Motivation for agreement with parental values: desirable when autonomous,problematic when controlled

Two studies examined the well-being and parenting correlates of autonomous and controlled motivations for agreement with parental values. We hypothesized that autonomous motivation would be associated with subjective well-being, whereas controlled motivation would be associated with agitation and guilt. Study 1 involved 399 Israeli youth (mean age = 23.8) and Study 2 involved 131 Israeli adolescents (mean age = 16.9). Results of both studies supported the hypotheses. The findings suggest that only autonomous motivation for agreement with parents’ values is positively associated with well-being. This effect is over and above the extent of agreement between offspring values and perceived parents’ values, and highlights the importance of distinguishing between autonomous and controlled endorsement of values.     

Can Cognitive‐Behavioral Therapy Be Optimized With Parent Psychoeducation? A Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Adolescents With Major Depression in Puerto Rico

This is a longitudinal randomized control trial on the impact of adding a parent psychoeducation intervention (TEPSI) as part of cognitive‐behavioral therapy (CBT) for adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in a Puerto Rican sample. We tested the efficacy of adding 8 group sessions of TEPSI to 12 sessions of individual CBT on reducing depressive symptoms, MDD diagnosis, and improving family functioning. Participants (n = 121) were randomized to individual CBT with or without TEPSI. No main group effects were found for most patient domains including depression symptoms, as well as presence of adolescent's MDD diagnosis at posttreatment. Results did show a main effect of CBT over time for depression symptoms, suicide ideation, family criticism, and the presence of MDD diagnosis decreasing from pre‐ to postintervention. A year post treatment, almost 70% of adolescents in both conditions (CBT and CBT + TEPSI) remained in remission. A main effect was obtained for treatment in the adolescent's perception of familism and family emotional involvement. The primary hypothesis that family psychoeducation would optimize CBT for depression in adolescents was not supported. Both conditions yielded similar clinical end points. The culturally adapted CBT was found effective with Latino/a adolescents showing clinically significant improvements from pretreatment to posttreatment and remained stable at a 1‐year follow‐up. Regarding family outcomes, adolescents in CBT + TEPSI remained stable from pretreatment to posttreatment on family emotional involvement, while adolescents in CBT‐alone showed an increase. The implication of these findings is discussed.     

A “Wife’s Duty” and Social Suffering: Sexual Assault in Marital Relationships in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Sexual assault in marital relationships tends to be somewhat neglected in Vietnam compared to other forms of domestic violence. This relative neglect does not occur because of a lack of concern for abused women among Vietnamese people. Rather, it is due to structural barriers, cultural assumptions and stigma associated with sexuality, sexual violence, domestic violence, and secrecy, or misunderstanding on the part of many abused Vietnamese women. Yet, these women confront a variety of emotional, bodily, and social assaults from their husbands. Suffering is commonly expressed by abused Vietnamese women as they narrate their experiences of the violence. Abused women express their suffering as bodily and emotional pain, shame, frustration, disorientation, and social marginalization. Contemporary marital sexual violence and domestic violence more broadly in Vietnam are linked to the state’s emergent political and economic goals, as well as gender and kinship ideologies drawn upon in support of these goals. These processes have resulted in abused women experiencing social suffering derived from intersecting Vietnamese state, cultural, and social forces. I suggest institutional practices, and non-supportive perspectives and approaches of some professionals and state employees assisting abused women, have made addressing marital sexual violence a difficult and painful process, as well as an additional source of suffering. Second, layered upon these structural and cultural barriers has been the neglect by some professionals of intersecting inequalities based on gender, class, and disability. Third, some institutions in Vietnam provide more effective and beneficial assistance to abused women, making the process of acquiring assistance complex.     

Do Americans Have a Preference for Rule‐Based Classification?

Six experiments investigated variables predicted to influence subjects’ tendency to classify items by a single property (rule‐based responding) instead of overall similarity, following the paradigm of Norenzayan et al. ( 2002 , Cognitive Science), who found that European Americans tended to give more “logical” rule‐based responses. However, in five experiments with Mechanical Turk subjects and undergraduates at an American university, we found a consistent preference for similarity‐based responding. A sixth experiment with Korean undergraduates revealed an effect of instructions, also reported by Norenzayan et al., in which classification instructions led to majority rule‐based responding but similarity instructions led to overall similarity grouping. Our American subjects showed no such difference and used similarity more overall. We conclude that Americans do not have a preference for rule responding in classification and discuss the differences between tasks that reliably show strong rule or unidimensional preferences (category construction and category learning) in contrast to this classification paradigm.