Maternal Parenting Behaviors and Coping in African American Children: The Influence of Gender and Stress

We examined the effects of maternal parenting behavior on coping strategies in 200 low-income, African American children (mean age = 10.41) and the role of child gender and economic stress on these effects. Participants completed measures of perceived economic stressors, coping strategies and perceptions of mothers’ parenting behaviors. Regression analyses demonstrated a main effect for maternal support on active coping and support-seeking coping. For boys, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that maternal support and economic stressors interacted to predict active and support-seeking coping. For girls, there was a significant interaction between maternal psychological control and economic stressors in the prediction of avoidant coping. Our results add to the literature on the effects of parent–child relationships on children’s responses to stress.     

Projekt „Brisant“

Die hier vorgestellte Ma?nahme versucht die Lücke zwischen station?rer Entw?hnungsbehandlung und dem beruflichen (Wieder-)Einstieg zu schlie?en. Gerade nach der Entlassung kommt es innerhalb der ersten drei Monate h?ufig zu Rückf?llen. Grund dafür ist unter anderem der Umstand, dass viele Verhaltens- und Denkweisen erstmals seit langer Zeit nüchtern und in abstinentem Zustand ausgehalten werden müssen. In dieser hoch sensiblen Phase ist es daher verst?ndlich, dass viele Patienten verunsichert und nicht ausreichend stabilisiert sind für die Herausforderungen der Arbeitswelt beziehungsweise der aktiven Jobsuche.     

Cultural Values and Racial Identity Attitudes Among Asian American Students: An Exploratory Investigation

The content and structure of cultural value orientations were investigated in a group of Asian American undergraduate and graduate students. Cultural value differences were influenced by the participant's gender and racial identity status. Findings suggest a strong preference for distinct cultural value orientations that reflect both traditional Asian and European American cultural values. Implications for counseling and future research are addressed.     

Reason to Believe: Representations of Aggression as Phenomenological Read-Out

Men tend to view their own aggression as an instrumental act aimed at imposing control, whereas women tend to view theirs as an expressive act resulting from a loss of self-control. These interpretations have been called social representations based on their presumed social origins and mode of transmission. However, if women’s self-control is generally higher than men’s, they would be expected to behave aggressively only infrequently and at higher levels of provocation. Aggression would be experienced phenomenologically as a loss of self-control. In Study 1, a student sample, men scored higher than women on instrumental beliefs, impulsivity, and risk seeking. As predicted, instrumental beliefs were associated with higher impulsive risk seeking and an expressive representation was positively associated with temper. In Study 2, an offender sample, there were no gender differences in instrumental beliefs, physical aggression, temper, carelessness, and present orientation. Instrumental beliefs were again associated with impulsive risk seeking and, to a lesser extent, temper. Expressive beliefs were again associated with temper and, to a lesser extent, present orientation. Physical aggression was associated with holding instrumental beliefs, impulsive risk seeking, and temper. The model is broadly supported and directions for future work are suggested.     

Differences in Individual and Dyadic Coping Among Low and High Depressed, Partially Remitted, and Nondepressed Persons

Investigations of the individual and interpersonal coping resources of depressed persons are underrepresented in the field of research on depression. Whereas some studies have been conducted on depressed couples evaluating individual coping or social support from others, only a few studies have addressed the topic of dyadic coping, or the way both partners cope together. In the present effort, male and female participants with a current or past diagnosis of depression, all of whom were married or cohabiting in a close relationship, reported on their individual and dyadic coping and were compared on these variables with a matched group of control participants. Results corroborate previous findings on deficits in individual coping, and to a lesser degree in dyadic coping.     

Effects of Touch on Gratuities Received in Same‐Gender and Cross‐Gender Dyads1

This study examined whether or not a nonreciprocal brief shoulder touch would increase gratuities received by servers. Data from 400 patrons were collected by 4 servers who enacted the touch manipulation while working in 2 separate eating establishments. The findings revealed that servers who touched their patrons did receive larger gratuities than servers who did not touch their patrons. Further, in one setting, servers received larger tips from patrons who were of the opposite gender than from patrons who were of the same gender. These results support the ubiquitous influence of a fleeting touch on gratuities, and the possibility that, in certain situations, touch may be more advantageous when done by members of the opposite gender.     

Examining Rape Empathy From the Perspective of the Victim and the Assailant1

Two studies using college student samples were conducted to establish reliability and validity for new scales measuring rape victim empathy and rape perpetrator empathy separately. In Experiment 1, two 13‐item measures of rape empathy were developed. Variables examined for purposes of construct validity included personal sexual assault experience, general empathy, and perceived rape victim responsibility. In Experiment 2, we added 5 new items to each scale. The final scales were two 18‐item measures with high reliability. Variables examined in Experiment 2 included personal sexual assault, general empathy, and acquaintanceship with a victim or a perpetrator. Both studies found gender differences for empathy scores, with women tending to be higher on rape victim empathy, and men tending to be higher on rape perpetrator empathy. Personal sexual experience was related to rape empathy scores. Perceived victim responsibility was negatively correlated with rape victim empathy and positively correlated with rape perpetrator empathy.     

the adult career concerns inventory: Development of a short form

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a short form of the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI; D. E. Super, A. S. Thompson, & R. H. Lindeman, 1988), a measure of career stage that is based on D. E. Super's (1990) theory of career development. Participants were 260 college students who completed surveys. Examination of Cronbach's alpha indicated adequate reliability for the ACCI—Short Form. The multitrait‐multimethod matrix was used to compare the short form method with the long form method across the 4 career stages. Results indicated adequate convergent validity.     

Suppression and hypothesis testing: does suppressing stereotypes during interactions help to avoid confirmation biases?

Recent work indicates that trying not to think in stereotypical terms increases the accessibility of stereotypical information, which paradoxically results in more stereotypical judgments. The present study translated the colour‐blindness ideology in general and stereotype suppression research in particular into an hypothesis testing setting. Participants who were asked to suppress their stereotypes when selecting a set of questions were indeed less guided by ambient stereotypes than control participants, thereby showing a reduction of the classical confirmation orientation in question preferences. Still, compared to control participants, suppressors also later reported more polarized impressions such that consistent targets were seen as more stereotypical and inconsistent ones as more counter‐stereotypical. Moreover, group evaluations were more stereotypical for suppressors than for controls indicating that suppression had led to stronger activation of the stereotypical representation. Results are discussed in light of the prevailing belief regarding the benefits of political correctness and colour‐blindness. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parental investment in schooling: Evidence from a subsistence farming community in South Africa

Interviews were carried out amongst a cohort of 488 parents who lived as subsistence farmers in a remote and very poorly resourced region of South Africa. The majority of respondents had invested heavily in the education of their children, contrary to what might have been predicted from large family sizes and the economic and ecological pressures that families faced. There was little evidence of child specialization, in which educational investment might have been targeted more to some children than others in a family. However, relatively wide birth spacing may have made the financial and opportunity costs of schooling more manageable. This speculation is given some support by two findings: first, that the number of grades of schooling children complete before leaving increases significantly as birth spacing increases; second, that children who are still in school progress more rapidly as birth interval increases. Greater opportunities for the schooling of sons (made possible by low rates of migrant labour in the community), coupled with high opportunity costs associated with the schooling of daughters, made it likely that sons would be educated to a higher level than daughters. However, there was consistent evidence for gender equity in schooling patterns. This is attributed to the lower risk of financial and opportunity losses that are associated with rearing daughters in this particular community. Birth order exerted only modest effects on the decisions parents made about schooling their offspring. The investment strategy as a whole could be interpreted as “bet‐hedging” under conditions where events outside parental control prevented them from targeting investment to children who could be readily identified as having favourable educational and employment prospects. It is concluded that parents invest in their sons and daughters in a manner that can only be understood when the complexities of their particular social, economic, and ecological contexts are taken into account.