Parental marital conflict and divorce,parent–child relationships,and social support among Latino‐American young adults

Based on research documenting the harmful consequences of parental conflict and divorce, this self‐report study examined parental conflict, divorce, and social outcomes of Latino‐American young adults. Undergraduate students (N = 431) from divorced and intact families completed measures of parental conflict, quality of parent–adult child relationships, and perceptions of social support. As hypothesized, conflict was associated with poorer parent–adult child relationships, divorce was associated with poorer father–adult child relationships and higher quality mother–adult child relationships, and quality of relationships with parents was positively related to perceived social support. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of social support were not related to parental conflict. Results are discussed in terms of features of Latino families, including extended family networks as important sources of social support.     

Levels of Meaning in Family Stress Theory

Major stressful life events, particularly those that have chronic hardships, create a crisis for families that often leads to reorganization in the family's style of functioning. A major factor in this reorganization is the meaning the family gives to the stressful event. Often the meaning extends beyond the event itself and leads to a changed view of the family system and even to a changed view of the world. Building on other family stress models, we elaborate the family's definition of the stressor into three levels of family meanings: (1) situational meanings, (2) family identity, and (3) family world view. Examples from clinical work and studies of families adapting to chronic illness are used to illustrate the relationship between these three levels of meaning, particularly as they change in response to crisis. Implications for clinical and empirical work are discussed.     

Chuck Warnath: Visionary Gadfly of Professional Counseling

Charles F. “Chuck” Warnath, professor emeritus and former university counseling center director, was interviewed about his personal life, early training with Donald Super, counseling center experiences, convictions about professional counseling, dedication to issues of equality, and current struggles with the progressive effects of retinitis pigmentosa.     

On the difficulty of distinguishing “good” and “poor” perceivers: A social relations analysis of empathic accuracy data

Two studies were conducted to explore the reasons why replicable individual‐difference correlates of empathic accuracy have proved so difficult to find. In Study 1, we examined sources of variance in empathic accuracy data using the Social Relations Model (Kenny, 1988, 1994; Kenny & Albright, 1987; Malloy & Kenny, 1986). The results revealed substantial perceiver variance only in the type of research design in which a relatively large set of individual perceivers inferred the thoughts and feelings of the same set of target persons. In Study 2, we found evidence that even in this apparently optimal type of research design, the significant individual‐difference correlates of empathic accuracy were fewer and subject to more unexpected qualifications than the results of Davis and Kraus's (1997) meta‐analysis would suggest. So far, the “best candidate” predictor of empathic accuracy appears to be verbal intelligence, but it remains to be seen whether it and two other recently proposed predictors of interpersonal accuracy will survive the test of replicability.     

City Behavior and Precautionary Measures

In a between-subjects design, a Precautionary Measures Scale was developed to assess the extent to which 121 participants would endorse 19 precautionary behaviors if visiting a small town, a small city, or a metropolis. Results indicated high internal consistency for the scale, and a significant main effect for location. The effect for gender approached significance. Participants in the metropolis condition had significantly higher scores than did those in the small-town condition, and women tended to have significantly higher precautionary scale scores than did men. Further, participants classified as feminine on the Bem (1981) Sex-Role Inventory tended to have significantly higher scores across locations that did those classified as masculine.