Reasons for Returning to Abusive Relationships: Effects of Prior Victimization

Studies have demonstrated that women with a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) are at increased risk of revictimization, but research has not yet examined whether a history of CSA may affect patterns of remaining in or returning to abusive relationships in adulthood. This study examines the impact of a CSA history on decisions to return to abusive relationships in a sample of 104 adult domestic violence survivors. Participants were interviewed about the number of times that they had previously separated from and returned to their abusive partner, the factors that influenced their decision to return (both psychological/internal and environmental/external factors), and their perceived likelihood of returning in the future. As predicted, CSA survivors (n = 34) reported a significantly greater number of past separations than non-CSA survivors (n = 70). CSA survivors were also significantly more likely to report that their decisions to return were influenced by emotional attachment to the batterer. CSA survivors did not perceive themselves to be at greater risk of returning in the future, suggesting that they may be more likely to underestimate their vulnerability to returning to the battering relationship. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Revisiting the role of communication in adolescent intimate partner violence

A growing literature suggests that communication strategies can promote or inhibit intimate partner violence (IPV). Research on communication is still needed on a group ripe for early IPV intervention: high school-aged adolescents. This article revisits our previous analyses of young female reproductive clinic patients (Messinger, Davidson, & Rickert, 2011) by examining how the adolescent and young adult respondents differ. To explore replicability of the adolescent results across populations, they are compared to 487 adolescent female students sampled from four urban high schools. Across samples, all communication strategies were used more frequently within violent relationships. Multivariate analysis identified escalating strategies used and received as being positively associated with physical violence used and received in all three samples. Regarding verbal reasoning and temporary conflict avoidance, substantial differences appeared between the young adult and adolescent clinic samples, and results from the adolescent clinic sample were largely replicated with the adolescent school sample, suggesting that young adult samples in this literature are not adequate proxies for adolescents.     

Academic outcomes among principal investigators,co-principal investigators,and non-PI researchers

Faculty at research universities are evaluated on a number of productivity measures including their ability to conduct research, teach, and engage in service. Research outcomes include publishing research results and acquiring grants and contracts to conduct additional research. While it is assumed that researchers who are awarded grants are more likely to publish research results, there is little research investigating the ways in which grants affect outcomes or how principal investigators differ from researchers who do not hold research grants or those who are co-principal investigators. This research seeks to understand if principal investigators are more or less productive than co-principal investigators and those who do not have grants, and if so, what explains that variation in productivity. It also examines whether women PIs are more or less productive than men PIs. This research uses longitudinal data drawn from an NSF funded survey of academic scientists in Carnegie-designated Research I universities in six fields: biology, chemistry, computer science, earth and atmospheric sciences, electrical engineering, and physics. From this national random sample of men and women scientists and engineers we investigate whether there is variation in the production of outcomes (e.g. publications, teaching, and training graduate students) among PIs, co-PIs, and other researchers. Findings show that productivity and outcomes vary significantly for PIs, co-PIs and by sex.     

Tension in democratic administration: Does managerial confidence in administrative capacity reduce citizen participation in organizational decision-making?

The tension between bureaucratic and democratic values has characterized significant debates in the field of public administration. In this article, we ask, does public managers' confidence in their organizational administrative capacity affect citizen participation? Using managerial confidence in organizational response capacity (ORC) during crises as a vehicle to investigate the tension between democratic and administrative values, we examine whether an administration-centric approach to management influences citizen participation. We posit that higher levels of managerial confidence in organizational administrative capacity can lessen the pressure from political stakeholders which, in turn, might allow managers the autonomy to isolate themselves from the general public. The empirical analysis uses a structural equation model (SEM) to examine survey data from senior managers in 500 US cities. We find that managerial confidence in ORC reduces citizen participation, but only indirectly through diminishing influence from other governmental actors or by allowing managers to win the trust of political principals.     

The Complexity of Social Outcomes from Cooperative,Competitive, and Individualistic Reward Systems

Previous research on cooperative and competitive reward systems has investigated the relation between extreme cooperative and competitive conditions, along with an intermediate noninterdependent neutral condition, to numerous outcome variables. This study added two additional conditions to these three usual conditions, between the neutral midpoint and the cooperative or competitive extremes, to see if these intermediate conditions might be distinctive in the outcomes they produced. The study used 240 participants, divided into groups of three that played a board game under these five different reward conditions. Participants' attitudes toward self, others, and task were then assessed and analyzed along with objective measures of performance, measures of self-esteem, state and trait anxiety, and results coded from an autobiographical report in game-defined roles. Results indicated that the intermediate cooperative condition was distinctively different from the extreme cooperative condition in predicted ways, and that the intermediate competitive condition was distinctively different from the extreme competitive condition, but in unpredicted ways. The research also demonstrated that an individualistic condition, which had previously been thought to produce neither a cooperative nor competitive social orientation, in fact produced both, raising questions as to whether reward interdependence, as researchers have defined it, is really the cause of cooperation and competition.     

Courtship Violence Among College Students: A Comparison of Verbally and Physically Abusive Couples

This study used a modified version of the Conflict Tactic Scale (Straus, 1990) to measure the expression of verbal and physical aggression among 572 college students (395 females and 177 males) involved in dating relationships over the previous year. Results indicated that 82% (n = 465) of the total sample reported having engaged in verbally aggressive behavior with a dating partner over the past year, whereas 21% (n = 116) admitted to acting in a physically aggressive manner over the same interval. No significant gender-based difference was found for verbal aggression scores; however, females were significantly more likely to report using physical force than were male students. Male and female students who used verbal aggression were characteristically similar to each. Both had experienced aggression from a parent as children and had drunk alcohol within 3 hours (before or after) an argument with a dating partner. Male and female students who admitted using physical force were dissimilar except that both had experienced parent-child aggression. For male students, having witnessed conjugal violence and their general drinking patterns were also significantly related to their using physical force, whereas for females, the use of physical force was associated with drinking alcohol within 3 hours of an argument with a dating partner.     

Examining Small Town Revenues: To What Extent Are They Diversified?

How diversified are small town revenues? Revenue diversification is analyzed among towns governed by town meetings. Using previously developed diversification measures, the findings confirm that these localities draw from less diverse revenue streams than other state and local governments. The reasons for these variations include differences in home rule status as well as tax and expenditure limitations imposed by states. The authors suggest that revenue allocation in these jurisdictions is substantively different from other forms of local government because these communities rely much less on sales taxation than states and municipalities. Their essay proposes possible options for improvement, along with other criteria by which small towns can assess their revenue diversification.     

Now you're tax-exempt,now you're not: Property taxation of assisted living facilities

This research is motivated by a change in Florida that affected assisted living facilities (ALFs) by removing the property tax exemptions for those operated by nonprofit organizations. As such, this paper addresses two research questions: (1) Are there systematic differences between Florida's for-profit- and nonprofit-designated ALFs in terms of operations and service provision? (2) What was the impact, if any, of losing and regaining their property tax exemptions on the operations of Florida's nonprofit ALFs? We use data from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration to conduct difference of means testing for-profit versus nonprofit ALFs, as well as annual financial data of each ALF property owners' IRS Form 990 from the National Center for Charitable Statistics Core Files and parcel-level property data from the state of Florida to conduct regression analysis using three different dependent variables measuring various components of nonprofit ALF operations. We find that nonprofit ALFs have greater legitimacy in service delivery than for-profits, as nonprofit ALFs have higher service capacity, quality, and variety than for-profit ALFs in Florida. In addition, property tax exemptions for nonprofit ALFs in Florida decrease total expenses and increase officer compensation.     

Desperately Seeking ‘Justice’ in Classical Chinese: On the Meanings of Yi

This essay sets out to search for an equivalent Chinese word to the English word ‘justice’ in classical Chinese language, through ancient Chinese philosophical texts, imperial codes and idioms. The study found that there does not seem to be a linguistic sign for ‘justice’ in classical Chinese, and further, yi resembles ‘justice’ in some ways and has been used sometimes to translate  ‘justice’, but yi is a complex concept in traditional Chinese philosophy with multiple meanings and it is dissimilar to ‘justice’ in their semantic and pragmatic meanings in Chinese and English legal culture. While ‘justice’ is a keyword and fundamental to Western law, yi is not a legal word or concept in classical Chinese in traditional China. Given its complexity, yi does not have a one-to-one equivalent in English. It sometimes carries a sense of ‘righteousness’ and occasionally ‘justice’, but yi and ‘justice’ are not equivalent. In view of these, it becomes understandable that the translations of yi in contemporary Chinese usage vary ranging from ‘friendship and justice’ to ‘greater good’, among others. The meaning of yi is still uncertain and context sensitive as it was two thousand years ago.