Defining religion: a practical response

After addressing the post-modern argument that defining religion is impossible, bad or both, the case is made that functional definitions of religion are generally not definitions but assertions about the consequences of religion substantively defined. A substantive definition of religion is proposed. The relationship between ordinary and sociological language is discussed. A review of recent debates in the sociology of religion makes the point that our arguments rarely concern the definition of religion; they are much more often about the practical identification and measurement of the features of the social phenomenon which we want to study and those problems are not peculiar to the sociology of religion.     

Abusive interaction and role state stressors: Relative impact on student residence assistant stress and work attitudes

Despite the recognition that poor working relationships can contribute to strain (Chen and Spector 1991, Cooper and Marshall 1978, Kahn and Byosiere lY92, Spector 1987, Spector et al. 1988) and increasing concern over violence and aggression in the workplace (Northwestern National Life Insurance Co. 1993), little research attention has been paid to hostile interpersonal interaction as a work-related stressor. While recent work has focused on interpersonal conflict and sexual harassment as stressors, emotionally abusive interactions have remained largely unaddressed by the organizational stress literature. These interactions are characterized by hostile verbal and non-verbal, non-physical behaviours directed by one or more persons towards another that negatively affect the target's sense of him/herself as a competent person and worker (Keashly et al. 1994, Leymann 1990). The current study examined whether emotional abuse contributed uniquely to understanding work-related stress in student residence assistants (RAs). Seventy-six RAs employed by a Canadian university responded to a questionnaire on the quality of their work experience. The stressors examined were role conflict, role overload, role ambiguity, and number, frequency, and impact of abusive events with dormitory residents. Outcome variables included job-related tension, job satisfaction, job commitment, and intention to leave. Emotional abuse contributed similar amounts of unique variance as the role state stressors to the variables of tension, job satisfaction and intention to leave suggesting emotional abuse is an important and uniquc workplace stressor. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Patterns of Informal Job Matching across the Life Course: Entry‐Level,Reentry‐Level,and Elite Non‐Searching*

The character and outcomes of informal job matching vary at different stages during people's lives. This is illustrated through an examination of non‐searchers—people who get their jobs without searching thanks to receiving unsolicited information about job openings. Examining data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I identify three distinct patterns of non‐searching. Early in the work career, “entry‐level” non‐searchers acquire their first few jobs often while still in school. During the mid‐career, “reentry‐level” non‐searchers tend to be women with little work experience who have been out of the labor market taking care of family responsibilities. Finally, “elite” non‐searchers tend to be male, highly experienced in their field, with very short gaps between employment. All three lack an economic urgency to get a job, but only the elite non‐searchers match prevailing assumptions of non‐searchers as the best connected and most advantaged workers. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating a life course perspective into the study of informal job matching.     

The Relationship between Change and Satisfaction: Parents' Experiences in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

In the consumer satisfaction literature, there is little exploration of the relationship between change and satisfaction and the two are often conflated. This qualitative study interviewed parents a year after using child and adolescent mental health services. Eliciting an account of their experiences enabled the development of ‘grounded theories’ about what constitutes satisfaction for parents. The outcomes suggest that in addition to the expectable stories of ‘high change and satisfaction’ or ‘no change and low satisfaction’, considerable numbers of people are satisfied with a service despite experiencing little or no change, while others who experience positive change are not satisfied. Understanding these alternative stories helps address critical issues that affect the way therapists respond to people's needs and provide services — these matters are often within the capacity of therapists and services to address, even when working with limited resources.     

'Management Standards' and work-related stress in the UK: policy background and science

In the late 1990s, the Health and Safety Commission, as the lead authority in the UK responsible for Health and Safety at Work, conducted an extensive consultation exercise to elicit views about how work-related stress should be tackled. The Commission subsequently decided that regulation was not justified and opted for an approach with four strands. One of these was to work with stakeholders to develop clear, agreed standards of good management practice. This paper describes and discusses the rationale behind a standards-based approach that is essentially based on a method of controlling hazards. The Management Standards approach uses a taxonomy of six stressors that has evolved out of extensive research carried out on behalf of the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and in conjunction with stakeholders, and a three-phase risk assessment methodology. Further developmental work on the standards (which are to be subjected to public consultation) and associated measurement tools is described in a companion paper in this issue of Work & Stress (Cousins, Mackay, Clarke, Kelly, Kelly, & McCaig, 2004). The emphasis is on prevention towards reducing stress in the UK working population. We review current thinking on models of work stress, consider evidence linking workplace psychosocial factors and various health and organizational outcomes, and examine the effectiveness of organizational interventions. We argue that the literature supports an approach that aims to move organizational states (represented by the current situation) to more desirable ones (represented by the six Management Standards), and that this is an effective 'population' based approach to tackling workplace stress and promoting individual and organizational health.     

Social Movement Rhetoric and the Social Psychology of Collective Action: A Case Study of Anti-Abortion Mobilization

This paper seeks to contribute toward anintegrated approach to social movement mobilization. Itdoes so through considering how a social psychologicalaccount of the determination of collective behavior (selfcategorization theory) may be applied tothe mobilization rhetoric of social movements. Morespecifically it argues that as people may definethemselves and act in terms of social categories, we may usefully conceive of social movement rhetoricas being organized so as to construct social categorydefinitions which allow the activists preferred courseof action to be taken on by others as their own. Our theoretical argument is illustrated throughthe detailed analysis of category construction incontemporary U.K. anti-abortion argumentation.     

Incorporating multiple levels of analysis into occupational stress research

In recent years, more and more research in the organizational sciences has incorporated a multiple levels of analysis perspective (e.g. individual, group and organizational) into models of organizational behaviour. The study of occupational stress, however, has continued to focus almost exclusively on the individual level of analysis. In this paper, the authors contend that incorporating a multi-level perspective in the study of occupational stress has theoretical as well as practical value. The authors illustrate their position using results from an occupational stress research programme conducted by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.