Sleep disturbance in adolescents: Sleep quality,sleep habits,beliefs about sleep,and daytime functioning

This study examined the prevalence and correlates of sleep disturbance in adolescents. Two hundred seventy-seven 9th- and 10th-grade students completed a questionnaire on sleep quality, sleep habits, beliefs about sleep, and daytime mood and functioning. Based on their responses, subjects were classified as good sleepers (66%), occasional poor sleepers (23%), and chronic poor sleepers (11%). Occasional and chronic poor sleepers reported being significantly more depressed, without energy, tense, moody, and irritable and less rested and alert than good sleepers. They were also more likely to describe themselves negatively. However, poor sleepers were not consistently more tired than good sleepers. Rather, they tended to be least tired in the evening, the time when most good sleepers reported feeling tired. There were few differences in the sleep habits and beliefs about sleep of good and poor sleepers. All subjects reported shifts in bedtimes and waketimes from weekdays to weekends, with occasional and chronic poor sleepers showing a tendency toward greater shifts, a possible factor contributing to their sleep disturbance. Occasional and chronic poor sleepers also reported more observable behaviors and feelings of stress than good sleepers. The need for early intervention with particular attention to teaching adolescents about good sleep habits and the need for stable bedtimes and waketimes and the possibility of joint intervention on daytime stress and sleeping problems are discussed.     

Justifying controversial political decisions:Home style in the laboratory

Elected officials are not passive bystanders in the electoral process. Rather, they try to influence their constituents' perceptions of events through a variety of strategies, including explanations. Fenno's case studies reported inHome Style (1978) have yielded important insights into the explanations representatives provide to their constituents to account for unpopular or controversial decisions. This paper reports an experimental analysis of the effectiveness of two principled justifications taken from Fenno'sHome Style interviews: individualistic and communitarian appeals to conscience. We also present a theoretical framework for the anlaysis of political accounts, conceptualizing them as a type of persuasive communication. The impact of the two justifications on a number of important judgments is examined within this framework, including reactions to controversial policies, attributions of responsibility, perceptions of political character, and evaluations of public officials.     

Gender differences in self-reported moral reasoning: A review and new evidence

Sixty-four undergraduates wrote responses to the question, “When faced with a moral dilemma, what issues or concerns influence your decision?” The responses were coded according to one or more of 13 themes by independent raters blind to the subjects' gender. Six of the themes were identified as “feminine” themes and seven as “masculine” themes on the basis of previous work by Gilligan ([1982],In a Different Voice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), Kohlberg ([1976], “Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach,” in Lickona, T. [ed.],Moral Development and Behavior: Theory, Research, and social Issues, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York), and others. Only one association between gender and the presence of any given theme reached statistical significance: Thus, there is little evidence to support the idea that men and women differ in their reports of how they think about moral dilemmas. For all subjects, the average proportion of possible feminine themes in a response was higher than the proportion of possible masculine themes. This finding supports the idea than an exclusive focus on themes such as rights and responsibilities will fail to capture many of the considerations all subjects regard as most important.     

Success and Failure in Environment Policy: The Role of Policy Officials

This paper reports on interviews conducted between 2010 and 2013 with senior officials involved in Australian federal environmental policies over the past 30 years. It examines whether they have a prior sense of whether an environment policy is likely to succeed and their experience of the key factors driving environment policy success. Most interviewees claimed a strong prior sense of policy outcomes, but their expression of the key factors indicating success (consultation, clear objectives, a clear mandate, and a strong evidence base) varies from the usual emphases found in the public policy literature. The research illuminates the ways in which the policy officials at times exert a greater role than that suggested by the Westminster conventions or the policy theory literature. Not emphasised in the literature, yet pivotal for success in the vexed space of environmental policy, was the self‐directed yet at times skilful policy ‘agency’ exhibited by officials.     

The Ubiquitous Family Environment: Examining Emotional Insecurity in the Family and Adjustment in School

The present study examines adolescents' emotional insecurity and problem behaviors at school. Adolescents (n = 280; 136 boys, 144 girls, Median age = 13) and their parents reported on adolescents' emotional security and adjustment problems. Adolescents' teachers (n = 240) also reported on adolescents' school adjustment. Results support that emotional insecurity is related to adjustment problems in the home and at school. Emotional insecurity in the family system was a better predictor of adolescents' adjustment problems than emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship. Findings have implications for teachers, parents, school administrators and policy‐makers, as adolescents' problem behaviors at school can be explained by their emotional insecurity.     

Restoring Dignity and Harmony to United States-European Union Data Protection Regulation

Global data protection laws can be described, at best, as contradictory in philosophy and practice. The 2015 decision by the Court of Justice for the European Union declaring the mechanism for data transfer between the United States and European Union known as “Safe Harbor” invalid and the criticism of its replacement, Privacy Shield, is representative of the conflict in this area. Such contention often stems from the differences in privacy rationales and theories of the United States and European Union. This article examines the recent developments in data protection regulations, and makes the argument that issues such as data protection, and specifically data shared with intelligence agencies, should be analyzed through the privacy principle of dignity and that the law of confidentiality should be applied to data protection cases, thereby instilling more harmony into the data privacy approaches of the United States and the European Union.     

Identifying the Needs of American Indian Women Who Sought Shelter: A Practitioner-Researcher Partnership

American Indian women across all ages are significantly more likely than women of other ethnic groups to be victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Despite their increased risk of interpersonal violence, there are few published studies or reports that explicitly examine the needs of victimized American Indian women. Therefore, both researchers and service providers know very little about the multifaceted needs of victimized American Indian women and whether current community services are meeting the needs of victimized native women. Identifying such needs is a logical next step so that victim service agencies can develop and effectively provide services tailored to victimized American Indian women. This commentary addresses these gaps by (1) identifying the needs of American Indian women in a domestic violence shelter in Arizona, and (2) highlighting the researcher-practitioner partnership that made it possible to gain access to these victims. Drawing on survey responses from 37 American Indian female clients and interviews with 10 staff members, the findings reveal that the domestic violence agency service provider is meeting many of their needs. Findings also indicate that clients have a wide variety of specific personal needs (e.g., safety, housing, transportation), needs relating to their children (e.g., safety, education, socialization), community needs (e.g., relating to their tribe), as well as legal needs (e.g., help obtaining a restraining order or divorce). These multifaceted needs are discussed and specific recommendations are provided for successful researcher-practitioner partnerships.     

Under their “control”: Perceptions of Traffickers’ Power and Coercion Among International Female Trafficking Survivors During Exploitation

Despite an increase in knowledge about human trafficking, little is understood about interpersonal power dynamics between traffickers and their victims; particularly in relation to coercion. Understanding victims’ perceptions of power is critical to developing trauma informed, targeted services for prevention, intervention, and aftercare services for survivors. This paper explores human trafficking victims’ (n = 31; adult, female, international) perceptions of traffickers’ interpersonal social power as influenced by prior entrapment factors and traffickers’ characteristics during the controlling period of the exploitation, the “maintenance phase”. Findings from this study reveal that entrapment factors and shared characteristics between victims and traffickers influenced perceptions of specific kinds of power. Moreover, findings suggest that more investigation is need to explore how much influence dynamics outside of the trafficking relationship (i.e., social and environmental factors) have on victims’ perceptions of traffickers’ power. Further, results suggest a need for anti-trafficking professionals to be particularly cognizant that victims may perceive individuals in positions of power such as social service providers and law enforcement, as similar to their traffickers.     

‘Blackberrying in the Sun’? Modernism and the Ageing Woman in Rhys’s Good Morning,Midnight, Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent

Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West break with tradition in re-envisioning the aging woman. No longer content with representing the forlorn dowager or the redundant females of Gaskell’s Cranford, these writers challenge earlier representations while also confronting modernism itself. Instead of focusing on youth, they ‘make it [modernism] new’ by carefully detailing the various ways ageism and sexism make us ‘the other’, as they speak out against the interlocking oppressions of ageism and sexism. Whereas Rhys underscores what it means to be an impoverished, aging woman, Woolf and Sackville-West shift their concerns to the ways in which their characters come to terms with aging. For Woolf, there is both a sense of mourning and a sense of celebration as Clarissa attempts to unite her world through her ‘offering’ of parties that ‘defy’ the Gods. In contrast, Sackville-West’s dutiful Lady Slane claims her independence for the first time in her life, as she refuses the ways in which her children infantilize her.