Racial harassment, job satisfaction, and intentions to remain in the military

Our results indicate that two thirds of active-duty military personnel report experiencing offensive racial behaviors in the previous 12 months, whereas approximately one in ten reports threatening racial incidents or career-related discrimination. Racial harassment significantly increases job dissatisfaction irrespective of the form of harassment considered. Furthermore, threatening racial incidents and career-related discrimination heighten intentions to leave the military. Finally, our results point to the importance of accounting for unobserved individual- and job-specific heterogeneity when assessing the consequences of racial harassment. In single-equation models, the estimated effects of racial harassment on both job dissatisfaction and intentions to leave the military are understated.

The Gendered Division of Housework and Couples' Sexual Relationships: A Reexamination

Although contemporary couples increasingly express preferences for egalitarian unions, previous research has suggested that sexual intimacy decreases when routine housework is shared. Yet this research was conducted on data that are decades old. To update this work, the authors compared data from the 2006 Marital and Relationship Survey (MARS) and Wave 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH2), collected in 1992–1994. The results indicated change in the association between housework arrangements and sexual intimacy across surveys. Although egalitarian arrangements were associated with lower sexual frequency compared to conventional arrangements in the NSFH2, no such difference was found in the MARS. In fact, reported sexual frequency increased across surveys among egalitarian couples only. In addition, how housework was arranged mattered more for sexual satisfaction among MARS couples than NSFH2 couples. These changes appear to result from the increasing role of perceived equity as a mechanism linking the division of housework to sex.     

Great Expectations? Working‐ and Middle‐Class Cohabitors' Expected and Actual Divisions of Housework

Young adults often express preferences for egalitarianism but often find themselves in conventional household arrangements. Using interview data from 122 working‐class and middle‐class cohabitors, the authors applied Komter's (1989) concepts of manifest, latent, and hidden power to examine the ways that contemporary young adults reinforce and modify gender norms surrounding the division of housework. Cohabiting women more often expect equal housework arrangements than men, regardless of class, yet middle‐class women achieve equal divisions more often because they are better able to exercise manifest power than their working‐class counterparts and because middle‐class men appear more willing to cede to their partners' demands. In contrast, working‐class women's desires to achieve equality are frequently rebuffed as they face greater resistance or defer to their partners' competing wishes. Although the exercise of manifest power is central to arranging housework, the hidden power of gender conventions pervades across class, leading many couples toward traditional arrangements.     

Cross-National Variation in Individual Life Satisfaction: Effects of National Wealth, Human Development, and Environmental Conditions

This study adds to the literature on subjective well-being and life satisfaction by exploring variation in individual life satisfaction across countries. Understanding whether and how individual life satisfaction varies across countries is important because if the goal of development is to increase well-being, we must identify the causes of well-being in different national and regional contexts. Using hierarchical linear modeling techniques, I test the hypothesis that individual well-being does vary across countries, and that national wealth, human development and environmental conditions explain this variation. I also test whether the effects of individual characteristics on life satisfaction (including age, marital status, education, income, employment status, and sex) vary across countries, and which country level characteristics explain these variations. Using individual level data from the World Values Survey, I find that there is significant variation in life satisfaction across countries. There is also significant variation in the slopes of individual predictors of life satisfaction across countries and regions. Regional differences in the effects of individual characteristics on life satisfaction explain most of the between country variation in life satisfaction. This indicates that universal development indicators may not adequately reflect differences in life satisfaction across countries, and that development measurements should better reflect regional differences.

Initiating Personal Growth: The Role of Recognition and Life Satisfaction on the Development of College Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of life satisfaction between positive recognition and levels of personal growth initiative in a collegiate setting. The design of the research study utilized a quantitative research method. A brief questionnaire assessed 204 undergraduate students at a mid-sized university. The average age of the participants was 19 years old and the predominant race was Caucasian. Approximately the same number of male and female participants completed the survey. Each participant answered questions that measured perceived life satisfaction, personal growth initiative and the amount of recognition and praise received from family and overall within a typical college setting. Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the relationship between the variables. The hypothesized mediational model had adequate fit. Positive recognition and personal growth initiative were mediated by life satisfaction χ² (n = 204, 101) = 259.20, CFI = .88, TLI = .86. Results from this study hope to show that life satisfaction builds the relationship between receiving recognition and an undergraduate’s involvement in changing and developing as an individual. In addition, the study hopes to use the emerging field of Positive Psychology to identify applications of life satisfaction, personal growth initiative and recognition to assist with the optimal functioning of college students and the overall educational institution.     

大城市农民工的服务需要及满足状况的实证分析

在农村劳动力进城就业的新形势下．满足农民工服务需要是我国城市化过程中的重要问题。本文从农民工的服务需要意愿、服务需要满足程度和实现方式三个层面对当前农民工服务状况进行了实证分析。研究发现：农民工对服务需要存在较强烈的要求。收入水平、服务价格、教育水平和就业状态是影响服务需要的重要因素。农民工不能经常获得服务,服务效果总体偏差,个人、单位,雇主和营利机构是农民工满足服务需要的三大来源,而政府公共部门和民间非营利组织的服务作用还没有得到很好的开发和加强。     

The Values Adolescents Aspire to,Their Well-being and the Values Parents Aspire to for Their Children

This paper presents a study of the relationship between the psychological well-being of Spanish adolescents from 12 to 16 years old and the values they aspire to for the future (N = 1,618). Adolescents’ well-being is explored through (a) their satisfaction with 19 specific life domains, (b) the Personal Well-Being Index (Cummins, Social Indicators Research, 43, 307−334, 1998) and (c) an item on overall satisfaction with life. The values they aspire to are explored by means of a list of 23 personal qualities or values. Satisfaction domains and values aspired to have been grouped into dimensions using principal component analysis (PCA). Boys scored significantly higher on the materialistic values dimension and the capacities and knowledge related values dimension, while girls scored higher on the interpersonal relationship related values dimension. The youngest adolescents scored higher on materialistic values, while the oldest scored higher on interpersonal relationships related values. Such results are similar to those obtained in a previous study, using a shorter version of the lists of satisfaction domains and of values aspired to and a sample of 8,995 adolescents and 4,381 of their parents from five different countries. In both studies results suggest that values aspired to can be considered a well-being related construct. However, an important change appears in the latest Spanish sample: Family values no longer fit with the interpersonal relationships related values dimension in the PCA, and now function as a separate value dimension which shows no correlation with overall life satisfaction, the PWI, or life satisfaction domains with the exception of family satisfaction. Interestingly, family values have also changed their loading dimension in the PCA developed with the answers from a sample of parents about the values they aspire to for their own child’s future (N = 723). Parents’ responses were compared with those of their own child, with concordances observed in about half of the families, low discrepancies in about one third and high or very high discrepancies in about 20%. Although the results of this study have their limitations, they suggest support for the hypothesis that important changes in values aspired to may be taking place over a short period of time, consistent with the findings of changes in values in several countries (Inglehart, Modernization and postmodernization. Cultural, economic and political change in 43 societies, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), but apparently with no outstanding impact on adolescents’ well-being.     

关于大学生就业意识、能力准备与就业满意度之间关系的研究

大学生就业意识的强弱及能力准备充分与否,直接关系到大学生对找到的职业的满意程度。当前我国大学生就业意识有待加强,能力准备应更为充分。就目前来看,不少大学生的能力准备状况与用人单位的要求之间存在着差异。期望值过高、能力准备不足是导致大学生就业满意程度不高的重要因素。     

Satisfaction with life among international students: An exploratory study

The study examines self-reported satisfaction with life and thefactors predicting it among 304 international students (159 malesand 145 females) at the University of Bergen, Norway. Thestudents had on the average lived 2.34 years (SD = 2.31) inNorway. The students reported on the whole good satisfactionwith life. However, students from Europe and North America wereon the whole more satisfied than their peers from Africa andAsia. It was also found that factors such as the number offriends, satisfaction with finances, perceived discrimination andinformation received prior to the foreign sojourn significantlyaffected the student's life satisfaction. The importance ofthese factors differed for students from developing and developedcountries where some paradoxical findings came out. Theseparadoxical findings may be the result of the Norwegian contextof the study. Language proficiency (with respect to host andEnglish languages), and having a host national friend did notshow significant effect on life satisfaction.     

Pay Dissatisfaction and Intention to Leave

This article examines the power of a particular type of employee attachment—client embeddedness—in buffering the adverse effect of pay dissatisfaction on employee intention to leave. Based on a sample of 153 personal care workers employed by a disability service organization, this article finds that client embeddedness—the attachment that employees can experience as a result of interactions with clients or customers—dampens the adverse effect of pay dissatisfaction on employee intention to leave. This finding has implications for the development of appropriate recruitment and retention practices in not‐for‐profit organizations.