Referred Journal Articles

DiCicco-Bloom, Barbara and Benjamin DiCicco-Bloom (equal authorship). 2019. “Secondary Emotional Labor: Supervisors Withholding Support and Guidance in Interdisciplinary Group Meetings in a Community Hospice Program.” Work & Occupations 46(3): 339-368.

Abstract: Emotional Labor (EL) can be rewarding, but it can also lead to burnout. Research suggests that supervisor support may be essential to positive experiences with EL. Using qualitative data from a community hospice program, the authors compare interdisciplinary group meetings in which supervisors facilitated EL processing and skill building with those in which they imposed secondary EL, a dynamic that restricts these activities. The authors found that when leaders support EL talk, it increases the likelihood that workers will experience EL in positive ways, and thus improve their care of clients and the organizations for which they work.”

DiCicco-Bloom, Barbara and Benjamin DiCicco-Bloom (equal authorship). 2016. “The Benefits of Respectful Interactions: Fluid Alliancing and Inter-Occupational Information Sharing in Primary Care.” Sociology of Health & Illness 38(6): 965-979.

Abstract: Though inter-occupational interactions in health care have been the focus of increasing attention, we still know little about how such interactions shape information sharing in clinical settings. This is particularly true in primary care where research on teams and collaboration has been based on individual perceptions of work (using surveys and interviews) rather than observing the interactions that directly mediate the inter-occupational flow of information. To explore how interactions shape information sharing, we conducted a secondary analysis of ethnographic data from 27 primary care practices. Ease of information sharing among nurses and doctors is linked to the degree to which practices feature respectful interactions, with practices in the sample falling into one of three categories (those with low, uneven, and high degrees of respectful interactions). Those practices with the highest degree of respectful interactions demonstrate what we describe as fluid-alliancing: flexible interactions between individuals from different occupational groups in which bidirectional information sharing occurs for the benefit of patients and the efficacy of the practice community. We conclude by arguing that this process unlocks the strengths of all practice members, and that leadership should encourage respectful interactions to augment organisational efficacy and the ability of individual practice members to provide quality patient care.

DiCicco-Bloom, Benjamin and Daniel Romer. 2012. “Poker, Sports Betting and Less Popular Alternatives: Status, Friendship Networks, and Male Adolescent Gambling.” Youth & Society 41(1): 141-170.

Abstract: The authors argue that the recent increase in poker play among adolescent males in the United States was primarily attributable to high-status male youth who are more able to organize informal gambling games (e.g., poker and sports betting) than are low-status male youth who are left to gamble on formal games (e.g., lotteries and slot machines). Using participation in sports as a proxy for status, the authors test the prediction that male athletes were more likely to engage in informal gambling and were largely responsible for the recent and much-discussed poker craze among adolescents. These and related predictions are supported using data from consecutive cross-sectional surveys of American youth from 2002 to 2008. Despite their social status, however, male youth engaging in informal gambling are more at risk for gambling problems than are those engaging in formal gambling. The authors discuss the dilemmas that their findings present for the prevention of problem gambling in young people.

DiCicco-Bloom, Benjamin and David R. Gibson (equal authorship). 2010. “More Than a Game: Sociological Theory from the Theories of Games.” Sociological Theory 28(3): 247-271 [Lead Article].

Abstract: Sociologists are fond of game metaphors. However, such metaphors rarely go beyond casual references to generic games. Yet games are little social systems, and each game offers a distinctive perspective on the relationship between rules and constraints, on the one side, and emergent order, on the other. In this article, we examine three games—chess, go, and (Texas hold’em) poker—for sociological insights into contested social arenas such as markets, warfare, politics, and the professions. We describe each game’s rules and emergent properties, and then offer a brief theorization of the social world through the ‘lens’ of that game. Then we show how a study of the three games advances the sociology of strategy by enriching ideas about skill, position, and strategic dilemmas.

Book Chapters and Other Short Pieces

DiCicco-Bloom, Barbara and Benjamin DiCicco-Bloom. 2018. “Secondary Emotional Labor: The Implications of Supervisor Responses to Emotional Labor of Hospice Nurses.” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 56(6): e61- e62 (Selected Abstracts from the 22^nd Congress on Palliative Care).

DiCicco-Bloom, Benjamin. 2016. “The Dynamics of Care: Communication, Management and Adults with Autism.” in Autism Spectrum Disorder in Mid and Later Life. S. Wright (Ed.) London: Jessica Kingsley Press.