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1 – 10 of 88Kristen Marcussen and Christian Ritter
This chapter examines the effects of mental health services and stigma on changes in self-concept and well-being for individuals with SPMI.
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines the effects of mental health services and stigma on changes in self-concept and well-being for individuals with SPMI.
Methodology/approach
Data for this chapter come from structured interviews and service data for 140 individuals with severe and persistent mental illnesses. We use structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between perceived and internalized stigma, as well as the relationships among stigma, self-concept (self-esteem and mastery), and well-being (quality of life and functioning).
Findings
We find that case management is negatively related to quality of life and psychiatric services are positively related to functioning. Crisis services and assessment are associated with mastery in opposite directions. Internalized stigma is positively associated with self-esteem and mastery, and negatively associated with functioning. We do not find a relationship between services and stigma.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation to this chapter is the sample size, which prohibits us from examining a full range of services and outcomes. Nonetheless, our findings provide information about how services and stigma impact well-being, and may be used as a starting point for considering strategies for improving services and reducing stigma. Future work should consider pairing outcomes with services to determine their effectiveness.
Originality/value
This chapter builds on previous research that examines the relative effects of services and stigma among individuals in community health care by extending measures of both services and stigma, and by examining the relationship between them, in order to better determine their implications for self-concept and well-being.
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Nikolaos Georgantzis and Efi Vasileiou
This article tests whether workers are indifferent between risky and safe jobs provided that, in labor market equilibrium, wages should serve as a utility equalizing device…
Abstract
This article tests whether workers are indifferent between risky and safe jobs provided that, in labor market equilibrium, wages should serve as a utility equalizing device. Workers’ preferences are elicited through a partial measure of overall job satisfaction: satisfaction with job-related risk. Given that selectivity turns out to be important, we use selectivity corrected models. Results show that wage differentials do not exclusively compensate workers for being in dangerous jobs. However, as job characteristics are substitutable in workers’ utility, they could feel satisfied, even if they were not fully compensated financially for working in dangerous jobs.
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This research examines the direct and interactive effects of defendant race and sex on judicial decisions to utilize mitigating departures in cases involving felony drug…
Abstract
Purpose
This research examines the direct and interactive effects of defendant race and sex on judicial decisions to utilize mitigating departures in cases involving felony drug convictions in Virginia.
Methodology/approach
Logistic regression models are used to examine judicial decisions to depart downward in Schedule I & II, and Other (Schedule III, VI, and V), drug cases. The direct and interactive effects of race and sex on departure decisions are modeled separately for Schedule I & II and Other drug offenses.
Findings
Defendant race and sex exert both direct and interactive effects on decisions to sentence offenders below the guidelines for both drug categories. Cases involving Black and male defendants, relative to white and female defendants, are significantly less likely to result in mitigating departures for Schedule I & II, and Other drug, violations. The interaction models indicate that cases involving Black male defendants are less likely to result in mitigating departures than other cases, while cases involving white females have higher odds of receiving mitigating departures than other cases.
Originality/value
This chapter adds to the current literature on sentencing disparity by examining unwarranted sentencing disparity in Virginia, where scant research has been conducted. Furthermore, this research models decisions separately by drug category and examines both the direct and interactive effects of race and sex.
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The very contextual nature of most mitigating evidence runs counter to America’s individualistic culture. Prior research has found that capital jurors are unreceptive to most…
Abstract
The very contextual nature of most mitigating evidence runs counter to America’s individualistic culture. Prior research has found that capital jurors are unreceptive to most mitigating circumstances, but no research has examined the capital sentencing decisions of trial judges. This study fills that gap through a content analysis of eight judicial sentencing opinions from Delaware. The findings indicate that judges typically dismiss contextualizing evidence in their sentencing opinions and instead focus predominately on the defendant’s culpability. This finding calls into question the ability of guided discretion statutes to ensure the consideration of mitigation and limit arbitrariness in the death penalty.
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Margaret Gibbs, Tatyana J. Andrushchenko, Natalya Makarevich and Robert Binford
The chapter compares the factors involved in environmental altruism, the willingness to involve oneself in working for environmental and ecological goals, in Russia and the United…
Abstract
The chapter compares the factors involved in environmental altruism, the willingness to involve oneself in working for environmental and ecological goals, in Russia and the United States. The lead authors developed the idea for the research from their participation in the grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, examining how Russia and the United States deal with contamination in their communities. We were the only clinical psychologists in the group that toured in Russia, and we both taught young people at universities, sometimes in courses that dealt specifically about the environment, but more usually in courses that helped prepare them for their roles as psychologists. Because of our clinical perspective, we had several discussions about the role of the individual in dealing with the environment. The role of the individual is particularly critical to environmental issues in Russia. Although Russia has even more strict environmental laws than the United States, its level of enforcement has been minimal. At the same time, environmental activism is a relatively new phenomenon there and it faces cultural and social barriers. While activism plays a major role in the United States to keep the system functioning, efforts to deal with contamination in the United States generally occur on a political and legal level in the context of creating and enforcing laws. While the U.S. activists are hardly satisfied with the system's functioning, a greater level of creativity and commitment is needed from Russian environmental activists to help the nation even reach this level of routine enforcement of environmental laws.
Sarah K. Harkness and Amy Kroska
We examine whether self-stigmatization may affect the everyday social interactions of individuals with a diagnosed, affective mental health disorder. Past research demonstrates…
Abstract
We examine whether self-stigmatization may affect the everyday social interactions of individuals with a diagnosed, affective mental health disorder. Past research demonstrates self-stigmatization lowers self-esteem, efficacy, and personal agency, leading to the likely adoption of role-identities that are at the periphery of major social institutions. We advance research on self-stigma by examining the likely interactional and emotional consequences of enacting either a highly stigmatized self-identity or a weakly stigmatized self-identity.
Using affect control theory (ACT), we form predictions related to the interactional and emotional consequences of self-stigmatization. We use the Indianapolis Mental Health Study and Interact, a computerized instantiation of ACT, to generate empirically based simulation results for patients with an affective disorder (e.g., major depression and bipolar disorder), comparing simulations where the focal actor is a person with a mental illness who exhibits either high or low levels of self-stigma.
Self-stigma is predicted to negatively influence patients’ behavioral expression, leading the highly self-stigmatized to enact behaviors that are lower in goodness, power, and liveliness than the weakly self-stigmatized. Their corresponding emotional expressions during these types of interactions are similarly negatively impacted. Even though these likely interactions are the most confirmatory for people with high levels of self-stigma, they lead to interactions that are behaviorally and emotionally more negative than those who have been better able to resist internalizing stigmatizing beliefs.
This piece has implications for the literature on the interactional and life course challenges faced by psychiatric patients and contributes to the self-stigma literature more broadly. This work will hopefully inform future research involving the collection of non-simulation-based data on the everyday interactional experiences of people with mental health problems.
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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine the field of criminal justice and assess how diversity influences what is taught and, how research is conducted in the field.…
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine the field of criminal justice and assess how diversity influences what is taught and, how research is conducted in the field.
Methodology/approach – This chapter looks at the historical exclusion of feminist and integrative theories on crime and criminal justice. A socio-legal analysis of how the increase in the number of women faculty and faculty of color has influenced teaching and research in the field of criminal justice.
Findings – As more women and persons of color become faculty and practitioners in the field of criminal justice, then more diverse perspectives will be promoted. It is not enough to change a discriminatory law or engage in affirmative action to hire more women and persons of color, it is important to understand how preconceived biases about women and non-white persons impact who we define as criminal, how we educate students in the field, and how we respond to the needs of offenders and victims.
Originality/value – Research on diversity in the field of criminal justice has focused on historical discrimination. More research is needed on the impact that diversity has in research performed and what is being taught in the field of criminal justice.
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Supermax prisons have proliferated in the United States since their contemporary introduction in the early 1980s and have developed a more recent trajectory in the war prison…
Abstract
Supermax prisons have proliferated in the United States since their contemporary introduction in the early 1980s and have developed a more recent trajectory in the war prison. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben and Zygmunt Bauman as well as ethnographic research in Washington state prisons, this article considers the internal dynamics and history of the supermax prison in terms of bare life, exception, indifference, and “choice.” Contradictory relationships within and around the supermax are contextualized in terms of the extreme and technologically sophisticated methods that make up contemporary incarceration.