Strain,Emotion, and Suicide Among American Indian Youth

In this article, we test the utility of Agnew's general strain theory to explain suicidal behaviors among American Indian youth. Data from 721 American Indian adolescents from the Midwest and Canada were collected in partnership with participating reservations/reserves and a research team. We investigate the effects of strains/stressors on suicide, including tests of mediating effects of negative emotions on relationships between stressors and suicidality. We found that several strains/stressors were related to suicidality, including coercive parenting, caretaker rejection, negative school attitudes, and perceived discrimination. We also found that depressive symptoms and anger mediated the effects of several key predictors of suicidality. We discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our work for the general strain theory and for American Indian suicide in general.     

Adolescent Literacy Tutoring: Face-to-Face and Via Webcam Technology

The purpose of this research project was to examine the effectiveness of supervised literacy tutoring delivered by 25 secondary teacher candidates to middle and high school students via webcam technology and in person. The results stem from two semester-long studies of technology-delivered tutoring from a university to middle and high school settings. Findings support the effectiveness of delivering literacy tutoring components through 18 one-hour tutoring sessions using webcam technology with secondary teacher candidates as instructors. In addition, the data revealed that there was no significant difference in the literacy growth among those students who received tutoring in person or via webcam technology.     

The Effect of Vertical Exchange Relationships on the Performance Attributions and Subsequent Actions of Sales Managers

This study examines the type of relationship that exists between the sales manager and subordinate (vertical exchange status), and its impact on the sales manager's attributions about the subordinate performance, as well as subsequent responses to the subordinate. Results indicate that cadres may receive preferential consideration in explaining their performance, which then impacts the sales manager's response to the salesperson. The findings imply that sales managers should be careful in assigning attributions for performance by both cadre and hired hand salespersons.     

Social influences on creativity: Evaluation,coaction, and surveillance

Numerous anecdotal accounts exist of an incubation period promoting creativity and problem solving. This article examines whether incubation is an empirically verifiable phenomenon and the possible role therein of nonconscious processing. An Idea Generation Test was employed to examine (a) whether an incubation effect occurred and (b) the impact of different types of break on this effect. In the Idea Generation Test, two groups of participants were given a distracting break, during which they completed either a similar or an unrelated task, and a third group worked continuously (N = 90). The Idea Generation Test was validated against established measures of cognitive ability and personality, and was found to exhibit variance distinct from those marker tests. Most important, results demonstrated that having a break during which one works on a completely different task is more beneficial for idea production than working on a similar task or generating ideas continuously. The advantage afforded by a break cannot be accounted for in terms of relief from functional fixedness or general fatigue, and, although it may be explicable by relief from task-specific fatigue, explanations of an incubation effect in terms of nonconscious processing should be (re)considered.     

Youth civic development: theorizing a domain with evidence from different cultural contexts

The authors use examples of youth civic engagement from Chile, South Africa, Central/Eastern Europe, and the United States--and also emphasize diversities among youth from different subgroups within countries--to illustrate common elements of the civic domain of youth development. These include the primacy of collective activity for forming political identities and ideas and the greater heterogeneity of civic compared to other discretionary activities, the groupways or accumulated opportunities for acting due to the groups (social class, gender, ethnic, caste, etc.) to which a young person belongs, and the role of mediating institutions (schools, community-based organizations, etc.) as spaces where youths' actions contribute to political stability and change.     

A longitudinal examination of stress generation in depressive and anxiety disorders

The current study compared two competing theories of the stress generation model of depression (stress causation vs. stress continuation) using interview-based measures of episodic life stress, as well as interpersonal and noninterpersonal chronic life stress. We also expanded on past research by examining anxiety disorders as well as depressive disorders. In addition, we examined the role of neuroticism and extraversion in these relationships. Participants were 627 adolescents enrolled in a two-site, longitudinal study of risk factors for depressive and anxiety disorders. Baseline and follow-up assessments were approximately one year apart. Results supported the stress causation theory for episodic stress generation for anxiety disorders, with neuroticism partially accounting for this relationship. The stress causation theory was also supported for depression, but only for more moderate to severe stressors; neuroticism partially accounted for this relationship as well. Finally, we found evidence for interpersonal and noninterpersonal chronic life stress continuation in both depressive and anxiety disorders. The present findings have implications regarding the specificity of the stress generation model to depressive disorders, as well as variables involved in the stress generation process.     

The age of androgyny: The new views of psychotherapists

Male therapists no longer engage in sexual stereotyping in their views of mentally healthy men and women as 15 previous studies had shown. Both male and female therapists, both psychiatrists and psychologists, held a single androgynous standard of mental health for both men and women. Psychologists scored higher on this androgyny factor than psychiatrists. Therapists with many women patients scored higher on this androgyny factor than therapists with few women patients.     

The second androgyny: A proposed revision in adaptive priorities for college women

Evidence has accumulated suggesting that androgyny, as popularly conceived (i.e., balanced and flexible display of masculine and feminine behaviors across situations), has more adaptive value for women than for men and even that it holds less value than believed for women. Four sex types were compared in a series of studies bearing upon psychological adjustment in college women: (1) balanced androgyny, (2) blended androgyny that integrates masculinity and femininity, (3) femininity, and (4) masculinity. In three out of four studies that considered daily stress symptoms, Type A characteristics, and menstrual distress, balanced androgynes demonstrated the poorest psychological adaptation and blended androgynes the best. The fourth study considered the psychological characteristics associated with eating disorders and found feminine women to be the most maladapted. Interpretation of the trend of results in terms of identity problems for the balanced androgynous woman was offered.     

Cognitive vulnerability in children at risk for depression

Cognitive, developmental, and psychodynamic theories all hypothesize that negative self-concepts acquired in childhood may induce vulnerability to depression. Children at risk because of maternal major affective disorder, compared with children of medically ill and normal mothers, were examined for evidence of negative cognitions about themselves, and were found to have more negative self-concept, less positive self-schemas, and more negative attributional style. It was further predicted that negative cognitions about the self would be related to maternal depression and chronic stress, and to the quality of perceived and actual interactions with the mother. In general, the predicted associations were obtained, supporting speculations about how maternal affective disorder is associated with stress and with relatively negative and unsupportive relationships with children that in turn diminish children's self-regard.This research was supported by a William T. Grant Foundation award to Dr. Hammen and a Veterans Administration Merit Award to Dr. Hiroto.     

A method for studying visually guided perception and learning in newborn macaques

A maintenance technique was developed in which neonatal monkeys obtain all liquid food by placing their heads in a face mask mounted on their cage wall. Complete self-feeding required only 3-6 days for animals started at birth. Once under a self-feeding Schedule, operant responses were shaped to study visual perception, visually guided motor performance, and discrimination learning at ages much younger than those allowed by most alternative methods. Dark rearing, with the only source of visual input being through the face mask eyeholes, allowed the E to control completely the neonate’s visual experiences and its opportunities for visual-motor responding. The method has proven useful in rhesus monkey newborns for studying adaptation to prismatic displacement at 30 days of age, and to performance on CRF, FI, and FR reinforcement schedules.