Couples' cultural values, shared parenting, and family emotional climate within Mexican American families

This study tested a model of shared parenting as its centerpiece that incorporates cultural values as predictors and family emotional climate as the outcome variable of interest. We aimed to assess the predictive power of the Mexican cultural values of familismo and simpatia over couples' shared parenting practices. We anticipated that higher levels of shared parenting would predict family emotional climate. The participants were 61 Mexican American, low income couples, with at least one child between 3 and 4 years of age, recruited from a home-based Head Start program. The predictive model demonstrated excellent goodness of fit, supporting the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered when Mexican American couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting. Empirical evidence was previously scarce on this proposition. The findings also provide evidence for the role of cultural values, highlighting the importance of family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation as a pathway to shared parenting within Mexican American couples.     

An empirical investigation of dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes of credit scores

Many organizations use credit scores as an employment screening tool, but little is known about the legitimacy of such practices. To address this important gap, the reported research conceptualized credit scores as a biographical measure of financial responsibility and investigated dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes. Using personality data collected from employees, objective credit scores obtained from the Fair Isaac Corporation, and performance data provided by supervisors, we found conscientiousness to be positively related and agreeableness to be negatively related to credit scores. Results also indicate significant relationships between credit scores and task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. Credit scores did not, however, predict workplace deviance. Implications for organizations currently using or planning to use credit scores as part of the screening process are discussed.     

Role of fault attributions and desire, effort, and outcome expectations in children's anticipated responses to hypothetical peers with various undesirable characteristics

A total of 137 third- through eighth-grade students were asked to respond to a series of statements concerning 6 male peers described as having various undesirable characteristics (i.e., poor student, poor athlete, extremely overweight, extremely aggressive, extremely shy, or having the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). The aggressive peer and the overweight peer consistently elicited the least favorable reactions from the children. For all 6 peers included in the study, the more strongly the children agreed that a peer was at fault for his undesirable characteristic, the less favorably they anticipated responding to that peer. In contrast, the children's expectations concerning a peer's desire to change, effort to change, and success in changing an undesirable characteristic were generally unrelated to their anticipated responses to that peer. The children demonstrated the general belief that desire backed by effort leads to success in overcoming an undesirable characteristic, but lack of effort leads to failure regardless of the peer's desire or lack of desire to change the characteristic.     

Hate Speech, the Priority of Liberty, and the Temptations of Nonideal Theory

Are government restrictions on hate speech consistent with the priority of liberty? This relatively narrow policy question will serve as the starting point for a wider discussion of the use and abuse of nonideal theory in contemporary political philosophy, especially as practiced on the academic left. I begin by showing that hate speech (understood as group libel) can undermine fair equality of opportunity for historically-oppressed groups but that the priority of liberty seems to forbid its restriction. This tension between free speech and equal opportunity creates a dilemma for liberal egalitarians. Nonideal theory apparently offers an escape from this dilemma, but after examining three versions of such an escape strategy, I conclude that none is possible: liberal egalitarians are indeed forced to choose between liberty and equality in this case and others. I finish the paper by examining its implications for other policy arenas, including markets in transplantable human organs and women’s reproductive services.     

Emerging narrative discourse skills 18 months after traumatic brain injury in early childhood

This study examined the longer term effect of traumatic brain injury (TBI), approximately 18 months post-injury, on emerging narrative discourse skills of 85 children with orthopaedic injury (OI), 43 children with moderate TBI, and 19 children with severe TBI who were between 3 years and 6 years 11 months at injury. Children with TBI performed worse than children with OI on most discourse indices. Children with severe TBI were less proficient than children with moderate TBI at identifying unimportant story information. Age and pragmatic skills were predictors of discourse performance.     

Psychometric Properties and Development of the Brief Adolescent Prosocial Perception Scales (BAPPS)

Prosociality represents an important aspect of social functioning in adolescents and is related to the risk of psychological problems. The current paper describes the development and psychometric testing of two new short-form versions of prosocial perceptions named the Brief Adolescent Prosocial Perceptions Scale Self- (BAPPS-S) and Parent-report (BAPPS-P). Parent and child dyads (N = 3,976; 89 % White; aged 11–17 years) took part in a large cross-sectional survey. The BAPPS were completed alongside other measures of prosociality, social support and emotional and behavioural problems. Exploratory (n = 1,988) and confirmatory (n = 1,988) factor analysis supported a single factor solution that is related to, although separate from, conduct disorders. The scales showed good internal consistency and concurrent validity. Moreover, the BAPPS demonstrated incremental validity by accounting for significant variance in clinical outcome measures over and above that explained by existing measures of prosociality. The study demonstrated that the BAPPS have good initial psychometric properties. Potential clinical uses are discussed, including providing valuable information on young people’s strengths and resiliencies that can inform clinical formulation and intervention.