bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Benefits and Burdens of Genetic Carrier Identification
Authors: Williams Janet K. , Schutte Debra L.
Published: March 2007

This qualitative study examined experiences of adults requesting genetic-carrier testingforfour autosomal-recessive and X-linked-recessive disorders. The sample consisted of 34 adults with a positive family history or membership in an ethnic group at risk for the inherited disorder A semistructured interview guide was used to collect data during an interview I month after receipt of test results. Noncarriers experienced benefits of emotional relief andfreedom to move ahead with reproductive planning. Carriers experienced burdens of sadness and loss of reproductive expectations. Some subjects in both groups experienced difficulty disclosing results to selected family members and expressed concerns regarding disclosure of testing to insurance providers.
Nurses' Experience with Implementing Developmental Care in NICUs
Authors: Premji Shahirose S.J.E. , Chapman Jacqueline S.
Published: March 2007

The aim of this study was to gain insight into nurses '(N = 8) experience of working in a neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) that incorporated the developmental-care approach Although Als's model isfamily centered, the basic social process identified by nurses was putting the babyfirst. The process of putting the baby first was uncovered using grounded-theory methodology. The process included three phases: learning, reacting, and advocating/nonadvocating. In each of the phases, four main concepts-encountering, appraising, supporting, and gaining sensitivity-emergedfrom the data. Nurses appraised the advantages and disadvantages of this therapeutic approach not only to the infant but also to themselves.
Public Health Nurses' Decision Making in Canada, Finland, Norway, and the United States
Authors: Lauri Sirkka , Salanterä Sanna , Bild Hanna , Chalmers Karen , Duffy Mary , Kim Hesook Suzie , Henry Beverly , Mason Diana J.
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this study was to describe the decision-making processes of 369 public health nurses in Canada, Finland, Norway, and the United States, and to discuss any differences observed among these countries. The results indicate that public health nurses used different decision-making models on the job and that these models varied considerably. Five different decision-making models were identified, each exhibiting features of different decision-making theories. The differences between decision making of public health nurses in different countries were statistically significant. The differencies in decision making appear to be due to differences in health care systems in the 4 countries and the nature of the nursing task and context.
The Experiences of Postmenopausal Women with Coronary Artery Disease
Authors: LaCharity Linda A. , King Kathryn M. , King Kathleen B.
Published: March 2007

The lifetime probability that a woman will develop coronary artery disease (CAD) is 46%. Hormonal changes, resulting in a shift in the ratio of the protective high density lipoproteins to low density lipoproteins dramatically increase the incidence of CAD in women after menopause. Historically, women have not been considered at risk for the development of CAD and clinical research has focused on men. The purpose of this descriptive study was to gain insight into the experiences ofpostmenopausal women afterbeing diagnosed with CAD. Twelve postmenopausal participants were interviewed about theirexperiences since being diagnosed with CAD. Thefour major categories of data that emergedfrom this study were the effects of having a diagnosis of CAD, managing lifestyle changes resulting from this illness, identifying support systems, and adapting or coping with a diagnosis of CAD.
Jurisdiction in Community Nursing Services
Authors: Ellefsen Bodil
Published: March 2007

This articlefocuses on community-health nursing services and theirjurisdiction in Norway. The aim of the study was to analyze and gain a better understanding of community-nursing services' jurisdiction and jurisdictional pressure. The areas of investigation were degree of jurisdictional control, pattern ofpressure in the jurisdiction, and nurses' strategies to deal with this pressure. The respondents were nurses in public health nursing service, home nursing service, and nursing homes. The results showed that nurses in the three different community-nursing services had different degrees offormal and informal control in theirjurisdictions. Patterns ofpressure were visible both inside and outside of the jurisdiction. Jurisdictional pressure led to strategies that strengthened control of the work, fortified professional status, or both.
The Promise and the Product: A Textual-Critical Analysis of Public Television's NewsHour
Authors: Baym Geoffrey
Published: March 2007

The rhetoric surrounding the creation of American public television promised a new system that would provide the American people with an excellence and freedom never before offered on television. This study critiques public television's primary news program, the NewsHour, in light of the rhetorical promise and sociopolitical limitations surrounding American public television. It concludes that the NewsHour has rejected the ideal of freedom for one of excellence, an excellence that implicitly supports the assumptions of broadcasting's corporate liberal heritage.
Boys will be boys : masculinism and the juvenile justice system
Authors: Hudson Annie
Published: March 2007

The impact of gender-related assumptions on welfare's management of male juveniles in trouble with the law has hitherto been afforded minimal discussion by practitioners and academics alike. With particular reference to white male youth, this article argues that social welfare values and practice often reinforce and collude with conceptions of "appropriate" youthful masculinity that are intrinsically oppressive of both young and adult women. Notwithsanding some of the challenges presented therein, it is suggested that areas of social work such as intermediate Treatment have a responsibility to scrutinise their practice in a more systematic anti-sexist way.
The 'Equal Opportunities Community' and the anti-racist struggle
Authors: Cain Harriet , Yuval-Davis Nira
Published: March 2007

This article focuses on the particular ways the ideology of 'the community' and 'equal opportunities' policies have been used and have affected the anti-racist struggles in Britain in general and in South East London in particular. It explores the issues of representation and access to power, individual and collective, in the 'community' of the 'race relations indus try'. The article concludes with a more general questioning concerning the roles and centrality the constructs of 'community', 'culture', 'colour' and 'identity' in general, have in anti-racist struggles.
Consumers, case management and inspection: obscuring social deprivation and need?
Authors: Biggs Simon
Published: March 2007

New legisation on Community Care has been proposed by the Conserv ative Government because it supposedly increases consumer choice and a flexible response to social need. However, a critical analysis of the two mechanisms for change, cave-management and 'arms-length' invection reveal tendencies in both that distance and obscure pressure to respond to service users and social problems.
'Nothing really happened': the invalidation of women's experiences of sexual violence
Authors: Kelly Liz , Radford Jill
Published: March 2007

A frequens remark wome make about experiences of phisical and sexual abuse is that 'nothing really happened'. We explore the meaning of this of events that did indeed happen is both reflected in, and reinforced by the criminal justice system. The implications of inclusion and exclussion in definitions of sexual violence are explored, especially in relation of cam paigns for legal reform.
The Children Act 1989 - protection or persecution? Family support and child protection in the 1990s
Authors: Jack Gordon , Stepney Paul
Published: March 2007

The 1989 Children Act emerged at a time of considerable tension in the relationships between the state, the 'family' and the individual.
From equality to social inclusion: New Labour and the welfare state
Authors: Lister Ruth
Published: March 2007

This article discusses developments in New Labour's thinking on the welfare state. It argues that there has been something of a paradigm shift from a concern with equality to a focus on social inclusion and equality of opportunity, together with an emphasis on social obligations rather than social rights. It speculates briefly about the likely direction of social security reforms.
Conditional citizens? welfare rights and responsibilities in the late 1990s
Authors: Dwyer Peter
Published: March 2007

In Britain the relationship between welfare rights and responsibilities has undergone change. A new welfare 'consensus' that emphasizes a citizen ship centred on notions of duty rather than rights has been built. This has allowed the state to reduce its role as a provider of welfare and also defend a position in which the welfare rights of some citizens are increas ingly conditional on those individuals meeting compulsory responsibili ties or duties. This concentration on individual responsibility/duty has undermined the welfare rights of some of the poorest members of society. Three levels of debate are considered within the article: academic, pol itical and 'grassroots'. The latter is included in an attempt to allow some 'bottom up' views into what is largely a debate dominated by social sci entists and politicians.
A Tale of Two Histories
Authors: Robinson W. Peter
Published: March 2007

Over the past 40 years in Britain, the differences in the overall life-chances of the highest and lowest strata of the class hierarchy have not reduced; this includes life-chances in education. In contrast, the differences in those chances between women and men have been greatly ameliorated and, in the case of education, have almost disappeared. Language and its use are argued to have been relevant to the fates of members of both social categories, and reasons for the different outcomes are suggested and discussed.
Two Types of Gesture and Their Role in Speech Production
Authors: Hadar Uri
Published: March 2007

Speech is normally accompanied by numerous body movements such as hand gestures, head nods, posture changes, etc. These are known to have communicative and regulatory functions such as clarifying or emphasising messages, regulating speaking turns, etc. In addition and in parallel to these, it is argued, body movements have specific speech productive functions, primarily the facilitation of lexical selection and the regulation of prosodic features. Movements serving the two functions differ in many ways, e.g. in their kinematic properties, complexity, timing in relation to speech, impairment in aphasia, mode of encoding and the stages of speech processing in which they originate. These differences are emergent, rather than prescriptive or rule-governed, originating in cognitive and motor constraints. The functional utilisation of body movement is locally optional.
Claim-Backing and Other Explanatory Genres in Talk
Authors: Antaki Charles , Leudar Ivan
Published: March 2007

How do explanations appear in conversation? We distinguish claimbacking from more familiar social psychology genres of ordinary explanation (causal attribution, reason-giving, excuse and justification). Claim-backing is the use of explanations to warrant the truth of what one has said, or the way one has said it. The way that people back claims reveals the mutual knowledge on which their appeals succeed and fail. We examine people's use of logically entailing backings and compare them with looser (but more common) semantic relations, among which we identify diagnostic feature backing, amplification and reaffirmation. Finally, we distinguish between claims of content and of conversational move. We end with a brief discussion of the mutual knowledge invoked by claimbacking and its role in the rhetoric of explanation and argumentation.
Level of Threat
Authors: Bull Peter , Elliott Judy
Published: March 2007

Eighteen interviews televised during the 1992 British General Election were analyzed to evaluate six leading political interviewers in terms of toughness and neutrality. Tough questions were defined as those where each of the principal modes of possible response presented some form of face-threat (cf. no-necessary-threat questions, which allowed at least one type of response that was not intrinsically face-threatening). Brian Walden emerged as the toughest interviewer, with 49.4% of his questions carryinga face-threat in every direction; David Frost was the softest (28.9% of questions). An analysis in terms of neutrality showed that most interviewers gave John Major the toughest interviews and Paddy Ashdown the easiest interviews, except for Frost, whose interviews showed the opposite trend. These findings were elaborated by a content analysis using 19 categories of face-threat and a questionnaire in which observers rated the six interviewers in terms of toughness and neutrality.
Identity, Discourse, and Language Variation
Authors: Ito Rika , Preston Dennis R.
Published: March 2007

Recent work in sociolinguistics has not taken advantage of the correlation between emerging features of a variety and the degree to which the individual identity of persons within the region where that variety is taking hold determines the rapidity with which such features are adopted. The authors examine the spread of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift into nonurban, northern Michigan and find that speakers who have less local loyalty, as expressed in respondent interviews, are more advanced in the shift, as revealed in acoustic measurements of the position of vowels involved in the early stages of the shift.
Strategies of Accommodation:
Authors: Jones Elizabeth , Gallois Cynthia , Callan Victor , Barker Michelle
Published: March 2007

This study describes a coding system developed to operationalize the sociolinguistic strategies proposed by communication accommodation theory (CAT) in an academic context. Fifty interactions between two students (of Australian or Chinese ethnic background) or a student and faculty member were videotaped. A turn-and episode-based coding system was developed, focusing on verbal and nonverbal behavior. The development of this system is described in detail, before results are presented. Results indicated that status was the main influence on choice of strategies, particularly the extent and type of discourse management and interpersonal control. Participants’ sex and ethnicity also played a role: Male participants made more use of interpretability (largely questions), whereas female participants used discourse management to develop a shared perspective. The results make clear that there is no automatic correspondence between behaviors and the strategies they constitute, and they point to the appropriateness of conceptualizing behavior and strategies separately in CAT.
The Effects of Motivation on Narrative Content and Structure
Authors: Georgesen John C. , Solano Cecilia H.
Published: March 2007

This study examined the effects of motivation on the content and structure of narratives. Forty triads of participants engaged in a 15-minute teamwork task. Following this task, participants were given either positive or negative feedback on their performance. Participants were then separated and told to write a narrative concerning their experiences. Participants were given instructions designed to induce either a self-interest motivation or an accuracy motivation when creating the narratives. Results showed that participants experiencing a self-interest motive constructed narratives emphasizing the participants’ positive contributions to the group task. Also, participants with a self-interest motive were more likely to emphasize self-related cognitions and actions. Narratives of accuracy-motivated participants included more details, were more focused on the consequences of actions, and had a tighter causal structure. Finally, feedback also affected both content and structure. Thus, motivation influences not just the content of a story but also how a story is constructed.
Attributional Explanation:
Authors: Xu Shi-
Published: March 2007

The social sciences have recently seen the formation and expansion of a new research paradigm—discursive psychology. What will be especially useful now is to detail and invigorate its theory with empirical discourse analysis. One significant area is the notion of attributional explanation, as this occurs commonly in discursive interaction. Accordingly, the present article explores its organizational and functional richness. As data, stretches of interviews are examined in which explanations are presupposed, implied, or described. From a social-constructionist-linguistics perspective, it will be seen that attributional explanation can be hypothetical and negotiable in nature, it can be structured in several layers of a different character each, and it can be associated with self-identity. Findings such as these reveal that natural human attribution is vastly more varied, intricate, and sophisticated than has been realized and that human beings are more resourceful in their sense-making than has been presumed.
Policy Interaction and Policy Implementation
Authors: Wallace Mike
Published: March 2007

Mike Wallace is Professor of Educational Management and Policy at the University of Wales in Cardiff. In this article he examines a merger involving three primary schools as a means of identifying and analysing the ways in which the implementation of a particular policy is shaped by its relationship within a nexus of relationships with other policies.
Records of Achievement
Authors: Strain Michael
Published: March 2007

This article offers a wide-ranging critical review of the work published in EMA since its origins in 1972. Set against one of the most turbulent periods in the history of the British educational system, it considers whether we can still learn from the past: not so much from the events themselves, but from a re-examination of the records of earlier research agendas which are preserved in the journal. In tackling this theme the paper identifies and examines a number of key questions. What are the functions of a journal written by and for both teachers and academics? How much of what we record here represents substantive knowledge, with utility beyond the horizon of interests entertained by those who produced it? It is suggested that now is a fitting time to look back over the issues of the preceding 25 years.
Governance Hotspots
Authors: Sassen Saskia
Published: March 2007

Moving on after September 11 will require more than just eliminating organized terrorist networks and providing humanitarian aid, crucial as these two interventions are. There is a much larger landscape of multiple devastations in the global south that the global north cannot escape. While socio-economic devastation may not cause terrorism directly, it does promote extreme responses, such as trafficking in people, and can facilitate recruitment of young people for terrorist activity, both random and organized. These multiple devastations need to be addressed - by world and country leaders, by the supra-national system, by NGOs, by global civil society, by corporate economic actors. The article confines itself to the need for governments' action through new specialized multilateralisms and internationalisms. It argues that we can even make a narrow utilitarian case that it is in the global north's interest to address these issues. The particular cases through which the argument is developed are the growing hyper-indebtedness in the global south and the accumulation of contradictions in the immigration regime prevalent in the global north. Examining these is a way of dissecting the nature of the challenge and identifying specific governance deficits.
Love and Structure
Authors: Lindholm Charles
Published: March 2007

Is romantic love a particularly Western and modern phenomenon, as many social theorists argue, or a universal experience, as sociobiologists claim? This article argues that both these approaches err in taking sexual attraction as the essential characteristic of romance, whereas historical and personal accounts stress idealization of a particular other. Romantic love is properly defined as an experience of transcendence and is elaborated in cultural configurations of three basic types. The first is in hierarchical and internally competitive societies where marriage is a political matter and romantic relations are always adulterous and often non-sexual; the second is in individualistic, fragmented and fluid societies where love and marriage go together; the third is in highly structured disharmonic societies where romantic ties between youth are severed by arranged marriages.
`Falling in Love with Love is Falling for Make Believe'
Authors: Evans Mary
Published: March 2007

This article suggests that an understanding of love which allowed for a rational discourse about human relationships was proposed at the time of the Enlightenment but was subsequently contested and replaced by an ideology of romantic love. Romantic love, far from emancipating human understanding and behaviour, trapped individuals in a narrow and often negative set of expectations and aspirations.
Surveilling the City
Authors: Fiske John
Published: March 2007

This article details the rapid extension of the video surveillance of downtown `public' spaces. Its main argument is that this surveillance is racially differentiated, and that it zones the city differently for Blacks and whites, eroding the Black freedoms of movement and association, while leaving those of whites intact. It also considers isses of privacy as a political zone of potential social change, and raises concern about its video-electronic erosion. The argument is set within the overall argument that underneath the structures of democracy totalitarian tendencies are rapidly extending their reach.
Enforcing Access and the Caveman
Authors: Davies Gareth
Published: March 2007

Access to children orders are an expression of hope for the future, conditional upon events and relationships over which the law can have little control. 'Enforcement' is likely to be clumsy, unproductive and not in the child's best interests.
Using NLP to Achieve Change
Authors: Anderson Bob
Published: March 2007

NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, sounds more Californian then Cheltenham, but as a technique for helping people to achieve change, using their own resources, it has proved an effective resource in the author's everyday probation work.
Day Centres and Voluntarism
Authors: Scarborough John , Geraghty Jane , Loffhagen Jane
Published: March 2007

Consideration of some of the issues and tensions around Day Centre provision, reflecting the experience of running the Lincoln Centre, which has Home Office approval but does not seek Schedule 11 conditions. Various dilemmas arising from simultaneous but conflicting agendas fromm clients, staff and courts are highlighted, as well as the sometimes alarming 'side effects' of managingsuch a resource.
Working at the Margin, Campaigning at the Centre
Authors: Canton Rob
Published: March 2007

With 'treatment' discredited, the Probation Service urgently needs to declare cogently and coherently what it stands for. 'Alternatives to Custody' is no satisfactory answer. The author reviews the myopia of our sluggish sentencing culture with its inconsistencies, complacency and habit-ridden assumptions, and articulates a modest but progresive stance for the Service.
DHSS Policy and Probation Practice
Authors: Stewart Gill
Published: March 2007

A second major reorganisation of social security benefits in less than a decade will take place on April 11th, implementing the Social Security Act 1986, seriously affecting probation clients. The changes can best be understood and confronted as part of longer term trends in DHSS policy and administrative practice.
Case History: The Silent Language
Authors: Strauss Susanne
Published: March 2007

The insufficient body language of the blind and visually impaired restrains their communication with sighted people.
Tactual shape perception in relation to the understanding of geometrical concepts by blind students
Authors: Argyropoulos Vassilios S. , Argyropoulos Vassilios S.
Published: March 2007

Tactual shape perception is a synthesis of many parameters which lead blind students to make sense of external stimuli. It is vital to investigate this field of perception because it reveals many differences between passive and active touch. The van Hiele model provides a tool for investigating and classifying students' thinking in geometry. In a study of 19 blind and visually impaired students in a special school in Greece, we sought to understand their own way of approaching, developing and understanding concepts of shape. The findings support on one hand the appropriateness of the van Hiele theory and on the other the complexity of tactual shape perception and its uniqueness with respect to every student's thinking. Teachers and specialists can enrich their understanding and be more effective when teaching geometrical concepts that require taking into account variables such as: touch, movement, posture, type of shape, language, prior knowledge and the conditions of the task.
Direct action
Authors: Carey Kevin
Published: March 2007

Kevin Carey describes his experience as a blind theatre director, emphasises the importance of control, notes some limitations but says these are minor in the context of a multitude of other production problems.
Albinism
Authors: Jay Barrie
Published: March 2007

The following is a shortened version of a talk given at the SWRAB Seminar, Visual Handicap in the Young, held on 8 December 1982 at the Institute of Child Health, London.
Multi-handicap, low vision and the teaching of mobility (Part 1)
Authors: Dodds Allan G.
Published: March 2007

The following is a summary of a seminar organised jointly by the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Blind Mobility Research Unit, held at the University of Nottangham on 13 November 1984. Its aim was to bring together a number of specialists and rebabilitation workers to discuss a range of problems about which Mobility Officers and Course Tutors had expressed uncertainty. The speakers quoted in this article are all members of the Blind Mobility Research Unit, University of Nottingham.
Visually handicapped students in further education, Millbrook College, Liverpool
Authors: German Brian , Chance Dorothy
Published: March 2007

This article outlines the varied provision for visually impaired students at Millbrook College, Liverpool, a local authority further education college.
New technology for a new decade: can it benefit the visually impaired in education and employment?
Authors: Child Derek
Published: March 2007

Recent advances in technology and their benefits to visually impaired people are examined. The article concludes with a discussion of future challenges and prospects, emphasising the need for assessment and training.
What can visually impaired people look forward to in the last decade of the twentieth century?
Authors: Wall John
Published: March 2007

The following article is an edited version of the SRAB Annual Lecture given at the National Westminster Hall, London, 21 November 1991. The author outlines future developments likely to affect the lives of visually impaired people in the spheres of education, employment and provision for the elderly. He discusses the implications of 'Contract Culture' and stresses the need to involve consumers and users at all levels.
Children's learning of two alphabets used by the blind: braille and Fishburne
Authors: Newman Slater E.
Published: March 2007

Children studied and were then tested for immediate recall of the braille and the Fishburne alphabets. Half studied braille first, the rest Fishburne. Comparisons both within subjects and between subjects showed better performance with the Fishburne alphabet and more frequent identification of its structure than of that of braille. Possible uses for the Fishburne alphabet are suggested.
Literacy for blind children through moon: a possibility?
Authors: McCall Steve , Stone Juliet
Published: March 2007

The population of blind children in the United Kingdom has been changing significantly over the last thirty years, with an increase in the number of blind children with additional handicaps. For many of these children the study of braille as a medium of communication has proved too difficult, so that in effect they are being denied access to literacy. Although it has been used for almost 150 years, mainly for the elderly blind, moon has never been formally investigated as a suitable system of communication for children. Technological changes which have made it easier to write moon have resulted in more teachers looking to this system as a possible alternative to braille for certain blind children. In this context, a study has recently begun at the University of Birmingham which seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of moon in developing the literacy of blind students with learning difficulties.
Multiply Disabled Visually Impaired People: Is a Specialist Provision Necessary?
Authors: Fagan Tom
Published: March 2007

This article looks at the present options of service provision for multiply disabled visually impaired people. In particular it looks at staff training as a key issue In quality service provision. The article details the objectives of the staff training in visual impairment awareness at seeABILITY. It concludes by highlighting the heterogeneous nature of the client group with a specific need for the visual impairment to be addressed comprehensively in any service provision.
Social Support and Strain from Partner, Family, and Friends: Costs and Benefits for Men and Women in Adulthood
Authors: Walen Heather R. , Lachman Margie E.
Published: March 2007

The goals of this study were to (i) examine the association of social support and strain with psychological well-being and health, (ii) investigate whether these associations depended on relationship-type (partner, family, friend), (iii) examine the buffering effects of support on strain (both within and across relationship-type), and (iv) test the extent to which these associations differed by age and sex. The sample contained 2,348 adults (55% male) aged 25 to 75 years (M = 46.3), who were married or cohabitating. Positive and negative social exchanges were more strongly related to psychological well-being than to health. For both sexes, partner support and strain and family support were predictive of well-being measures; partner strain was also predictive of health problems. However, family strain was predictive of well-being and health outcomes more often for women. Further, while we did find evidence that supportive networks could buffer the detrimental effects of strained interactions, friends and family served a buffering role more often for women than for men.
The Normalization of Violence in Heterosexual Romantic Relationships: Women's Narratives of Love and Violence
Authors: Wood Julia T.
Published: March 2007

Inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 20 heterosexual women who had been in violent romantic relationships illuminated women's use of gender and romance narratives to make sense of violent relationships. All participants placed themselves within western culture's primary gender narrative, which prescribes and normalizes dominance and superiority for men and deference and dependence for women. Participants also relied on romance narratives - which entailed both fairy tale and dark versions - to make sense of violence in their relationships. Interrelated beliefs that emerged in the women's talk functioned to legitimize both fairy tale and dark romance narratives. This study highlights the urgency of weaving alternative gender and romance narratives into the structures and practices of the culture.
Attachment Style in Marriage: Adjustment and Responses to Interaction
Authors: Gallo Linda C. , Smith Timothy W.
Published: March 2007

This study examined the association between attachment style and marital functioning, focusing on cognition as a key explanatory link. Married spouses completed measures of anxious and avoidant attachment, negative attributions, and perceived marital support and conflict. Attachment style was related to marital adjustment and to attribution style, with anxious attachment being a stronger predictor than avoidant attachment. The interaction of husbands' and wives' attachment styles also predicted marital functioning. In some cases, the tendency to make negative attributions for spouse behavior mediated the effects of attachment style on marital adjustment. Couples also participated in a marital interaction task involving two social situation manipulations - an agency threat (i.e., evaluation) and a communion threat (i.e., disagreement with one's spouse). Following the task, participants completed a measure assessing their appraisals of their spouses' behavior. Attachment style interacted with the social situation manipulations to affect spouse appraisals. The results support the general hypothesis that adult attachment style predicts functioning in intimate relationships, and suggest that cognitive processes may form part of the path explaining this association.
Adolescent Precursors of Romantic Relationships in Young Adulthood
Authors: Seiffge-Krenke Inge , Shulman Shmuel , Kiessinger Nicolai
Published: March 2007

In a six-year longitudinal study, the early contributors to romantic relationships in young adults were analyzed. Seventy-two adolescents participated annually in a survey assessing their relationships with parents and close friends at the ages of 14, 15, and 17 years. In addition, developmental progression in establishing a separate identity and developing a mature body concept was assessed. At the age of 20, the sample was again investigated with a focus on its current quality of romantic relations, assessed by the Love Experience Questionnaire (LEQ). Factor analysis of the LEQ revealed three distinctive components of romantic love in young adults: connectedness, attraction, and painful love. A series of multiple regression analyses explored the different contributions of predictors from the adolescent years for explaining variance in romantic relations at young adulthood. Results showed age-specific predictors for two different components of romantic relations, connectedness and attraction, including marital status of the parents, the quality of relationships with parents, and a sense of body competence at different stages of adolescence. Regarding painful love, only body competence at age 14 contributed significantly to this component of romantic love at age 20. The pressure to establish a separate identity was only predictive of the attraction component of romantic love, whereas the quality of relationships with friends did not contribute to connectedness or to attraction or painful love in romantic relations.
Hiv-Infected Mothers' Disclosure to their Uninfected Children: Rates, Reasons, and Reactions
Authors: Schrimshaw Eric W. , Siegel Karolynn
Published: March 2007

Focused interviews were conducted with a sample of 45 HIV-infected mothers to identify the reasons women offer for disclosing or not disclosing the illness to their uninfected children, the women's perceptions of their children's reactions to such disclosure, and what effects this disclosure may have on subsequent relationships with their children. Two-thirds (66%) of the mothers had disclosed their HIV infection to one or more of their children. Disclosure rates varied according to age of the child, mother's current disease stage, and whether the child lived with the mother. Mothers reported many reasons for disclosing their HIV infection to their children, including wanting to educate their children about HIV, wanting their children to hear it from them, wanting their children to know before they became very ill, and wanting to be honest with their children. Reasons for nondisclosure included believing that their children were too young or immature, believing it would be too much of an emotional burden for their children, not wanting their children to experience rejection, not wanting their children to fear losing their mother, and wanting their children to recover from previous losses. Although adverse reactions were reported in a few children, most mothers reported that their children, although emotional at first, experienced little, if any, lasting negative impact. Indeed, many reported that the relationship with their children had become closer following disclosure.
Are Only Children Missing Out? Comparison of the Peer-Related Social Competence of Only Children and Siblings
Authors: Kitzmann Katherine M. , Cohen Robert , Lockwood Rebecca L.
Published: March 2007

In this study, we tested the assumption that having a sibling provides practice with skills that generalize to peer relations, by comparing the peer-related social competence of only children, first-borns with one sibling, and second-borns with one sibling in a sample of 139 elementary school-age children. Only children were similar to classmates in terms of number of close friendships and friendship quality, but were less liked by classmates as a group. Only children were more likely both to be victimized and aggressive in the peer group, suggesting that having a sibling may be especially helpful for learning to manage conflict. Results are discussed in terms of the need to examine multiple levels of social complexity to understand family-peer links.
So Far, So Good: Scripts for Romantic Relationship Development as Predictors of Relational Well-Being
Authors: Holmberg Diane , MacKenzie Samantha
Published: March 2007

We hypothesized that relationship well-being will be higher if: (i) individuals' relationships are developing in the way they think relationships typically should; and (ii) individuals agree with their partners on how relationships in general, as well as their own relationship, should develop. Thirty dating couples were asked to sort a set of 51 dating events based on the past and future development of their own relationship (personal relationship script), and based on their conceptions of how relationships typically develop (normative relationship script). They then completed six measures of relationship well-being. Correspondence between personal and normative scripts, and agreement between partners on personal scripts, predicted several measures of relationship well-being for both sexes. Partner agreement on normative scripts was not important in this sample.
Social Support and Physical Recovery in a Stroke Population
Authors: McLeroy Kenneth R. , DeVellis Robert , DeVellis Brenda , Kaplan Berton , Toole James
Published: March 2007

Previous studies of the relationship between social support and physical health status have indicated that social support has a positive effect on morbidity, mortality, and recovery from chronic disease. However, the previous studies have differed in their definitions of the construct, with most studies measuring only one aspect of social support - usually emotional support. This longitudinal study of 393 stroke cases found that different types of social support (i.e., informational, affective, and instrumental) had differential effects on physical recovery (i.e., physical functioning) from stroke, with instrumental assistance having a significantly negative effect. Furthermore, selected characteristics of the patients' social networks had no direct effects on physical recovery. Alternative explanations for the findings - including issues of the direction of causality - are reviewed and discussed.
Perceptions of Exploitation in Communal and Exchange Relationships
Authors: Clark Margaret S. , Waddell Barbara
Published: March 2007

Using the distinction between communal and exchange relationships, it was hypothesized that failure to offer repayment for a favour would create perceptions of exploitativeness and decreases in attraction in exchange relationships but not in communal relationships. To test these hypotheses, subjects were led to expect a communal or an exchange relationship with a confederate. Shortly afterwards, the confederate asked the subject for a favour and subsequently either promised repayment or not. Finally, subjects indicated how exploitative and attractive they perceived the other to be. As predicted, failure to offer repayment increased perceived exploitativeness and decreased attraction when an exchange relationship was expected but not when a communal relationship was expected.
Dating Selectivity and Interpersonal Attraction: Toward a Better Understanding of the `Elusive Phenomenon'
Authors: Wright Rex A. , Contrada Richard J.
Published: March 2007

We suggest that individuals who are believed to be moderately selective in dating will be viewed as more desirable than individuals who are believed to be non-selective or extremely selective in dating. This reasoning is supported by the results of three experiments that demonstrate selectivity effects (1) using a procedure similar to that used in previous studies which have not yielded such effects, (2) for both male and female targets, and (3) in the context of an actual dating situation. Findings are discussed in terms of their indication of a possible basis for the common belief that being `hard-to-get' increases attraction.
Affinity-Testing in Initial Interactions
Authors: Douglas William
Published: March 2007

Previous research has suggested that, during first encounters, conversation performs an uncertainty reducing function and persons' selections of conversational strategy require `trade-offs' between efficiency and social appropriateness. Moreover, uncertainty reduction is posited to induce increased liking for a target. However, relationship development is contingent upon mutual liking so that initial interactants may commonly seek out information concerning others' affective judgments. This analysis was designed to (1) demonstrate that previously explicated information-seeking behaviours (e.g., inter-rogation, disclosure) are likely to provide limited access to those judgments; (2) define the ways in which initial interactants test targets' affinity; and (3) determine the extent to which these tests involve compromise between efficiency and social appropriateness.
Characteristics of Social Networks and Social Support among Long-Term and Short-Term Unemployed Teachers
Authors: Rohrle Bernd , Hellmann Ilse
Published: March 2007

The impact of unemployment on social networks and social support has remained widely unknown. The cross-sectional study presented here shows that the characteristics of social networks among teachers affected by different periods of unemployment (n = 31 up to 23 months, and n = 33 from 24 to 42 months) differ only partially. No differences could be found concerning the size of social networks, the frequency of contact, and the intensity of social relationships. Unemployed teachers, however, were significantly more satisfied with their social networks and received more social support than the job holders (n = 15). Analyses of covariance made clear that neither financial distress, self-esteem, nor tendencies towards external vs. internal attribution account for these differences. These results are discussed in terms of different kinds of `network activation'.
Troubled Relationships in Later Life: Implications for Support
Authors: Hansson Robert O. , Jones Warren H. , Fletcher Wesla L.
Published: March 2007

The personal relationships on which social support depends can become strained, problematic and antagonistic in later life. This paper explores how older support recipients themselves influence that social process, for better or worse. New data are presented regarding the nature and extent of interpersonal betrayal in the social networks of older adults that could destabilize family relationships and their social support functions. Respondents reported having betrayed 14 percent, and having been betrayed by 19 percent of the persons in their immediate support networks. In many cases, the event had occurred much earlier in their life, but had retained its symbolic impact across a lifetime.
Contextual Determinants of the Perceived Supportiveness of Helping Behaviors
Authors: Cutrona Carolyn E. , Cohen B. Beth , Igram Surria
Published: March 2007

We tested the effect of contextual variables on the perceived supportiveness of help-intended behaviors. These variables included relationship closeness, spontaneity of support behavior, degree of correspondence between type of support desired and type obtained and gender of the help-provider. Subjects read descriptions of help-intended interactions, in which the contextual variables were systematically varied, then rated their helpfulness and supportiveness. Results showed significant effects for all contextual variables except gender of the support provider. Results suggest that not only the content of support-intended behaviors, but the context in which they occur are important determinants of perceived supportiveness.
Friendship Satisfaction and Gender: An Examination of Sex Differences in Contributors to Friendship Satisfaction
Authors: Jones Diane Carlson
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this research was to examine sex differences in characteristics associated with the core provisions of friendship, namely, intimacy, mutual assistance and companionship. Although sex differences in the magnitude of these provisions were expected, it was hypothesized that the characteristics would function in a similar manner to promote friendship satisfaction. An additional goal was to provide an empirical evaluation of the relative contribution of the three types of provisions to friendship satisfaction. In Study 1, trust in male and female friends (intimacy), orientation to assistance (communal and exchange) and companionship attributes of friends were examined as elements of the individual's cognitive conceptions of friendships. The females ( n = 94) reported greater trust in males, a more communal orientation to assistance and greater friendship satisfaction. Regression analyses revealed that for both males ( n = 80) and females, trust in male friends contributed to friendship satisfaction while an exchange orientation detracted from it. In Study 2, Seventy-eight males and sixty females indicated the levels of self-disclosure, reciprocal exchange of assistance, enjoyment and negativity in their established friendships. Sex differences were evident in the magnitude of self-disclosure and friendship satisfaction reported by males and females. For both males and females, self-disclosure and friendship enjoyment were the significant predictors of friendship satisfaction. Overall, this research demonstrates that the characteristics associated with intimacy, namely self-disclosure and trust, and the affective tone associated with companionship are the most important contributors to friendship satisfaction for both males and females.