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.     

Generational differences in American students’ reasons for going to college, 1971–2014: The rise of extrinsic motives

ABSTRACT

We examined generational differences in reasons for attending college among a nationally representative sample of college students (N = 8 million) entering college between 1971–2014. We validated the items on reasons for attending college against an established measure of extrinsic and intrinsic values among college students in 2014 (n = 189). Millennials (in college 2000s–2010s) and Generation X (1980s–1990s) valued extrinsic reasons for going to college (“to make more money”) more, and anti-extrinsic reasons (“to gain a general education and appreciation of ideas”) less than Boomers when they were the same age in the 1960s–1970s. Extrinsic reasons for going to college were higher in years with more income inequality, college enrollment, and extrinsic values. These results mirror previous research finding generational increases in extrinsic values begun by GenX and continued by Millennials, suggesting that more recent generations are more likely to favor extrinsic values in their decision-making.     

从自尊的文化差异说起

在不同的文化背景中,自尊既有相似性,也有差异性。在东西方文化中,自尊在其根源性、包容性及表达性等方面均存在差异。树立文化差异性与普遍性的意识,加强对自尊文化差异的研究对于科学地认识社会心理现象和学科建设都具有重要意义。未来可以从自尊的内涵、自尊研究的内容及研究方法等方面开展自尊的中国化研究。     

A dynamic view of cultural influence: A review

Static models of culture's influence have given way to a dynamic view, which identifies not only differences across cultures in people's judgments and decisions, but also the situations and conditions in which these differences do or do not appear. Theory and evidence developed from a cognitive psychological perspective underlie this dynamic approach, including research emerging from the “dynamic constructivist” and “situated cognition” models. In the present review, we focus on findings that confirm the utility of this cognitively oriented approach, and briefly discuss the advantages and complementary nature of the “social collective” and neuroscience approaches to understanding culture.     

A Pilot Randomized Trial of Community-Based Parent Training for Immigrant Latina Mothers

This paper reports on the development and piloting of the Madres a Madres (Mothers to Mothers) program, a new, community-based parent training program designed for immigrant Latina mothers and their children. Promotoras, or female community health workers of Latina background, delivered the program in a home visitation format. A total of 194 mothers and 194 focal children (87 male, 107 female) ages 7–12 were randomized to the intervention (113 mother–child dyads) or wait-list control condition (81 mother–child dyads) over the study period. Outcomes of interest were mother-reported parenting skills, broad family functioning, and child externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Data collection occurred at pretest, 3-month posttest, and 9-month follow-up periods. Multilevel growth models revealed increases in intervention mothers’ reported parenting skills, family support, and family organization, and reductions in child internalizing behavior from pretest to follow-up, relative to the control condition. Outcomes did not vary by focal child age, gender, nativity status, or mother acculturative status (years in the United States). Findings are discussed in the context of future directions for research on the Madres a Madres program and on the implementation and dissemination of empirically-supported parent training practices to culturally diverse families.     

Dialectical thinking: A cross-cultural study of Japanese,Chinese, and British students

Peng and Nisbett found that Chinese people are more apt to engage in dialectical thinking (DT) than Americans. We gave the Dialectical Self Scale questionnaire and 10 pairs of opposing opinions to high school and university students of Japanese, Chinese, and British nationality. We asked them to fill in the questionnaire, to rate how strongly they agreed with each opinion, and to rate how wise it is to think dialectically. The scores on the questionnaire were higher among Easterners than among Westerners and higher among university students than among high school students. But the results of opinion agreement indicated that the dialectical tendency was stronger among the Chinese and British than among the Japanese. Furthermore, however, Japanese participants judged DT as wiser than Chinese and British did, and Chinese university students believed it was wiser than Chinese high school students did. We propose that this effect is attributed to Marxist education in China.     

The influence of fear of happiness beliefs on responses to the satisfaction with life scale

General life satisfaction scales are widely used to examine the degree to which people are satisfied with their lives. Previous research indicates that part of the variability in life satisfaction scores does not genuinely reflect individuals’ life conditions, and that there are factors biasing people’s responses to these scales. The present study provided initial evidence showing that the fear of happiness (a belief that happiness may have negative consequences) influenced people’s responses to the items of a life satisfaction scale in an Iranian university student sample. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Overprotective Parenting: Helping Parents Provide Children the Right Amount of Risk and Responsibility

Overprotective parenting in low-risk environments may have negative consequences for the psychosocial development of children and youth. Though not well studied, a number of different bodies of literature can be used to speculate on the reasons for overprotective parenting and the impact it has on children. In this article, the social and familial dynamics leading to overprotection are discussed. It is shown that overprotection among middle-class families may result from poorly informed parents regarding the psychosocial developmental needs of their children for risk and responsibility and a lack of familiarity with population-wide data which shows that many of today's youth are safer that at any previous time in history. Focusing on the “risk-taker's advantage,” this article uses a case example to illustrate a three-part model of intervention to help challenge overprotective parenting while opening up safe opportunities for youth to experience manageable amounts of risk and responsibility.     

Socialization tactics: Antecedents for goal interdependence and newcomer adjustment and retention

This study argues that Deutsch's theory of goal interdependence is useful to examine the dynamics of serial and investiture tactics on newcomer adjustment and retention in work team contexts. Structural equation results of interviews of specific incidents collected from one hundred and two newcomers support the hypothesized model that serial and investiture tactics used by teams promote cooperative goal interdependence and weaken competitive goal interdependence and independent goal relationship between newcomers and their teams. Cooperative goals were also found to promote positive attitudes and strong co-worker relationships whereas competitive and independent goals resulted in intentions to quit and low levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction.     

Social representation of events in world history: Crosscultural consensus or Western discourse? How Turkish students view events in world history

The perceptions of historical events are considered to be an important cultural, political, and social psychological variable. Earlier studies have shown a crosscultural consensus on historical events that are considered to be important. It has been indicated that a strong Western–Christian European template dominates the view of which events are considered to be important events in history, by many samples across the world. It was the aim of this study to test this finding with a Turkish sample, which would represent some unique characteristics in that it is Muslim, comes from an Empire background, and has undergone a recent nation‐building process. College students (n = 372) responded to a questionnaire that was utilized in seven other countries. It was shown that Turkish students were not Eurocentric as expected by the literature: They were highly sociocentric; they gave importance to events related to Turkish history. They were similar to their European counterparts in that war and violence were given primary importance when selecting events as important in history. However, they did not behave as predicted by earlier literature: They did not see Western European events as having a primary importance in history but gave at least equal importance to events that originated from Ottoman Empire roots. The results were discussed in terms of the unique cultural and historical variables that contribute to the identity and social psychological attributions of Turkish students. Further research should focus on not only which events are considered as important historical events but also the reasons behind these.