Parental involvement in competitive youth sport settings

ObjectivesBased on ecological systems theory [Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the purpose of this study was to examine parents’ involvement in competitive youth sport settings.DesignData were collected through two distinct phases of fieldwork. Phase 1 involved longitudinal data collection with four families. Phase 2 involved observations of youth soccer settings.MethodData were collected from four families via individual interviews and audio-diaries and were supplemented through 120 h of observation. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using grounded theory methodology.ResultsParents’ verbal reactions to their children's sport performance behaviors were placed on a continuum moving from more supportive to more controlling comments. These comments were categorized as praise/encouragement, performance contingent feedback, instruction, striking a balance, negative comments, and derogatory comments. Parents experienced empathy in that they perceived sharing the emotions their children felt in sport, and these emotions appeared to change in relation to dynamic game and contextual circumstances. Parents also thought that they possessed knowledge and expertise of sport, which they perceived enabled them to make comments to their children.ConclusionA series of reciprocal and bi-directional relationships were central to parents’ involvement in competitive youth sport.     

Using temporal cohesion to predict temporal coherence in narrative and expository texts

We investigated the linguistic features of temporal cohesion that distinguish variations in temporal coherence. In an analysis of 150 texts, experts rated temporal coherence on three continuous scale measures designed to capture unique representations of time. Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that assesses textual cohesion, correctly predicted the human ratings with five features of temporal cohesion. The correlations between predicted and actual scores were all statistically significant. In a complementary study, we explored the importance of temporal cohesion in characterizing genre. A discriminant function analysis, using Coh-Metrix temporal indices, successfully distinguished the genres of science, history, and narrative texts. The results suggested that history texts are more similar to narrative texts than to science texts in terms of temporal cohesion.     

The Relation of Exposure to Parental Criminal Activity,Arrest, and Sentencing to Children’s Maladjustment

We examined the psychosocial maladjustment of 32 children with an incarcerated parent from the child’s perspective as well as from the perspective of their caregiver. We focused on the relation between the incarcerated parent’s report of children’s exposure to parental criminal activity, arrest, and sentencing and caregivers’ and children’s self-reports of maladjustment. Results indicate that witnessing these events is associated with more behavior problems according to caregivers’ and children’s self-reports. Moreover, incarcerated parents’ reports of children’s exposure to these events predicted caregivers’ and children’s reports of maladjustment over a 6 month period. Our results also suggest that children with incarcerated mothers, in comparison to children with incarcerated fathers, are exposed to more of these events and may be experiencing greater maladjustment. Implications of these findings are discussed within a proactive context and the use of procedures that take children’s reactions to witnessing parental arrest and sentencing into consideration.     

Do executive and reactive disinhibition mediate the effects of familial substance use disorders on adolescent externalizing outcomes?

The present study examined the potential mediating roles of executive and reactive disinhibition in predicting conduct problems, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, and substance use among adolescents with and without a family history of substance use disorders. Using data from 247 high-risk adolescents, parents, and grandparents, structural equation modeling indicated that reactive disinhibition, as measured by sensation seeking, mediated the effect of familial drug use disorders on all facets of the adolescent externalizing spectrum. Executive disinhibition, as measured by response disinhibition, spatial short term memory, and "trait" impulsivity, was associated with ADHD symptoms. Moreover, although executive functioning weakness were unrelated to familial substance use disorders, adolescents with familial alcohol use disorders were at risk for "trait" impulsivity marked by a lack of planning. These results illustrate the importance of "unpacking" the broad temperament style of disinhibition and of studying the processes that underlie the commonality among facets of the externalizing spectrum and processes that predict specific externalizing outcomes.     

Overlap of phonetic features as a determinant of the between-stream phonological similarity effect

Serial recall from working memory is known to be impaired by the presence of irrelevant background speech, but several prior studies have concluded that the magnitude of the impairment is independent of the phonological relationship between to-be-remembered (TBR) and to-be-ignored (TBI) sources of information. In the present study, we examined the influence of between-stream phonological similarity in serial recall while attending to a heretofore uncontrolled variable, the phonetic feature. We found that TBI items sharing many phonetic features with TBR items produced significantly stronger working-memory impairments than TBI items with minimal phonetic feature overlap. In addition, participants were more likely to report remembering incorrect items that incorporated phonological characteristics of the TBI stream in the high-overlap condition. These findings provide evidence for subphonemic between-stream interactions and suggest that multiple parallel processes contribute to the irrelevant speech effect. We propose that a 2-component model, which combines the assumptions of process- and content-based accounts for the irrelevant speech effect, offers the best explanation for these findings.     

If at first you don't succeed: the neuroendocrine impact of using a range of strategies during social conflict

Using a variety of cognitive or behavioral strategies to manage stressful situations may be more adaptive than relying on a narrow selection. Although research has explored the psychological benefits of a range of coping responses, the physiological impact within and across stressful situations has not been examined. Moreover, research has primarily relied upon self-reports of what people believe they generally do across stressful situations, which may be subject to recall bias. This study observed and coded the range of behavioral response strategies that young adults (n=74, mean age 18.1) used to manage a laboratory-based, interpersonal conflict task and collected self-reports of the cognitive strategies used to manage similar stressors. Analyses examined the impact of response range on cortisol activity during the task. Greater range of observed response strategies predicted lower cortisol reactivity (t(133)=2.65; p=.009), whereas the range of self-reported strategies was unrelated to cortisol reactivity (t(133)=.53; p=.60). Results support observational assessment as an important supplement to self-reports of responses to stress and suggest that the range of strategies used to manage the momentary demands of a stressful situation may help explain individual differences in the impact of stress on physiological systems.     

The impact of appearance-focused social comparisons on body image disturbance in the naturalistic environment: the roles of thin-ideal internalization and feminist beliefs

Drawing on Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory and its modern applications, this research investigated the relationship between upward appearance-focused social comparisons and body image disturbance using ecological momentary assessment, which allows for examination of these phenomena in their natural context. Participants were 91 undergraduate women who answered questionnaires five times per day for five days using Palm Personal Data Assistant (PDA) devices. Analyses were conducted using hierarchical linear modeling, which allows for examination of longitudinal data both within and across participants. Results revealed a positive relationship between upward appearance-focused social comparisons and body image disturbance. Upward appearance-focused social comparisons were associated with greater body image disturbance for those with higher levels of thin-ideal internalization and with greater body checking for women with lower levels of feminist beliefs. These findings further illuminate the nature of the relationship between social comparisons and body image disturbance.     

Siblings in South Asia

Journal of Child and Family Studies -