Assessing Coparenting Relationships in Daily Life: The Daily Coparenting Scale (D-Cop)

We describe the development and validation of the Daily Coparenting Scale (D-Cop), a measure of parents’ perceptions of daily coparenting quality, to address the absence of such a daily measure in the field. A daily measure of coparenting can help us to better identify specific mechanisms of short-term change in family processes as well as examine within-person variability and processes as they are lived by participants in their everyday lives. Mothers and fathers, from 174 families with at least one child age 5 or younger, completed a 14-day diary study. Utilizing multilevel factor analysis, we identified two daily coparenting factors at both the between- and within-person level: positive and negative daily coparenting. The reliabilities of the overall D-Cop and individual positive and negative subscales were good, and we found that parents’ reports of coparenting quality fluctuated on a daily basis. Also, we established the initial validity of the D-Cop, as scores related as expected to (a) an existing and already validated measure of coparenting and to (b) couple relationship quality, depressive symptoms, and child behavior problems. Further, fluctuations in daily couple relationship feelings related to fluctuations in daily coparenting quality. The D-Cop and its subscales functioned almost identically when only utilizing 7 days of data instead of 14 days. We call for future work to study day-by-day fluctuations and dynamics of coparenting to better illuminate family processes that lead to child and family outcomes in order to improve the efficacy of family interventions.     

Intentionality and meta-awareness of mind wandering: Are they one and the same,or distinct dimensions?

Researchers have recently demonstrated that mind-wandering episodes can vary on numerous dimensions, and it has been suggested that assessing these dimensions will play an important role in our understanding of mind wandering. One dimension that has received considerable attention in recent work is the intentionality of mind wandering. Although it has been claimed that indexing the intentionality of mind wandering will be necessary if researchers are to obtain a coherent understanding of the wandering mind, one concern is that this dimension might be redundant with another, longstanding, dimension: namely, meta-awareness. Thus, the utility of the argument for assessing intentionality rests upon a demonstration that this dimension is distinct from the meta-awareness dimension. To shed light on this issue, across two studies we compared and contrasted these dimensions to determine whether they are redundant or distinct. In both studies, we found support for the view that these dimensions are distinct.     

The association between religion and self-reported academic honesty among college students

Current research yields inconsistent findings about the association between religious variables and academic cheating among college students. In this study, we investigated possible reasons for this disagreement by examining whether, and to what extent, three particular religious variables: religious identity, affirmation of importance and religious services attendance, are associated with academic honesty among college students. Specifically, we utilised a sample of 2503 American college-aged students from Gallup^® daily tracking survey and used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to address the proposed research question. Research findings indicate that religious service attendance is positively associated with academic honesty among college students. Specifically, students who attend religious services more frequently are less likely to be engaged in academic misconduct than students who attend less frequently. This finding remains consistent when other important factors such as student attitudes toward cheating and gender were included in the analysis.     

Career Concerns for People Living With HIV/AIDS

The purpose of this study was to identify the career concerns of people living with HIV/AIDS. The authors used qualitative research methodology to ask participants to discuss the impact their diagnosis has had on their career development concerns and their career goals. Based on participants' interview responses, the authors classified their concerns as relating to career or workplace issues, medical issues, or coping resources. Career counseling implications for each category are discussed.     

Culture, memory, and the self: An analysis of the personal and collective self in long-term memory

We used a memory paradigm to test whether the nature of representations of the self within long-term memory differed as a function of cultural background. In Western samples words encoded in relation to the self are typically remembered better, and Euro-Canadian participants here showed this standard self-reference effect. However, Asian-Canadian participants were slower to recognize personal traits (as opposed to collective traits) when these traits had been encoded in reference to the self, suggesting a more elaborate representation of the collective self than the personal self in long-term memory. Further, memory was actually inhibited for Asian-Canadians when personal traits were encoded in reference to the self (vs. encoded with other referents). Differences in long-term memory trace strength for self-related data may emerge even as differences in the working self do not, and implications of this difference are discussed.     

Smokers' expectancies for smoking versus nicotine

This study compared smokers' expectancies for the full act of smoking with those for nicotine per se by means of a word association task. Smokers (N = 201) were randomized to receive instructions to complete either "Smoking makes one ____." or "Nicotine makes one ____." with as many words as possible within 30 s. Results indicated that smokers held similar expectancies for smoking and nicotine; however, negative consequences (e.g., health risks) were more associated with smoking than with nicotine, and addiction expectancies were more associated with nicotine than with smoking. These findings suggest that smokers have a more realistic conceptualization of nicotine's role in smoking than had been indicated from earlier surveys. These findings have important implications for both nicotine-based and behavioral interventions, as well as for experimental designs that rely upon the perceived manipulation of nicotine content.     

Developing networks in disempowered communities: Experiencing hardships while focusing on opportunities

This study aims to present an evaluation and the process steps of a community‐based initiative (CBI) consisting of a group of organizations that work to enhance the lives of boys and men of colour. Using a participatory research model, the researchers collaborated with 14 community stakeholders to develop the questions during two data collection periods and reviewed the reports for accuracy. The findings were separated into two broad categories. The perceived challenges included a lack of clear goals and measurements of success, an absence of leadership and direction, and a shortage of resources. The successes included passion of partners, increased collaboration, and increasing and maintaining social capital within the community. The lessons learned from both data collection periods helped this CBI broaden its reach and collaboration efforts. Overall, this study provides suggestions to other CBIs as they embark on making changes in their own communities.