Who takes risks in high-risk sports? A typological personality approach

We investigated the risk-taking behaviors of 302 men involved in high-risk sports (downhill skiing mountaineering rock climbing, paragliding, or skydiving). The sportsmen were classified using a typological approach to personality based on eight personality types, which were constructed from combinations of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness. Results showed that personality types with a configuration of low conscientiousness combined with high extraversion and/or high neuroticism (impulsive, hedonistic, insecure) were greater risk-takers. Conversely, personality types with a configuration of high conscientiousness combined with low extraversion and/or high extraversion (skeptic, brooder, entrepreneur) were lower risk-takers. Results are discussed in the context of typology and other approaches to understanding who takes risks in high-risk domains.     

Stability of biases in self-evaluation and relations to well-being among elementary school children

This paper aims to investigate to what extent a bias in self-evaluation is an enduring characteristic among children, and whether there is a relationship between the trajectory of children's self-evaluation bias over a five-year period and their psychosocial adjustment. 462 children (200 boys) in Grade 3 (mean age = 8.6 years old) or Grade 4 (mean age = 9.7 years old) at the outset of the study participated following their parents’ written consent. The group-based approach using a multinomial modeling strategy allowed identifying five groups based on changes in the children's self-evaluation bias over the five-year period. Children in the stable and highly positive bias group stood out as having markedly more positive scores on all indices of psychosocial adjustment, and also outperformed the other children in achievement in language arts and math.     

Irrational bodies and corporate culture: further education in the 1990s

The further education sector in England and Wales has been marketized. Colleges are now corporations, business practices have been adopted wholesale and a new managerialism is clearly evident. Economic rationalist discourse, a new cult of the individual and a growing emphasis on the promises of new technology are all major features of the further education sector today. In this paper, I want to argue that these changes are not simply the result of the global restructuring of the economy and New Right politics, but can be seen as a direct descendant of deeply patriarchal philosophical trends in the history of Western thought. The Cartesian mind/body dichotomy, with its gendered, racialized and classed implications, is replayed within the discourses and practices of economic rationality, masculinist managerialism and the mythologies of the new technology. I will argue that far from being neutral and rational, newly marketized colleges embody those irrational and dangerous elements usually reserved for ‘Others’.     

“We Were Told We’re Not Teachers … It Gets Difficult to Draw the Line”: Negotiating Roles in Peer-Assisted Study Sessions (PASS)

Peer learning models in pre-service teacher education are in the early stages of implementation. In this article, we evaluated a pilot Peer-Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) program that supplemented a course for pre-service teachers at one New Zealand university. PASS participants discussed experiences of the program, revealing tensions between what students and facilitators felt should happen in PASS, and how they acted differently. We explained these tensions by considering how social and cognitive congruence operated between students and facilitators. The majority of our peer facilitators were pre-service teachers, suggesting these intersecting roles offered important considerations for reciprocity in near-peer relationships, and joint negotiations of roles and responsibilities. We conclude this article with implications for future training of PASS facilitators, including those training as teachers.     

Practical Guides

CABLE ADVERTISING: NEW WAYS TO NEW BUSINESS by Kensinger Jones, et al. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986—price not given)

ON DEADLINE: MANAGING MEDIA RELATIONS by Carole Howard and Wilma Mathews (New York: Longman, 1985—price not given)

MEGARATES: HOW TO GET TOP DOLLAR FOR YOUR SPOTS (Washington: National Association of Broadcasters, 1986—price not given, paper)

UNDERSTANDING AND USING VIDEO: A GUIDE FOR THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATOR edited by Clara Degen (New York: Longman, 1985—price not given)

AUDIO IN MEDIA by Stanley R. Alten (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1986—$32.50)

TELEVISION PRODUCTION: DISCIPLINES AND TECHNIQUES by Thomas Burrows and Donald Wood (Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1986—price not given, paper)

RADIO BROADCASTING: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOUND MEDIUM by Robert L. Hilliard (New York: Longman, 1986—price not given, paper)     

Academic Freedom: Impressions of Australian Social Scientists

This article reinterprets a recentexploratory study of the academic freedom ofAustralian social scientists in an increasinglycommercialised university environment. Thestudy revealed that academics are experiencingseveral conditions that undermine academicfreedom: the intensification of work at theexpense of quality; pressure to choose `safe'research topics; the erosion of intellectualcapital and student standards; and increasingcorporate governance. We position thesefindings within the transition to `Mode 2'knowledge production, arguing that thisprovides a more appropriate basis forreconceptualising the traditional concept ofacademic freedom and renegotiating its socialpractice.