Chronic stress burden, discrimination, and subclinical carotid artery disease in African American and Caucasian women.

This study examined the association between a composite index of stress that included measures of life events, ongoing stress, discrimination, and economic hardship and subclinical carotid disease among 109 African America and 225 Caucasian premenopausal women. African Americans reported more chronic stress and had higher carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) as compared with Caucasians. Among African Americans only, the composite stress index and unfair treatment were associated with higher IMT. These effects were partially mediated by biological risk factors. African American who reported experiencing racial discrimination had marginally more carotid plaque than did those who did not report experiencing racial discrimination. The results suggest that African Americans may be particularly vulnerable to the burden of chronic stress.     

Rethinking Human Rights A Review Essay on Religion, Relativism, and Other Matters

In reviewing five edited collections and one monograph from the 1990s, the article summarizes the present status of the "human rights revolution" that was signaled by the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . It goes on to elaborate and evaluate some of the attempts contained in these books to deal with theoretical and practical controversies surrounding the subject of human rights, particularly the discussion of what to make of "cultural relativism" as far as human rights are concerned. Finally, the article summarizes some recent thinking and research on a neglected area, namely compliance with human rights standards protecting "freedom of religion or belief."     

A Measurement Model of Media Parenting: Differences Across Parent and Child Reports and Youth Age and Sex

For youth raised in the Digital Age, online risks such as cyberbullying and sexting have become increasingly problematic. Since digital media is primarily consumed at home, parents play an important role in mitigating these risks; parents can teach children about online dangers, regulate the amount of time spent online, and, to some extent, curate the online content children see. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of a four-factor media parenting measurement model introduced by Livingstone et al. (2011) across self-reports of a U.S. sample of parents (M_age?=?38.5) and children (ages 10–14; M_age?=?11.8). To identify meaningful group differences, latent mean comparisons were evaluated across youth age and gender. Confirmatory Factor Analysis results provided good fit to the data for the four-factor media parenting model based on both parent [χ2(201, n?=?306)?=?384.407; RMSEA_{(.046—.063)}?=?.055; CFI?=?.958; TLI/NNFI?=?.951; SRMR?=?.050] and child report [χ2(203, n?=?306)?=?378.033; RMSEA_(.045-.061)?=?.053; CFI?=?.942; TLI/NNFI?=?.934; SRMR?=?.060]. The final latent parenting factors included: Active Mediation, Monitoring, Technology Control, and Restrictive Mediation. Latent mean comparisons revealed that parents of girls reported higher levels of Monitoring than parents of boys, whereas girls reported higher levels of parental Restriction than boys. Similarly, older children and their parents reported lower Restriction than younger children and their parents. Overall, latent mean differences identified between media parenting domains may be important for youth outcomes and provide support for their inclusion as distinct factors in predictive models.