The role of gender in youth mentoring relationship formation and duration

The role of gender in shaping the course and quality of adult-youth mentoring relationships was examined. The study drew on data from a large, random assignment evaluation of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBSA) programs [Grossman, J. B., & Tierney, J. P. (1998). Does mentoring work? An impact study of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Evaluation Review, 22, 403-426], and focused on variables associated with youth’s relationships with their parents and mentors. At baseline, girls reported significantly lower levels of parental trust and higher levels of alienation from their parents than boys. Nonetheless, girls’ mentoring relationships lasted significantly longer than those of boys. Moreover, girls were less satisfied than boys in short- and medium-term relationships, but were more satisfied than boys in long-term relationships. Similarly, girls in long-term relationships rated mentoring as more helpful than either the boys or the girls in the shorter-term relationship groups. Particularly in light of the heightened mistrust and alienation from parents at baseline, and the role of improved parent relationships in mediating the effects of mentoring, the protective aspect of longer-lasting mentoring relationships may be particularly salient for girls.     

Dimensionality of subscales for emotional support in the Bosch Support Measure for survivors of domestic abuse

Items from the Emotional Support Subscale of the Bosch Support Measure were administered in a small survey of 56 formerly abused rural women in the midwestern USA. Maximum likelihood factor analyses were performed on a total of 21 items. A 5-factor solution appeared to produce the best results, but only 3 factors suggested viable subscales with Cronbach alphas greater than .80. Informal support networks in the rural areas studied here appeared to provide survivors of domestic violence with general emotional support to a greater extent than guidance on accessing professional resources and help.     

Neurobehavioral functioning in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Neurobehavioral functioning of 50 Canadian children diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) was evaluated. The aims of this study were to identify specific areas of weakness in neurobehavioral functioning, to examine whether neurobehavioral functioning was related to various predictor variables, and to determine which measures differentiated between children given a brain score of 2 (possible dysfunction) and 3 (probable dysfunction). Participants displayed difficulties with many aspects of intelligence, memory, executive functioning, and attention. Measures of Full scale and Verbal IQ, as well as memory for faces and numbers differentiated between children with a brain 2 and 3 ranking. An interesting pattern of strengths and weaknesses emerged as well as significant differences related to ethnic background, gender, and age. Aboriginal children and Caucasian children with FASD do not appear to show the same pattern of strengths and weaknesses in neurobehavioral functioning.     

Filial Responsibility and Transitions Involved: A Qualitative Exploration of Caregiving Daughters and Frail Mothers

One of the consequences of an aging society is the growing need for caregivers to the increasing number of frail older persons. This study is a qualitative examination of filial responsibility between caregiving daughters and frail mothers. It explores filial expectations and motivations and how incongruencies are met and negotiated. Twenty-two women (eleven caregiving dyads) were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. Employing the grounded theory methodology, interviews were analyzed both individually and dyadically for content and themes. What emerged from the analysis was a grounded theory framework of four intrapsychic caregiving and care-receiving transitions: (1) Realizing I am a Caregiver/Care-receiver; (2) Defining the Caregiver/Care-receiver Roles; (3) Redefining the Caregiving Relationship; and (4) Relationship Acceptance. The transitions identified here comprise a loose framework influenced by different levels of filial responsibility—personal, parental, family, and religious. In addition to the four transitions, one overarching theme called “Emotional Responses to Informal Caregiving and Care-receiving” was evident throughout the findings. Findings from this research provide a framework for understanding the often unclear transitions that daughters and mothers believe they go through. Research implications are discussed for researchers, therapists, caregiving support group leaders, and women who are contemplating or confronted with filial responsibility.     

Debiasing of Pessimistic Judgments Associated with Anxiety: A Test of the Availability Heuristic

This investigation directly tested the Consider-An-Alternative debiasing procedure and the reduction of pessimistic threat-related judgments associated with anxiety. Two separate generation interventions were included to test the availability heuristic as a possible explanation of the debiasing effect. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three interventions and probability estimates of future threat-related events were completed in a repeated measures experimental design. Level of trait anxiety was measured to assign participants to “normal” and highly anxious groups. The data were analyzed in a 3 × 2 × 2 mixed factorial repeated measures ANOVA. The results found that only the short debiasing intervention showed a significant reduction of pessimistic judgments in comparison to the control group. The results were interpreted as supporting the availability heuristic as an explanation of the debiasing effect. Further analysis also suggested that the content of recall may be as important to the debiasing effect as ease of recall.     

Racial Discrimination: A Continuum of Violence Exposure for Children of Color

This article reviews and examines findings on the impact of racial discrimination on the development and functioning of children of color in the US. Based on current definitions of violence and child maltreatment, exposure to racial discrimination should be considered as a form of violence that can significantly impact child outcomes and limit the ability of parents and communities to provide support that promotes resiliency and optimal child development. In this article, a conceptual model of the effects of racial discrimination in children of color is presented. The model posits that exposure to racial discrimination may be a chronic source of trauma in the lives of many children of color that negatively influences mental and physical outcomes as well as parent and community support and functioning. Concurrent exposure to other forms of violence, including domestic, interpersonal and/or community violence, may exacerbate these effects. The impact of a potential continuum of violence exposure for children of color in the US and the need for future research and theoretical models on children’s exposure to violence that attend to the impact of racial discrimination on child outcomes are discussed.     

Face recognition memory: The effects of exposure duration and encoding instruction

Two experiments test the effects of exposure duration and encoding instruction on the relative memory for five facial features. Participants viewed slides of Identi-kit faces and were later given a recognition test with same or changed versions of each face. Each changed test face involved a change in one facial feature: hair, eyes, chin, nose or mouth. In both experiments the upper-face features of hair and eyes were better recognized than the lower-face features of nose, mouth, and chin, as measured by false alarm rates. In Experiment 1, participants in the 20-second exposure duration condition remembered faces significantly better than participants in the 3-second exposure duration condition; however, memory for all five facial features improved at a similar rate with the increased duration. In Experiment 2, participants directed to use feature scanning encoding instructions remembered faces significantly better than participants following age judgement instructions; however, the size of the memory advantage for upper facial features was less with feature scanning instructions than with age judgement instructions. The results are discussed in terms of a quantitative difference in processing faces with longer exposure duration, versus a qualitative difference in processing faces with various encoding instructions. These results are related to conditions that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identification.