Using Theory-Based Constructs to Explore the Impact of Greek Membership on Alcohol-Related Beliefs and Behaviors: A Systematic Literature Review

By charter, national Greek organizations (ie, fraternities and sororities) place an emphasis on upholding personal integrity, academic scholarship, and development of campus leaders. Recent concerns, however, assert that the drinking behaviors of members of Greek organizations are antithetical to the mission of their universities. Objective: The author's purpose in this review was to systematically examine scientific literature addressing the effect of Greek affiliation on alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors. The internal and external influences affecting Greek members' alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors are organized into a frame-work of various health behavior theories, based on the ecological perspective's levels of influence. Results: Results provide a broad perspective into the individual characteristics, social peer network, and environmental aspects influencing alcohol-related behavior among Greek members. Findings suggest that Greek members comprise a subgroup that consumes alcohol in greater quantities, underscores and misperceives the risks of alcohol abuse, and emulates a social environment and culture in which drinking alcohol is a key part of life.     

傩母·地母·人母——民间神灵信仰中的女娲形象

借助女娲形象及相关事象的考察,从中国民间傩戏体系、民间"地母"崇拜、"人祖"信仰民俗三方面入手,研究中国民间神灵信仰的形象寄托。文献和田野互证表明,女娲作为生养人类的伟大祖母的至上地位,理当是中华神话殿堂里先于诸神又高于诸神的始祖神。     

神怪小说中的鬼魂与山岳信仰

神怪小说中鬼魂与山岳的关联主要表现在鬼魂以山陵丘壑为活动场所、新死之鬼魂归依于山、山神或居山之神治鬼等三个方面,而这些现象的产生明显是受到了传统的葬山习俗、灵魂归山观念以及山神或居山之神治鬼信仰的影响.     

Dating Violence Among Chinese American and White Students

SUMMARY

A sample of 289 Chinese American and 138 White students from a university campus was recruited from social science courses to complete a survey on perceptions of and experiences with dating violence and gender role beliefs. White students were more likely to define dating violence as physical and sexual aggression compared to the Chinese American students. Although the majority of students from both ethnic groups did not agree that dating violence is justified under various circumstances, the Chinese American students were more likely to provide a contextual justification for the use of dating violence. Findings also indicated that 20% of Chinese American students and 31.3% of the White students have experienced some form of physical dating violence since they started dating. For both the Chinese American and White students, those who were more likely to agree that various acts of physical aggression are considered dating violence were less likely to perpetrate physical dating violence in the last 12 months. The sociocultural context of dating violence and implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Can Cultural Beliefs Cause a Gender Identity Disorder?

Abstract

Gender identity disorder (GID) is a relatively rare disorder with an unclear etiology. This case report involves a boy from Thailand who was thought by his parents at birth, on the basis of a birthmark, to be the reincarnation of his maternal grandmother. He subsequently demonstrated cross-gender behavior. A link between his parents' cultural beliefs and the boy's cross-gender behavior is explored. Implications for the causes of other cases of GID are explored, and in particular, the question of whether parental expectations, as exemplified by these parents' cultural beliefs, can be a contributor to the formation of GID is considered.     

Antecedents of gender gap in workforce participation: A phenomenology of psychologists and medical doctors in urban Pakistan

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the participation of young women in education has been on the rise and yet many of them do not end up joining the workforce. This is particularly true for the fields of medicine, and psychology. Using a qualitative research design, we explored underlying social and psychological reasons (antecedents) for this lack of professional participation by females who had or are graduating in medical and psychology degrees. The sample of this qualitative study consisted of 67 female informants including medical doctors, medical students, psychologists, and psychology students. The results based on interpretive phenomenological analyses (IPA) indicated multiple key antecedents that play a crucial role in keeping women from their professional participation in the two fields. Results based on IPA indicated that Gender Role Beliefs and Strain, Economic Decision Making, Women’s Mobility, Role of Society, Objectification of Women and explicit Discrimination and Violence were key thematic antecedents. There were multiple subthemes that emerged as reasons why women’s participation and stay in these fields was difficult, hence creating a substantial gender gap in professional participation and success in the workforce. Knowledge and understanding of these antecedents and their role in prevalence of gender gap in workforce participation is crucial for building policies and strategies on how to engage and retain women in professional work-force. Cultural relevance and societal implications of our findings are discussed with their policy recommendations.     

Don't ask don't tell: examining attitudes about black homosexuality and the media in an online forum

On 8 November 2005, a posting appeared on the BET.COM Bulletin Board under the heading Noah's Arc. It read: ‘Has anyone caught the new show called Noah's Arc? It comes on a gay/lesbian channel called LOGO and the show is really good. It is about four gay men living and loving in Los Angeles … it gives us a glimpse into a world of gay men and the struggles that they endure in life. I suggest that all of you watch it.’ Using textual analysis, this study examines the responses of forum users addressing the following research question: Thematically, what attitudes and opinions emerged from the postings surrounding the question ‘Has anyone caught the new show Noah's Arc?’ Eight themes emerged from the postings submitted by 84 respondents as BET.COM visitors engaged in a four-month discussion about sexual orientation and identity, race, religion and spirituality. The analysis reveals that while many respondents were homophobic and heterosexist, others had a more sophisticated and enlightened understanding of sexuality, media images and stereotypes, religion, and identity politics. Results suggest that an inevitable consequence of discussions of homosexuality is a discussion of morality and religion.     

Social issues in contemporary native America: reflections from Turtle Island

The purpose of this study was to explore how the death and dying-related beliefs of caregivers influence their actual caregiving behavior, and to explore factors that may prevent them from translating these beliefs into functional behavior. Using a biopsychosocial-spiritual- environmental framework, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with three primary caregivers of patients diagnosed with terminal illness. Caregiving behavior was found to be associated with the biopsychosocial-spiritual-environmental beliefs of the caregivers. These beliefs could have been influenced by the caregivers' past experiences with death and dying. Financial difficulty might also be a main obstacle hindering caregivers from providing the kind of care they believed was best for the patients.     

Supply Disruptions,Heterogeneous Beliefs,and Production Efficiencies

Recent years have witnessed the pervasive supply disruptions and their impacts on supply chain performance. In this study, we investigate the optimal procurement design with supply disruptions and heterogeneous beliefs between the buyer and the supplier. We examine the impact of information asymmetry on the supplier's belief, the control right of the backup production, and the verifiability of supply disruption. The belief heterogeneity creates speculative gains and losses because the buyer and the supplier hold different estimates of the disruption probability. We demonstrate that the buyer's incentive to exploit this belief heterogeneity leads to real production inefficiencies in different scenarios. The production efficiency is not necessarily improved with more transparent information. Moreover, a very pessimistic supplier may have no incentive to invest in improving the reliability even if this is costless, and the supplier may produce more when the expected production cost becomes higher. When the buyer sees some value in using the supplier's estimate to update his own belief, we find that the main results hold unless the buyer completely abandons his belief.