Emergent self-regulation skills among very young ethnic minority children: A confirmatory factor model

Emerging self-regulation skills were assessed in 407 low-income African American and Latino (primarily Mexican-origin) preschoolers. A battery of self-regulation tasks was administered when children were 2½ years old and again approximately 1 year later. Confirmatory factor analyses supported four components of self-regulation: inhibitory control, complex response inhibition, set shifting, and working memory. Complex response inhibition was too rare a skill in this sample to be detected reliably from measures collected at 2½ years of age, but it emerged from measures collected at 3½ years. In addition, significant ethnic differences were found in that African American children scored better on measures of complex response inhibition and set shifting, whereas Latino children scored better on measures of inhibitory control and working memory. Implications of study findings for measuring self-regulation in low-income ethnic diverse populations of young children, as well as for developing interventions to enhance self-regulation development, are discussed.     

The Racial and Ethnic Identity Formation Process of Second‐Generation Asian Indian Americans: A Phenomenological Study

This phenomenological study elucidates the identity development processes of 12 second‐generation adult Asian Indian Americans. The results identify salient sociocultural factors and multidimensional processes of racial and ethnic identity development. Discrimination, parental, and community factors seemed to play a salient role in influencing participants’ racial and ethnic identity development. The emergent Asian Indian American racial and ethnic identity model provides a contextualized overview of key developmental periods and turning points within the process of identity development. Este estudio fenomenológico dilucida los procesos de desarrollo de la indentidad de 12 individuos Americano‐Indoasiáticos adultos. Los resultados identifican factores socioculturales destacados y procesos multidimensionales del desarrollo de la identidad racial y étnica. Los factores de discriminación, paternos y comunitarios parecieron jugar un papel destacado en su influencia sobre el desarrollo de la identidad racial y étnica de los participantes. El modelo emergente de identidad racial y étnica Americano‐Indoasiática proporciona una visión general contextualizada de los periodos clave del desarrollo y los puntos de inflexión durante el proceso del desarrollo de la identidad.     

Dispositional optimism among American and Jordanian college students: Are Westerners really more upbeat than Easterners?

The present study aimed at assessing some previous research conclusions, based primarily on comparisons of North Americans and East Asians, that Westerners tend to be optimistic while Easterners tend to be pessimistic. Two samples of European American and Jordanian college students were administered a questionnaire consisting of items measuring dispositional optimism along with items pertaining to risk and self‐protective behaviors (e.g., seatbelt use, vehicular speeding, smoking) and social and demographic factors (e.g., sex, socioeconomic status, religiosity). The findings uncovered dispositional optimism to be stronger for American compared to Jordanian participants. Separate analyses of optimism versus pessimism revealed that Jordanian participants were more pessimistic, but not less optimistic than their American counterparts. No significant correlations were found between dispositional optimism and sex, socioeconomic status, or religiosity. The levels of optimism displayed by Jordanians in this study are inconsistent with previous claims of an optimistic West and a pessimistic East, and suggest that self‐enhancing processes may not be confined to Western or highly individualistic groups. The findings did not uncover an association between dispositional optimism and risk or self‐protective behaviors. Multiple regression analyses showed cultural background and sex to be the best predictors of these behaviors. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Black Reltrad: Measuring Religious Diversity and Commonality Among African Americans

The Black Church has remained an important topic of scholarly interest for more than a century, but less attention has been devoted to the consequences of contrasting denominational affiliations within the African‐American Protestant religious tradition. We advance a new coding scheme that allows researchers to measure and test black affiliates across a range of denominations with roots inside and outside of the greater Black Church. Findings from the 1972 to 2014 General Social Surveys indicate that our “Black Reltrad” syntax more meticulously captures similarities and differences among African Americans with respect to religious sensibilities, religious‐related social attitudes, and engagement in black politics than extant coding schemes. Consequently, although the legacy of racial discrimination and inequality binds blacks together, scholars must also recognize differences within the African‐American Protestant religious tradition.     

Neighborhood Disorder and Children’s Antisocial Behavior: The Protective Effect of Family Support Among Mexican American and African American Families

Using data from a sample of 673 Mexican Origin families, the current investigation examined the degree to which family supportiveness acted as a protective buffer between neighborhood disorder and antisocial behavior during late childhood (i.e. intent to use controlled substances, externalizing, and association with deviant peers). Children's perceptions of neighborhood disorder fully mediated associations between census and observer measures of neighborhood disorder and their antisocial behavior. Family support buffered children from the higher rates of antisocial behavior generally associated with living in disorderly neighborhoods. An additional goal of the current study was to replicate these findings in a second sample of 897 African American families, and that replication was successful. These findings suggest that family support may play a protective role for children living in dangerous or disadvantaged neighborhoods. They also suggest that neighborhood interventions should consider several points of entry including structural changes, resident perceptions of their neighborhood and family support.     

The Butterfly Dilemma: Asian Women,Whiteness, and Heterosexual Relationships

Critical Whiteness theory explores Whiteness as a form of power and privilege that originated in Western countries and has been dispersed globally. Its form is particular to location and its interaction with race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and gender. Two ways it has operated historically is through making the norms of Whiteness universal and the marker of reason and rationality. This article examines Whiteness through two lenses, the colonial-era opera, Madame Butterfly, and three recent therapy case studies involving White American husbands and Asian immigrant wives. Although the women in these therapy cases have emigrated from different Asian countries and cultures, the treatment toward them suggests that colonial-era images and stereotypes of Asian women still resonate in contemporary White American culture and are impervious to national or cultural boundaries. A comparison of the opera’s themes with those of the therapy cases suggest how historical and social constructions of Whiteness continue to promote inequality in heterosexual relationships comprised of White American males and Asian females. Feminist, multicultural analyses of the therapy cases are provided to highlight more egalitarian treatment of the women in therapy, in their families, and in the broader society. The intersectionality of gender with ethnicity and culture is discussed for these Asian women who experience the homogenization of their identities in spite of having immigrated to the U.S. from distinct cultures.     

Group Threat, Collective Angst, and Ingroup Forgiveness for the War in Iraq

We examine the consequences of threat to the ingroup for emotional reactions to ingroup harm doing. It was hypothesized that reminders of a past threat to the ingroup would induce collective angst, and this emotional reaction would increase forgiveness of the ingroup for its harmful actions toward another group. In Experiment 1, Americans read an article about the war in Iraq that implied Americans would soon experience another attack or one where such implied future threat to the ingroup was absent. When the ingroup's future was threatened, forgiveness for the harm Americans have committed in Iraq was increased, to the extent that collective angst was induced. In Experiment 2, Americans experienced more collective angst and were more willing to forgive their ingroup for their group's present harm doing in Iraq following reminders of either the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, or the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor compared to when the victimization reminder was irrelevant to the ingroup. We discuss why ingroup threat encourages ingroup forgiveness for current harm doing.     

In God’s House

Abstract

By naming the ways silence and taboo structure the documentary, In God’s House, the article traces the ways personal narratives are deployed as: (1) a cultural practice to consolidate an “Asian” ethnicity; and as (2) a pedagogical strategy to address the silence of sexual discourse—particularly around LGBTQ issues—in Asian American contexts. As cultural practices, silence and taboo undergird the framework of community—protecting individual honor, securing public face and fortifying webs of relationships that sustain individual and social flourishing. More than a façade for the “inscrutable Asian,” silence illuminates a practice of communal relationality that reconfigures “American” significations of community, sexuality, race and identity.     

Cultural variation in the motivational standards of self-enhancement and self-criticism among bicultural Asian American and Anglo American students

Recent work on biculturalism has made theoretical and methodological inroads into our understanding of the relation of cultural processes with psychological functioning. Through the use of cultural priming methodologies, investigators have demonstrated that biculturals, or individuals who have experienced and identify with more than one culture, can switch between various "cultural frames of reference" in response to corresponding social cues (Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martinez, 2000). Drawing on this work on the cognitive implications of biculturalism, the purpose of the present study was to examine the assumption that independent and interdependent self-construals are associated with the motivational standards of self-enhancement and self-criticism, respectively. More specifically, the effects of differential primes of self on ratings of self-enhancement were investigated in a sample of bicultural Asian American (N = 42) and Anglo American (N = 60) college students; overall, more similarities than differences were noted between the two groups. It was hypothesized that Anglo American students would display marked tendencies toward self-enhancement. However, this hypothesis was not supported. Nevertheless, consistent prime effects were observed for a selected number of ratings related to academic virtues, with those who received an independent-self prime often exhibiting greater self-enhancing tendencies than those who received an interdependent-self prime. For example, participants in the independent-self condition reported on average significantly higher ratings for self-discipline and initiative, as well as the degree to which they perceived themselves to be hard working. Implications for the work on self-representations, motivation, and acculturation are discussed.