Christopher Bradley

Veteran Status and Marital Aggression: Does Military Service Make a Difference?

Previous research has demonstrated that rates of domestic violence are higher among couples where at least one person is on active duty. What is unclear is whether or not the propensity to engage in domestic violence remains after an individual has left the military and entered into veteran status. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate whether or not veteran status will increase an individual’s tendency to engage in acts of domestic violence. Through the use of cultural spillover theory, the argument can be made that the effects of military resocialization will persist even after separation from active duty service, and that veteran status will contribute to domestic violence in a marriage. Analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households Wave I dataset allowed for a comparison of the rates of domestic violence among veterans and non-veterans to see if veterans are more likely to engage in domestic violence, net of combat exposure, relationship stressors and other statistical controls. The data reveal that male veterans are in fact less likely to engage in an episode of domestic violence as compared to civilians with no previous military experience; however, once other factors are accounted for, this relationship becomes nonsignificant.

BECAUSE IT'S FREE POKER! A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FREE TEXAS HOLD'EM POKER TOURNAMENTS

The game of poker has dramatically increased in popularity in America over the past decade, and includes a new trend in poker in which tournaments are played with no monetary wagering. These “free” poker tournaments are the primary focus of this project. Our interest in these free poker tournaments was twofold: first, we wished to identify what would motivate a person to play poker when there is no profit motive; second, we wanted to learn how the social dynamics of the game itself may or may not change when monetary risk is not present. Through covert participant observation of free poker tournaments at four different locations we were able to discover three main motivations among the players: sharpening skills for later cash games, sociability, and gaining the status of a “regular player.” We also discovered that the tenor and tempo of the game tended to vary not as a function of the location, but rather because of the social class of the players. We offer several hypotheses to guide future research endeavors in this area.

The Emotional Consequences of Service Work: An Ethnographic Examination of Hair Salon Workers.

Abstract This article explores the connections between service work and the everyday lived emotional experiences of hair salon workers. Over the past few years, numerous studies have linked service work with various social psychological outcomes, including well-being, job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, depression, and stress. In an effort to explore the connections between service work and the everyday lived emotional experiences of service workers, original data in the form of nonparticipant field observations and in-depth interviews of 25 hair salon workers were collected in a moderate-sized Midwestern college town. Our findings are generally consistent with the power and status theories of emotion described by Theodore Kemper (1984, 1990, 1991) and Randall Collins (1984, 1990). Customer service interactions are conducive to both positive and negative emotional outcomes. Specifically, complimentary evaluations and the conferral of intimacy favor feelings of pride and happiness, whereas unsatisfactory evaluations and the denial of intimacy contribute to feelings of anger and sadness.