An examination of job attitudes of white,black, and hispanic nurses in a public hospital

This paper reviews the literature on racial differences in job satisfaction and examines differences among whites, blacks and hispanics in job-related attitudes for a sample of nurses employed in a public hospital. Levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and job burnout were compared among the three race categories. Results indicated that significant differences existed for levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job burnout among whites, blacks and hispanics. Hispanics reported significantly higher job satisfaction than whites and blacks, and whites reported less organizational commitment and higher levels of job burnout than blacks.     

The Praxis Assignment: Experiential Learning in a Large Social–Community Psychology Class

In this article, a faculty member, a graduate student teaching assistant, and four undergraduates describe their experiences with a “Day of Social Justice Praxis Assignment” as a form of experiential learning in a 120-person social-community psychology course. The faculty member lays out the goals of the course and her hopes for the specific assignment. The undergraduates reflect on their experience with the assignment, and the graduate student contextualizes how their work is reflective or not reflective of the work produced in the class and course concepts. The article ends with a critical and frank discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of the assignment.     

Lifetime sexual victimization and poor risk perception: does emotion dysregulation account for the links?

The present study examined whether and which facets of emotion dysregulation serve an intervening role in the association between prior victimization and risk perception in an analogue sexual assault vignette. Participants were 714 university women who completed self-report measures of sexual victimization, emotion dysregulation, and a computer-administered written vignette of a college party scene that culminates in acquaintance rape. Approximately 42% of the sample reported lifetime sexual victimization during childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. Two individual aspects of emotion dysregulation, limited access to emotion regulation strategies and impulse control difficulties, mediated the association between lifetime victimization and leaving the scenario later. Findings suggest the importance of emotion dysregulation in predicting risk perception among victims and of improving victims' emotion regulation skills in revictimization risk reduction interventions.     

Barriers and Supports to Dating Violence Communication between Latina Adolescents and Their Mothers: A Qualitative Analysis

Few Latinx parents and adolescents talk with one another about dating violence, yet communication with parents could help adolescents make better decisions about dating relationships. Seventeen Latina adolescents (15–17 years old) and their mothers living in Washington D.C and central Virginia participated in semi-structured interviews to explore their perceptions of dating violence behavior and communication with parents about dating violence. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and coded for emergent themes using a grounded theory approach. Seven themes emerged and were grouped into three domains: (a) Parental Messages about Problems in Dating Relationships; (b) Barriers and Supports for Parent-Adolescent Communication about Dating Problems; and, (c) Cultural Values and Differences. The results of this study can be used to inform future work focused on improving parent-adolescent communication about dating violence and to enhance healthy adolescent Latina dating decisions.     

Sexuality, substance use, and susceptibility to victimization: risk for rape and sexual coercion in a prospective study of college women

An 8-month prospective study examined behavioral, personality, and psychological variables thought to increase vulnerability for college women's experience of rape and verbal sexual coercion. Participants were 276 college women who completed self-report surveys. During 1 academic year, 9.5% of women were raped and 11.7% reported verbal sexual coercion. Elevated levels of sexual concerns, dysfunctional sexual behavior, and impaired self-reference were associated with both verbal sexual coercion and rape. Alcohol and marijuana use increased risk only for rape, whereas self-criticism and depression increased risk only for verbal coercion. Findings suggest that multiple aspects of sexuality, such as shame regarding sexuality and using sex to meet nonsexual needs, may increase risk for both types of sexual victimization. Results support conclusions that rape and verbal sexual coercion have both shared and unique risk factors. Implications for future research and intervention programs are discussed.     

The Image is the Message: Instagram Marketing and the 2016 Presidential Primary Season

The 2016 presidential primary candidates expanded their social media marketing campaigns to include the image- and video-centered social network platform Instagram. To explore the role that images play in framing political character development and to identify which images received higher levels of engagement, content analyses were performed on the top seven primary candidates’ Instagram accounts. Results indicate that candidates most frequently employ the ideal candidate frame in their images, which also garnered the highest number of user likes and comments. Results also reveal that among Instagram image attributes, candidates frequently and successfully used text within their images, but filters were inconsistently applied across the candidates.     

Testing for Fiscal Illusion in Wisconsin Towns

Fiscal illusion, a theory of the impact of government revenue structures on voter decision-making, has been studied extensively by economists and political scientists; however, empirical verification has been limited. This study builds on Lowery's (1987a) work by examining the relationship between suggested illusionary revenues and measures of electoral stress. Here, electoral stress is measured as constituent contacting—one possible measure of voter influence—for local government officials up for re-election. Using a combination of survey data from over 1,000 Wisconsin town board members, audited fiscal data and U.S. Census data, we were able to test for fiscal illusion. Our findings show that when looking at five revenue types (conditional grants, unconditional grants, property taxes, user fees and charges, and debt service) there is some evidence suggesting officials seeking another term in office will tend to support fees and charges as a revenue structure over other structures. Overall, there is little consistent evidence suggesting that elected officials are manipulating revenue structures for electoral gain. Revenue structures are mostly influenced by social and economic factors, such as median household income, population changes, and per capita property valuation.     

Maladaptive emotion regulation and aggression in adult offenders

Many empirical studies have explored the relationship between anger dysregulation and aggression; few have explored the association between emotion regulation more generally and aggressive behavior in adults. This study sought to determine whether adaptive emotion regulation was associated with aggression in adult offenders, and whether proficiency in three emotion skills – emotional awareness, emotional acceptance, and access to a variety of emotion regulation strategies – was related to adaptive emotion regulation. Results suggest that offenders with a maladaptive emotion regulation style reported more extensive histories of aggression than those with an adaptive emotion regulation style. It was also found that self-reported emotional awareness and access to effective emotion regulation strategies contributed to adaptive emotion regulation. These findings indicate the potential utility of including emotion-related modules in treatment programs for violent offending populations.