Performing Beauty: Dove's “Real Beauty” Campaign

Dove, a popular beauty brand, impressed some in the advertising world with its unique “Campaign for Real Beauty” and made others cringe. But little is known about how real women respond. “Real” beauty according to Dove means various shapes and sizes—flaws and all—and is the key to rebranding, rebuilding women's self‐esteem, and redefining beauty standards. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with sixteen Canadian women and guided by social semiotics and dramaturgy, I examine Dove's presentation of beauty and women's reactions to it from a “beauty as performance” frame. This study examines processes of interpretation and finds that expressing beauty, the self, and a public image inextricably requires elements of performance.     

冷战后国际关系与美国外交政策

冷战结束以后国际政治发生的巨大变化是由苏联解体和国际权力结构的失衡所造成的。在失去了苏联的制衡之后,美国的行为越来越表现出肆意妄为和粗暴蛮横的特征。美国用先发制人战略取代威慑和遏制战略是错误的,布什政府的单边主义政策只能使美国在世界上越来越孤立。国际均势的恢复是一个漫长的过程,但是,国际体系的均势最终将会实现。     

A longitudinal study on environmental and dispositional determinants of life quality: Social support and coping with physical illness

As part of a longitudinal study on adaptation with a national sample of cardiac patients, socio-environmental and psychological variables were investigated regarding their influence on life quality. Reports by both spouses on positive and negative aspects of their marital relationship were found to have mainly a same-domain impact on positive and negative affect. Experienced social support appeared to have a weak buffering effect in the negative affect domain. Stable characteristics of the marital bond, along with dispositional factors, were suggested as an explanation for the relative stability and statistical association of scores on the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale. A two-factor model of well-being that treats positive and negative affect as independent processes appeared to be supported by a multivariate analysis of longitudinal data.     

Images and narratives of autism within charity discourses

This research explores awareness of issues and debates concerning images and narratives about disability amongst autism charity brand-management professionals and their counterparts in the creative industries. These include the role of charities in service provision, the social model of disability, and disability stigma. It describes and analyses past and recent charity advertisements in both the United Kingdom and the United States, with attention to the historical context of these and the views and practices of charity and advertising professionals and autistic self-advocates, using David Hevey’s three-stage framework for disability representation by charities. The research concludes by considering emerging counter-narratives, which suggest ways charities may escape the perceived need to produce pathos or fear as part of such campaigns.     

Autism self-advocacy in the Netherlands: past,present and future

This article presents the results of participatory research into the roles and practices of autistic self-advocates in the Netherlands, and the outcomes of their activities. The article discusses the history of Dutch autism self-advocacy, situating it within the history and practices of self-advocacy internationally and the socio-cultural context of the Netherlands. Particular reference is made to Judi Chamberlin’s model for building effective self-advocacy organisations. Key findings include the scope of significant achievements, and the identification of barriers to efficacy in the areas of governance, personal and organisational capacity, relationships with other organisations, and coalition-building. The research concludes by considering what practices could serve to build increased capacity and efficacy, based on the experiences of these and other self-advocates.     

Reading case studies of people with autistic spectrum disorders: a cultural studies approach to issues of disability representation

Autistic spectrum disorders have been described, defined and differentiated from other neurological conditions primarily on the basis of case studies. A small group of highly influential case studies forms a core narrative of autism, which is challenged by other narratives. In this research, analytical techniques from cultural studies are used to uncover the social construction of autism through the production and interpretation of these narratives. The location of power within these narratives is explored through uncovering voice, the use of fictive techniques, intertextuality and other aspects of the texts studied.     

Emotional awareness and couples' relationship satisfaction

This study examined the role of emotional awareness in couples' relationships and the effects of a tendency to respond to difficult couples' situations with "soft" emotions (including sadness and fear) versus "hard" emotions (including anger and resentment). Participants were 56 heterosexual couples who completed a measure of relationship satisfaction and two measures of emotional awareness, including one that was developed as part of this study. Results indicated that women were more emotionally aware than men in response to couples' situations, but not in response to general situations outside the relationship. In addition, higher levels of emotional awareness and a higher awareness of "hard" emotions were associated with decreased relationship satisfaction for women, but not for men. Discrepancy between partners' levels of awareness was related to lower satisfaction for both men and women.     

Factors Influencing Church Choice: An Exploration of Responses from New Attendees at Growing Canadian Mainline Churches

Seventy new attendees of growing Mainline Protestant churches in Canada agreed to be interviewed regarding what attracted them to, and kept them at, their current congregation. A variety of responses revealed that, in part, the new attendees were drawn to their Mainline Protestant church by aspects of Conservative Protestant theology. Contemporary theories of group membership are used to explore the links between Conservative Protestant theology, group cohesion, and, to a lesser extent, church growth. Soixante‐dix nouveaux participants provenant d'une église protestante traditionnelle au Canada en croissance ont accepté d’être interviewés au sujet des caractéristiques qui les ont attirés et qui les ont gardés à leur congrégation actuelle. Une variété de réponses a démontré que, en partie, les nouveaux participants ont été attirés par leur église protestante traditionnelle par les aspects de la théologie protestante conservatrice. Les théories contemporaines de l'appartenance au groupe sont utilisées pour explorer les liens entre la théologie protestante conservatrice, la cohésion du groupe, et dans une moindre mesure, la croissance de l’église.     

Preliminary test and Bayes Estimation of a Location Parameter Under Blinex Loss

In this article, the preliminary test estimator is considered under the BLINEX loss function. The problem under consideration is the estimation of the location parameter from a normal distribution. The risk under the null hypothesis for the preliminary test estimator, the exact risk function for restricted maximum likelihood and approximated risk function for the unrestricted maximum likelihood estimator, are derived under BLINEX loss and the different risk structures are compared to one another both analytically and computationally. As a motivation on the use of BLINEX rather than LINEX, the risk for the preliminary test estimator under BLINEX loss is compared to the risk of the preliminary test estimator under LINEX loss and it is shown that the LINEX expected loss is higher than BLINEX expected loss. Furthermore, two feasible Bayes estimators are derived under BLINEX loss, and a feasible Bayes preliminary test estimator is defined and compared to the classical preliminary test estimator.     

Subjective health,intimacy, and perceived self-efficacy after heart attack: Predicting life quality five years afterwards

Social Indicators Research - In a national sample of some 400 cardiac patients and their wives, changes in quality of life were investigated during an extended period of physical and psychosocial...