Grandchildren's perspectives on relationships with grandparents: The influence of gender across generations

The study examines the relation between gender of grandchildren, parents and grandparents and grandchild-grandparent relationships. Subjects were 120 young adult grandchildren (ages 18–23) who provided information on the 375 grandparents they had known. Subjects reported how close they felt to their grandparents, how much they liked them, and what activities they engaged in with them. Strong effects were found for sex of grandparent and sex of parent. Grandchildren had closer relationships with grandmothers, particularly maternal grandmothers, and they tended to prefer maternal grandmothers over other grandparents. Maternal grandmothers seem to make themselves particularly accessible to grandchildren. The results suggest that the gender of the grandparent can be more important than proximity in determining the quality of grandchild-grandparent relationships.An earlier version of this paper was presented in March of 1986 at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Society for Research in Human Development. The authors thanks Richard Wenzlaff for his assistance in the analysis of the data, Billy Hoover for his assistance in collecting and coding the data, and Judith Loftus for her comments on earlier drafts of the paper.     

The effects of spontaneous and voluntary facial reactions on surprise and humor

Two investigations were conducted to determine the nature of the relationship between facial reactions and surprise and humor ratings as suggested by the facial feedback hypothesis. In the correlational investigation, individual subjects showed a positive correlation between their spontaneous facial reactions and funniness ratings over 36 cartoons (within subjects). Subjects who were facially more reactive to all the cartoons, however, did not rate them as funnier than did subjects who were less facially reactive (between subjects). In the experimental investigation, spontaneous facial reactions were evoked by a discrepant weight and also were inhibited or amplified on verbal demand. Surprise and funniness ratings varied with spontaneous facial reactions but were unaffected when those reactions were voluntarily inhibited or amplified. The results were interpreted as not supporting the facial feedback hypothesis and suggested that facial reactions may only correlate with emotional experience.These investigations were supported by Ball State University Research Grants.     

Offence,offender, and victim characteristics in South Korean filicides, 1948–1962: A descriptive study

Filicide is defined as the killing of children from birth to age 18 by a natural or step-parent. The legal definition of filicide in Korea does not impose such age limits. Although families in contemporary Korea are nuclear in structure, they were multigenerational prior to the industrialisation that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. While psychiatric and evolutionary theories have been predominantly used in the filicide literature, prior works have neglected to examine how culture shapes violence against one’s offspring. This paper explores the offence, offender, and victim characteristics in South Korean filicides (1948–1962) through a content analysis of a major newspaper (Chosun Ilbo). Results indicate that filicides occur in one-on-one contexts, primarily carried out by biological parents against their offspring while adoptive children appeared as victims due to the genealogical customs practiced in Korean society. Results indicate that more than 12% of filicide victims are adults. The implications of our findings are discussed.     

The Relation of Pro‐Sociality to Self‐Esteem: The Mediational Role of Quality of Friendships

The present longitudinal study examined the role of quality of friendship in mediating the relation of pro‐sociality to self‐esteem over time. Participants were 424 Italian young adults (56% females) assessed at two waves (M_age = 21.1 at Time 1; M_age = 25 at Time 2). An autoregressive cross‐lagged panel model was used to test the mediational model. Self‐ and friend‐report measures of pro‐sociality, quality of friendship, and self‐esteem were included in the analyses. Results were in line with the hypothesized paths, with quality of friendship mediating the relation of pro‐sociality to later self‐esteem above and beyond its high stability. Self‐esteem, in turn, predicted pro‐sociality 4 years later. Overall, the present findings support the potential benefits of behaving pro‐socially for an actor in terms of increased perceived self‐worth and also expand previous work by outlining the specific mediational role of the quality of friendships. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Family Concerns and Involvement During Kindergarten Transition

The transition from preschool to formal schooling constitutes an important developmental milestone for children and their families. Very few empirical studies investigating the kindergarten transition for typically developing children have been published, and fewer have examined transition experiences from the perspective of caregivers. The aims of our study were to investigate: (1) parent concerns during transition, (2) perceived needs during transition, and (3) parent involvement in kindergarten preparation activities. Parents/caregivers of 86 general education students transitioning to kindergarten completed a survey assessing their concerns, needs, and involvement in transition preparation activities. Results suggest that although the majority of parents expressed few concerns regarding their child’s kindergarten transition, a subset (i.e., 27.9%) reported significant concerns. The areas of concern most often cited by families in this sample were socio-behavioral in nature. Parents in this sample expressed a desire for various types of information during transition. Parents most often reported engaging in low intensity transition practices characterized by generic forms of contact, rather than more individualized and intensive practices often cited in the literature as best practices. In addition, parent involvement in transition preparation activities differed by family socioeconomic status as well as district locale. This study offers practical suggestions and policy implications for coordinating family and school efforts during children’s kindergarten transition.     

Interpretability, validity, and the minimum important difference

Patient-reported outcomes are increasingly used as dependent variables in studies regarding the effectiveness of clinical interventions. But patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) do not provide intuitively meaningful data. For instance, it is not clear what a five point increase or decrease on a particular scale signifies. Establishing ‘interpretability’ involves making changes in outcomes meaningful. Attempts to interpret PROMs have led to the development of methods for identifying a minimum important difference (MID). In this paper, however, I draw on Charles Taylor’s distinction between weak and strong evaluations to suggest that identifying a MID, specifically, a MID that uses a patient-reported reference group, may not provide an adequate interpretation of these measures. Moreover, I argue that the difficulty with interpreting these measures is tied to a larger problem concerning their validity. If researchers wish to interpret PROMs, they may first need to know more about the constructs they attempt to measure, namely, quality of life.     

Choosing a patient-reported outcome measure

There has been much philosophical interest regarding the ‘hierarchy of evidence’ used to determine which study designs are of most value for reporting on questions of effectiveness, prognosis, and so on. There has been much less philosophical interest in the choice of outcome measures with which the results of, say, an RCT or a cohort study are presented. In this paper, we examine the FDA’s recently published guidelines for assessing the psychometric adequacy of patient-reported outcome measures. We focus on their recommendations for demonstrating content validity and also for how researchers should weigh up the sum of psychometric evidence when choosing these measures. We argue that questions regarding judgment and understanding meaning of these measures should play a more central role in determining their adequacy.     

Effects of Sensory Deficit on Phalanx Force Deviation During Power Grip Post Stroke

The effect of sensory deficits on power grip force from individual phalanges was examined. The authors found that stroke survivors with sensory deficits (determined by the Semmes-Weinstein monofilament test) gripped with phalanx force directed more tangential to the object surface, than those without, although both groups had similar motor deficits (Chedoke-McMaster and Fugl-Meyer), grip strength, and skin friction. Altered grip force direction elevates risk of finger slippage against the object thus grip loss/object dropping, hindering activities of daily living. Altered grip force direction was associated with altered muscle activation patterns. In summary, the motor impairment level alone may not describe hand motor control in detail. Information about sensory deficits helps elucidate patients' hand motor control with functional relevance.