bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Occupation and Personality in Television Dramas
Authors: Turow Joseph
Published: March 2007

In recent years, the possibility that the speech and actions of people in television's dramatic world might influence viewers' understanding of the personalities of others and themselves has received little attention. The first step to exploring that possibility is to chart the personality types which populate television, and to understand the reasons for their existence. This study examines television industry's view of the various personality dimen sions the audience will attribute to characters. The method is to apply an established personality inventory to descriptions creators of prime-time dramas share regarding criminals, law enforcement agents, blue-collar workers, and other citizens. The one-sided view of human nature that is disclosed raises important questions about the consequences of television's portrayals for people using them for social comparison or as indicators of the human condition.
A FANTASY CONSTRUCT OF TELEVISION VIEWING
Authors: LINDLOF THOMAS R.
Published: March 2007

A construct of mental process during television viewing involvement is proposed, based on a cognitive-affective theory of fantasy activity. Modeling the mental process by which television communication operates is important for a more substantial understanding of self-defined viewing behavior as well as the medium's possible effects. Normal fantasy represents a psychological baseline of low arousal to which ideation returns when not engaged in goal-striving, directed thought, or environmental scanning. Fantasy reprocesses material from long-term memory related to “current concerns”—that is, action plans that have been interrupted, but not abandoned. Normative television usage facilitates responses analagous to self-generated fantasy. Because viewer perceptions of content cues conform to anticipated scripts, sampling styles of viewing allow for efficiency of processing. Three procedures for researching people's interpretive processes and expectations during viewing offer an initial glimpse at some new forms of data.
STRESS, COGNITION, AND COMMUNICATION IN INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS
Authors: SILLARS ALAN , PARRY DOUG
Published: March 2007

Several cognitive and behavioral aspects of communication in interpersonal conflict were hypothesized to be affected by one central process, which it the tendency for stress to reduce conceptual complexity during conflict. It was hypothesized that in poorly adjusted relationships, stress associated with conflict discussions decreases conceptual complexity, increases attributional bias, and decreases speech hesitation and productivity. These predictions were examined in a study of videotaped conflict discussions involving college roommates. The results provided modest evidence of relationships between relationship adjustment, attributions of blame, and the complexity of spontaneous communications. Further analyses indicated that three nonverbal indicators of stress were related to attributions of blame, communicative complexity, and speech productivity, thereby supporting the assumption that stress mediates cognitive and behavioral responses to conflict. Speech hesitation, on the other hand, was not related to stress and cognition in the manner we had assumed.
MEDIA DEPENDENCY AS INTERACTION
Authors: MILLER M. MARK , REESE STEPHEN D.
Published: March 2007

Recent research on the differential effects of newspapers and television news has offered a wide variety of operationalizations of media exposure, reliance, and dependency. While these operationalizations have been drawn from the same general theoretic domain, they have led to contradictory findings and conceptual difficulties. This article examines media dependency as a complex construct involving the interactions of exposure to television news, exposure to nespapers, and expressions of reliance on one medium or the other. Data are from the 1976 University of Michigan CPS national election study. As hypothesized, reliance on a medium enhances positive associations between exposure to that medium and political efficacy and activity.
SELECTIVE EXPOSURE AND THE REINFORCEMENT HYPOTHESIS
Authors: CHAFFEE STEVEN H. , MIYO YUKO
Published: March 2007

This article tests the traditional two-part hypothesis that partisan predispositions motivate a person to be selectively exposed to political campaign communications, which in turn serve to reinforce those original predispositions. Five hundred one pairs of adolescents and their parents in Wisconsin were interviewed both early and late in the 1980 presidential campaign year. There is some evidence of selective exposure among the adolescents, less among the parents. Exposure to the campaigns of both candidates is associated with greater liking at the end of the campaign, with precampaign liking controlled. These positive effects of exposure contradict the notion that “reinforcement” would include a “negative reinforcement” effect with regard to the opposition candidate. The positive effects do not interact statistically with party identification, which indicates that partisan predispositions do not heighten any presumed reinforcement effect of exposure. In only one of four tests of a causal model in which partisan predispositions are treated as exogenous to the campaign and selective exposure as endogenous is there an indirect path from predispositions to postcampaign liking via selective exposure. This finding, which is limited to the effect of party identification of the adolescents, is more readily explained as the result of a single-object orientation toward the political campaign than it is by the hypothesis that selective exposure is a mechanism for reinforcement.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ADVOCACY ADVERTISING RELATIVE TO NEWS COVERAGE
Authors: SALMON CHARLES T. , REID LEONARD N. , POKRYWCZYNSKI JAMES , WILLETT ROBERT W.
Published: March 2007

The use of advocacy advertising by corporations and special interest groups attempting to influence social policy has increased dramatically in the past decade. Yet little research has been conducted to gauge the effectiveness of advocacy advertising relative to other forms of mass communication. Conventional wisdom suggests that because advocacy material presented in the form of an advertisement is inherently paid-for communication, it will be less effective than the same information appearing in news columns as a published news release. This study uses a factorial design to examine the impact of format (advertisement versus news article) and source (commercial versus noncommercial) manipulations on the effectiveness of advocacy messages.
MESSAGE DISCRIMINATION AND THE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT
Authors: SALMON CHARLES T.
Published: March 2007

The concept of message discrimination was originally developed as a means of determining actual units of content that individuals extract from encounters with mass media. Since its introduction to the literature, the concept has been used in evaluations of public information campaigns and studies of political information holding. This article describes the relationship between message discrimination and two related concepts: systemic information availability and knowledge.
A DYNAMIC MEASURE OF FREE EXPRESSION
Authors: STEVENS JOHN D.
Published: March 2007

This article suggests a dynamic construct, classifying societies according to their dominant method of resolving conflicts in the area of libel and “dangerous words” on a continuum from self-help to mediation, with criminal and civil law remedies between. It may have application in other areas as well.
The Growth and Decline of Research on the Diffusion of the News, 1945-1985
Authors: DE FLEUR MELVIN L.
Published: March 2007

Research on word-of-mouth diffusion of news, presented initially by media, began in 1945. The Kennedy assassination stimulated numerous studies. However, by the 1970s the pace of such research slowed. At present, the tradition has all but run out. The findings of forty years yield six broad generalizations, but little theory. In view of the vital role of the news in modern society, the decline in this research tradition is difficult to understand.
Diffusion and Social Impacts of Personal Computers
Authors: DUTTON WILLIAM H. , ROGERS EVERETT M. , JUN SUK-HO
Published: March 2007

The present meta-research of past-studies on personal computers in American households examines (1) factors related to the adoption of computing, (2) how personal computers are used in households, and (3) the social implications that extend from these patterns of adoption and use of computing in the household. Our meta-research of eleven surveys of the diffusion of home computers shows that formal education is a strong factor in explaining the adoption and use of home computers. Instrumental uses of home computers are increasing more rapidly than are entertainment uses. Changes in leisure-time activities, such as decreased television viewing, are found in adopting households. Such longer-range negative impacts of home computing as gender gaps and socioeconomic inequality are noted as topics for future research.
Social Isolation and Social Support as Correlates of Television Viewing Motivations
Authors: FINN SETH , GORR MARY BETH
Published: March 2007

Data from three computer-administered panel studies at the University of North Carolina were analyzed to explore relationships between motivations for television viewing and six individual-differences measures, including shyness, loneliness, self-esteem, and three measures of social support. Viewing motivations were supposed to be related to needs arising from two distinct sources: (a) social compensation, which included companionship, pass time, habit, and escape motivations, and (b) mood management, which included relaxation, entertainment, arousal, and information motivations. The results based on a sample of 290 undergraduates revealed that self-esteem and the three other social-support variables correlated positively with the mood-management viewing motive and negatively with the social-compensation viewing motive. Also as hypothesized, shyness and loneliness correlated positively with the social-compensation viewing motive.
Children's Uses and Gratifications of Home VCRs
Authors: COHEN AKIBA A. , LEVY MARK R. , GOLDEN KAREN
Published: March 2007

This study examines gratifications associated with home video cassette recorder use among Israeli school children in order to map the position of the VCR as a “new” medium in the overall media environment of young people. A sample of 576 children in grades 4 through 10, all from VCR households, rated the ability of VCRs and six “old” media (newspapers, radio, television, books, cinema, and records/audio tapes) to gratify twelve social and psychological needs. The study found that while the VCR is often used, it has not achieved any special priority in its perceived utility to gratify various needs. Moreover, based on smallest space analysis, the data suggest that VCRs have neither established a separate “identity” among children, nor created a “revolution” in the mass communication process.
Involvement With the Media
Authors: SHOEMAKER PAMELA J. , SCHOOLER CAROLINE , DANIELSON WAYNE A.
Published: March 2007

This study shows how additional measures of “involvement” can help explain variance in individuals' knowledge of election information and looks at differences in two operational definitions of knowledge. Adult respondents in the Austin, Texas, area were interviewed by telephone in October 1986. The study partially supports Krugman's (1977) contention that knowledge derived from newspaper reading may be best tapped by recall-type questions that access left-brain processing, whereas knowledge derived from television viewing may be best tapped by recognition-type questions that access right-brain processing. Although in general television- and newspaper-reliant individuals scored equally well on the recognition test of election knowledge, the study also shows that younger, newspaper-reliant individuals recalled more than did younger, television-reliant respondents. This was not true of older respondents, however, suggesting that long-term memory may help fill in the blanks in left-brain processing that may be neglected among those who are television reliant. The issue should be directed away from whether information is retrievable through recall-type questions and toward whether it is retrievable in a way that will be useful in making political decisions.
Television and Beyond
Authors: WARTELLA ELLEN , HEINTZ KATHARINE ELIZABETH , AIDMAN AMY JOAN , MAZZARELLA SHARON ROSE
Published: March 2007

Children's access to a variety of media sources (primarily broadcast and cable television and videocassette recorders) is surveyed and the extent of content diversity provided by those sources is assessed. The study was conducted in a single community in order to evaluate whether, as the Federal Communications Commission has claimed, new technologies have increased the diversity of available children's programming. Findings indicate that children have access to a number of old and new media, with more than two thirds of the sample living in households that receive cable television and own a videocassette recorder. Over-the-air broadcasting and videocassettes offer little diversity in children's content, but cable enhances children's programming choices substantially.
Memory and Decision Processes in the Construction of Social Reality
Authors: SHAPIRO MICHAEL A.
Published: March 2007

This study investigates the suggestion that when constructing social reality, a person weighs and balances information from different sources to determine the situational usefulness of a memory. This relatively automatic and unconscious mechanism is proposed as one of a number of conscious and unconscious mental processes influencing the construction of social reality. According to the proposed model, each remembered event is stored relatively automatically as a separate memory trace. In at least some situations, a person constructs a worldview in real time based on relevant memory traces. Information about the perceived source of the communication is one of the cues used to decide which memories are relevant. An experiment supports key elements of the model. Individual memory traces predicted a significant amount of the total variance in answers to worldview questions in two domains, independent of several measures of communication exposure. Information about the communication source appeared to be associated with event memories in both domains. Communication source seemed important in predicting worldview about crime.
Examining Cultivation From a Psychological Perspective
Authors: POTTER W. JAMES
Published: March 2007

This study attempts to elaborate the cultivation hypothesis by examining some proposed subprocesses, especially learning and construction with first-and second-order measures. The results from a sample of adolescents provide support for a construction subprocess but only with first-order measures. Results on the subprocess of learning as well as the overall cultivation process are mixed. In addition, the relationship between first- and second-order measures (generalization) are examined. It is argued that cultivation theory needs to be extended to attempt an explanation of how the effect operates.
Modeling Dynamic Communication Processes With Event History Analysis
Authors: SNYDER LESLIE B.
Published: March 2007

Event history analysis can help communication researchers study dynamic communication processes. The technique is appropriate for categorical outcomes situated in time, when a person, relationship, entity, or communication message shifts from one state to another. Data may be collected in panel studies, through recordings of interactions, from written or computer records of when events happened over time, or in a retrospective questionnaire. Using examples from mass media and interpersonal communication, a type of event history analysis using Cox's model is demonstrated and compared with ordinary least squares and logistic regression.
Family Communication Patterns
Authors: RITCHIE L. DAVID
Published: March 2007

This article addresses a recurring inconsistency in the epistemic interpretation of the Family Communication Patterns scales, widely used by mass communication researchers interested in the family. The traditional linkage to coorientation is reviewed, and a more direct interpretation is proposed, beginning with a face-valid reading of items commonly used in the scales. Results from a survey of 161 adolescents and their parents confirm that subjects associate the scales with underlying dimensions of conformity or control and openness or supportiveness. Subjects also associate objectives of interpersonal harmony with concept orientation rather than socio-orientation, as has been previously claimed. These findings provide a basis for clarifying and expanding theory and improving research methods.
Watching Subtitled Television
Authors: d'YDEWALLE GÉRY , PRAET CAROLINE , VERFAILLIE KARL , RENSBERGEN JOHAN Van
Published: March 2007

When foreign movies are subtitled in the local language, reading subtitles is more or less obligatory. Our previous studies have shown that knowledge of the foreign language or switching off the sound track does not affect the total time spent in the subtitled area. Long-standing familiarity with subtitled movies and processing efficiency have been suggested as explanations. Their effects were tested by comparing American and Dutch-speaking subjects who differ in terms of subtitling familiarity. In Experiment 1, American subjects watched an American movie with English subtitles. Despite their lack of familiarity with subtitles, they spent considerable time in the subtitled area. Accordingly, subtitle reading cannot be due to habit formation from long-term experience. In Experiment 2, a movie in Dutch with Dutch subtitles was shown to Dutch-speaking subjects. They also looked extensively at the subtitles, suggesting that reading subtitles is preferred because of efficiency in following and understanding the movie. However, the same findings can also be explained by the more dominant processing of the visual modality. The proportion of time spent reading subtitles is consistently larger with two-line subtitles than with one-line subtitles. Two explanations are provided for the differences in watching one- and two-line subtitles: (a) the length expectation effect on switching attention between picture and text and (b) the presence of lateral interference within two lines of text.
The Effects of Television Videographics and Lecture Familiarity on Adult Cardiac Orienting Responses and Memory
Authors: THORSON ESTHER , LANG ANNIE
Published: March 2007

This study outlines a psychophysiological model of the role of orienting responses (ORs) in learning from televised lectures. ORs are involuntary responses to environmental stimuli that are novel or that signal the occurrence of something meaningful in the environment. In the present study, ORs were indexed with phasic decelerative heart-rate patterns. The experiment demonstrates that insertion of videographics in talking-head lectures produces ORs in television viewers. It also demonstrates that if lectures contain familiar and therefore easier material for viewers to remember, the ORs enhance learning, but if the lectures contain unfamiliar and therefore more difficult material to remember, the ORs interfere with learning. These results extend the idea that attention to television exhibits limited attentional capacity and suggests that there is a trade-off between people's ability to attend to structural and informational aspects of the television stimulus.
Adults' Sentence Fragments
Authors: KEMPER SUSAN
Published: March 2007

The distribution of sentence fragments was examined in a corpus of spontaneous narratives told by two groups of adults, a young-old group 60 to 74 years of age and an old-old group 75 to 90 years of age. Although there was no overall increase in the occurrence of sentence fragments with age, there was a change in where fragments occurred and what types of fragments occurred. Young-old adults were more likely to produce false starts, whereas old-old adults were more likely to produce filled pauses; both types of fragments were more common in embedded clauses of complex sentences than in the main clauses. Hence the production of sentence fragments appears to be associated with syntactic processing problems that contribute to word-retrieval problems and sentence reformulation.
Flow in Computer-Mediated Communication
Authors: TREVINO LINDA KLEBE , WEBSTER JANE
Published: March 2007

This study investigates the effects of multiple variables on user evaluation and perceived impacts of electronic mail and voice mail systems. It introduces flow as an important construct that characterizes perceptions of employee interactions with computer-mediated communication technologies as more or less playful and exploratory. Flow is hypothesized to be influenced by the technology (higher for electronic mail), ease of use, and computer skill. It is also proposed that flow, type of technology, perceived technology characteristics (ease of use), and organizational factors (management support, communication partners' medium use) positively influence employee evaluations and perceived impacts. A field survey was conducted at a large health care firm that had recently adopted both electronic mail and voice mail. The LISREL results provide mixed support for the hypotheses.
The Implications of Ownership Changes on Concentration and Diversity in the Phonogram Industry
Authors: BURNETT ROBERT
Published: March 2007

This study investigates the structure and organization of the phonogram (records, cassettes, and compact discs) industry internationally and its effect on concentration and diversity in popular music. Results of a major study are reported that found that there is no longer a negative relationship between the proportion of best-selling records produced by the leading firms (concentration) and the number of different top-selling records (diversity). The implications of recent ownership changes in the industry are discussed and a new popular music model is presented that takes into account the open system of musical production as a strategy in maintaining control of the marketplace.
Effectiveness of Adwatch Formats in Deflecting Political Attack Ads
Authors: PFAU MICHAEL , LOUDEN ALLAN
Published: March 2007

This investigation examined the effectiveness of three distinct television news “adwatch” formats in deflecting the influence of targeted political attack ads during the 1992 North Carolina gubernatorial campaign. The study featured three treatment groups and two control conditions. Those subjects assigned to the treatment groups viewed a newscast containing one of three adwatch formats: full screen, boxed, or verbal; they then viewed the targeted attack ad, which was edited into an entertainment program that followed the newscast. Those subjects assigned as controls either viewed the newscast without the adwatch and then the entertainment program containing the attack ad, or viewed the newscast without the adwatch and then the entertainment program without the ad. The results partially supported the hypotheses (1) that use of the full-screen adwatch produces a boomerang effect, further enhancing the influence of targeted attack ads, and (2) that this effect is most pronounced among female viewers. The results also suggest that adwatches do not affect viewer ratings of sponsoring news shows.
The Fall From Grace
Authors: DOUGLAS WILLIAM
Published: March 2007

This article examines the portrayal of family relationships in domestic comedy television programs. Participants were randomly assigned to view samples of 8 programs, selected for the study on the basis of their popularity during the period 1984 to 1994. After viewing the sample episodes, participants evaluated each television family using rating scales drawn from family theory. Examination of the ratings revealed a model of television family life in which children construct a relatively hostile relational environment for each other and parents exert a compensatory effect, developing relationships with each other and with their children that appear supportive and friendly. Although most families were evaluated in comparatively positive ways, 2 families, the Conners (Roseanne ) and Taylors (Home Improvement ), were evaluated in ways that implied significant relational difficulty. These findings, together with the limitations and implications of the study, are discussed.
Race, Class, and Attitudes Toward Crime Control
Authors: WILSON GEORGE , DUNHAM ROGER
Published: March 2007

This study uses data from the 1996 General Social Survey to examine how the race, class, and ethclass perspectives account for middle-class African Americans' support toward four policyrelated dimensions of crime control. Findings vary across the dimensions and provide support for the race and ethclass perspectives. In particular, racial effects are pronounced across dimensions that involve daily contact with law enforcement agents and are muted by incumbency in a privileged class position across dimensions that do not involve daily contact with them. Overall, findings suggest the African American middle class is, in principle, at least as invested in crime control as White peers, but mistrust of its implementation explains lower levels of support than that of the White middle class. Implications concerning how the crime control issue constitutes a source of division across racial lines among the middle class are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.
Importance to Prisoners of Predictability of Release
Authors: GOODSTEIN LYNNE , HUDACK JAMES A.
Published: March 2007

Psychological theory and research on uncertainty and stress has supported the assumption that prisoners prefer determinate to indeterminate sentencing, because it insures predictability of release and alleviates stress, and are willing to incur costs to achieve certainty. In this study, it was hypothesized that prisoners would be willing to serve time beyond their minimums to obtain predictable release dates. Inmates scheduled for parole hearings within one year of the data collection were asked to make hypothetical choices between appearing before the board or serving increasingly longer sentences in exchange for guaranteed release. Most inmates were found to be willing to serve one additional month in prison for guaranteed release but no longer. Furthermore, the desire to minimize time in prison was found to be more important than the need to alleviate stress in determining the amount of additional time inmates would serve. These findings suggest that prisoners desire predictability of release, but only if it can be achieved without significantly extending the length of time served. Implications for the current movement toward determinate sentencing are discussed.
Police Effectiveness in Handling Disturbance Calls
Authors: PEARCE JACK B. , SNORTUM JOHN R.
Published: March 2007

This study examined the social, psychological, and temporal demensions of “disturbance calls” and, in addition, provided a pre-post evaluation of the effects of crisis intervention training upon 64 El Monte, California patrol officers. It was found that trained officers tended to rate their handling of cases more positively than did untrained officers; furthermore, telephone follow-ups revealed that citizens gave more favorable evaluations of the service provided by trained officers compared to untrained officers. Training yeilded a slight, temporary suppression of the rate of return calls to the same address, however, the rate of return calls occurring two weeks after the initial contact was not significantly lower than the rate prior to training.
Service Accountability and Recidivism for Diverted Youth
Authors: WHITAKER J. MICHAEL , SEVERY LAWRENCE J.
Published: March 2007

An empirical analysis of 1100 youth attempts to identify youth characteristics and service delivery program attributes associated with diversion success. Youth needs, type of agency, and percentage of proposed service cycle actually delivered all seem to have dramatic effects on the nature of the service experience by youth, and, in turn, are related to recidivism patterns.
When Females Kill One Another
Authors: GOETTING ANN
Published: March 2007

The population of 15 females arrested for killing members of their own gender in Detroit, Michigan, during 1982 and 1983 are described in the context of their deadly acts. This profile of female-on-female homicide includes demographic and social characteristics of offenders and victims, circumstances of offense, and arrest and court dispositions. Explanatory considerations are offered.
Long-Term Incarceration of Female Offenders
Authors: MacKENZIE DORIS LAYTON , ROBINSON JAMES W. , CAMPBELL CAROL S.
Published: March 2007

The characteristics, adjustment, and coping of female offenders serving three types of prison sentences were compared: (1) newly entered inmates with short sentences, (2) newly entered inmates with long sentences, and (3) inmates with long sentences who had been incarcerated for a long term. Few differences were found among the groups in demographic characteristics and prior experience with the criminal justice system. The inmate groups did appear to experience different problems and to cope with their experiences in different manners. The newly entered inmates were more apt to be members of “play” families and they were more concerned about safety. The newly entered short termers reported less control of events in the environment. Those who had served long terms in prison reported more situational problems such as boredom, missing luxuries, and lack of opportunities. There were no differences in the groups in anxiety and coping problems. The results suggest that long-term incarceration for these offenders is associated with increased concern with realistic problems reflecting limitations of the environment, but not with deterioration or an inability to cope.
Driving While Intoxicated
Authors: DONOVAN DENNIS M.
Published: March 2007

Driving while intoxicated (DWI) continues to be a major societal concern, exacting a high personal and financial cost. The present article reviews the current scope of the drinking-driving problem and a number of countermeasures employed to reduce it. Primary prevention strategies target young drivers with the goal of preventing the initiation of drinking-driving behavior. Driver's training and drinking-driver education classes have had a minimal impact on DWI. Increasing the minimum age for purchasing alcohol has been considerably more effective. Secondary interventions target the general driving population and are based on the principles of general deterrence. Increasing the perceived risk of arrest and punishment appears to have a short-term impact; increased severity of punishment also has limited effects. Tertiary interventions, or specific deterrents, target convicted DWI offenders with the goal of reducing recidivism. Alcohol education and rehabilitation have shown only a weak positive impact on DWI. License suspension/revocation appears to be an effective and efficient specific deterrent. Overall, it is suggested that the approach with the greatest potential for reducing the drinking-driving problem is an integrated, complementary countermeasure aimed at both person and sociocultural factors.
Electrodermal and Cardiovascular Evidence of a Coping Response in Psychopaths
Authors: OGLOFF JAMES R.P. , WONG STEPHEN
Published: March 2007

Hare (1978) has suggested that psychopaths may possess particularly effective coping mechanisms in the presence of impending aversive stimulation. These mechanisms may serve to attenuate anxiety so that the psychopath's behavior is less easily controlled by aversive consequences. To test this hypothesis, the heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) of psychopaths and nonpsychopaths were compared across two countdown tasks. In Tasks 1, subjects heard a 120-db. tone following the countdown. In Task 2, subjects prevented the tone externally by pressing a button immediately following the countdown. The typical response pattern of psychopaths was present in Task 1, where they demonstrated increases in HR but relatively no increase in SCL. This response pattern dissipated, however, in Task 2 when the need to “cope” internally was removed. These results confirm the hypothesis that psychopaths may employ an effective coping response in anticipation of aversive stimuli.
A Developmental Analysis of Prisoners' Conceptions of Aids
Authors: MARCUS DAVID K. , AMEN THEODORE M. , BIBACE ROGER
Published: March 2007

Prisoners' reasoning about the causes and transmission of AIDS was examined. At a medium security prison in Texas 109 prisoners were administered the Concepts of AIDS Protocol, an AIDS information test, and a measure assessing acceptance of prisoners with AIDS. The majority of subjects evidenced a middle developmental level of understanding AIDS. Subjects' developmental level of understanding AIDS was moderately correlated with their reported level of education, their acceptance of prisoners with AIDS, and their scores on the AIDS information test. Implications are discussed for the development of more effective AIDS educational programs for prisoners.
Predicting the Reporting of Rape Victimizations
Authors: BACHMAN RONET
Published: March 2007

Despite widespread rape reform laws that have been implemented in this country, victims of rape still face the risk of receiving social stigma should they decide to make their victimization known to authorities. Because formal sanctions have been found to deter rape at both individual and aggregate levels, it is important to understand as much as possible about the pivotal point at which this formal sanctioning process begins: the reporting decision a rape victim makes. Using a contemporary sample from the National Crime Victimization Survey for the years 1987 to 1990, this article investigated the factors related to the police-reporting behavior of rape victims. The results indicated that victims were significantly more likely to report a rape if the offender had used physical force and if the victim had received medical attention for injuries sustained during the commission of the crime. Although the pertinent analyses approached significance, it was found that, unlike earlier studies, victims were not more likely to report a rape if the perpetrator was a stranger or if the victimization occurred away from the victim's home.
The Development, Reliability, and Validity of an Inventory for the Multidimensional Assessment of Sex and Aggression
Authors: KNIGHT RAYMOND A. , PRENTKY ROBERT A. , CERCE DAVID D.
Published: March 2007

The impetus for developing an inventory that assesses sexual and aggressive thoughts, fantasies, and behaviors evolved from programmatic work on the classification of sexual offenders. To classify rapists in the Massachusetts Treatment Center Rapist Typology, Version 3, detailed information on several dimensions is required, including social competence, expressive aggression, sadism, juvenile and adult general aggression and antisocial behavior, undifferentiated anger, offense planning, and various aspects of sexual behavior and deviance. To supplement the often poorly represented information in archival records and to provide an assessment tool to gather sufficient data to categorize offenders, the Multidimensional Assessment of Sex and Aggression (MASA) was created. The MASA was administered to 127 sexual offenders, and after a 6-month interval a subsample of 35 offenders repeated the inventory. The preliminary reliability and validity data that are presented support the usefulness of the MASA for assessing the domains necessary for classification.
Correlates of Condom Use among Incarcerated Adolescents in a Rural State
Authors: BARTHLOW DIANA J. , HORAN PATRICIA F. , DICLEMENTE RALPH J. , LANIER MARK M.
Published: March 2007

An anonymous self-report survey was completed by 335 sexually active, incarcerated adolescents in a southern rural state. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify correlates of condom use during sexual intercourse. Four variables were identified as associated with frequent condom use: nonuse of marijuana, nonuse of beer, asking sexual partners about their sexual history, and feeling worried about friends contracting AIDS. This four-variable model was highly significant, correctly classifying 70% of the adolescents in their condom-use categories. The intersecting nature of substance use and the HIV epidemic is discussed, as well as the importance of teaching substance refusal skills and sexual communication and negotiation skills to incarcerated adolescents.
Some Boundary Conditions for Bystander Misidentification
Authors: PHILLIPS MARK R. , GEISELMAN R. EDWARD , HAGHIGHI DAVID , LIN CYNTHIA
Published: March 2007

For this study, 650 undergraduate students viewed a videotaped, simulated robbery. Participants were significantly more likely to select a bystander from a photoarray than the actual perpetrator, and they were more confident in their misidentifications of the bystander. Participants who were shown a photoarray without the bystander present were over six times more likely to select the perpetrator than observers who were shown an array that included the bystander. The significant misidentifications of the bystander were eliminated when the event was restaged to show both the bystander and the perpetrator for a few seconds in the same frames of the video. It was concluded that mere bystander presence is not sufficient to produce significant bystander misidentifications and that an eyewitness must make an inference that the bystander and the perpetrator are the same person. Implications for the understanding of unconscious transference are explored.
Perceived Judicial Hostility to Criminal Trials
Authors: LYNCH DAVID R.
Published: March 2007

It is clear that plea bargaining has become the primary method for criminal case disposition in the United States. It also is likely that defense attorneys, like other courtroom work group actors, generally benefit from such an expedited system of justice. What is less clear, however, is the degree that they may feel stressed by getting too much of a good thing. This article presents data that suggest that judicially created “no-trial option” environments rank among the highest of potential stressors confronting public defenders. Apart from the strong general effects such environments have on defenders, regression analyses suggest that such environments tend to moderately exacerbate defender-client and defender-prosecutor conflicts as well.
Family Violence and Juvenile Sex Offending
Authors: CAPUTO ALICIA A. , FRICK PAUL J. , BRODSKY STANLEY L.
Published: March 2007

Juvenile sex offenders were compared to other juvenile offenders in the degree of violence against women they witnessed in their families of origin. Poor impulse control, a callous and unemotional interpersonal style, and sexist attitudes toward women were tested as potential mediators of this relation. Participants were 70 incarcerated juvenile males, ages 13 to 18, from three offender categories: 23 sex offenders, 17 violent offenders, and 30 noncontact offenders. Results indicated that the witnessing of severe domestic violence was related not only to juvenile sex offending but to contact offending in general. There were no group differences on measures of poor impulse control or sexist attitudes toward women. However, sex offenders were found to have more callous and unemotional traits than other offenders. Therefore, although these traits do not mediate the effects of witnessing family violence, they do seem to be important in distinguishing juvenile sex offenders from other juvenile offenders.
Effects of Global Pressures on Public Bureaucracy
Authors: Welch Eric W. , Wong Wilson
Published: March 2007

This article develops the authors’ existing theoretical framework for comparative analysis into a testable empirical model and shows how the model can be implemented for empirical inquiry through two case studies. According to this framework, the social, economic, and political systems that make up the domestic context act to filter global pressures that cause bureaucratic change. Based on the model, the article develops hypotheses predicting the effect of the global pressures on the major attributes of public bureaucracy: structure, scope, size, autonomy, and accountability. Brief case studies of Japan and Hong Kong test the hypothesized effects of global institutions and public sector efficiency pressures on bureaucratic change. Results indicate general support for the hypotheses. The article concludes by discussing further extensions and complexities not initially evident from the comparative framework.
Policy Coordination in Metropolitan Areas
Authors: Rondinelli Dennis A.
Published: March 2007

The perennial concern for coordinating policy in metropolitan areas is receiving re newed attention in federal program evaluation and reorganization proposals. Recent urban fiscal problems and the reformulation of federal urban policy are raising new questions about the need for program coordination among local governments. Yet few attempts to impose coordination requirements in the past have been successful. Public administration guidelines have generally overlooked the political factors that influence interaction among federal agencies and local units of government. Within metropolitan areas intergovernmental cooperation is conditioned by a large number of ecological factors-spatial, organizational, political, economic, and psychological -that create opportunities for and constraints on interjurisdictional coordination and that must be understood in designing coordinative arrangements. The major ecological variables influencing political interaction within metropolitan areas are reviewed and a framework is suggested for assessing the potential for policy coordi nation at the metropolitan level.
Organizational Conflict in Public Bureaus
Authors: Nachmias David
Published: March 2007

This study examines the direct, indirect, and common-cause effects of three organizational attributes of public bureaus-size, specialization, and centralization of authority-on lateral and vertical conflict. The model developed is tested separately for ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous bureaus. Such interactive analysis makes it possible to examine differentials in individuals' adaptations to general organizational arrangements. It was found that variations in the two types of conflict result from the interaction of organizational variables with the ethnic composition of the bureaus.
Citizen Participants in Public Bureaucracies
Authors: MacNair Ray H. , Caldwell Russell , Pollane Leonard
Published: March 2007

This article cites a natural tension between citizen participation in public agencies and the drive for organizational stability. The power stability hypothesis, based on exchange theory, suggests that weaker organizations are more likely to offer citizens stronger roles in their planning processes. The article analyzes a survey of 394 citizen units in 193 planning and development agencies in Georgia. A standardized measure of the citizen-agency contract is developed. A panel of experts provides data on the level of power of host agencies. The central finding of the study is the inverse association between the level of agency power and strong citizen roles.
Discerning the Public Interest
Authors: McEachern A. W. , Al-Arayed Jawad
Published: March 2007

Three approaches to increasing government awareness of and responsiveness to the values, preferences, and needs of individual citizens are proposed. The first is that all activities of government employees have "public service" as their primary objective, and that to this end all government employees act as ombudsmen on behalf of the citizens with whom they come in contact. The second is that an annual national survey be taken based on questions of concern to citizens in order to generate indicators of citizen satisfaction with major areas of government activity and to provide public guidance for national priorities. The third is that special surveys be undertaken before legislation is written and before implementing projects or programs that might significantly change the social or environmental conditions of a community. These are offered as partial steps toward improved public service. Needed in addition are good people in government—those who value the interests of the public—and empirically sound instrumentalities that will accomplish public interest objectives.
Public Choice, Pluralism, and Scarcity
Authors: Berg Bruce
Published: March 2007

The presence of societal scarcity has modified the ability of pluralism and public choice to explain societal events and, in particular, bureaucratic behavior. Both pluralism and public choice are social science approaches that were developed during a period of societal growth and expansion. As a result, the basic tenets of both of these approaches assume societal growth. In the absence of such growth, the ability of each approach to explain societal events is decreased. The implications of this phenomenon for each approach's ability to explain bureaucratic behavior are discussed.
On Woodrow Wilson
Authors: Van Riper Paul P.
Published: March 2007

The historical setting of Wilson `s essay is described as the first step in response to Kirwan's critique of Van Riper. The response then traces subsequent developments in public administration literature in which Wilson's essay is conspicuously absent. The response closes with some speculation on the origin of the politics/administration dichotomy in American public administration thought.
Weeding an Old Garden
Authors: Maynard-Moody Steven , McClintock Charles
Published: March 2007

Currently the conceptual status of organizational goals is uncertain. The organizational goal construct has been the brunt of numerous criticisms and is left out of several major contemporary perspectives on organizations. Building on the insights of the critics of the traditional goal construct, this article argues that goals have an important place in the analysis and management of organizations. Goals are viewed from a behavioral perspective and it is argued that some goal behaviors produce consistency in organizational structure and performance, whereas others lead to variability. A process theory of purposeful variation is presented in which goal behaviors play an important role.
Fame, Fame-Worthiness, and the Public Service
Authors: Hart David K. , Smith P. Artell
Published: March 2007

This article discusses one of the most important prescriptions of the founders for the protection of the republic: the desire of honorable people for `fame. "It considers the proposition that we have placed too much emphasis upon the purely structural considerations of the founders over and above their deep concern for the internal qualities of character of public servants. The arguments of Douglass Adair regarding fame are expanded upon. Using Adam Smith, it is argued that the value of fame lies in the moral obligation to be fame-worthy.
The Quest for Organizational Meaning
Authors: Mahler Julianne
Published: March 2007

The interest in organizational culture has led to collecting and cataloging the themes in stories from many organizations. Here stories and other accounts of organizational life are interpreted on the basis of the resemblance of symbolic elements in the stories to a classic myth archetype. Taking this interpretative approach further suggest that some widely told stories can themselves be considered as myths. It is argued that even though stories can use symbolic elements from many sources, the archetypal myth themes are widely known conventions and are a plausible and rich source of highly expressive symbolism.