(Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen, & Saltzman, 2000) to examine coping and involuntary stress responses in reference to terrorism and across a wide age range was examined. Implications for coping theory and empirical research are explored.

OBJECTIVE: This random assignment experimental study examined the intersection of children’s coping and physiologic stress reactivity and recovery patterns in a sample of preadolescent boys and girls. METHOD: A sample of 82 fourth and fifth grade (Mage = 10.59 years old) child-parent dyads participated in the present study. Children participated in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-C) and were randomly assigned to one of two post-TSST-C experimental coping conditions; behavioral distraction and cognitive avoidance. Children’s characteristic ways of coping were examined as moderators of the effect of experimental coping condition on cortisol reactivity and recovery patterns. RESULTS: Multi-level modeling analyses indicated that children’s characteristic coping and experimental coping condition interacted to predict differential cortisol recovery patterns. Children who characteristically engaged in primary control engagement coping strategies were able to more quickly down-regulate salivary cortisol when primed to distract themselves than when primed to avoid and vice versa. The opposite pattern was true for characteristic disengagement coping in the context of coping condition, suggesting that regulatory fit between children’s characteristic ways of coping and cues from their coping environment may lead to more and less adaptive physiologic recovery profiles. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides some of the first evidence that coping “gets under the skin” and that children’s characteristic ways of coping may constrain or enhance a child’s ability to make use of environmental coping resources.

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This article demonstrates that popular music's potential as a tool for teaching interactive introductory sociology courses is enhanced when a cultural analysis of a specific music genre is incorporated into the classroom. Using this type of analysis as an integrative course theme promotes active learning as students apply sociological ideas to explain empirical reality. Using heavy metal music as an example, I present a two-part model for integrating a cultural analysis of this music and its subculture into the introductory course. Students first conduct a sociologically grounded cultural analysis of heavy metal music. Then they expand this analysis during the rest of the course by applying new concepts, theories, and research to explain this cultural object sociologically. The article's final section discusses the application of this model in a range of class contexts and provides student responses to its use in an introductory sociology course. JARL A. AHLKVIST Johnson State College NUMEROUS AUTHORS HAVE commented on the use of cultural objects to promote interactive learning in sociology courses (

Understanding co‐activation patterns of the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis (HPA) and sympathetic adrenal medullary (SAM) during early adolescence may illuminate risk for development of internalizing and externalizing problems. The present study advances empirical work on the topic by examining SAM‐HPA co‐activation during both the reactivity and recovery phases of the stress response following acute stress exposure. Fourth and fifth grade boys and girls (N = 149) provided cortisol and alpha‐amylase via saliva at seven times throughout a 95‐min assessment in which they were administered the modified Trier Social Stress Test. Parents reported on adolescents’ life stress, pubertal development, medication use, and externalizing problems. Adolescents reported their own internalizing symptoms. Multiple linear regressions tested both direct and interactive effects of SAM and HPA reactivity and recovery on internalizing and externalizing problems. Results from these analyses showed that whereas SAM and HPA reactivity interacted to predict internalizing symptoms, it was their interaction during the recovery phase that predicted externalizing. Concurrent high SAM and HPA reactivity scores predicted high levels of internalizing and concurrently low SAM and HPA recovery scores predicted high levels of externalizing. Implications of the findings for further study and clinical application are discussed.

Deregulation and ownership concentration have been accompanied by increased rationalization of programming strategies in commercial music radio in many industrial nations. However, understanding of the impact of these trends on music programming is incomplete because little research has examined music radio's `culture of production'. This article addresses this deficit by exploring the knowledge frameworks that radio programmers draw on to transform records into music programming. Interviews with music programmers working at radio stations in the USA reveal fundamental variation in how culture production is managed in this industry. I account for this variation by distinguishing four programming philosophies that guide and legitimate programmers' choice of programming strategies. Finally, I describe the integration of these philosophies into programmers' knowledge frameworks by considering their impact on music programming, and the structural factors that accommodate and constrain each philosophy.

Two studies examined how non-interpersonal forgiveness (when there is no social relationship between the transgressor and forgiver) related to coping and involuntary responses to stress, psychological distress, and religiosity. Three to six weeks after September 11th, 2001, forgiveness had non-linear associations with other responses to the terrorist attacks. Among college students (N=488), those who were trying or had forgiven (pro-forgiveness) the terrorists reported less involuntary engagement, more primary and secondary control coping, and more meaning finding than those who were unsure about forgiveness (ambivalent) and those who did not believe the perpetrators should be forgiven (anti-forgiveness). Ambivalent students reported the most distress, even after controlling for religion. Anti-forgiveness students reported less religiosity than ambivalent and pro-forgiveness students. Most findings were consistent among middle schoolers (N=154), particularly regarding psychological distress and responses to stress. Also, forgiveness of strangers for acts against one's community functioned separately from religion.