Our quest to be perfect

You don't have to be wrinkled or rich to go under the knife. New techniques are luring more and younger patients, while doctors hurry to set up shop. But there are risks as well as options in cosmetic surgery's new age.     

Policy divergence in multicandidate probabilistic spatial voting

Existing models of multicandidate spatial competition with probabilistic voting typically predict a high degree of policy convergence, yet in actual elections candidates advocate quite divergent sets of policies. What accounts for this disparity between theory and empirical observation? I introduce two variations on the basic probabilistic vote model which may account for candidate policy divergence: 1) a model which incorporates candidate-specific variables, so that candidates may enjoy nonpolicy-related electoral advantages (or disadvantages); 2) a model which allows nonzero correlations between the random terms associated with voters' candidate utilities, thereby capturing situations where voters view two or more candidates as similar on nonpolicy grounds. I report candidate equilibrium analyses for each model, which show far greater policy divergence than exists under the standard probabilistic vote model. I then analyze the strategic logic which underlies these results.

     

Reviews

Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa by Brian Titley. McGill‐Queen's University Press, Québec (Canada) and Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, (UK), 1997. xii. plus 5pp. of illustrations (photographs and a map of the Central African Republic) plus 257pp. including notes, bibliography and index. £22.95 hardback.

The Making of a Periphery: Economic Development and Cultural Encounters in Southern Tanzania edited by Pekka Seppala and Bertha Koda. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala (Sweden), 1998. 344 pp. including figures, tables, maps, notes, bibliography and index. Paperback.

Farewell to Farms: De‐agrarianization and Employment in Africa edited by D.F. Bryceson and V. Jamal. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Aldershot, 1997. iv plus 265pp. including figures, tables, notes and index.

The World Bank and Nigeria: Cornucopia or Pandora's Box? by Rufai Ahmed Alkali. Kaduna, Baraka Press, 1997. 205pp. including selected references.

Sustaining the Future: Economic, Social and Environmental Change in Sub‐Saharan Africa edited by George Benneh, William B.Morgan and Juha I.Uitto. The United Nations University Press, Tokyo, New York and Paris, 1996.     

Attachment as an Organizational Construct for Affect,Appraisals, and Coping of Late Adolescent Females

The purpose of this study was to 1) compare general affective dispositions (depression and anxiety) and negative affect during interpersonal conflict as a function of attachment security, 2) examine appraisals as a function of attachment style and as predictors of coping, 3) compare strategies of coping with interpersonal conflict as a function of attachment style, and 4) investigate the roles of attachment style, affect, and appraisals in predicting coping in the context of interpersonal conflict. Seventy-three late adolescent females participated. Insecure participants reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and negative affect during interpersonal conflicts. Insecure participants were more likely to cope with interpersonal conflicts through support seeking or avoidance. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that general and specific attachment style, affect, and appraisals significantly predict coping strategies. Implications for general and specific models of attachment as organizational constructs and attachment as a predictor of coping with interpersonal and non-interpersonal stressors are discussed.