GENDER AND ROMANTIC-LOVE ROLES

This research tests the notion that gender differences in love-role definitions contribute to male dominance in intimate relationships. Six factor-analytic scales—fidelity, communication, sacrifice, submission, centrality, and commitment—are used to measure love-role definitions. The scores from a sample of 285 college students generally oppose the hypotheses. There are significant gender differences, but they are not in the predicted direction. For example, women do not prescribe more sacrifice for a woman than they do for a man. The findings show that women are not handicapped in the competition for influence by the love-role definitions that they and men hold. However, it is suggested that the idea may have more validity for people who are uninfluenced by feminist views and for other samples.     

The Association Between Gay Men's Stereotypic Beliefs About Drag Queens and Their Endorsement of Hypermasculinity

To date, few researchers have investigated gay men's stereotypic beliefs about drag queens and the association between these beliefs and individual difference variables such as hypermasculinity. To address this omission, 118 men self-identifying as non-heterosexual completed an online survey consisting of an adjective checklist about drag queens and a psychometrically sound indicant of hypermasculinity. As predicted, participants who were more likely to endorse hypermasculine belief statements tended to perceive negatively valenced attributes as more characteristic of drag queens. Possible explanations for this relationship, limitations associated with the current study, and directions for future research are delineated.     

A Systematic Review of Sexual Dysfunction Measures for Gay Men: How Do Current Measures Measure Up?

The measurement of subjective components of sexual functioning is of increasing importance in clinical research and practice. Differences have been reported in prevalence rates and experiences of sexual difficulties between heterosexual and gay men. The aim of this article is to identify reliable and valid measures of sexual dysfunction suitable for use with gay men. Seven measures were reviewed; details about item development, dimensionality, reliability, and validity are provided. Heteronormative and heterosexist wording were evident throughout. Several areas of concern emerged in relation to psychometric properties (e.g., questionable validity). No psychometrically robust sexual function measure was identified for use with gay populations.     

Evaluation of changes to family income supplement

The work described in this paper was commissioned by the DHSS policy branch responsible for family benefits. The problem is rather more specific than those addressed by the studies described in the paper by Holdaway and Partridge. It does however parallel at least one of the observations made there. The study started out with a relatively broad brief but was constrained by events to concentrate on one particular problem, namely forecasting the cost and caseload of Family Income Supplement.     

The state of decision support systems: A review

Many organisations are now realising that information technology can make a significant contribution to their operations. Recent developments in decision support software are such that the time may have come when information technology will contribute significantly to managerial decision-making. This paper considers these developments alongside the organisational issues involved in decision-making, and the current position of IT in many mature organisations. The conclusion is that the new range of decision support software, whilst opening up further areas for computerised decision support, is unlikely to compete successfully for corporate IT funds. Use of the new tools will be restricted to small, isolated applications.     

Nonprofit Collaboration and the Resurrection of Market Failure: How a Resource-Sharing Environment Can Suppress Social Objectives

Collaboration and its promotion by funders continue to accelerate. Although research has identified significant transaction costs associated with collaboration, little empirical work has examined the broader, societal-level economic outcomes of a resource-sharing environment. Does an environment that encourages collaboration shift our focus toward certain types of social objectives and away from others? This paper uses agent-based Monte Carlo simulation to demonstrate that collaboration is particularly useful when resources are rare but a social objective is commonly held. However, collaboration can lead to bad outcomes when the objective is not commonly shared; in such cases, markets outperform collaborative arrangements. These findings suggest that encouraging a resource-sharing environment can lead to inefficiencies even worse than market failure. We also demonstrate that failure to account for transaction costs when prescribing collaboration can result in quantifiably lower outcome levels than expected.