How help during pregnancy can undermine self-efficacy and increase postpartum intentions to quit

Pregnancy reflects a common experience for women in today's workforce, yet recent data suggest that some women scale back or leave the workforce following childbirth. Considering these effects on women's careers, researchers have sought to understand the underlying dynamics of these decisions. Here, we explore a paradoxical reason for weakened postpartum career attitudes: help that women receive during pregnancy. We integrate stereotype threat and benevolent sexism theories to explain how the effects of help on postpartum intentions to quit may be transmitted through reductions in work self-efficacy. In doing so, we consider the role of perceived impact—or the extent to which help interferes with versus enables women's perceived ability to continue performing their work role. Results of a weekly diary study of 105 pregnant employees suggest that work-interfering help led to decreased self-efficacy for work during the following week. Furthermore, there was an indirect effect of average help received at work during pregnancy on postpartum intentions to quit the workforce through reductions in work self-efficacy that was stronger insofar as help was work-interfering versus work-enabling. Taken together, our results highlight unintended negative consequences that occur when others provide ineffective support to women at work during pregnancy.     

Adjustment in aging: the roles of life stress, hassles, and self-efficacy

This study examines the relationship of life stress, daily hassles, and perceived self-efficacy to adjustment in a community sample of 32 men and 32 women between ages 65 and 75. In a structured interview, negative life change events, daily hassles, self-efficacy, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, and negative well being were assessed. Both negative life events and daily hassles were related to psychological distress and physical symptoms for men, and hassles were associated with psychological distress and physical symptoms for women. An inverse relationship between self-efficacy and maladjustment was also found. Hassles showed the most powerful relationship to distress.     

The heterogeneity of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and conduct problems: Cognitive inhibition,emotion regulation,emotionality, and disorganized attachment

This study examined the contributions of several important domains of functioning to attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and conduct problems. Specifically, we investigated whether cognitive inhibition, emotion regulation, emotionality, and disorganized attachment made independent and specific contributions to these externalizing behaviour problems from a multiple pathways perspective. The study included laboratory measures of cognitive inhibition and disorganized attachment in 184 typically developing children (M age = 6 years, 10 months, SD = 1.7). Parental ratings provided measures of emotion regulation, emotionality, and externalizing behaviour problems. Results revealed that cognitive inhibition, regulation of positive emotion, and positive emotionality were independently and specifically related to ADHD symptoms. Disorganized attachment and negative emotionality formed independent and specific relations to conduct problems. Our findings support the multiple pathways perspective on ADHD, with poor regulation of positive emotion and high positive emotionality making distinct contributions to ADHD symptoms. More specifically, our results support the proposal of a temperamentally based pathway to ADHD symptoms. The findings also indicate that disorganized attachment and negative emotionality constitute pathways specific to conduct problems rather than to ADHD symptoms.     

The contribution of personality characteristics to the relationship between social support and perceived physical health

Although a great deal of research has been conducted on the relationship between social support and physical health, the contribution of personality characteristics to this relationship has rarely been assessed. Structural equation modeling was employed to derive and test a model of the direct and indirect relationships between personality characteristics, social network size, the perceived availability of support, socially supportive behaviors, and perceived physical health with a sample of Pennsylvania adults. Significant paths indicate that individuals who perceive themselves as affiliative and as help seekers and help givers report larger social networks, receive more socially supportive behaviors, and perceive that more support is available to them. The perception that support is available shared a direct relationship with perceived physical health. The utility of including multiple measures of social support and personality characteristics related to receiving support in investigations of the relationship between social support and physical health is discussed.