1a). Participants inferred corporate charitable giving as a self-interested activity when the company had a bad reputation (H1b). Also, public inference (suspicion) successfully mediated corporate prior reputation on public attitude toward the company (H2). Participants showed positive attitude toward the company when they inferred the company had an altruistic motive for charitable giving (H3a). However, participants showed negative attitude toward the company when they inferred the company had a self-interested motive for charitable giving (H3b).     

EVALUATION OF AN ACADEMIC FAMILY THERAPY TRAINING PROGRAM: CHANGES IN TRAINEES' RELATIONSHIP AND INTERVENTION SKILLS

Students in an academic training program were assessed for changes in their relationship and intervention skills following completion of the program. Positive improvements were found on some measures but not all. Additionally, trainee variables such as previous clinical experience. gender, age, marital stauts and scores on standardized admission tests were examined in relation to trainees' skills changes. Trainee characteristics were unrelated to changes in intervention skills. However, a number of relationships were found between trainee characteristics and changes in relationship skills.     

Statistical software packages for PCs — A market survey

The increase of statistical software applications for PCs is caused by decreasing hardware costs and dramatically enhanced PC performance. Whereas in the past the domain of statistical computing has been reserved to mainframe solutions, a great number of new software packages for PCs have come out in the last five years. Therefore, the producers of established mainframe software were also forced to offer PC-based solutions. By limiting a market analysis to products with a medium set of well known statistical methods, the immense number of available products is reduced to about fifty systems. We ordered an evaluation copy of these systems to test the numerical quality, the system speed, and the performance of several procedures. Seventeen packages were made available for an extensive examination. This paper will (1) discuss the problems and the solutions of obtaining a complete and correct datamatrix that describes the entire market and (2) present the results of a comparative market analysis.     

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF CULT FILMS: Reading Rocky Horror

This article provides a sociological reading of cult films, in particular, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Cult films are secular documents, celebrated as sacred texts by audiences and used as shared foci to collectively create rituals and belief systems. They differ from popular re-releases, fad films, films with cult qualities, and critical cult films in that they involve typical people in atypical situations, sympathetic deviance, challenges to traditional authority, reflections of societal strains, and paradoxical and interpretable resolutions. Examination of the Rocky Horror text and the cult activities that occur during its viewing, reveal it as a paradoxical indictment and validation of traditional societal arrangements.