How Does Family Connectedness Contribute to Youths’ Health? The Mediating Role of Coping Strategies

Family connectedness has important implications for adolescents’ well-being, contributing to their physical, psychological, and social health. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying these effects. The present longitudinal study examined the process by which family connectedness, as perceived by adolescents, predicted greater positive and fewer negative health behaviors in adolescents over time. In particular, we sought to determine whether adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies mediated the link between family connectedness and adolescents’ self-reported health status. Data were obtained from 1,774 New Zealand adolescents aged 10–17 years, who completed a self-report survey three times at one-year intervals. With longitudinal mediation path models, we tested whether maladaptive and adaptive coping strategies at T2 functioned as mediators between family connectedness at T1 and overall health, vitality, sleep sufficiency, body satisfaction, substance use, and self-harm at T3. Findings revealed that family connectedness predicted greater levels of adaptive coping, which, in turn, predicted better health indicators but not decreases in ill-health indicators. Furthermore, family connectedness predicted lower maladaptive coping, which, in turn, predicted higher levels of positive health outcomes and fewer negative health outcomes. Results showed that the positive effect of family connectedness on adolescents’ health occurred through increased use of adaptive coping strategies, decreased use of maladaptive coping strategies, or both. These results have important implications for practitioners working with adolescents and parents, as well as for health promotion program developers.     

The Hill Interaction Matrix

The Hill Interaction Matrix represents a system of classifying group process and group progress, which has been empirically derived and systematically researched. Leadership style, group composition, and group development are simultaneously quantified through the use of this matrix. It represents an attempt to objectify the art of group therapy.     

Confronting Sexism: The Role of Relationship Orientation and Gender

This study examined whether relationship orientation was associated positively with confronting sexism and whether confronting sexism was associated positively with competence, self-esteem, and empowerment for women but not men in stereotypically masculine domains. Men and women undergraduates from a United States Midwestern university (n?=?165) were exposed to a sexist statement during a staged, online interaction. Relationship orientation, confronting (i.e., publically rating the sexist statement as problematic and inappropriate), competence, self-esteem, and empowerment were assessed. Consistent with hypotheses, relationship orientation was associated positively with confronting. Additionally, confronting was associated positively with competence, self-esteem, and empowerment for women but not men. Implications for interpersonal confrontation, relationship orientation, and gender differences in response to everyday sexism are discussed.     

Social representations of health and illness: the case of the Chinese community in England

This paper reports results from a qualitative study on social representations of health and illness among the Chinese community in England. It is assumed that representations of health and illness are grounded in cultural frameworks and are constructed through communication, social interaction and the practices of daily life. Our findings show that in spite of differences related to age and degrees of acculturation, Chinese people in England share a common representational system with respect to health and illness. This system is based on the traditional notions of “balance” and “harmony” between the interdependent forces of Yin and Yang. Health results from balance, whereas illness is brought about by disequilibrium. It is through these traditional Chinese concepts that Western biomedical knowledge is incorporated, producing a mixed representational field where Chinese and Western knowledge co‐exist. This representational field is transmitted through the most fundamental dimensions of culture: food, language and kinship relations. We conclude by showing that social representations of health and illness are inseparable from the struggles over identity experienced by the Chinese people in England. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social representations of the individual: a post-Communist perspective

Social representations of the individual are examined in three post-Communist Central European nations, i.e. the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and in three West European nations, i.e. Scotland, England and France. All six nations share a common European history since the Renaissance and Humanism, based on such values as freedom, agency, individual rights and individual responsibility. Many of these values were rejected by the Communist regimes in which people lived for 40 years. Extreme forms of individualism developed in certain West European nations during the same period. In view of these historical events we have asked the following questions: Do people in the post-Communist countries of Central Europe, after 40 years of totalitarian collectivism, still adhere to the values of the common European heritage? What is the meaning of ‘the individual’ today, in Western democracies and in Central European post-Communist nations? Which issues are important for the well-being of the individual and how do they relate to the political and economic circumstances of those individuals? The results show that the values of the common European heritage in Central Europe have not been destroyed and that factors relating to the well-being of the individual differ between the two parts of Europe. These data are discussed in terms of the political and economic situations in Central and Western Europe, the relationship between language and social representations and the structure of social representations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evidence for an Association between Men’s Spontaneous Objectifying Gazing Behavior and their Endorsement of Objectifying Attitudes toward Women

Sex Roles - Despite growing scientific interest in the sexually objectifying male gaze, the relation between men’s gazing behavior and their sexually objectifying attitudes has not yet been...     

Reactions to the implicit association test as an educational tool: A mixed methods study

We examined reactions to the Race Implicit Association Test (IAT), which has been widely used but rarely examined as an educational tool to raise awareness about racial bias. College students $(N=172)$ were assigned to read that the IAT reflected either personal beliefs or both personal and extrapersonal factors (single vs. multiple explanation conditions). They then completed the IAT and quantitative measures of affect, attitudes, and belief in bias. A subset of participants $(n=32)$ also wrote reaction papers, which were used to develop qualitative themes to more fully describe reactions to the IAT. Quantitative results revealed that participants with a stronger implicit preference for European Americans more strongly believed in implicit bias in the multiple (vs. single) explanation condition. Mixed methods analyses using data transformation and typology development indicated that participants whose qualitative IAT responses were more negative were subsequently more likely to help an African American.