International Relations scholars concerned with explaining status-seeking behavior in the international system draw heavily from social comparison theory and its observations that individuals judge their worth, and accordingly derive self-esteem, through social comparisons with others. According to this logic, states become status seekers because, like individuals, they have an innate desire for favorable social status comparisons relative to their peers. Thus, the great power status literature is often framed in the language of accommodation, and adjustment, which presupposes that status insecurities develop from unfavorable social comparisons and can be resolved through relative social improvements. This article challenges these assumptions by noting, as psychology has acknowledged for some time, that individuals use both social and temporal forms of comparison when engaging in self-evaluation. Where social comparisons cause actors to ask "How do I rank relative to my peers?" temporal comparisons cause actors to evaluate how they have improved or declined over time. This article advances a temporal comparison theory of status-seeking behavior, suggesting that many of the signaling problems associated with status insecurity emerge from basic differences in how states evaluate their status, and whether they privilege temporal over social comparisons. The implications are explored through China's contemporary struggle for status recognition, situating this struggle within the context of China's civilizational past and ongoing dispute over Taiwan.
Our study uses the language of food to examine the representation of socioeconomic class identity in contemporary America by comparing the advertising language on expensive bags of potato chips with that on inexpensive chips. We find that the language on expensive chip bags indeed emphasizes factors that are more representative of higher socioeconomic status, such as more complex language and more claims about health. We also find support for Pierre Bourdieu's hypothesis that taste is fundamentally negative: descriptions on expensive chips, unlike on inexpensive chips, are full of comparison (“less fat,” “finest potatoes”) and negation (“not,” “never”'), suggesting a goal of distancing the upper classes from the tastes of lower socioeconomic classes. Finally, our results expand the relationship between authenticity and socioeconomic status. Previous scholars suggest that the desire for authenticity is solely linked with upper-class identity; we find, however, two distinct modes of authenticity. For the upper classes, authentic food is natural: not processed or artificial. For the working class, by contrast, authentic food is traditional: rooted in family recipes and located in the American landscape. Thus, the authentic experience is linguistically relevant for both classes—an example of the rich meanings hidden in the language of food.
The measurement of plasma S-adenosylhomocysteine is a more sensitive indicator of the risk for vascular disease than is plasma homocysteine. Because the level of S-adenosylhomocysteine is normally in the nanomolar range it has been difficult to measure and necessitated the development of complex fluorometric and mass-spectrophotometric methods. We have now adapted an existing immunoassay used for the measurement of homocysteine to the measurement of Sadenosylhomocysteine in plasma. This assay is sensitive down to the level of less than 0.1 picomole and there is no interference by S-adenosylmethionine. The assay is carried out in microplates, allows the measurement of 12 samples per plate and can easily be carried out in a 4 hour period. The method is applicable to plasma samples having S-adenosylhomocysteine concentrations ranging from 10 to 150 nM without dilution. . The mean value for 16 normal subjects by this method was 18.9 +/− 1.4 nM (S.E.M.) compared with 17.8 +/− 1.4 nM obtained by a previously described method using two HPLC columns with fluorescence derivatization. Mean values for 7 cirrhotic patients were 46.5 +/− 3.3 nM by this new method compared with 44.6 +/− 5.3 by the former method. The ease and speed of this method should allow the widespread measurement of this important metabolite in laboratories without access to sophisticated equipment.
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