Maternal working conditions and child well-being in welfare-leaving families

In the wake of welfare reform, thousands of low-income single mothers have transitioned into the labor market. In this article, the authors examine how the work conditions of mothers leaving welfare for employment are associated with the emotional well-being of 372 children ages 5 to 15 years. The authors examine the cumulative incidence, over a 5-year period, of maternal non-family-friendly work conditions, including long work hours, erratic work schedules, nonday shifts, and lengthy commute times, in association with children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and levels of positive behavior. The authors found that mothers' lengthy commute times are associated with higher levels of internalizing problem behaviors and lower levels of positive behaviors.     

The moderating influence of procedural fairness on the relationship between work-life conflict and organizational commitment

To help employees better manage work-life conflict, organizations have introduced various initiatives, which have met with mixed results. The present studies examined the utility of a procedurally based approach to understanding employees' reactions to work-life conflict. The authors examined whether the fairness of procedures used by organizational authorities to plan and implement decisions moderates the (inverse) relationship between work-life conflict and employees' organizational commitment. Three studies using different methodologies showed support for the moderating role played by procedural fairness. That is, the tendency for greater work-life conflict to lead to lower commitment was significantly less pronounced when procedural fairness was high rather than low. Theoretical contributions to the work-life conflict and organizational justice literatures are discussed, as are practical implications.     

Adaptation to display rotation and display gain distortions during drawing

The relationship between movement extent and movement direction coding mechanisms was investigated using a visuomotor adaptation paradigm. To determine if these mechanisms are either modular or interdependent, young healthy college students were tested while they performed a visually guided drawing task that incorporated varying combinations of movement distance and direction distortions. Analysis of participants' standardized movement duration, initial directional error, and movement length over the course of the adaptation process revealed a certain degree of interdependence between direction and extent coding mechanisms. Specifically, changes in final adaptation levels and after-effects depended on the order of introduction of the visual distortions. This interaction can be characterized as unidirectional, where alterations in rotational feedback interfere with subsequent adaptation to gain changes, whereas alterations in "display gain" do not significantly impede the adaptation to "display rotation". Moreover, simultaneous exposure to gain and rotational distortions resulted in better learning. The results argue against an independent coding of movement direction and extent during adaptation by the central nervous system.     

Benefit-Finding Improves Well-Being among Women Who Have Experienced Gender Discrimination

Sex Roles - Women experience gender discrimination in numerous important life domains, which can harm psychological well-being. Benefit-finding—identifying the positive implications of having...     

Illness perceptions or recurrence risk perceptions: What comes first? A longitudinal cross-lagged examination among cardiac patients

Objectives: Previous research suggested that illness perceptions provide the basis for illness risk perceptions through an inductive reasoning process. This study aimed to assess the direction of relationships between illness and recurrence risk perceptions over time, among cardiac patients.

Design: A longitudinal study was conducted among 138 patients undergoing coronary angioplasty. Self-report questionnaires measured perceived recurrence risk and illness perceptions one day and one month after catheterisation.

Results: Cross-lagged Panel Model Analyses revealed that higher perceptions of timeline, consequences and emotional representations of illness at hospitalisation were associated with higher recurrence risk perceptions one month later. Perceived personal control was the only illness perception with bi-directional associations: higher perceived personal control at hospitalisation was associated with higher recurrence risk perceptions one month later; and higher recurrence risk perceptions at hospitalisation was associated with lower personal control one month later.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that the associations between recurrence risk and illness perceptions can only partly be explained by inductive reasoning. Halo effects and defensive processes are suggested as complementary explanations for the observed associations between risk and illness perceptions.     

What Preschoolers Bring to the Show: The Relation Between Viewer Characteristics and Children’s Learning from Educational Television

The capacity model (Fisch, 2000, 2004) is one of the few existing theoretical models developed to explain how children learn from educational television, but it has yet to receive much empirical validation. The model posits that various characteristics of the viewers influence both narrative comprehension and educational content comprehension, two distinct parallel processes. While many studies of media effects and processes control for individual differences, the goal of this study was to investigate several viewer characteristics that are predicted to influence comprehension. Seventy-eight preschool-age children watched a short educational television program and completed assessments of cognitive abilities, interest in the program, prior knowledge related to the program, and comprehension of the program content. Regression analyses revealed general support for Fisch’s predictions that viewer characteristics influence narrative comprehension and educational content comprehension. Results provide an important step in theorizing about children’s learning from educational television.