Coming Out and Job Satisfaction: A Moderated Mediation Model

Prior research suggests that the disclosure of sexual identity at work is not always significantly associated with job satisfaction. The authors investigated (a) the mediating role of workplace heterosexist climate in linking workplace outness with job satisfaction, and (b) the moderating role of anticipated discrimination in influencing the indirect and direct relationship between workplace outness and job satisfaction. This model was tested among 1,460 lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) employees in Italy. Results indicated that workplace heterosexist climate mediated relationships between workplace outness and job satisfaction. Anticipated discrimination moderated the relationships between LGB employees’ disclosure of their sexual identity and job satisfaction and between workplace heterosexist climate and job satisfaction. This moderated mediation model may assist researchers who aim to understand the complexity of the relationship between workplace outness and job satisfaction. In this regard, practitioners need to recognize the role played by workplace heterosexist climate and anticipated discrimination.     

Michael Polanyi and the sociology of a free society

Michael Polanyi’s defense of freedom in science and society conflicts in major ways with Weber (process of rationalization, value neutrality of sociologists), Popper (objective knowledge, open society), and technological or oppositional sociology. Polanyi rejects positivism, utilitarianism, and Marxism, and defends freedom as a necessary condition for pursuit of spiritual ideals such as truth, justice, charity, and tolerance. Half truths about science seen as rejecting tradition, faith, authority, values, and the subjective, have helped bring valuable social results, but in the form taken by radical philosophical skepticism (doubt), also called objectivism, they also threaten freedom itself. A more truthful account is needed. Scientists and citizens who would maintain a free society are morally responsible persons, joined together in quest of truth and certain other ideals, demanding of themselves and each other that they be faithful to that quest. Polanyi’s thought has connections with that of Shils, and has implications for what Shils calls a consensual sociology. Louis H. Swartz teaches law, and is interested in the development of sociological theory and legal sociology, building upon the contributions of Polanyi and Shils.     

Biomedical Research and the Commercialization Agenda: A Review of main Considerations for Neuroscience

This article reviews a range of issues associated with the commercialization of biomedical research and speculates on how these issues might apply to the neuroscience context. Drawing on existing studies of the impact of research commercialization activities on various areas of biotechnology research, the authors explore normative benchmarks for assessing and resolving issues likely to arise from the commercialization of neuroscientific research, including such topics as patenting, marketing pressures, and representations of research prospects.     

When Everyone Is an Orphan: Against Adopting a U.S.-Styled Orphan Drug Policy in Canada

Putting aside whether diseases that affect only small numbers of people (“rare diseases”) should be prioritized over diseases that are otherwise orphaned, in this article I argue that a new approach to rare, orphan diseases is needed. The current model, first signaled by the United States' Orphan Drug Act and subsequently emulated by several other jurisdictions, relies on a set of open-ended criteria and market-based incentives in order to define and encourage drug therapies for rare, orphan diseases. Given a) the biopharmaceutical industries' growing interest in orphan diseases, b) progress in the sphere of personalized medicines enabling more and more common diseases to be reclassified as rare, and c) empirical evidence suggesting that the most orphan drugs target only a limited, lucrative subset of rare diseases, I argue that Canada, which recently announced plans to develop its own “orphan drug framework” should not follow the United States' orphan drug model.     

A Social‐Cognitive Model of Pandemic Influenza H1N1 Risk Perception and Recommended Behaviors in Italy

The outbreak of the pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 (swine flu) between March and April 2009 challenged the health services around the world. Indeed, misconceptions and worries have led the public to refuse to comply with precautionary measures. Moreover, there have been limited efforts to develop models incorporating cognitive, social‐contextual, and affective factors as predictors of compliance with recommended behaviors. The aim of this study was to apply a social‐cognitive model of risk perception and individual response to pandemic influenza H1N1 in a representative sample of Italian population. A sample of 1,010 Italians of at least 18 years of age took part in a telephone survey. The survey included measures of perceived preparedness of institutions, family members and friends’ levels of worry, exposure to media campaigns (social‐contextual factors), perceived coping efficacy, likelihood of infection, perceived seriousness, personal impact, and severity of illness (cognitive evaluations), affective response and compliance with recommended behaviors. Results demonstrated that affective response fully mediated the relationship between cognitive evaluations and social‐contextual factors (with the exception of exposure to media campaigns) and compliance with recommended behaviors. Perceived coping efficacy and preparedness of institutions were not related to compliance with recommended behaviors.     

Explaining offline and online civic engagement intentions between Italian and migrant youth / Análisis de las intenciones de participación cívica virtual y presencial entre jóvenes italianos y emigrantes

The aim of the study was to assess the role of some psychosocial factors in explaining offline and online civic engagement intentions in a sample of Italian and second generation migrant (Albanian and Moroccan) adolescents and young adults living in Italy. The theoretical model was an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour including past experience. The sample included 598 adolescents and young adults (M = 19.32, SD = 3.17). Two hundred were Italian (88 males, 44.0%), 197 migrants of Albanian origin (130 males, 66%) and 201 migrants of Moroccan origin (116 males, 57.7%). Moroccan youth reported higher levels of both past civic engagement and future intentions than Albanian and Italian peers. Perceived effectiveness of civic engagement and past experience are consistently associated with stronger intentions to engage in the future (offline and online) in all groups. Internal efficacy plays a limited role, whereas the role of subjective norms differs according to the group and the source of normative influence (parents, peers).