Maternal Acceptance as a Moderator of the Relation Between Threat to Self Appraisals and Mental Health Problems in Adolescents from Divorced Families

Appraisals about the implications of stressful events that are evaluated as involving a threat to self (negative self-evaluation, negative evaluation from others, rejection by others) have been shown to place youth at risk for the development of mental health problems. This longitudinal study tested a protective-stabilizing interactive model, in which high maternal acceptance was predicted to mitigate the prospective relation between threat to self appraisals and change in adolescents’ mental health problems six months later. Participants were 89 adolescents from divorced families ages 10–12 and residential mothers. Adolescents reported on threat to self appraisals from the most stressful event experienced in the past month. Mothers and youth reported on maternal acceptance and mental health problems. Multiple regression analyses provided support for the protective effects of maternal acceptance on adolescents’ mental health problems. Intervention implications are discussed. Ana Brown is a pre-doctoral fellow in prevention research (NIMH 2 T32 MH18387–19) and doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Research interests include the study of children’s appraisals and responses to stressful events in the prevention of mental health problems. Sharlene Wolchik is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Her research focuses on identifying risk and protective factors for children whose parents have divorced. She also has designed and evaluated the efficacy of preventive interventions for children from divorced families and children who have experienced parental bereavement. Jenn-Yun Tein is a research associate professor and Co-Director of the Research Methodology Core of the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Her research interests include analyses of mediation and moderation of preventive interventions as well as applications of methodology and statistics in prevention research. Irwin Sandler is a Regents’ Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. His research interests focus on understanding resilience for children exposed to stress and on the development, evaluation and dissemination of programs to promote resilience and prevent mental health problems for children in stress.     

Friends in high places: The wealth effects of JFK's assassination on the assets of LBJ's supporters

This paper uses anecdotal evidence to identify a group of firms that had significant ties to President Lyndon Johnson and determines the effect of Johnson's unexpected rise to the Presidency on the market value of these firms. The unexpected nature of President Kennedy's death eliminates the confounding event problem typically associated with election results. We are able to identify four separate portfolios of firms that had political ties to Lyndon Johnson. Our research suggests that the market expected significant benefits to accrue to these firms as a result of Johnson's becoming President. When Catholic John Kennedy and Johnson were running together in 1960 a joke hop-scotched around the parties in Texas and Washington that Kennedy had told Johnson, “Lyndon, when we get elected I'm going to dig a tunnel to the Vatican,” and Lyndon had replied, “That's OK with me as long as Brown & Root gets the contract” (Dugger, 1982: 286).     

Canadian Federal-Provincial Overlap and Presumed Government Inefficiency

It is often claimed that overlapping government activity inCanada's federal system causes significant government inefficiency.The three major studies on the subject have demonstrated theexistence of extensive overlap, but they resort to qualitativearguments and anecdotal evidence to conclude either that overlapcauses significant government inefficiency (the traditionalprovincial position) or that overlap is fairly well managed(the traditional federal position). Thus, the debate about overlapremains essentially a debate about federal and provincial power,not about efficiency. This is apparently unavoidable, due tothe difficulty of measuring the effect of overlap on efficiency.     

Surrogate Versus Direct Measures of Political Culture: Explaining Participation and Policy Attitudes in Illinois

To date, there has been little persuasive validation of Elazar'sconcept of political subcultures as it applies to mass publics.This study represents an attempt to establish an agenda forfuture research utilizing this popular formulation of the relationshipbetween the citizen and government. A statewide sample of 805residents of Illinois was given agree-disagree statements representingElazar's individualistic, moralistic, and traditionalistic subcultures.The data are used to explore three basic research questions:Do individuals discriminate themselves along the political subculturedimensions suggested by Elazar? Can region of residence, religion,or ethnicity be used as surrogates for individual level politicalculture? And, can political culture, measured directly at theindividual level, add significant independent explanation ofpolitical behavior and opinions beyond that of socioeconomiccharacteristics?     

Contracting for management: Assessing management capacity under alternative service delivery arrangements

Contracting critics suggest that when governments outsource, they reduce their capacity to produce services and manage service delivery. In this paper, we decompose the service delivery decision into service production and service management components. When governments contract for service production, they may also choose to contract for a portion of service delivery management. Studies that only compare the management activities of contracting and direct service delivery governments, without examining the management activities contracted to vendors, are likely to be incomplete and biased. Drawing on a unique survey of governmental refuse collection service directors, matched with a survey of refuse collection vendors operating under municipal contracts, we show that the vendors' management activities offset the decline in management capacity that occurs when governments contract for service delivery for this particular service. Governments can “buy” management activities when contracting for service production. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Adjusting to New Ways of Working: Experiments with Service Delivery in the Public Sector

In response to the perceived failure of both the state and market models of service delivery, governments have embarked on a reform program that draws on the community sector to expand the suite of available policy and service delivery arrangements. This paper explores and identifies the nature of changed relationships between government and the community sector. It uses a case study that examines the operation of a new type of community organisation, and analyses the affectivity and outcomes from the experience of a community based networked arrangement. Although there is evidence of a shift to more relationship‐ oriented models of operation because of either mandate or preference both community and government sectors have found it difficult to make the necessary adjustments to these new ways of working. Community has begun the shift to this new relational approach but finds it difficult to sustain the momentum and tends to revert to more independent and competitive modes. Governments find it difficult to make the necessary adjustments to power‐sharing and resource allocation and continue to operate as ‘business as usual’ through the traditional bureaucratic authority of command and control. In this way, the rhetoric of collaboration and partnership between government and the community sector is not necessarily matched by policy and action supporting the practice of ‘new ways of working’ although these ‘experiments in service delivery’ have opened the way for adopting more innovative and effective approaches to service delivery.