Families created through surrogacy: mother-child relationships and children's psychological adjustment at age 7

Each year, an increasing number of children are born through surrogacy and thus lack a genetic and/or gestational link with their mother. This study examined the impact of surrogacy on mother-child relationships and children's psychological adjustment. Assessments of maternal positivity, maternal negativity, mother-child interaction, and child adjustment were administered to 32 surrogacy, 32 egg donation, and 54 natural conception families with a 7-year-old child. No differences were found for maternal negativity, maternal positivity, or child adjustment, although the surrogacy and egg donation families showed less positive mother-child interaction than the natural conception families. The findings suggest that both surrogacy and egg donation families function well in the early school years.     

Correlates of intimate partner psychological aggression perpetration in a clinical sample of alcoholic men

This study longitudinally examined correlates of intimate partner psychological aggression in a sample of 178 men seeking treatment for alcoholism and their partners, building on a previous investigation examining correlates of intimate partner physical aggression (Taft et al., 2010). The men were largely Caucasian; average age was 41.0 years. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires that assessed distal and proximal predictors of psychological aggression perpetration. Distal factors, assessed at baseline, included initial alcohol problem severity, beliefs about alcohol, and antisocial personality characteristics. Proximal factors, assessed at baseline and at follow-ups 6 and 12 months later, included alcohol and drug use, relationship adjustment, and anger. Psychological aggression was assessed at all three time points. Findings showed that both groups of variables were associated with psychological aggression perpetration. Beliefs that drinking causes relationship problems and variables related to alcohol consumption exhibited the strongest associations with psychological aggression. The findings are consistent with theoretical models that emphasize both distal and proximal effects of drinking on intimate partner aggression. Implications for clinical interventions and directions for future research are discussed.     

Consumer response journey following a product-harm crisis: The role of online brand communities

Online brand communities can serve as a crucial information source about a product-harm crisis and allow consumers to seek information from others and share their opinions in a social dynamic environment. The role of an online brand community in shaping consumer responses following such a crisis nevertheless remains under-researched. Drawing from attribution theory, this research explores the dynamic and holistic consumer journey in online brand communities following a product-harm crisis, specifically examining consumer attribution as the key mechanism and consumers' decision to forgive the brand as the outcome response. This research includes two studies. First, a netnographic pilot study is conducted to provide real-world evidence for the research phenomenon and to explore consumer responses within the natural setting of an online brand community. Second, the main study uses an interpretivist epistemological approach to track the unfolding process and capture the evolution of consumer attribution and forgiveness. The results show the social nature of attribution as members engage with others in online brand communities, seeking and verifying information, sensemaking and forming opinions. The findings make theoretical contributions to the literature on attribution and product-harm crisis. The findings from the research also help brands make informed decisions on crisis management strategies.     

Early Maternal Spatial Support for Toddlers and Math Skills in Second Grade

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to investigate whether maternal spatial support during two types of joint manipulative toy play tasks with 2-year-old children was longitudinally associated with math screening test scores in second grade. The interaction between spatial support and maternal education was explored as well. We also investigated predictions of a teacher rating of math performance at second grade, although these effects were less robust. Data were drawn from BONDS (The Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental Study), a longitudinal study of Norwegian children and their families. Participants were a subsample of 932 mothers and their 2-year-olds. Mothers were asked to help their children solve both a puzzle task and a shape-color sorting task. Mothers’ spatial support included spatial language, gestures, and placement of objects. Results showed that higher levels of spatial support during mother-child interaction tasks at 2 years of age was significantly associated with fewer math difficulties in second grade. This was the case for a puzzle task (a task associated with spatial visualization skills), but not for a shape-color sorting task (a task associated with shape and color feature discriminations). Conclusions are drawn with respect to the importance of identifying optimal parental spatial strategies associated with better math outcomes. These findings on parental facilitation of spatial skills during joint early play may be useful for future training interventions directed at parents of children at risk for poor math skills.     

“Why Can’t Boys Be #LikeAGirl?”: Sticky Essentialism and Ambivalent (De)gendering in Fathers’ Online Accounts of Children’s Gender and Sexuality

In our media-centric age, stories and commentary about children’s gender socialization are exchanged online. Yet we know quite little about how fathers interpret the gender and sexual identities of their children and share those interpretations with others via social media. In this article, I present findings from a qualitative content analysis of blog posts about children’s gender and sexuality (n?=?122) written by American and Canadian fathers (n?=?36). I apply Kane’s (2012) “gender trap” typology to analyze how dad bloggers support and/or challenge heteronormative gendered identities, behaviors, relationships, and activities for children. Most of these fathers present anxious accounts of experimenting with gender-neutral parenting, imagining their children in future roles and relationships, permitting nonconformity in girls versus boys, and connecting childrearing to broader social inequalities. I develop the concepts of sticky essentialism—to demonstrate how essentialist logics permeate fathers’ explanations for gendered childhoods, and ambivalent (de)gendering—to explain fathers’ mixed feelings toward heteronormative gender socialization and accountability. To conclude, I discuss risks and benefits of fathers blogging publicly about children’s gender and sexuality.

     

Correlations Between Handshape and Movement in Sign Languages

Sign language phonological parameters are somewhat analogous to phonemes in spoken language. Unlike phonemes, however, there is little linguistic literature arguing that these parameters interact at the sublexical level. This situation raises the question of whether such interaction in spoken language phonology is an artifact of the modality or whether sign language phonology has not been approached in a way that allows one to recognize sublexical parameter interaction. We present three studies in favor of the latter alternative: a shape-drawing study with deaf signers from six countries, an online dictionary study of American Sign Language, and a study of selected lexical items across 34 sign languages. These studies show that, once iconicity is considered, handshape and movement parameters interact at the sublexical level. Thus, consideration of iconicity makes transparent similarities in grammar across both modalities, allowing us to maintain certain key findings of phonological theory as evidence of cognitive architecture.     

Diverging Perceptions of Personal Moral Values and the Values of One's Religious Group

A popular notion in many religions is that less pious individuals are also less moral. We sought to test the self-described moral values of religious and nonreligious individuals under the framework of Moral Foundations Theory. In Study 1, we found that atheists differ from Christians in some moral domains. We also found evidence that Christians’ self-ratings are consistently lower than what they perceive to be the moral values of other Christians. This finding contradicts previous findings that suggest that Christians may inflate their positive characteristics relative to their peers in other domains. In Studies 2 and 3, we tested several alternative explanations for this finding. Preliminary evidence suggests that Christians rate their moral values lower in comparison to Christian exemplars such as religious leaders, and not from a sense of humility. In contrast, atheists may not have exemplars for such a comparison.