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Inhibitory control (IC) is a central executive function that shows significant development throughout the preschool years. IC is known as a factor that underlies the ability to self-regulate in daily situations. This ability is challenged when a child faces negative emotions; a challenge that is seen in children’s IC performance and brain activity. This chapter elaborates on the effects that negative emotional experiences have on children’s IC functioning. Moreover, previous studies regarding the way emotional experiences are reflected in brain activity are included. Additionally, this chapter will offer a comprehensive review of the factors affecting individual differences in IC, including the role of children’s temperamental effortful control and negative affectivity. Further, the role of parenting behaviors will be discussed, focusing on the way in which maternal self-regulation influences child inhibitory control, including related educational implications.

Much like “Yeti,” the Abominable Snowman whose footprints are everywhere but itself nowhere to be seen, unfounded assertions of human capital as valuable contributors to strategic success continue to proliferate. Many of these treatments are nonbinding, nonmeasureable, idiosyncratic, tautological, and therefore nearly impossible to use for any comparative market valuation. In this chapter, we selectively review the interdisciplinary literature on exemplars of human-derived capital. We systematically examine specific epistemological strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in recognized theories, measures, and practices. In particular, a multidisciplinary, multilevel, connectionist point of view is suggested. We present the case for an evidence-based classification system of human-derived capital at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Our framework goes beyond static stock models by emphasizing dynamic human-derived capital flows, as well as their within-level and cross-level linkages, all within the context of a modern society that increasingly is networked, fluent with technology, and prodigious with social media.

Research has shown that for young adults, marital attitudes (e.g., desire, importance, and expectation) are associated with relationship quality. However, how this association plays out for young adults of color is less known. Additionally, the influence of skin tone perception on the relationship between marital attitudes and relationship quality remains understudied. To explore these associations, the authors examined African American and Latinx young adults (N = 57, M_age = 20.71 years, SD = 1.28; 75.4% female) attending a Midwestern university. Exploratory results indicated that marital expectations were positively associated with relationship quality in that young adults who expected to marry one day, reported greater relationship satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy in their current relationships. Additionally, skin tone perception moderated the association between marital attitudes and relationship quality in two ways (i.e., between expectations and satisfaction and between importance and intimacy). Collectively, findings suggest that differing levels of marital attitudes and skin tone perception contributes to young adults’ perceptions of relationship quality. Considering these psychological factors of attitudes, skin tone perception, and relationship quality, together with systemic racial/ethnic discrimination, the authors discuss future research and practice considerations.

Barack Obama has had considerable support among scholarly circles since his win in the Iowa primary in early 2008. A segment of the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS), “Black and Progressive Sociologists Obama Working Group (BPSOWG),” was particularly active during the 2008 campaign. The purpose of this chapter was to determine if the level and type of activism among this group differed from other progressive groups of sociologists.

The data for this study were collected from a web-based survey administered to approximately 800 professional sociologists in the United States. The survey consisted of items that focused on the extent to which respondents supported the Obama campaign for the presidency and the extent to which they were satisfied with and/or agreed with his policies during first two years of his presidency.

The response rate for the survey was 40% (N=305) and 96% of respondents (N=293) submitted surveys with complete information. Over two-thirds of participants were members of the American Sociological Association Section on Race and Ethnic Relations and 5.5% of respondents identified themselves as members of the BPSOWG. A slight majority (53.6%) of study participants were females and the largest two racial groups making up the study population were whites (47.1%) and African Americans (36.1%). Most of the respondents provided support for President Obama during his first campaign, including financial contributions (66%).

Sociologists who responded to the survey were generally positive about Barack Obama as a candidate and a President. However, the subtle differences between groups about Obama administration policies and the use Presidential power highlighted key areas in which diverse coalitions for progressive change are needed.

Openness is critical to long-term cleanup and stewardship of former nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities. Openness is especially challenging in such facilities because a culture of secrecy has dominated them since the earliest days of nuclear weapons development. This paper describes a multi-year effort at the Hanford Site called the Hanford Openness Workshops. The Workshops were convened to address and resolve issues impeding the availability and understanding of information important to public health, the environment, and decision–making. Lessons from the workshops can improve dialogue about nuclear waste cleanup and long-term stewardship among regulators, decision makers, stakeholders, and Tribes.

School-wide positive behavior support (PBS) is a systems approach to prevention and intervention involving multiple levels of support. At the universal level (all students), prevention of behavior problems involves four very basic steps that are repeated with smaller numbers of students and greater intensity as directed by data. The first step is the prediction of problems or failures. To the extent to which we can predict a problem by time, location, student, and other contexts, we have the information to prevent. Prediction leads directly into the second step, which involves the development of effective prevention practices. The key to effective prevention is to approach all problems from an instructional perspective by considering what needs to be taught and how the environment can be arranged to increase the probability of success. The third step involves creating consistency with prevention efforts. Instructional efforts that are inconsistent are not effective in teaching new behavior. The last step involves development of the simplest way of monitoring performance so that those students who are not responding (i.e., are falling through the screen) may be quickly identified. This chapter describes the key features of effective universal systems as they are specifically related to the prevention of behavior problems and provides an overview of how such systems are developed, implemented, and sustained.

Changes in the traditional values, institutional context, and choice of change programs are currently shaping the postmodern science and practice of organization development (OD). These changes manifest themselves in powerful new value orientations, intervention frameworks, and practices that challenge OD's long-held beliefs in ethical and justice-based treatment. In this effort, traditional and new paradigm ethical dilemmas are explored, as well as their relationship to four postmodern practices and five emergent intervention techniques. Components of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice are explained relative to change management programs generally, and to emergent techniques specifically. Published case illustrations are used to depict new paradigm ethical dilemmas and opportunities to create a “just change.”