Social influences on sorority and fraternity member smoking

Objective: To understand how the Greek system uniquely influences smoking attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among college students who belong to a social sorority or fraternity. Participants: Active members of sororities (n = 16) and fraternities (n = 17) were interviewed between February 2013 and October 2015. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted examining the social influences of the Greek system on member smoking. Transcribed interviews were coded and analyzed for themes. Results: Sorority and fraternity members experienced different social influences on smoking. Sorority stigmatization of smoking outside bars or parties caused sorority members to hide their smoking. Fraternity members had no social penalties for smoking and allowed smoking at the fraternity house. Fraternity members influenced both fraternity members and sorority members to smoke by sharing cigarettes and smoking at parties. Conclusions: Sororities and fraternities have created social environments that both promote smoking and stigmatize it, presenting unique challenges in college student smoking prevention and cessation efforts.     

Negative (But Not Positive) Parenting Interacts with Infant Negative Affect to Predict Infant Approach: Evidence of Diathesis‐Stress

Temperament by parenting interactions may reflect that individuals with greater risk are more likely to experience negative outcomes in adverse contexts (diathesis‐stress) or that these individuals are more susceptible to contextual influences in a “for better or for worse” pattern (differential susceptibility). Although such interactions have been identified for a variety of child outcomes, prior research has not examined approach characteristics—excitement and approach toward pleasurable activities—in the first year of life. Therefore, this study investigated whether 6‐month maternal reported infant negative affect—a phenotypic marker of risk/susceptibility—interacted with 8‐month observed parenting behaviors (positive parenting, negative parenting) to predict 12‐month infant behavioral approach. Based on a sample of mothers and their infants (N = 150), results indicated that negative parenting was inversely associated with subsequent approach for infants with high, but not low, levels of negative affect. Similar results did not occur regarding positive parenting. These findings better fit a diathesis‐stress model rather than a differential susceptibility model. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

On the functional form of corporate cooptation: Empirical findings linking the intensity of market constraint with the frequency of directorate ties

Using data on market transactions involving manufacturing industries in the 1967 American economy and data on directors of large firms involved in manufacturing at the time, the frequency of interorganizational ties through corporate directorates operating in economic sectors J and M is shown to increase with the extent to which average profits in industry J are constrained by its market transactions (sales and/or purchases) with sector M. Market constraint has its strongest and most direct effect on the spread of a corporation through ownership ties into multiple sectors rather than on the corporation's use of interlocking. However, the central point demonstrated concerns directorate tie frequency. Not only is the absence of directorate ties predicted by the absence of market constraint, the actual frequency of ties between economic sectors is predicted by the intensity of market constraint they constitute for one another's profits.     

贤人之治的当代民主嬗变

从本质上看,贤人之治是一种“精英专政”,在历史进程中衍生出政治的宗法化、道德化倾向,展露了其政治哲学的工具化、实用化特征,反映了传统儒学社会“公”领域的缺陷,因此与当代民主行政的核心价值相异。目前我国的民主治道变革面临双重任务：一方面,从贤人之治的传统德治主义向理性官僚制的范式变迁是民主转型的前提。另一方面,面对“后官僚时代”的挑战,治理者还须积极回应公民参与、理性行政、多元治理、公共利益等民主治理的诉求,只有这样,适合我国民主行政发育的道德生态才能孕育而生,儒学政治文明也才能在全球化时代焕发新的生命力。     

A note on social capital and network content

As a guide to selecting name generators for social capital research, I use network data on a probability sample of heterogeneous senior managers to describe how they sort relations into kinds, and how the kinds vary in contributing to social capital. Managers sort relations on two dimensions of strength - intimacy (especially close versus distant) versus activity (frequent contact with new acquaintances versus rare contact with old friends) - and with respect to two contents - personal discussion (confiding and socializing relations) versus corporate authority (the formal authority of the boss and informal authority of essential buy-in). Comparing name generators for their construct validity as indicators of social capital, I compute network constraint from different kinds of relations, and correlate constraint with early promotion. The correlation is strong for the network of personal relations, zero for the network of authority relations, and strongest for personal and authority relations together. I close with research design recommendations for selecting name generators.     

Relation contents in multiple networks

Distinctions among kinds of relations (friendship, advice, intimacy, and so on) are typically ad hoc in empirical research. These ad hoc distinctions among relation contents can be expected to increase the likelihood of equivocal research conclusions. We develop three ideas indicating how standard, well-known, network models of relationship form can be used to clarify relationship content. (a) We begin with an idea for recovering the semantic context in which a relation content occurs. This context is cast as a network of tendencies for contents to be confused for one another and the form of this network—dissected with network models of relation form—holds insights into the ways in which relation contents are understood in a study population. (b) The network concept of structural equivalence is used to define content domains composed of specific relation contents that are substitutable for one another in described relationships. (c) The network concept of network prominence is used to define the ambiguity of contents in described relationships. The proposed perspective is analogous to a linguistic componential analysis of relation content.     

Comparative power structures in American communities

This is an argument for the plausibility of comparative network analyses of power in American cities. In terms of structural analyses of community power and decision-making, traditional methods of obtaining network data have fostered and enervating gap between the substantive richness of case studies and the generalizability of comparative studies. The purpose here is to describe a practical method of gathering ersatz network data from interviews with a small number of strategically chosen informants so as to conduct comparative network analyses of community power. The ersatz network element z_ij is the extent to which two types of actors I and J are perceived by informants as having simultaneous control over community issues. Using data from interviews with informants in 51 American cities, the ersatz network data are shown to be efficient, reliable and substantively valid despite their low cost. The data are efficient in the sense that the proportion of sampling variance in an estimated network element declines exponentially with increase in the element's magnitude. The data are reliable in the sense that estimated structures are stable over issue and informant bias per se. The data are valid in the sense that they are consistent with previous community research; types of ersatz power structures are located in the 51 cities (a machine structure, an urban structure, a faction structure, and a class of reform government structures) and these types occur in cities with characteristics known to be associated with each type of power structure. I conclude with a summary and comments regarding future research; the selection of informants and the use of a computer program in which easily available characteristics of a community are the basis for predicting the type of power structure it most likely exhibited during the late 1960s.     

落实科学发展观 正确处理四个关系

如何树立和落实科学发展观,把工作重心从量的增长转到质的提高上来,走特色发展的道路,实现全面、协调、可持续发展,是高校面临的重要问题.文章提出在学校发展的指导思想和工作思路上,应当正确处理好外延发展与内涵发展、全面发展和特色发展、改革发展和稳定、党建思想政治工作和其他工作的关系.