Identity and anxiety: Germany’s struggle to lead

At a time when calls for German leadership abound, we need to ask what kind of leadership Berlin is likely to offer. This paper builds on scholarship that presumes identity as an essential precondition for orderly social life. My focus is on how identity is secured through ontological security-seeking. Ontological security theory reveals how Germany is responding to rising calls for leadership in Europe and beyond and traces these responses to an increasingly stressed identity narrative. It explains both Germany’s reluctance to lead and, being pressed to lead, how leadership is legitimated through discursive adaptation. Whether “leading from the center” or exercising “servant leadership”, ontological security theory exposes the specific interactions between a national self-narrative and a rapidly changing environment. I show how these interactions challenge Germany’s identity and its ability to adapt; how they cause ontological anxiety, and how the scope and direction of adaptation to structural change account for the kind of leadership Germany is able to offer. What we observe is a determined effort to position the country between a traditional culture of restraint that can no longer meet Germany’s responsibilities and a position of hegemony that speaks of self-serving behaviour and dominance.     

Developmental Alcohol-Specific Parenting Profiles in Adolescence and their Relationships with Adolescents’ Alcohol Use

Previous studies on general parenting have demonstrated the relevance of strict parenting within a supportive social context for a variety of adolescent behaviors, such as alcohol use. Yet, alcohol-specific parenting practices are generally examined as separate predictors of adolescents’ drinking behavior. The present study examined different developmental profiles of alcohol-specific parenting (rule-setting, quality and frequency of communication about alcohol use) and how these patterns relate to the initiation and growth of adolescents’ drinking. A longitudinal sample of 883 adolescents (47?% female) including four measurements (between ages 12 and 16) was used. Latent class growth analysis revealed that five classes of parenting could be distinguished. Communication about alcohol appeared to be fairly stable over time in all parenting classes, whereas the level of rule-setting declined in all subgroups of parents as adolescents grow older. Strict rule-setting in combination with a high quality and frequency of communication was associated with the lowest amount of drinking; parents scoring low on all these behaviors show to be related to the highest amount of drinking. This study showed that alcohol-specific rule-setting is most effective when it coincides with a good quality and frequency of communication about alcohol use. This indicates that alcohol-specific parenting behaviors should be taken into account as an alcohol-specific parenting context, rather than single parenting practices. Therefore, parent-based alcohol interventions should not only encourage strict rule setting, the way parents communicate with their child about alcohol is also of major importance.     

Daily and Compulsive Internet Use and Well-Being in Adolescence: A Diathesis-Stress Model Based on Big Five Personality Traits

This study examined the associations between adolescents’ daily Internet use and low well-being (i.e., loneliness, low self-esteem, and depressive moods). We hypothesized that (a) linkages between high levels of daily Internet use and low well-being would be mediated by compulsive Internet use (CIU), and (b) that adolescents with low levels of agreeableness and emotional stability, and high levels of introversion would be more likely to develop CIU and lower well-being. Data were used from a sample of 7888 Dutch adolescents (11–21 years). Results from structural equation modeling analyses showed that daily Internet use was indirectly related to low well-being through CIU. In addition, daily Internet use was found to be more strongly related to CIU in introverted, low-agreeable, and emotionally less-stable adolescents. In turn, again, CIU was more strongly linked to loneliness in introverted, emotionally less-stable, and less agreeable adolescents.

The Bidirectional Relationships Between Online Victimization and Psychosocial Problems in Adolescents: A Comparison with Real-Life Victimization

Although peer victimization is of major concern and adolescents spend increasing amounts of time on the Internet, relatively little is known about the psychosocial antecedents and consequences of online victimization. The main aim of this study was to compare the psychosocial antecedents and consequences of online versus real-life victimization. More specifically, the bidirectional relationship between online and real-life victimization on the one hand and psychosocial problems (i.e., loneliness and social anxiety) on the other was examined. In addition, the moderating role of online aggression in the relationship between online victimization and subsequent psychosocial problems was studied. This prospective study, consisting of three annual measurements, was conducted among a sample of 831 adolescents (50.3 % girls) aged 11–15, of which most (80.2 %) had a Dutch ethnic background. The results indicate a unidirectional relationship whereby loneliness and social anxiety predict an increase in latter online victimization rather than the reverse. A bidirectional relationship was found for real-life victimization: loneliness (but not social anxiety) predicted an increase in latter real-life victimization, which in turn predicted an increase in subsequent social anxiety (but not loneliness). No moderating effects of online aggression were found. The findings of the present study suggest that negative online and in real life peer interactions have a differential meaning for, and impact on adolescents’ well-being.     

Feminine by Design: re-engendering mural painting at the fin de siècle

Mural painting, historically categorised as one of the highest of the fine arts, was also traditionally defined as a masculine form of art and thus unsuitable for women. This article, however, examines how the creation and social legitimisation of new mural painting techniques, and the increasing fluidity of the genre during the nineteenth century, enabled women artists not only to make the transition to but also succeed in the field of public mural painting. In doing so, women muralists aided in redefining both the genre as well as the definition of the late-nineteenth-century woman artist and, more generally, women of the Victorian period.     

An Experimental Test of a Craving Management Technique for Adolescents in Substance-abuse Treatment

This paper describes an experiment designed to test an imagery-based craving management technique with a sample of adolescents diagnosed with substance-use disorders. Seventy adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18 (41 males) were recruited through two substance-abuse treatment programs. The experimental procedure involved stimulating craving using a previously tested imagery technique and then administering a newly developed procedure for reducing craving. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: an “interpersonal help” craving reduction condition; an “interpersonal distracter” craving reduction condition; and a control condition in which craving was stimulated and allowed to attenuate naturally, without intervention. Results indicated that following exposure to imagery-based drug cues, the “interpersonal distracter” condition effectively interrupted craving, compared to the control condition. The “interpersonal help condition” did not attenuate participant’s craving response relative to the control condition. This study illustrates how experimental methods can be used to test and refine the efficacy of clinical interventions.

In search of identity: The field of forensic anthropology in Brazil—Profession and practice

The existing divergencies in the development of forensic anthropology (FA) around the world justify an analysis of its situation in each country/region. Our objective is to report information gathered directly from professionals acting in the field of forensic anthropology in Brazil, with the aim of highlighting the challenges of the discipline and contributing to its advancement. The research consisted of personal visits in Medico‐Legal Institutes (IMLs) in nine states of the country and semi‐structured interviews with 16 professionals. Detailed analysis of the Results suggests the field of forensic anthropology, despite the engagement and dedication of its professionals, cannot yet be considered a well‐structured discipline across the country. The academic background of professionals is highly heterogenous. The applied methods vary, and common protocol is not always followed. The demand highly exceeds the available human resources. The lack of comparative material Results in high percentage of cases remaining unsolved. Important divergences exist in terms of infrastructure and professional resources between the states. The limited cooperation between different IMLs and between different sections of the same IML—together with a general disbelief in the usefulness of anthropological examination in forensic cases—hampers FA’s development. There is a great openness for scientific collaboration and an abundance of material for research. Our research demonstrated structural, political, and academic limitations that affect the FA field in Brazil. However, the expertise and dedication of professionals point to human potential as the chief strength of this discipline that supports and enables research, providing high‐quality services in a challenging context.     

State-Level Determinants of Hate Crime Reporting: Examining the Impact of Structural and Social Movement Influences

In this article, we investigate factors affecting hate crime policies by examining anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) hate crime reports as a type of policy implementation. Analyzing state-level data drawn primarily from the US Census between 1995 and 2008, we examine how structural and social movement mobilization factors explain hate crime reporting. We find that anti-LGBT hate crimes are more likely to be reported in more urbanized states and in states with both split political elites and a greater number of LGBT social movement organizations. We discuss the implications of our findings for separating the drivers of policy passage from policy implementation and for complementary criminological and social movement explanations for hate crime reporting.     

Heteroplasmy in hair: differences among hair and blood from the same individuals are still a matter of debate

The analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a useful tool in forensic cases when sample contents too little or degraded nuclear DNA to genotype by autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci, but it is especially useful when the only forensic evidence is a hair shaft. Several authors have related differences in mtDNA from different tissues within the same individual, with high frequency of heteroplasmic variants in hair, as also in some other tissues. Is still a matter of debate how the differences influence the interpretation forensic protocols. One difference between two samples supposed to be originated from the same individual are related to an inconclusive result, but depending on the tissue and the position of the difference it should have a different interpretation, based on mutation-rate heterogeneity of mtDNA. In order to investigate it differences in the mtDNA control region from hair shafts and blood in our population, sequences from the hypervariable regions 1 and 2 (HV1 and HV2) from 100 Brazilian unrelated individuals were compared. The frequency of point heteroplasmy observed in hair was 10.5% by sequencing. Our study confirms the results related by other authors that concluded that small differences within tissues should be interpreted with caution especially when analyzing hair samples.