A study of psychiatrists’ concepts of mental illness

Background: There are multiple models of mental illness that inform professional and lay understanding. Few studies have formally investigated psychiatrists' attitudes. We aimed to measure how a group of trainee psychiatrists understand familiar mental illnesses in terms of propositions drawn from different models. Method: We used a questionnaire study of a sample of trainees from South London and Maudsley National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust designed to assess attitudes across eight models of mental illness (e.g. biological, psychodynamic) and four psychiatric disorders. Methods for analysing repeated measures and a principal components analysis (PCA) were used. Results: No one model was endorsed by all respondents. Model endorsement varied with disorder. Attitudes to schizophrenia were expressed with the greatest conviction across models. Overall, the ‘biological’ model was the most strongly endorsed. The first three components of the PCA (interpreted as dimensions around which psychiatrists, as a group, understand mental illness) accounted for 56% of the variance. Each main component was classified in terms of its distinctive combination of statements from different models: PC1 33% biological versus non-biological; PC2 12% ‘eclectic’ (combining biological, behavioural, cognitive and spiritual models); and PC3 10% psychodynamic versus sociological. Conclusions: Trainee psychiatrists are most committed to the biological model for schizophrenia, but in general are not exclusively committed to any one model. As a group, they organize their attitudes towards mental illness in terms of a biological/non-biological contrast, an ‘eclectic’ view and a psychodynamic/sociological contrast. Better understanding of how professional group membership influences attitudes may facilitate better multidisciplinary working

Agency and institutions in organization studies

textabstractAgency and institutions are essential concepts within institutional theory. In this Perspectives issue, we draw on a select group of Organization Studies articles to provide an overview of the topic of agency and institutions. We first consider different ways of defining agency and institutions and examine their implications for institutional theory. We then analyse the relationship of actors and institutions through four lenses – the wilful actor, collective intentionality, patchwork institutions and modular individuals. Our analysis leads us to dissociate agency from individuals and view it as a capacity or quality that stems from resources, rights and obligations tied to the roles and social positions actors occupy. Roles and social positions are institutionally engineered. It is social actors qua occupants of roles and positions (not individuals) that enter the social ‘stage’ and exercise agency

Accelerated economic recovery in countries powered by renewables

The human economy is in effect a subsystem of the biosphere. Ecosystems provide natural resources that are fundamental to both societal well-being and economic performance. Here, we show how recovery of national economies from systemic crises can be moderated by the natural resources used to power them. By examining data from 133 systemic economic crisis events in 98 countries over 40 years, we found that countries relying on a broad range of electricity sources experienced extended recovery times from crises, though that effect was tempered somewhat when the relative contribution of those sources was increasingly balanced. However, the best predictor of economic recovery was the extent of reliance on renewable energy—we found that economic recovery tends to be swiftest in countries powered primarily by renewable energy sources. These findings have profound implications for global energy policy and reveal the need to consider both the composition and diversity of energy sources in models of economic resilience

F.J. Turner’s ‘frontier thesis’: the ruse of American ‘character'

American society was transformed by the expansion of capital Westward and the explosion in opportunities that ensued for land grabbing and agricultural and industrial investment. In Turner’s (1961) frontier thesis this was portrayed as resulting in the emergence of ‘the new man’ i.e. the fulfilment of American character. The frontier thesis is a neo-Darwinian contribution. It posits exceptionalism and transcendence as the keys to American character. The gene pool of the Americans, thriving in a new geographical and social environment, is depicted as achieving a higher level of development than the stratified societies of Old Europe. What the thesis ignores is the importance of orthodox Eurocentric strategies of colonization and land appropriation. Turner portrays pioneer/settler society as a heroic departure, but in many ways, it is a continuation of European precedents. Analogously, the proposition that the push West crystallized American character obscures the role of personality, especially in urban-industrial settings, in establishing the parameters of American life. Turner conceived of character as emerging from a struggle with the spatial frontier. But the struggles of personality with the social frontier of repression and establishment values is no less significant. The paper examines the tensions between character and personality by using some ideas developed by Carl Schmitt on the significance of ‘the opportunity’ in competitive advantage. The importance of the opportunity and personality in developing the American way of life are examined by the vaudeville and celebrity traditions. The exploitation of contingency for personal advantage, the use of melodrama to engineer social impact, the social validation of forthright behaviour are examined in the context of the careers of the film actress Mae West and the comedian Bob Hope

Poaching and firm-sponsored training: first clean evidence

A series of seminal theoretical papers argues that poaching of employees may hamper company-sponsored general training. However, the extent of poaching, its determinants and consequences, remains an open empirical question. We provide a novel empirical identification strategy for poaching and investigate its causes and consequences. We find that only a small number of training firms in Germany are poaching victims. Firms are more likely to poach employees during an economic downturn. Training firms respond to poaching by lowering the share of new apprentice intakes in the following years

Evidence for Planet-induced Chromospheric Activity on HD 179949

We have detected the synchronous enhancement of Ca II H & K emission with the short-period planetary orbit in HD 179949. High-resolution spectra taken on three observing runs extending more than a year show the enhancement coincides with phi ~ 0 (the sub-planetary point) of the 3.093-day orbit with the effect persisting for more than 100 orbits. The synchronous enhancement is consistent with planet-induced chromospheric heating by magnetic rather than tidal interaction. Something which can only be confirmed by further observations. Independent observations are needed to determine whether the stellar rotation is sychronous with the planet's orbit. Of the five 51 Peg-type systems monitored, HD 179949 shows the greatest chromospheric H & K activity. Three others show significant nightly variations but the lack of any phase coherence prevents us saying whether the activity is induced by the planet. Our two standards, tau Ceti and the Sun, show no such nightly variations.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Ap

What factors influence training opportunities for older workers? Three factorial surveys exploring the attitudes of HR professionals

The core research questions addressed in this paper are: what factors influence HR professionals in deciding whether to approve training proposals for older workers? What kind of training are they more likely to recommend for older employees and in which organizational contexts? We administered three factorial surveys to 66 HR professionals in Italy. Participants made specific training decisions based on profiles of hypothetical older workers. Multilevel analyses indicated that access to training decreases strongly with age, while highly-skilled older employees with low absenteeism rates are more likely to enjoy training opportunities. In addition, older workers displaying positive performance are more likely to receive training than older workers who perform poorly, suggesting that training late in working life may serve as a reward for good performance rather than as a means of enhancing productivity. The older the HR professional evaluating training proposals, the higher the probability that older workers will be recommended for training. keywords: training; older workers; HR professionals; factorial survey; multilevel model

The 'Parekh Report' - national identities with nations and nationalism

‘Multiculturalists’ often advocate national identities. Yet few study the ways in which ‘multiculturalists’ do so and in this article I will help to fill this gap. I will show that the Commission for Multi-Ethnic Britain’s report reflects a previously unnoticed way of thinking about the nature and worth of national identities that the Commission’s chair, and prominent political theorist, Bhikhu Parekh, had been developing since the 1970s. This way of thinking will be shown to avoid the questionable ways in which conservative and liberal nationalists discuss the nature and worth of national identities while offering an alternative way to do so. I will thus show that a report that was once criticised for the way it discussed national identities reflects how ‘multiculturalists’ think about national identities in a distinct and valuable way that has gone unrecognised