Predictors of Maladaptive Coping in Incarcerated Women Who are Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Women’s rates of incarceration have increased notably in the past two decades. Concurrently, research with female offenders has identified a high incidence of experiences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), a potential risk factor for negative psychosocial outcomes. Structural equation modeling was used to test a model examining associations among CSA, emotion regulation, posttraumatic stress, and coping in a sample of 224 incarcerated women. The relationships between CSA and difficulties with emotion regulation and posttraumatic stress were mediated by self-blame, and the relationship between self-blame and maladaptive coping was mediated by both difficulties with emotion regulation and posttraumatic stress. These findings have implications for identifying treatment needs of incarcerated women and suggest potential targets for intervention.     

Work-Life Conflict and Organizational Support in a Military Law Enforcement Agency

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which work-life conflict and organizational support for work-life balance are related to job satisfaction and turnover intentions for military law enforcement personnel. More specifically, 1203 members of the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations completed a survey that measured family-to-work conflict, work-to-family conflict, perceptions of work-life support from the organization, support from immediate supervisors, and support from peers. Work-to-family and family-to-work conflict were related to job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Perceived social support, especially at the organizational level, was negatively correlated with work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Agents within the OSI were experiencing more work-to-family and family-to-work conflict than OSI support staff although the relationships among support, conflict and satisfaction were the same for the two groups.     

It’s All in the Name: Source Cue Ambiguity and the Persuasive Appeal of Campaign Ads

As strategies for campaign political advertising become more complex, there remains much to learn about how ad characteristics shape voter reactions to political messages. Drawing from existing literature on source credibility, we expect ad sponsorship will have meaningful effects on voter reactions to political advertisements. We test this by using an original experiment, where we expose a sample of student and non-student participants to equivalent ads and vary only the paid sponsor disclaimer at the end of the message. The only thing that differs across stimuli is whether a political candidate, a known interest group, or an unknown interest group sponsors the advertisement. Following exposure to one of these ads, participants complete a posttest battery of questions measuring the persuasiveness of the message, source credibility, and message legitimacy. We find that ads sponsored by unknown interest groups are more persuasive than those sponsored by candidates or known interest groups, and persuasion is mediated by perceived credibility of the source. We conclude by discussing our findings and their implications for our understanding of contemporary campaigns.     

A minister as an agent of policy change: the case of unemployment insurance in the seventies

Abstract. A relationship of mutual dependence characterizes the interaction of cabinet ministers and senior public servants in the public management process. Public servants tend to be prominent in the administrative aspects of public management while ministers tend to dominate the policy-making aspects. Ministers are greatly dependent on the technical expertise of public servants in order to succeed within the routine or administrative domain of public management. However, two essential functions, surveillance and legitimation, are the main responsibilities of ministers, not of public servants, during the innovative or policy-making phase of public management. Furthermore, an effective performance of these two functions may enable a minister to become a major agent of policy change or policy reform. This thesis is supported by an analysis of the development of unemployment insurance in the 1970s. Bryce Mackasey, the minister responsible for introducing a new scheme of unemployment insurance in 1971, carried out surveillance and legitimation functions so effectively that he became a major agent of policy reform. Once his successors, Robert Andras and Bud Cullen, began to routinize the program, their surveillance and legitimation skills became increasingly unnecessary and inconspicuous. At the same time, public servant activity in the public management process began to grow more noticeable. Sommaire. Une relation de dépendance mutuelle caractérise l'interaction des ministres du Cabinet et des fonctionnaires d'échelon supérieur dans le processus de gestion publique. Les fonctionnaires ont tendance â jouer un rôle important dans les aspects administratifs de gestion publique tandis que les ministres ont tendance à en dominer les aspects d'élaboration de politiques. Les ministres comptent beaucoup sur l'expertise technique des fonctionnaires lorsqu'ils ont affaire à des questions de routine ou d'ordre purement administratif. Cependant, la surveillance et la légitimation sont deux fonctions essentielles qui constituent les principales responsabilités des ministres et non des fonctionnaires pendant la phase d'innovation ou d'élaboration de politiques de gestion publique. De plus, un ministre qui exerce ces dew fonctions avec efficacité a de grandes chances de devenir. un important agent de changement ou de réforme politique.     

Public policy: creativity and bureaucracy

Abstract. The development and implementation of a government policy by a single ministry is a greater stimulus to creativity than a collective and inter-ministerial approach. Starting from the principle that creation is an individual act which emanates neither from administrative structures, nor from committees, nor from manuals of instructions, the author affirms that the conditions which favour creativity in a public or other administration are precisely those which awaken and increase the creative impulse of the human mind. In the individual method, the ministry alone formulates the policies which are within its competence. The other ministries affected by them are asked for their views and the possible constraints which may result, but only on a consultative basis. This method has obvious advantages for the ministry in question. The author suggests, inter alia, that the ministry be allowed to retain 50 per cent of any economies realized through greater efficiency in the execution of its policies. On the other hand, if civil servants misread ministerial intentions or ignore constraints imposed by other policies, they should pay the price, which may, in the final analysis, involve the dismissal of the minister or his principal policy advisor. In the collective method, the policy is not worked out by the immediately responsible ministry but rather by a committee including all the interested ministries. The dynamics of such an approach are very different from the individual method. Being more prudent and bureaucratic, it stalemates individual creativity and is prejudicial to innovative thinking. The constraints and the various interests are so well represented within the committee that they tend to dominate the debate and cause the ministry in charge to be on the defensive. In an endless discussion, the other ministries are hoisted with their own petard of counter-arguments, and the proposing ministry cannot put forward the positive advantages of the new policy. The resulting loss of time and energy is harmful to creativity. At the level of policy execution too, the author favours the individual approach which is both efficient and economical. The ministry in charge of the policy is far better placed to determine its implementation within the constraints which delineate its scope. Here, too, the author reaches the conclusion that creativity is better served than in the collective approach.     

Risky Sexual Behavior: A Race-specific Social Consequence of Obesity

Scant attention has been given to the consequence of actual weight status for adolescents’ sexual wellbeing. In this article, we investigate the race-specific connection between obesity and risky sexual behavior among adolescent girls. Propensity scores and radius matching are used to analyze a sample of 340 adolescents aged 16–17 who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Young Adult Survey in 2000 or 2002. Nearly even numbers of these participants identified as white and black (183 and 157, respectively). We find that compared to their non-obese white peers, obese white adolescent girls exhibit higher rates of multiple sex partners and sex with older partners, and are also less likely to use condoms. None of these factors are significantly related to high BMI within the black sample. These findings indicate that the negative social consequences of obesity extend beyond future economic and marriage outcomes to adolescent white women’s sexual outcomes. They also highlight the importance of context: the implications of being obese during adolescence depend on cultural meanings of obesity.