Hope, meaning, and growth following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks

Positive psychologists found the increase of seven character strengths that encompass the so-called theological virtues, including hope and spirituality, in Americans after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Little is known about how they may affect post-September 11, 2001, mental health. Using multivariate analysis, this study investigated the relationship of hope and spiritual meaning with depression and anxiety in a sample of 457 students 3 months after September 11, 2001. Both characters contributed to lower levels of symptoms. In qualitative analysis, of 313 answers to an open-ended question regarding personal change, four categories emerged. The first three were consonant with other studies on posttraumatic growth (PTG), including changes in the self or behavior, relationships, and worldviews. The fourth category unique to September 11, 2001, was changes in political views. These findings offer further credence to the study of positive aspects resulting from violence-related trauma and highlight the needs for addressing the nature of traumatic events and PTG.     

Body Dissatisfaction and Physical Development Among Ethnic Minority Adolescents

The present study examined the association between body dissatisfaction and adjustment, and the role physical development plays in this association, in an ethnically diverse sample of over 1100 urban, ninth grade boys and girls (M age = 14). More similarities than differences were found across ethnic groups: Caucasian, African American, Latino, Asian, and multiethnic boys reported similar areas of body dissatisfaction, levels of body dissatisfaction, and associations between body dissatisfaction and psychosocial maladjustment. For girls, only mean level differences were found with African American girls reporting lower levels of body dissatisfaction than girls from other ethnic backgrounds. Higher levels of body dissatisfaction predicted more psychological and social maladjustment for both boys and girls. For boys, faster development predicted stronger associations between feeling overweight and peer victimization. Feeling too small only predicted victimization if boys were actually low in physical development. For girls, physical development directly predicted less peer victimization, while perceived faster development predicted more victimization. Thus, it appears that physical development can protect both girls (directly) and boys (buffering against the negative effects of body dissatisfaction) from peer victimization, whereas perceived faster timing of development can exacerbate peer victimization.Adrienne Nishina conducted this research as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the UCLA Department of Education. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human and Community Development at UC Davis. She received her PhD in clinical psychology from UCLA. Her major research interests include mental health in schools, adolescent peer relations, and ethnic diversity.Natalie Y. Ammon is a graduate student in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin. Her major research interests are at-risk youth and academic achievement.Amy D. Bellmore is an American Psychological Association/Institute of Educational Sciences Postdoctoral Education Research Training fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Connecticut. Her research interests include peer-directed aggression, ethnicity and ethnic contexts, and the development of interpersonal perception.Sandra Graham is a Professor in the Department of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her PhD degree in educational psychology from UCLA. Her major research interests are the academic motivation and social behavior of ethnically diverse adolescents in urban schools.     

Congressional Response to Mandate Elections

Elections from time to time are widely believed to carry a mandate, to express a message about changed policy preferences of the electorate. Whatever the accuracy of such beliefs—a matter about which we are skeptical—perceptions of a mandate should affect the behavior of actors in government. Politicians lack the scholarly luxury of waiting for careful analyses. They must act in the months following elections. We postulate that many will act as if the mandate perceptions were true, veering away from their normal voting patterns. This is driven by election results and interpretations that undermine old calculations about what voters want. As the flow of information gradually changes these perceptions, and the election becomes more distant, members of Congress return to their normal position. We first ask, how would members observe an emerging consensus of mandate? And then we model the duration of the change in behavior in an event‐history framework. That permits a depiction of important movements of the median member and, from this, inferences about policy impact.     

Legal expenditure as a rent-seeking game

Legal expenditures at a civil trial constitute an interesting type of rent-seeking contest. In civil litigation there is a natural interaction between the objective merits of the case and the outcome of the contest. Institutions such as fee shifting do not generally have a counterpart in other rent-seeking contests. The endogenous decision to participate in the rent-seeking contest corresponds to the decision by the plaintiff to bring a case, and the decision by the defendant to defend it. The desirability of fee shifting is very sensitive to the value of the parameter which describes the legal technology.     

Using Adjusted Performance Measures for Evaluating Resource Use

Public service organizations are looking for ways to improve the evaluation of performance and resource allocation. One of the approaches is to use adjusted performance measures, which attempt to capture factors that affect the organizational performance but are outside of the organization's control. This article illustrates the construction and use of adjusted performance measures to assess the performance of public schools, and reports findings from a study of school-based budgeting in Chicago that relates adjusted performance measures and patterns of budget allocations.     

亚洲多边主义的进程与外交艺术:美国、日本、中国之比较

东亚合作更多地表现为一种地区多边合作的过程。作为东亚的一个成员,和平发展的中国无疑是东亚区域合作最重要的动力源之一。从地缘上看,美国不属于东亚范畴。但基于历史原因和美国独特的地位,东亚合作进程又不可能排除美国的影响,甚至需要美国建设性的参与。因此,东亚合作一方面是一个内部一体化的过程,另一方面也涉及到一个对外部开放的问题。如何评估东亚合作进程中的中国的作用、美国对东亚合作进程的影响以及东亚合作背景下中美关系的前景等已经成为学界研究的一个热点。为此,中国国际关系学会、外交学院、美国乔治.华盛顿大学联合举办了“东亚地区合作与中美关系”国际研讨会(2005年11月),中美双方学者就此展开坦诚的对话交流。在会议讨论的基础上,我刊以笔谈形式整理刊发部分学者的观点,以飨读者。