SAGE Podcast

A conversation with Richard Penninger and Dr. Charles Limb about their study on perception of pure tones and iterated rippled noise for normal hearing and Cochlear Implant users.

Author Gordon Lafer discusses his article from the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of New Labor Forum, Election 2012: Is a Second Term a Second Chance for Labor? http://nlf.sagepub.com/content/22/1/15.full

Recorded at the Annual RCN International Nursing Research Conference, Professor Freshwater talks about the field of psychological therapies and mental health, and introduces the papers in the focus issue. (18.2) Important questions are raised about funding, recruitment, profile and implications for policy. Professor Freshwater is interviewed by Dr Ann McMahon, co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Research in Nursing.

Author Matthew Hughey discusses his article from the September 2012 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly Stigma Allure and White Antiracist Identity Management. This article examines how "white antiracists" manage a perceived, and sometimes self-imposed, stigma. Given that whiteness and antiracism are often framed as antonyms, white engagement with matters commonly deemed "nonwhite issues" often involves a presentation of self that unsettles established habit and expected modes of interaction. Adding to the research on race and stigma, I demonstrate how privileged actors repeatedly construct a broken and stigmatized white and antiracist identity in which management of one recreates the stigmatization of the other. They not only accept a “spoiled” identity (whiteness-as-racist and antiracism-as-too-radical), but embrace stigma as markings of moral commitment and political authenticity. This dynamic—what I call stigma allure—illuminates how stigma, rather than a status to be shunned or entirely overcome, can become a desired component of identity formation that drives and orders human behavior toward utilitarian, symbolic, and self-creative goals. http://spq.sagepub.com/content/75/3/219.abstract

Author Matthew Andersson discusses his article from the December 2012 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, entitled, Identity Crises in Love and at Work: Dispositional Optimism as a Durable Personal Resource. Using the 2004 General Social Survey (N = 453), the identity stress process is investigated in terms of crises in intimate relationships and at the workplace. I discuss dispositional optimism as a psychological resource that is relatively independent of the situation and the self, making it ideal for structurally disadvantaged actors and for navigating crises that diminish self-based personal resources such as self-esteem. Consistent with this logic, dispositional optimism was associated with increases in self-esteem and self-rated health net of emotional stability; its effect on these outcomes intensified around the time of relationship crises and was stronger for women than for men. Moreover, optimism was more vital to self-rated health than self-esteem during either type of crisis, suggesting it may be a uniquely durable psychological resource in the stress process. http://spq.sagepub.com/content/75/4/290.abstract

The authors preprocess each frame of a video sequence, then analyze the sequence frame by frame using a rotating-circle template with a block-matching algorithm, and estimate the rotation rate of the pigmented cells using a pixel-patch correlation. The algorithm accurately calculates DEP-induced rotation rates of cells up to 250 rpm even when cells have simultaneous translational and rotational motions across the video image sequence; and  can track changes in rotation speed over a long period of time (90 s).

Authors Sarah Burgard and Jennifer Ailshire discuss their article from the February 2013 issue of American Sociological Review, entitled, Gender and Time for Sleep among U.S. Adults. Do women really sleep more than men? Biomedical and social scientific studies show longer sleep durations for women, a surprising finding given sociological research showing women have more unpaid work and less high-quality leisure time compared to men. We assess explanations for gender differences in time for sleep, including compositional differences in levels of engagement in paid and unpaid labor, gendered responses to work and family responsibilities, and differences in napping, bedtimes, and interrupted sleep for caregiving. We examine the overall gender gap in time for sleep as well as gaps within family life-course stages based on age, partnership, and parenthood statuses. We analyze minutes of sleep from a diary day collected from nationally representative samples of working-age adults in the American Time Use Surveys of 2003 to 2007. Overall and at most life course stages, women slept more than men. Much of the gap is explained by work and family responsibilities and gendered time tradeoffs; as such, gender differences vary across life course stages. The gender gap in sleep time favoring women is relatively small for most comparisons and should be considered in light of the gender gap in leisure time favoring men at all life course stages. http://asr.sagepub.com/content/78/1/51.abstract

Author Nena Messina discusses her article from the December 2012 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior, Gender-Responsive Drug Court Treatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial. This pilot study compared outcomes for 94 women offenders in San Diego County, California, who participated in four drug court programs. Women were randomized to gender-responsive (GR) programs using Helping Women Recover and Beyond Trauma or standard mixed-gender treatment. Data were collected at program entry, during treatment, and approximately 22 months after treatment entry. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted. Results showed that GR participants had better in-treatment performance, more positive perceptions related to their treatment experience, and trends indicating reductions in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology. Both groups improved in their self-reported psychological well-being and reported reductions in drug use (p .06) and arrest (a diagnosis of PTSD was the primary predictor of reductions in rearrest, p .04.. Findings show some beneficial effects of adding treatment components oriented toward women’s needs. Significant questions remain, particularly around PTSD and whether it should be targeted to improve substance use outcomes for women. http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/39/12/1539.abstract

"Author Elizabeth Lee discusses her article from the January 2013 issue of Sociology of Education, Out with the Old, In with the New? Habitus and Social Mobility at Selective Colleges. Sociologists have long recognized that cultural differences help explain the perpetuation of inequality by invisibly limiting access to elite cultural norms. However, there has been little investigation of the ways students reconcile shifts in habitus gained in educational settings with existing, nonelite habitus. The authors use both qualitative and quantitative data to examine the ways students navigate what Bourdieu called a “cleft habitus.” In particular, the authors examine how students of low socioeconomic status experience contacts with their families and hometown friends, arguing that these moments are crucial to understanding whether and how their habitus is changing and whether that change creates a divide between those students and their origins. Interview and survey data both show that social mobility does not come without sacrifice and that these sacrifices warrant more serious study in the sociology of stratification. http://soe.sagepub.com/content/86/1/18.abstract

"Author Soma Chaudhuri discusses her article from the October 2012 issue of Violence Against Women, Women as Easy Scapegoats: Witchcraft Accusations and Women as Targets in Tea Plantations of India. This article revisits a much-debated question: Why are women popular targets during witch hunts? By using in-depth interviews this article provides an answer. Women are easy targets or scapegoats for two reasons. First, it is widely believed in the community that was studied that witches do, in fact, exist, and the images of witches are always female. Second, tribal women hold lower positions than men in all social, political, and ritual matters, and this contributes to their vulnerability during the hunt for scapegoats. This article also highlights the roles that rumors play during manipulation of witchcraft accusations to gather support for witch hunts. http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/18/10/1213.abstract

Author Brea Perry discusses her article from the December 2012 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, Too Much of a Good Thing? Psychosocial Resources, Gendered Racism, and Suicidal Ideation among Low Socioeconomic Status African American Women. Very few studies have examined predictors of suicidal ideation among African American women. Consequently, we have a poor understanding of the combinations of culturally specific experiences and psychosocial processes that may constitute risk and protective factors for suicide in this population. Drawing on theories of social inequality, medical sociology, and the stress process, we explore the adverse impact of gendered racism experiences and potential moderating factors in a sample of 204 predominantly low socioeconomic status (SES) African American women. We find that African American women’s risk for suicidal ideation is linked to stressors occurring as a function of their distinct social location at the intersection of gender and race. In addition, we find that gendered racism has no effect on suicidal ideation among women with moderate levels of well-being, self-esteem, and active coping but has a strong adverse influence in those with high and low levels of psychosocial resources. http://spq.sagepub.com/content/75/4/334.abstract

Galactogogues are often used to try and increase milk supply when mothers are having trouble producing enough milk for their babies. The research behind these so-called “milk enhancers” suggests that they often do not work, and indeed some may have worrying or unpleasant side effects. On top of that, some studies suggest they are being prescribed more and more often. We talk with Dr. Philip Anderson from the University of California, San Diego, about use of galactogogues for breastfeeding women.

Author Jeffrey Lucas discusses his article from the December 2012 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, entitled, Stigma and Status: The Interrelation of Two Theoretical Perspectives. This article explicates and distinguishes the processes that produce status orders and those that produce stigmatization. It describes an experimental study in which participants were assigned interaction partners before completing a task where they had opportunities to be influenced by the partners and opportunities to socially reject the partners. Results show clear influence effects of educational attainment and mental illness but no effects for physical disability. Social distance effects are present for mental illness and physical disability but not for educational attainment. Results additionally show that stigmatizing attributes combine with task ability in affecting influence and also suggest that task ability may reduce social rejection. These results indicate that stigmatizing attributes combine with status markers in a way similar to previously studied status attributes. The findings extend traditions of research on status and stigma while also having potentially important implications for strategies to reduce inequalities based on mental illness. http://spq.sagepub.com/content/75/4/310.abstract

A conversation between John Tresch and Bruno Latour, where Latour discusses his research project on 'modes of existence' in relation to his forthcoming book An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. A condensed and edited transcription of the full interview appears in Tresch's paper from the April 2013 issue (43:2) of Social Studies of Science.

Author Stephen Wormith discusses his article from the December 2012 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior entitled, The Predictive Validity of a General Risk/Needs Assessment Inventory on Sexual Offender Recidivism and an Exploration of the Professional Override. This study examines the predictive validity of the Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) on a sample of sexual offenders extracted from a large cohort of offenders and compares predictive validities with nonsexual offenders from the same cohort. The LS/CMI predicted sex offenders’ general recidivism, which occurred at a rate of 44.1%, with about the same accuracy as less frequently occurring violent (12.34%) and sexual recidivism (3.73%; AUC = .77, .74, and .74, respectively) and with nonsexual offenders. The study revealed that allowing assessors to override the numerically derived risk level with their professional judgment, a practice that increased risk level much more often than it decreased it, reduced the predictive validity of the scale and did so particularly for sex offenders by increasing risk excessively. An exploration of factors related to these adjustments revealed that non-risk-related characteristics were used in judgments to modify risk ratings. Implications for policy and practice are considered. http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/39/12/1511.abstract