He's a Laker; She's a “Looker”: The Consequences of Gender-Stereotypical Portrayals of Male and Female Athletes by the Print Media

Although an extensive qualitative literature shows that coverage of women's sport often focuses on female athletes' attractiveness (to the exclusion of their athleticism), there is a dearth of quantitative research examining exactly what effect this coverage has on people's perceptions of athletes. As part of a 2 (Gender of the Athlete: Female or Male) × 2 (Gender of the Participant: Female or Male) × 2 (Focus of the Article: Physical Attractiveness or Athleticism) between-subjects design, 92 predominantly White undergraduates (40 men, 52 women) read a fictitious newspaper profile about an Olympic athlete in which the article focused on the athlete's attractiveness (as coverage of female athletes often does) or on the athlete's athleticism (as coverage of male athletes often does). Interestingly, participants neither had favorable impressions of nor liked articles about female and male athletes when attractiveness was the main focus of an article. These findings suggest that the media should be cognizant of the harmful and erroneous impressions that can result from portraying athletes in terms of their personal attributes rather than their athletic accomplishments.     

Factor Structure of the Burden Interview

Zarit's Burden Interview is the most commonly used measure of burden among family caregivers for demented older adults, but has been criticized for its diverse item content and lack of correspondence to theoretically based multidimensional burden scales. The factor structure of this measure of burden was examined in a sample of 220 family caregivers of demented elderly. The implied 1-factor model and a 2-factor model proposed in the literature were not good fits to the data. Fourteen of the 21 nonglobal items were found to tap three underlying factors of Embarrassment/Anger, Patient's Dependency, and Self-criticism. This factor structure was replicated in a second sample of 108 caregivers. The relationship of these factors to latent factors identified in other multifactorial burden scales suggests a greater degree of convergence across measures than has been assumed.     

Family and Neighborhood Fit or Misfit and the Adaptation of Mexican Americans

In this study, a person-environment fit model was used to understand the independent and combined roles of family and neighborhood characteristics on the adjustment of adults and children in a sample of 750 Mexican American families. Latent class analysis was used to identify six qualitatively distinct family types and three quantitatively distinct neighborhood types using socioeconomic and cultural indicators at each level. The results showed that members of single-parent Mexican American families may be particularly at-risk, members of the lowest-income immigrant families reported fewer adaptation problems if they lived in low-income neighborhoods dominated by immigrants, members of economically successful immigrant families may be more at-risk in integrated middle class neighborhoods than in low-income neighborhoods dominated by immigrants, and members of two-parent immigrant families appear to be rather resilient in most settings despite their low socioeconomic status.     

Stress in youth sport: A developmental investigation of tennis parents

ObjectiveThis study investigated the stage-specific stressors experienced by British tennis parents whose children were situated either in the sampling, specializing or investment stages of participation in the sport [Côtè, J. (1999). The influence of the family in the development of talent in sport. The Sport Psychologist, 13, 395–417].Design and methodA qualitative design was employed with semi-structured interviews conducted with twenty two British tennis parents; six parents representing each of the first two stages of sports participation and ten representing the investment stage. Data was analyzed through a process of inductive content analysis following the method proposed by Miles and Huberman [Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. London: Sage]. Data matrices were developed for each category of parent to allow for the comparison of the data between themes.Results and conclusionThree general dimensions of parental stressor emerged: Organizational, Competitive and Developmental. Organizational stressors included demands related to finance, time, training and coaching, and governing body systems; competitive stressors related to behavior, performance and morality-related issues associated with their child's matches; and developmental stressors centered on educational issues, uncertainty of tennis transitions, and future decision making. While sampling stage parents encountered few developmental stressors compared to later stage parents, a range of competitive stressors were highly prominent. Organizational stressors were particularly foremost for specializing and investment stage parents. Implications are discussed with reference to further research into the parental stress process and to the importance of stage-specific parent education initiatives.     

A video‐based procedure for the assessment of prospective memory

Prospective memory, or the everyday activity of remembering to remember, is frequently deficient in persons with brain injuries. However, few clinically useful measures of this ability are available. We report the results of three studies using student participants, conducted to examine the psychometric credentials of a video‐based method of assessing prospective remembering. This procedure requires participants to watch a video segment recorded moving through a shopping precinct and to recall preassigned instructions (e.g. ‘Buy a Big Mac at McDonald's’) in response to cues appearing on the videotape. Study 1 showed that the video procedure is reliable and easier to complete when the video footage is set in a familiar location. Study 2 confirmed that familiarity enhances recall and demonstrated that pre‐exposure to the unfamiliar video stimuli could partially attenuate this effect. In Study 3 it was found that performance on the video‐based task was correlated with performance on an equivalent real life memory task providing evidence for criterion validity. The findings from these studies demonstrate that clinical and experimental measures of prospective memory with high ecological validity can be constructed based on video recordings of everyday activities. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Part‐based representations of the body in early childhood: evidence from perceived distortions of tactile space across limb boundaries

Studies show that touch in adults is referenced to a representation of the body that is structured topologically according to body parts; the perceived distance between two stimuli crossing over a body part boundary is elongated relative to the perceived distance between two stimuli presented within one body part category. Here we investigate this influence of body parts on tactile space perception in children of 5, 6 and 7 years of age. We presented children with pairs of tactile stimuli on the left hand/arm, either within the hand, within the forearm, or over the wrist. With their eyes closed children were asked to adjust the distance between the thumb and forefinger of their right hand to represent the felt distance between the two tactile stimuli. Like adults, the children perceived the distance between two stimuli that cross the body part boundary to be further apart than those that were presented within the hand or arm. They also perceive tactile distance to be greater on the hand than the arm which is the first observation of Weber's illusion in young children. We propose that a topological mode of body representation is particularly advantageous during early life given that body part categories remain constant while the metric proportions of the body change substantially as the child grows.     

Testing the Role of Aspirations,Future Expectations,and Strain on the Development of Problem Behaviors across Young and Middle Adulthood

Using prospective data collected across 14 years by the National Youth Survey Family Study (N = 1,436), we assessed change in aspirations, future expectations, and strain, as well as contemporaneous and longitudinal effects of these predictors on drug use, offending, and the perpetration of intimate partner violence. Growth curve models showed that, although time significantly predicted change in these variables, trajectories remained relatively stable. Contemporaneous random-intercept regression models revealed that all three measures were associated with all three problem behaviors. The effects were predictive longitudinally but some associations and gender differences were attenuated when controlling for prior involvement in outcomes.     

The four P’s of purpose among College Bound students: People,propensity, passion,prosocial benefits

Abstract

College preparation programs, such as College Bound, aim to increase low-income students’ preparation for achieving future goals. Yet, little research has examined the nature of these students’ future goals and purposes from their own perspectives. In this study, in-depth interviews with 10 adolescents (six males and four females) participating in College Bound were analyzed using a qualitative approach informed by grounded theory. Four interrelated themes related to the development of youth purpose emerged: (a) people; (b) propensity; (c) passion; and (d) prosocial benefits. These themes were further categorized across two major dimensions: influences (i.e. capability and motivation) and sources of such influences (i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic). Moreover, ways in which students’ unique social contexts contributed to their experiences of purpose are discussed. Findings inform an understanding of the development of purpose in underrepresented youth, as well as provide insights for programs designed to promote their positive development and post-secondary school success.