The spouse subsystem in the family context: couple interaction categories

Within a semi-structured family interview (the McMaster Stuctured Interview of Family Functioning), several questions focus on intimate areas of the marital relationship. How couples answer these questions provides a window into their style of communication around potentially stressful issues. Viewing their videotaped interactions while noting their gaze patterns, dialogue, tension, and attitude, produced the following categories: Adaptive, Stable, Co-operative, Disengaged/anxious, Parallel, or Failing. Inter-observer relability was high, and the categories were related in meaningful ways to a self-report questionnaire, the McMaster Family Assessment Device, completed independently by each parent.     

Analysis of four measures of positional bias within a multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment

Positional bias is a pattern of responding to a specific location that can be influenced by response effort and/or prior learning history. Prior research on positional bias within stimulus preference assessments have focused primarily on its use in paired stimulus assessments due to the complex nature of the multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment. The present study is a secondary data analysis that utilized four different methods to measure side and center bias in a MSWO preference assessment for 19 young children with autism spectrum disorder. Participants displayed varying degrees of biased responding but collectively engaged in minimal biased responding. This study includes an analysis of the four methodologies, discussion of general patterns of responding, and general recommendations for the application of these methodologies in future research.     

Bi-directional relations between behavioral problems and executive function: Assessing the longitudinal development of self-regulation

During childhood, the ability to limit problem behaviors (i.e., externalizing) and the capacity for cognitive regulation (i.e., executive function) are often understood to develop in tandem, and together constitute two major components of self-regulation research. The current study examines bi-directional relations between behavioral problems and executive function over the course of childhood and adolescence. Relying on a diverse sample of children growing up in low-income neighborhoods, we applied a random intercept cross-lagged panel model to longitudinally test associations between behavioral problems and executive function from age 4 through age 16. With this approach, which disaggregated between- and within-child variation, we did not observe significant cross-lagged paths, suggesting that within-child development in one domain did not strongly relate to development in the other. We also observed a moderate correlation between the stable between-child components of behavioral problems and executive function over time in our preferred model, suggesting that these two domains may be relatively distinct when modeled from early childhood through adolescence.     

A Cross-Modal Comparison of Telephone and Face-to-Face Selection Interviews in Graduate Recruitment

Although there has been an increase in the use of telephone interviews for graduate recruitment by companies in the UK, there is little evidence attesting to their equivalence with traditional face-to-face selection interviews. A total of 70 candidates applying to a multinational oil corporation received both face-to-face and telephone interviews as the first stage of the 1996 graduate recruitment milkround. Group A (N = 41) received an initial face-to-face interview followed by a telephone interview and group B (N = 29) a telephone interview followed by a face-to-face interview. Findings indicate that candidates received significantly lower ratings when interviewed by telephone than when interviewed face-to-face (p ≤ 0.001). A significant interaction was also found (p ≤ 0.05) with candidates who received face-to-face interviews following telephone interviews demonstrating improved performance in their face-to-face interviews. The practical implications of these findings for companies wishing to use telephone interviews are discussed.     

Under Pressure: Differentiating Adolescents’ Expectations Regarding Stereotypic Masculine and Feminine Behavior

The present study provided a novel way to compare the pressure felt by adolescents to engage in same gender behavior and other gender behavior. A new scale of felt pressure was developed which measured the reactions participants anticipated from others if they were to engage in masculine or feminine stereotyped behaviors. The scale was tested on a sample of 297 Australian adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17. Factor analysis indicated two factors which corresponded to Masculine-Typed and Feminine-Typed behaviors. Items related to feminine-typed behaviors were designated as same gender for young women and other gender for young men, and vice versa for masculine-typed items. Analyses indicated that young men reported higher felt pressure to conform to same gender behavior than did young women, and young women reported felt pressure to conform to other gender behavior whereas young men reported pressure to avoid other gender behavior. In addition, high same gender felt pressure was associated with higher self-perceived same gender typicality and lower other gender typicality. Conversely, high other gender felt pressure was associated with high levels of other gender typicality and lower levels of same gender typicality. The presence of same and other gender felt pressure encourages theorists and practitioners to be mindful of the impact of both these influences on adolescents’ gender identity development and psychosocial adjustment.

     

Associations between appearance-related self-discrepancies and young women's and men's affect, body satisfaction, and emotional eating: a comparison of fixed-item and participant-generated self-discrepancies

This study examines the associations between appearance-related, actual-ideal self-discrepancies--from both own and romantic partner's standpoints--and negative affect, body satisfaction, and eating behavior. It extends previous research through studying both genders and the romantic partner standpoint, but its main novel contribution is a systematic comparison between idiographic, participant-generated, and nomothetic, fixed-item measures of appearance-related self-discrepancies. The findings show that these measures cannot be, and should not be, treated as equivalent. The idiographic measures were superior in predicting outcome variables when considering the own standpoint. Nomothetic measures did demonstrate some gender-specific associations, but only from the romantic partner standpoint, and only for women. These findings can be explained with respect to the assessment of accessible, versus available, self-discrepancies. Implications for self-discrepancy and body image theory and research are discussed.     

Home sweet home(s): parental separations,residential moves,and adjustment problems in low-income adolescent girls

Associations between histories of family disruption (residential moves and separations from parent figures) and adolescent adjustment (including educational, internalizing, externalizing, and sexual behavior outcomes) were examined in a random sample of 267 African American girls from 3 urban poverty neighborhoods. Higher numbers of residential moves and parental separations significantly predicted greater adolescent adjustment problems after household demographic characteristics were controlled. Adolescents' perceptions of their current relationships and neighborhoods were significantly associated with adolescent adjustment but did not mediate the effects of family disruption. Associations between parental separations and adolescent outcomes were strongest for externalizing problems and were found for both male and female caregivers, for long-standing and more temporary caregivers, and for separations in early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence.