The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (PC-DISC v.3.0): Parents and Adolescents Suggest Reasons for Expecting Discrepant Answers

To identify reasons for discrepancies between parent and child reports of child/adolescents's psychiatric symptoms, parents and adolescents (51 pairs) were asked to guess what the other would answer to questions from the PC-DISC about the adolescent's psychiatric symptoms, and to explain why they expected disagreement when the answer they provided for the other was different from their own. Adolescents' explanations for expecting (1) parental denial of symptoms the adolescent reported were: the parent was unaware of, forgot about, assumed the adolescent could not have, or trivialized the symptom; and (2) parental report of symptoms the adolescent denied were: the parent misread or exaggerated the adolescent's symptom, had too high expectations for the adolescent's behavior, put a negative label on or did not trust the adolescent. Parents' reasons for expecting their children to (1) deny symptoms the parents reported were: the adolescent did not remember how s/he felt, lied, did not recognize or minimized the importance or frequency of the symptom; and (2) report symptoms the parents denied were: the adolescent lied, exaggerated the importance of or interpreted the symptom differently.Support for this work was provided by National Institute of Drug Abuse grant number DA-05585 (Dr. Cottler, P.I.), and National Institute of Mental Health grants numbers MH-31302 (Dr. R. C. Cloninger, P.I.) and MH-17104 (Dr. Cottler, P.I.).Address all correspondence, including reprint requests, to Michelle Bidaut-Russell, Ph.D, MPH, MPE, Department of Psychiatry, Box 8134, Washington University School of Medicine, 4940 Children's Place, St. Louis, Missouri 63110.     

Occupational conditions and workers' sense of community: Variations by gender and race

The literature is reviewed to define a sense of community in the workplace and to identify factors that may foster it. A model is developed and estimated with survey data from a culturally diverse sample of men and women performing lower-level jobs at a medium-sized manufacturing firm. Results of regression analyses are reported that correct for sample selection bias resulting from the lower response rates of minority workers. Findings suggest that well-designed jobs and supportive workplace relationships and policies are important in explaining workers' sense of community, defined as workers' perceptions of mutual commitment between employee and employer. Informal sources of support play a larger role in explaining men's sense of community, while formal sources of support are more important in explaining women's sense of community. Findings further suggest that African American workers, especially women, have a difficult time experiencing a sense of community at work. The authors thank the employees of Fel-Pro for their participation in this study and Melissa Roderick, Michael Sosin, and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments. This research was funded by the Fel-Pro/Mecklenberger Foundation and the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund.     

Effects of parental alcoholism and life stress on hispanic and non-hispanic caucasian adelescents: A prospective study

Investigated ethnicity and parental alcoholism as factors that might influence the stress vulnerability of adolescents. It extended an initial cross-sectional study of this same sample by adding two annual assessments which allowed for additional cross-sectional analyses and longitudinal tests. Hispanic and Caucasian adolescents (N=306 at Time 1) completed measures of their own life stress, family conflict, and alcohol use. Their parents reported on adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Cross-sectional analyses at Time 2, and prospective analyses involving Time 1 and Time 2 measures were, for the most part, consistent with the original study's results. Caucasian adolescents and children of alcoholic parents appeared to be more vulnerable to stress than Hispanic adolescents and children of nonalcoholic parents. Family conflict was a partial explanation for this increased vulnerability. This research was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse Grant DA05227 to Laurie Chassin (pricipal investigator) and Manuel Barrera, Jr. (coprincipal investigator). Susan Li was supported by an American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Award. Portions of this research were presented at the conference, “Resiliency in Families: Racial and Ethnic Minority Families in America” that was held at the University of Wisconsin, May 31–June 2, 1994.     

Using the HOME inventory with infants in Costa Rica

It has been established through several decades of research that children's home environments significantly influence their development. Many researchers have also been interested in expanding research beyond indirect measures of the home environment, such as socioeconomic status, to help understand the nature of specific environmental mechanisms which influence early behavior and cognitive development. The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory was developed to meet these needs. Specifically, HOME measures the quality of stimulation in a child's early family environment. Almost all studies of the approach's reliability and validity have been conducted with US samples. HOME is, however, being used in other countries. The authors report their findings from a study of whether the psychometric properties of HOME based upon US samples parallel those found in Costa Rica, and whether HOME discriminates between Costa Rican environments with different associations to child health and development. Focus centers upon the infant/toddler version of the HOME Inventory. HOME data for 183 healthy Costa Rican infants were compared to the original HOME standardization sample from Little Rock, Arkansas. The study found the HOME Inventory to be helpful in identifying children at risk for delayed development in this Latin American sample. Lower HOME scores related to a shorter duration of breastfeeding and differentiated children with iron deficiency anemia in infancy, a condition associated with long-lasting developmental disadvantage.     

Individual differences and cheating behavior: Guilt and cheating in competitive situations

To examine whether guilt would inhibit immoral behavior, subjects were differentiated on their feelings of anticipatory (AG) and posttransgressional (PTG) guilt and subsequently placed in an anagram task shown to induce a high level of cheating. Results indicated that neither pre- nor post-test AG was related to cheating behavior, and test-retest administration indicated that the AG scale was unreliable. The PTG scale, however, was found to be a temporally reliable measure of guilt. In order to assess the relative contributions of pre-test posttransgressional guilt, the ability to persist, and gender to cheating behavior, a saturated multiple regression model of centered predictor effects and interaction terms was constructed. Results revealed a significant gender × persistence interaction. The cheating behavior of males was not significantly influenced by the ability to persist. On the other hand, females who exhibited a strong ability to persist rarely cheated, while those who were unable to persist cheated a great deal. Finally, subjects who felt the most posttransgressional guilt cheated more frequently. These findings provide additional evidence that guilt may be positively related to cheating behavior.     

Revisiting university student gender role perceptions

Gender role perceptions of five objects—Ideal Woman, Ideal Man, Most Women, Most Men and Self—were elicited from 3300 university students, 81% of whom were Caucasian, with 7% Hispanic, 6% African-American, and 4% Asian. Profiles of student responses for the five objects provided a comprehensive updating of 1970s research on student gender roles. Women (N= 1842) and men (N= 1148) students generally preferred an androgynous Ideal Woman. Women also preferred an androgynous Ideal Man, but men preferred a masculine sex-typed Ideal Man. Women and men's perceptions of Most Women and Men continued to be sex-typed. Men's self perceptions were androgynous, while women saw themselves as feminine sex-typed. Findings suggest that little change in students' gender role perceptions has occurred in the past 15 years.     

BLAMING THE PERPETRATOR Language that Distorts Reality in Newspaper Articles on Men Battering Women

In an earlier article, Lamb (1991) showed that journal authors, when writing about men battering women, wrote in a way that avoided assigning responsibility to men as perpetrators, and that this kind of writing was more common among male authors as well as female authors who wrote with men. This study examines first whether this kind of writing occurs in newspaper articles on men battering women, and whether two problematic styles of writing have an effect on the reader. Three versions of a newspaper article were developed to differentiate active voice, passive voice, and writing that implies shared responsibility for a man's violence. One hundred and eighty subjects read one of the three versions and endorsed one of five possible punishments for the man in the story who had been violent. Results showed that subjects did not differ in their selection of punishments for the active voice versus the passive voice version, but were much more lenient towards the man after reading the shared responsibility version.