Grace Deason

Predictors of depression, stress, and anxiety among non-tenure track faculty

Nationwide in the United States, 70% of faculty members in higher education are employed off the tenure-track. Nearly all of these non-tenure-track (NTT) appointments share a quality that may produce stress for those who hold them: contingency. Most NTT appointments are contingent on budget, enrollment, or both, and the majority of contingent faculty members are hired for one quarter or semester at a time. Significant research has investigated the effects of contingency on teaching, students, departments, colleges, and universities; however, little research has focused on the psychological experiences of NTT faculty. The current study examined perceptions of workplace stressors and harm, organizational commitment, common coping mechanisms, and depression, anxiety and stress among NTT faculty using a longitudinal design that spanned 2–4 months. Results indicate that NTT faculty perceive unique stressors at work that are related to their contingent positions. Specific demographic characteristics and coping strategies, inability to find a permanent faculty position, and commitment to ones organization predispose NTT faculty to perceive greater harm and more sources of stress in their workplaces. Demographic characteristics, lower income, inability to find a permanent faculty position, disengagement coping mechanisms (e.g., giving up, denial), and organizational commitment were associated with the potential for negative outcomes, particularly depression, anxiety, and stress. Our findings suggest possibilities for institutional intervention. Overall, we argue that universities would be well-served by attending to the needs of NTT faculty on campus in order to mitigate negative outcomes for institutions, students, and faculty.

Moral Politics in the 2008 Presidential Convention Acceptance Speeches

This study examines the 2008 presidential party convention acceptance speeches from the perspective of George Lakoffs (1996, 2002) theory of moral politics, which argues that a metaphor of the nation as a family guides the adoption of a political ideology and facilitates persuasion. We coded speeches for instantiations of Strict Father and Nurturant Parent morality and for the social and political issues they contained. We found, as expected, that Democrats referenced more Nurturant Parent themes than Strict Father themes but that Republicans used instantiations from both moral worldviews at similar rates. Democrats, but not Republicans, framed party-owned issues in terms of their corresponding moral worldview. We discuss implications for Lakoffs theory and avenues for future research.

Mothers on the campaign trail: implications of Politicized Motherhood for women in politics

The family, and motherhood in particular, have long been themes in American politics, but have been more prominent in the last three decades [Laurel Elder and Steven Greene. 2012. The Politics of Parenthood: Causes and Consequences of the Politicization and Polarization of the American Family. New York: SUNY Press; Jill S. Greelee 2014. The Political Consequences of Motherhood. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press]. Both parties present a traditional image of a two-parent, middle-class family, a structure that invokes notions of women in a traditional domestic role. The re-emergence of motherhood in American politics, which we refer to as Politicized Motherhood, presents challenges for women who pursue leadership positions. Like previous iterations of maternal politics that justified womens political actions during the Progressive Era, Politicized Motherhood has the potential to motivate women to run for office and to frame female candidacies in beneficial ways. Yet, it also has the potential to activate and reinforce gender stereotypes that undermine womens capacity to see themselves as leaders and threaten female candidates’ potential to be successful. This paper examines the implications of Politicized Motherhood for women who compete for political leadership roles in the USA. We argue that Politicized Motherhood is likely to impact each stage of a womans career in political leadership, from deciding to run to structuring a campaign and winning voter support. Ultimately, Politicized Motherhood is likely to exacerbate some of womens political challenges, but may also have the potential to transcend these challenges.

The Authoritarian Left Withdraws from Politics: Ideological Asymmetry in the Relationship between Authoritarianism and Political Engagement

In this article, we argue that authoritarianism will be associated with reduced political interest and participation to a greater extent among those who identify with the left rather than the right because left-leaning politics—which challenges the status quo—threatens more instability and flux. Using data from the United States, we provide evidence for this first hypothesis. Using multinational European data, we also provide support for a second hypothesis that this interaction would be more evident in “Westernized” contexts, where the traditional left-right difference is clearly defined, than in Eastern European countries, where its meaning is less distinct; and we conceptually replicate the authoritarianism results using a measure of support for “conservation” values favoring security, conformity, and tradition. Together, these results suggest that the lower visibility of left-wing authoritarianism relative to its counterpart on the right may be due in part to greater withdrawal from politics among left-leaning authoritarians.