Relational Aggression in Peer and Dating Relationships: Links to Psychological and Behavioral Adjustment

We examined the contribution of relational aggression in adolescents' peer and dating relationships to their psychological and behavioral adjustment. In the Fall and again four months later, 1279 (646 female) grade 9 students reported on relational aggression perpetration and victimization in their romantic and peer relationships, depression/anxiety symptoms (psychological adjustment) and delinquency (behavioral adjustment). Using hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for Time 1 adjustment/behavior, peer relational aggression perpetration predicted depression/anxiety. Dating relational victimization also predicted depression/anxiety, but only for girls. Furthermore, girls who were perpetrators of relational aggression in both peer and dating contexts were most likely to show increases in delinquent behavior. We conclude that dating and peer relationships are not redundant, but make independent and additive contributions to adolescent adjustment. Girls, in particular, may be at greatest risk for poor outcomes when they have relationally aggressive relationships. Results also highlight the need for greater awareness of the complexity and significance of adolescent dating relationships.     

Palliative care patients' experiences of healthcare treatment

Kennett C, Payne M. Palliative care patients' experiences of healthcare treatment Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 262–271 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article reports on a thematic analysis of the opinions of 34 palliative care patients about medical and healthcare treatment expressed in comments, narratives and discussions during a series of facilitated group discussions undertaken as part of training events for medical students. Palliative care patients often have long healthcare careers, which enables them to compare different professionals and services, thus offering a more powerful and complex analysis of patient experience than that obtainable from analysis of complaints or satisfaction surveys, and permits some understanding to be obtained of the attitudes that condition evaluations of services. The patients balanced negative views with positive experiences. They appreciated open, listening, equal and friendly relationships with professionals in which careful explanation fostered their confidence in the overall service. They criticised inflexible services that did not consider their broad needs, and in which relationships with professionals were characterised by busy‐ness and professional distance.     

It Won't Change a Thing: The Meanings of Marriage in the Netherlands

The vast body of literature that highlights the increasing fragility of marriage fails to explore the effect of this fragility on the meanings people attach to marriage. During the last twenty-five to thirty years the instrumental and normative reasons for marriage—legal protection, societal support and enforcement, the social rejection of alternatives to marriage—have largely disappeared in the Netherlands. This study focuses on how young adults, raised after the most dramatic changes in marital practices took place, talk about the meanings of marriage in the context of building intimate relationships. In-depth interviews with fifteen heterosexual young adults (aged twenty-one to thirty) who were in a committed relationship showed that they talked about marriage in four different ways. They (1) minimized the meaning of marriage, (2) talked about the idea of marriage to ascertain commitment, (3) defined marriage as the ideal relationship, and/or (4) saw marriage as a jinx. Contradictions between these modes of talk revealed feelings of ambivalence and anxiety associated with a desire for commitment. The emotionally charged meanings associated with marriage anchored marriage in interviewees' imaginations, enabling the institution to retain its hold even though social pressures to marry are limited and legal substitutes to marriage exist.     

Beyond High School

Abstract

This study examined interpersonal heterosexist discrimination by examining self-reported anti-gay behaviors of heterosexual college students. Respondents were 226 college students; 94.9% had perpetrated some form of discriminatory behavior and 32.7% had committed a behavior that was rated as moderately harmful or higher. A higher amount of self-reported discriminatory behavior was associated with being male, having more homophobic attitudes, and having lower GPAs. Discriminatory behaviors were not related to political ideology, religious influence, or interaction with gay men and lesbians. Neither discriminatory behaviors nor homophobic attitudes were related to academic year, age, membership in a social fraternity/sorority, or membership on an intercollegiate athletic team.     

Breast Cancer:

Cancer is a major problem for elderly individuals. Overall, it is the second leading cause of death after heart disease and 50% of all documented cases occur in 12% of the population over the age 65. About 50,000 women in the United States age 65 and older are diagnosed annually with breast cancer, making it one of the most serious health oroblems for women in this age ~ O U D I. t is the second leading causk of cancer deaths after lung cancer in women. While breast cancer is not preventable, the survival rate is near 100% if detected earlv. However. late staEe of diamosis remains a concern in this age groip. ~ ~ ~ r o x & n ai0t%e lo~f women with breast cancer present with metastases as the first indication of a malignancy. Early detection and screening offer the only solution to this dreaded situation. Society must find ways to make these practices available to the elderly.     

"非个性化":复杂的悖论--艾略特诗学理论探源

艾略特"非个性化"理论是一个复杂的悖论是对浪漫主义的反拨,更是诗人寻找"客观对应物"而"间接地表现他的个性"的经验之谈.艾略特追求和提倡的是把染有个性的想像转变成无个性的艺术真实."非个性化"悖论蕴涵了个性与非个性即特殊与普遍、复杂与纯一的辩证关系.     

Systematic Effects of Capital Service Price Definition on Perceptions of Input Substitution

Earlier attempts at reconciling disparate substitution elasticity estimates examined differences in separability hypotheses, data bases, and estimation techniques, as well as methods employed to construct capital service prices. Although these studies showed that differences in elasticity estimates between two or three studies may be attributable to the aforementioned features of the econometric models, they have been unable to demonstrate this link statistically and establish the existence of systematic relationships between features of the econometric models and the perception of production technologies generated by those models. Using sectoral data covering the entire production side of the U.S. economy, we estimate 34 production models for alternative definitions of the capital service price. We employ substitution elasticities calculated from these models as dependent variables in the statistical search for systematic relationships between features of the econometric models and perceptions of the sectoral technology as characterized by the elasticities. Statistically significant systematic effects are found between the monotonicity and concavity properties of the cost functions and service price–technical change specifications as well as between substitution elasticities.     

Nonshared Environment Research

SUMMARY

This review focuses on conceptualizations of nonshared environment and on four areas of research that should be targeted for future growth. It is argued that there are at least two different approaches to the study of nonshared environment. “Experience-oriented” researchers center on sibling differential experiences in the family and their role in children's development. “Outcome-oriented” investigators focus on the search for environmental origins of individual differences in outcomes. Turkheimer and Waldron's (2000) concept of objective versus effective nonshared environment and Reiss and colleagues' (2000) notion of single-system versus multi-system nonshared environment processes are also discussed. Four topics for future research are outlined: (1) age-related changes and development; (2) the role of the self; (3) the role of context; and (4) the importance of extrafamilial experiences. More work in these areas will lead to useful theories of how nonshared environment processes are linked to sibling and individual differences in behavioral development and adjustment.