Growing Up as a Creative Musician: The Role of Psychosocial Dispositions and Environment

This study tried to identify the psychosocial dispositions and environment conducive to the development of a creative musician. A sample of 14 established musicians (vocalists and instrumentalists) belonging to Hindustani music tradition was selected from three major cities of Uttar Pradesh and were interviewed in-depth. They were interviewed about their early childhood, training in music and growing up as a musician. A thematic analysis yielded three major psychosocial themes pertaining to nurturance of creativity—developmental dispositions, preferred settings for music practice (Riāz) and performance, and relationship with Guru. Many participants showed proclivity to be creative musician, but all needed to have intrinsic motivation, nurturing social environment, and proper setting for riāz. They also reported that learning under a worthy guru was important for their creativity to blossom. Implications of these findings for training of the music students in an institutional set up were discussed.     

Growing Up with an Anxious Sibling: Psychosocial Correlates and Predictors of Sibling Relationship Quality

Relationships between young people with anxiety and their non-affected siblings are important for both individuals in the dyad, and for family dynamics throughout the lifespan; however, these relationships are not well understood. This study examined the experience of growing up with an anxious sibling from the sibling without anxiety’s point of view. We measured psychosocial factors associated with sibling relationship quality in 64 young adults with an anxious sibling. Overall, participants with anxious siblings were resilient, reporting comparable sibling relationship quality, anxiety symptoms, and psychological functioning relative to peers without anxious siblings. The contributions of caregiver burden and attributions about the causes of the sibling’s anxiety-related behavior accounted for significant variance in both sibling relationship warmth/closeness and conflict, with responsibility attributions emerging as an individual predictor of conflict. Clinical and research implications for understanding sibling relationships in the context of anxiety, and for the role of attributions in family relationships are considered.     

Impact of Social Networking Sites on Children in Military Families

Youth in military families experience a relatively unique set of stressors that can put them at risk for numerous psychological and behavior problems. Thus, there is a need to identify potential mechanisms by which children can gain resiliency against these stressors. One potential mechanism that has yet to be empirically studied with military youth is social networking sites (SNSs). SNSs have gained significant popularity among society, especially youth. Given the significance of these communication tools in youths’ lives, it is important to analyze how SNS use may affect military youth and their ability to cope with common military life stressors. The current review examines the potential positive and negative consequences associated with SNS use in coping with three common stressors of youth in military families: parent deployment, frequent relocation, and having a family member with a psychological or physical disability. By drawing from SNS and military literature, we predict that SNS use can be a positive tool for helping children in military families to cope with stressors. However, certain SNS behaviors can potentially result in more negative outcomes. Recommendations for future research are also discussed.     

The Writing on the (Facebook) Wall: The Use of Social Networking Sites in Hiring Decisions

The popular media has reported an increase in the use of social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook by hiring managers and human resource professionals attempting to find more detailed information about job applicants. Within the peer-reviewed literature, cursory empirical evidence exists indicating that others’ judgments of characteristics or attributes of an individual based on information obtained from SNSs may be accurate. Although this predictor method provides a potentially promising source of applicant information on predictor constructs of interest, it is also fraught with potential limitations and legal challenges. The level of publicly available data obtainable by employers is highly unstandardized across applicants, as some applicants will choose not to use SNSs at all while those choosing to use SNSs customize the degree to which information they share is made public to those outside of their network. It is also unclear how decision makers are currently utilizing the available information. Potential discrimination may result through employer’s access to publicly available pictures, videos, biographical information, or other shared information that often allows easy identification of applicant membership to a protected class. For the practice to progress in a positive direction, evidence for the validity and job-relevance of information obtained from SNSs needs to be established. Organizational researchers and practitioners also need to promote awareness and attempt to create safeguards against the potential negative outcomes related to misuse of SNSs by employers.     

Growing Up Poor in Los Angeles: A Memoir

OUR EDITOR caught up with physicist David Bohm for a few days at Bailey Farm, a “think-tank” for lawyers in New York state. Autumn was crisp in the air with golden leaves and agreeable conversation as they walked together through the local woods. Bohm was in the middle of writing several books simultaneously with a number of his colleagues on the brood implications of his view of quantum physics for current ideas in psychology, sociology, and philosophy. In this wide-ranging interview, Bohm talks for the first time about his early scientific development, his relations with Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, and his idealistic struggles to actualize heightened states of being within a creative community. He also talks about imagery, stress, and the difficult evolutionary struggle in which we are currently engaged to free our minds from the negative conditioning of the past and the conceptual blind alleys of the present. David Bohm takes us on a journey into the post-modern world, a cultural step beyond relativity and quantum theory.     

Body Talk on Social Networking Sites,Body Surveillance,and Body Shame among Young Adults: The Roles of Self-Compassion and Gender

The present study examined whether body talk on social networking sites (SNSs) was positively associated with body surveillance and body shame and whether body surveillance would mediate the relationship between body talk on SNSs and body shame. We also tested whether the links from body talk on SNSs to body surveillance and body shame would be moderated by self-compassion. Furthermore, the moderating role of gender in the mediation model was examined. The model was tested with 194 female and 119 male Chinese university students who completed questionnaires regarding body talk on SNSs, body surveillance, body shame, and self-compassion. Results indicated that body talk on SNSs was positively related to body surveillance and body shame. The relationship between body talk on SNSs and body shame was mediated by body surveillance. Furthermore, self-compassion moderated the association between body talk on SNSs and body shame. No gender difference was found in the mediation model. Findings from the current study provide new insights into the development of objectified body consciousness among women, as well as among men, and highlight the potential value of promoting self-compassion in the prevention of body image concerns.

     

Social Network Sites,Individual Social Capital and Happiness

Can online social contacts replace the importance of real-life social connections in our pursuit of happiness? With the growing use of social network sites (SNSs), attention has been increasingly drawn to this topic. Our study empirically examines the effect of SNS use on happiness for different subgroups of young adults. More specifically, we examine whether the effect of SNSs on happiness is moderated by individual social capital, as measured in terms of frequency of social contacts and feelings of loneliness. Using Dutch data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel, we provide robust empirical evidence that there is, on average, no relationship between the amount of time spent on SNSs and happiness. However, we find a negative association between the numbers of hours spent on SNS and happiness for SNS users who feel socially disconnected and lonely. The results hold when we control for socio-demographic characteristics, trust, hours spent on other Internet sites and household income. Hence, SNSs are not a substitute for real-life social connections and, at most, complement them.     

Adolescent Social Structure and Drinking Behavior

The study examines adolescent drinking customs in the context of the informal social structure of the high school. Teenage drinking behavior was also examined in relationship to demographic variables and parental use of alcoholic beverages. The study identified a mosaic adolescent society consisting of eight informal social status subgroups with contrasting and often hostile values, attitudes, and leisure-time patterns. A highly significant (p < .001) relationship was found between the students' subgroup membership and drinking category. Parental alcohol use also was related to teenagers' use (p < .001), and interesting variations were identified when teenage drinking behavior was studied in relationship to demographic factors.     

Classifying and profiling Social Networking Site users: a latent segmentation approach

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have showed an exponential growth in the last years. The first step for an efficient use of SNSs stems from an understanding of the individuals' behaviors within these sites. In this research, we have obtained a typology of SNS users through a latent segmentation approach, based on the frequency by which users perform different activities within the SNSs, sociodemographic variables, experience in SNSs, and dimensions related to their interaction patterns. Four different segments have been obtained. The "introvert" and "novel" users are the more occasional. They utilize SNSs mainly to communicate with friends, although "introverts" are more passive users. The "versatile" user performs different activities, although occasionally. Finally, the "expert-communicator" performs a greater variety of activities with a higher frequency. They tend to perform some marketing-related activities such as commenting on ads or gathering information about products and brands as well as commenting ads. The companies can take advantage of these segmentation schemes in different ways: first, by tracking and monitoring information interchange between users regarding their products and brands. Second, they should match the SNS users' profiles with their market targets to use SNSs as marketing tools. Finally, for most business, the expert users could be interesting opinion leaders and potential brand influencers.     

Latent Class Analysis of Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning and Course of Major Depression

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - There are few studies on the predictors of long-term course of major depressive disorder (MDD) with an onset in childhood and adolescence. Studies...     

Cognitive Consequences of Legislating Postpurchase Behavior: Growing Up with the Bottle Bill

A study was conducted to understand how bottle bills exert their effect. Legislation does apparently allow for a situation in which behaviors influence attitudes if subjective norms converge with the new position. Students tested longitudinally manifested significant ( p < .1) differences in cross-lagged panel correlations implying that subjective norms lead to bottle bill and ecological attitudes, that behavior and habit lead to bottle returning attitudes, and that ecological attitudes lead to intentions. Students in Oregon were found to have greater pro-ecological attitudes than students in neighboring states. Public policy implications are discussed.     

Forgiveness and Psychosocial Development: Implications for Clinical Practice

Using the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (Subkoviak, Enright, & Wu, 1992) and the Measure of Psychosocial Development (Hawley, 1988), the relationship between forgiveness and psychosocial development was examined using a sample of 113 upper-division students in their first year of a professional teacher education program at a midwestern university. Resolution of relationship matters associated with trust, intimacy, and generativity psychosocial tasks correlated with positive aspects of forgiveness. The results suggest that psychosocial development provides a potentially useful assessment framework for understanding how a client will understand and implement the forgiveness process.     

Parenting Stress, Social Support, and Depression for Ethnic Minority Adolescent Mothers: Impact on Child Development

Rates of teenage pregnancies are higher for African American and Latina adolescents compared to their White peers. African American and Latina adolescent mothers also experience more adversities than their White peers, such as higher rates of depression, school dropout, and economic disadvantage. Furthermore, children of adolescent mothers are at higher risk for adverse development. Parenting stress and social support can impact outcomes experienced by adolescent parents and their children. The present study examined the influence of adolescent mothers’ parenting stress and perceived social support on maternal depression at baseline (6 months after birth), and its impact on infant development 1 year later (18 months after birth). Participants were 180 adolescent mothers of African American or Latino/Hispanic descent. Results suggest that higher levels of parenting stress and less perceived social support were associated with higher levels of depression in the adolescent mothers at baseline. Higher levels of maternal depression were also associated with more developmental delays in infants 1 year post-baseline. Additionally, depression mediated the relationship between parenting stress and later child outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of examining parenting factors such as parenting stress, social support, and maternal depression in ethnic minority adolescent parents, and provide valuable information regarding unique risk and protective factors associated with positive maternal outcomes for ethnic minority adolescent parents and healthy development for their children.     

Psychosocial Identity Development and Cultural Others

Experts in counseling understand that a person's reality is shaped by the culture in which the self is embedded; literature in cultural anthropology, linguistics, and psychology, however, reveals that identity, which is important to acceptance of persons from other cultures, is itself constituted differently depending on the culture of origin. Against the backdrop of American individualism, the cultural relativity of identity and pseudospeciation (false sense of cultural specialness) are explored. This literature grounds prejudice in evolution itself and provides reasons for movement beyond individualism to the more mature form of relational identity that includes cultural others. Implications for counseling are explored. Los expertos en consejería entienden que la cultura en la cual el yo está encajado forma la realidad de una persona; sin embargo, la literatura sobre la antropología cultural, linguística, y psicología revela que la identidad, lo cual es importante para poder aceptar personas de otras culturas, es en sí mismo constituido de una manera diferente según la cultura de origen. Se examina contra un fondo de individualismo americano la relatividad cultural de identidad y pseudoespeciación (el sentido falso de especialidad cultural). Esta literatura basa el prejuicio en evolución y da razones para el cambio mas allá del individualismo a la forma más madura de identidad relational que incluye al “otro” cultural. Se exploran las implicaciones para la consejería.