HIV and AIDS have posed new challenges to societies, communities and individuals. In many parts of the world, existing health and social services have been hard pressed to cope with the dermands of the epidemic. In hospitals and in the community, new approaches to health education, support and care have been developed. Non-governmental and community organizations have had a central role to play in responding to the challenge of HIV and AIDS. AIDS: Foundations for the Future highlights progress made over the last decade, and offers an agenda for future activism and research. This book examines the extent to which sound foundations for the future have been laid in public, private and voluntary sector action. It focuses on topics as diverse as workplace policy on HIV and AIDS, voluntary sector responses, the reactions of health care workers, the experience of living with AIDS, outreach work and community action, patterns of male prostitution, and new interventions to promote and maintain safer sex and safer drug use.

Differences between people are a fascinating and long-standing area of psychological inquiry. However, previous research has largely been confined to studies at the descriptive level. This book tries to explain individual difference, rather than merely describe them. Explanations are derived from two major competing frameworks: the biological and social approaches to individuality. The book is based on the contributions of specialists from Europe and North America invited to represent the biological and social points of view. Thus, a direct confrontation is obtained of two approaches that, hitherto, have proceeded with virtually no reference to each other. Attention is paid to behavior genetics, psychophysiology and temperament, as well as to social learning, behavioral strategies and person-environment interactions. Differences and commonalities between the biological and social approaches are scrutinized and a common framework is outlined to stimulate future research. Due to its innovative character, the book is particularly relevant for investigators in the field. In addition, it may be fruitfully used in advanced graduate level courses in personality psychology.

The study of gender is deservedly a major focus of research in the discipline of psychology in general and social psychology in particular. Interest in the topic increased sharply in the 1970s with the flowering of the feminist movement, and research has continued to advance since that time. In 1987, Alice Eagly formulated Social Role Theory to explain the behavior of women and men as well as the stereotypes, attitudes, and ideologies that are relevant to sex and gender. Enhanced by several extensions over the intervening years, this theory became one of the pre-eminent, if not the central, theory of gender in social psychology. Also, over the last decades, social psychologists have developed a variety of related approaches to understanding gender, including, for instance, theories devoted to stereotyping, leadership, status, backlash, lack of fit to occupational roles, social identity, and categorization. Reflecting these elements, this e-Book includes articles that encompasses a wide range of themes pertaining to sex and gender. In these papers, the concept of social roles appears often as central integrative concept that links individuals with their social environment. These articles thereby complement social role theory as the authors reach out to build an extended theoretical foundation for gender research of the future.