Perceptions of Parenting Style Among College Students in India and the United States

Although a growing body of psychological literature has examined the influence of culture on parenting style, relatively less attention has been paid to gender differences in parenting style across cultures. The present study examined perceptions of parenting style as a function of participant’s culture, participant’s gender, and parent gender in college students in India and the United States. Using a new vignette-based self-report measure that characterizes each of Baumrind’s three parenting styles, participants rated perceptions of effectiveness, helpfulness, caring, and normativeness of each style. Contrary to expectation, results showed that Indian college students considered the parent demonstrating permissive parenting to be more effective and helpful than US college students. In contrast, US college students considered the parents demonstrating authoritative and authoritarian parenting to be more effective, helpful, and caring than Indian college students. A majority of Indian and US college students selected the parent demonstrating authoritative parenting as most similar to their own parents, and the type of parent they wish to be in the future. Females considered the parent demonstrating authoritative parenting to be more effective and helpful than males. Relatively few effects of parent gender were found.     

Unrecognized Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a Treatment Barrier for a Gang-Involved Juvenile Offender

This study examines the case of GH, an 18-year-old Latino male participating in an employment-based delinquency intervention for gang-affiliated youth. Although postintervention measures revealed that GH showed gains on key outcomes (i.e., delinquency, employment), he experienced sporadic treatment setbacks (e.g., work absenteeism, fighting) that disrupted his progress. A comprehensive psychological assessment suggested that his aggressive, illegal behavior and difficulty maintaining employment could have been influenced by previously undiagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Excerpts from counseling sessions illustrated how reactive aggression, hypervigilance, sleep disruptions, and emotional numbing could have interfered with treatment gains and ultimately contributed to GH's re-arrest. Implications for early, accurate identification of PTSD in delinquency interventions for gang youth are discussed.     

Spatial limits on the nonvisual self-touch illusion and the visual rubber hand illusion: Subjective experience of the illusion and proprioceptive drift

The nonvisual self-touch rubber hand paradigm elicits the compelling illusion that one is touching one’s own hand even though the two hands are not in contact. In four experiments, we investigated spatial limits of distance (15 cm, 30 cm, 45 cm, 60 cm) and alignment (0°, 90° anti-clockwise) on the nonvisual self-touch illusion and the well-known visual rubber hand illusion. Common procedures (synchronous and asynchronous stimulation administered for 60 s with the prosthetic hand at body midline) and common assessment methods were used. Subjective experience of the illusion was assessed by agreement ratings for statements on a questionnaire and time of illusion onset. The nonvisual self-touch illusion was diminished though never abolished by distance and alignment manipulations, whereas the visual rubber hand illusion was more robust against these manipulations. We assessed proprioceptive drift, and implications of a double dissociation between subjective experience of the illusion and proprioceptive drift are discussed.     

Synchronicity in the cosmic blueprint

Gerhard Adler'S interest in synchronicity and the “extension of experience” in death reminded us of Paul Davies' recent update of Jung's concept of synchronicity from the viewpoint of modern physics. The following passage is from Davies' book, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe (Simon & Schuster, 1988). Davies, who was a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, prefaced this discussion of Jung with one of the most lucid introductions to the new mathematical science of complexity and chaos we have ever read     

Book reviews

Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1992, 654 pp. ISBN 0–300–053425–8.

Harvey Ferguson, Religious Transformation in Western Society: The End of Happiness. London and New York, Routledge, 1992, xvi, 269 pp. ISBN 0–415–02574–5.

Religiones Latinoamericanas 1 (Religiones: Cuestiones Tcoricometodoiogicas), Mexico City, Asociación Latinoamericana para el Estudio de las Religiones. January‐June 1991.

Revista de Estudios Budistas I, 1, Mexico City, Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios Budistas. April 1991.

Koichi Shinohara and Gregory Schopen (eds), From Benares to Beijing: Essays on Buddhism and Chinese Religion. Canada, Mosaic Press, 1992, 304 pp. ISBN 0–88962–443–7.

Robert E. Buswell, Jr and Robert M. Gimello (eds), Paths to Liberation: The Mārga and its Transformations in Buddhist Thought. Honolulu: Kuroda Institute, University of Hawaii Press, 1992, ix, 525 pp.

Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut (eds), Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. New York, The Jewish Publication Society, 1992, i‐340 pp. ISBN 0–8276–0395–9.

Akbar S. Ahmed, Resistance and Control in Pakistan. London, Routledge, 1991. 2nd edition, first published in 1983 under the tide Religion and Politics in Muslim Society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, xx + 207 pp., £12.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–415–05797–3.

Garry Wills, Under God: Religion and American Politics. New York and London, Simon and Schuster, 1990, 445 pp., £17.99 (hardback), £9.99 (paperback).

J. Andrew Overman and Robert S. MacLennan (eds), Diaspora Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor of and in Dialogue with, A. Thomas Kraabel. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 41, Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press, 1992, xviii + 368 pp., no price given. ISBN 1 55540 696 3.

Christine Trevett, Women and Quakerism in the 17th Century. York, Sessions Book Trust, The Ebor Pess, 1991, 171 pp.

Jan Peter Schouten, Revolution of the Mystics: On the Social Aspects of Viraiaivism. Kampcn, The Netherlands, Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1991, xiii + 331 pp. ISBN 90 242 3425 5.

Michael L. Budde, The Two Churches: Catholicism and Capitalism in the World System. Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1992, 172 pp., £25.00. ISBN 0–8223–1229–8.

Teun Goudriaan (ed.), Ritual and Speculation in Early Tantrism: Studies in Honor of André Padoux. SUNY Series in Tantric Studies, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1992, xv + 359 pp. ISBN 0–7914–0898–1.

Robert S. Shepard, God's People in the Ivory Tower: Religion in the Early American University. Brooklyn, Carlson, 1991, 174 pp. $50.00. ISBN 0–926019–56–2.     

Girls’ Spatial Skills and Arithmetic Strategies in First Grade as Predictors of Fifth-Grade Analytical Math Reasoning

This study investigated longitudinal pathways leading from early spatial skills in first-grade girls to their fifth-grade analytical math reasoning abilities (N = 138). First-grade assessments included spatial skills, verbal skills, addition/subtraction skills, and frequency of choice of a decomposition or retrieval strategy on the addition/subtraction problems. In fifth grade, girls were given an arithmetic fluency test, a mental rotation spatial task, and a numeric and algebra math reasoning test. Using structural equation modeling, the estimated path model accounted for 87% of the variance in math reasoning. First-grade spatial skills had a direct pathway to fifth-grade math reasoning as well as an indirect pathway through first-grade decomposition strategy use. The total effect of first-grade spatial skills was significantly higher in predicting fifth-grade math reasoning than all other predictors. First-grade decomposition strategy use had the second strongest total effect, while retrieval strategy use did not predict fifth-grade math reasoning. It was first-grade spatial skills (not fifth-grade) that directly predicted fifth-grade math reasoning. Consequently, the results support the importance of early spatial skills in predicting later math. As expected, decomposition strategy use in first grade was linked to fifth-grade math reasoning indirectly through first-grade arithmetic accuracy and fifth-grade arithmetic fluency. However, frequency of first-grade decomposition use also showed a direct pathway to fifth-grade arithmetic reasoning, again stressing the importance of these early cognitive processes on later math reasoning.     

A technique for continuous measurement of body movement from video

The movements that we make with our body vary continuously along multiple dimensions. However, many of the tools and techniques presently used for coding and analyzing hand gestures and other body movements yield categorical outcome variables. Focusing on categorical variables as the primary quantitative outcomes may mislead researchers or distort conclusions. Moreover, categorical systems may fail to capture the richness present in movement. Variations in body movement may be informative in multiple dimensions. For example, a single hand gesture has a unique size, height of production, trajectory, speed, and handshape. Slight variations in any of these features may alter how both the speaker and the listener are affected by gesture. In this paper, we describe a new method for measuring and visualizing the physical trajectory of movement using video. This method is generally accessible, requiring only video data and freely available computer software. This method allows researchers to examine features of hand gestures, body movement, and other motion, including size, height, curvature, and speed. We offer a detailed account of how to implement this approach, and we also offer some guidelines for situations where this approach may be fruitful in revealing how the body expresses information. Finally, we provide data from a small study on how speakers alter their hand gestures in response to different characteristics of a stimulus to demonstrate the utility of analyzing continuous dimensions of motion. By creating shared methods, we hope to facilitate communication between researchers from varying methodological traditions.     

Rated age-of-acquisition norms for over 3,200 German words

Words that have been learned early in life are responded to faster than words that have been acquired later. Subjective ratings of acquisition ages have been successfully employed to study the effect of age of acquisition (AoA). Although a large number of norms exist in many languages, fewer are available for German. Therefore, subjective AoA ratings for 3,259 German words were collected online, including 2,363 nouns and 473 verbs. These words were presented in lists of 140 words, and participants rated the age in years at which they had first learned each word. A split-half correlation testified to a high internal reliability. There were also high correlations with rated AoA values for subsets of the items that had been collected in previous studies, in both German and English. Age and gender were found to influence the ratings very weakly, in that older and male participants tended to give slightly higher age ratings. Education, multilingualism, and frequent usage of languages other than German did not exert an influence on the rating values. These new ratings will extend the currently existing norms available for language and reading research across languages and will provide researchers with a wider choice of word stimuli. The ratings are available expressed in two measurements: age in years, and AoA rated on a 7-point Likert scale.     

Development and Validation of the Scientific Reasoning Scale

Scientific findings and innovations play an important role in a range of decisions faced by nonscientists, yet little is known about the skills that nonscientists need in order to read and evaluate scientific evidence. Drawing on research in public understanding of science, cognitive developmental psychology, and behavioral decision research, we develop an individual difference measure of scientific reasoning skills, defined as the skills needed to evaluate scientific findings in terms of the factors that determine their quality. We present the results of three studies assessing its psychometric validity. Our results indicate that the Scientific Reasoning Scale (SRS) is internally consistent and distinct from extant measures of scientific literacy. Participants with higher SRS scores are more likely to have beliefs consistent with the scientific consensus on potentially contentious issues, above and beyond education, political and religious beliefs, and scores on two widely used measures of scientific literacy. Participants with higher SRS scores also had better performance on a task requiring them to analyze scientific information. Our results suggest that the SRS provides a theoretically informed contribution to decoding lay responses to scientific results and controversies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Long-Term Impact of Family Routines and Parental Knowledge on Alcohol Use and Health Behaviors: Results from a 14 Year Follow-Up

Previous research has found significant associations between family routines (e.g., time shared and family meals), parenting characteristics, and later adolescent health behaviors. In general, greater family interactions, parental monitoring, and more optimal parenting style have been associated with less alcohol use during adolescence. We expanded upon this work by examining effects of family and parenting characteristics on alcohol use and health behaviors during young adulthood. We also followed tenets of the Contextual Model of Parenting by examining the moderating effects of parenting style on the associations between parent/family practices and outcomes. Data came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. A total of 5419 youth were surveyed at 12–14 years of age, and then annually for the next 14 years; 4565 were surveyed at a 10 year follow-up and 4539 were examined at the 14 year follow-up (84% retention). Multivariate models, controlling for sex and race/ethnicity, indicated that, in general, family routines and parental knowledge in early adolescence were associated with healthier behaviors at both the 10-year and 14-follow-ups. Results also showed that the protective effects of parental knowledge and family routines were strongest in families characterized by and authoritative parenting style.