Supportive Coparenting,Parenting Stress,Harsh Parenting,and Child Behavior Problems in Nonmarital Families

Supportive coparenting is an identified protective factor for child development and behavioral outcomes. What is less known is how supportive coparenting dynamically links with other aspects of parenting and parent well‐being, particularly in multi‐stressed nonmarital families. This study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, analyzed within a structural equation model, to explore how mothers’ experience of maternal depression, maternal age, father education, and SES interacted with their parenting stress and supportive coparenting to impact child behavioral problems and harsh parenting practices. Among the findings, more supportive coparenting was found to be significantly associated with fewer child behavioral problems and less harsh parenting. Transmitted through supportive coparenting and parenting stress acting as mediator, maternal depressive symptoms were indirectly and positively related to harsh parenting practices and child behavior problems. These findings are discussed within the context of the broader literature and next steps for research are discussed.     

Ecology of Sites of Confinement: Everyday Life in a Detention Center for Illegalized Non‐citizens

Drawing on almost 3 years of fieldwork, comprising qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, this study provides an exploration into the detention of illegalized non‐citizens in Italy. Taking the largest detention center as a case study, the fabric of everyday life and the lived experiences of people, both detainees and professional actors, are the focus of examination. An ecological community psychology framework, with a focus on justice, guided the data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Findings highlight the oppressive qualities of detention, and its ripple effects on people's life spaces. Scarcity of resources, activities, and information created a very distressing environment for detainees, also enhancing feelings of powerlessness and frustration in professionals willing to assist them. Uncertainty and instability, rather than coercion or discipline, emerged as modes of governing and dominating. Bound in a different space and time, detainees were turned into unwanted and expendable others, their confinement becoming a means to extract profit from them. Yet, people languishing in these sites displayed an extraordinary ability to cope with, resist, and challenge the persisting conditions of injustice they endured. We conclude by highlighting the potential of the proposed framework, and discussing broader implications of our findings and avenues for research and action.     

预测视角下双因子模型与高阶因子模型的一般性模拟比较

高阶因子模型本质上是一种特殊的双因子模型, 应用中却常被当做双因子模型的竞争模型。已有研究以满足比例约束的双因子模型(此时等价于一个高阶因子模型)为真实测量模型产生模拟数据, 比较了用双因子模型和高阶因子模型作为测量模型的预测效果。本文使用不满足比例约束的双因子模型(此时不与任何高阶因子模型等价)为真实测量模型产生模拟数据进行比较, 所得结果与满足比例约束的双因子模型的结果有很大差别, 双因子模型结构系数的相对偏差较小、检验力较高, 但第Ⅰ类错误率略高。结论是, 在比例约束条件成立时可以使用高阶因子模型, 否则, 从统计角度看, 一般情况下使用双因子模型进行预测比较好。     

Task specificity and the timing of discrete aiming movements

In discrete aiming movements the task criteria of time-minimization to a spatial target (e.g., Fitts, 1954) and time-matching to a spatial-temporal goal (e.g., Schmidt et al., 1979) tend to produce different functions of the speed-accuracy trade-off. Here we examined whether the task-related movement speed-accuracy characteristics were due to differential space-time trade-offs in time-matching, velocity-matching and time-minimizing task goals. Twenty participants performed 100 aiming trials for each of 15 combinations of task-type (3) and space-time condition (5). The prevalence of the primary types of sub-movement (none, pre-peak, post-peak, undershooting and overshooting) was determined from the kinematics of the movement trajectory. There were comparable distributions of trajectory sub-movement profiles and space-time movement outcomes across the three tasks at the short movement duration that became increasingly dissimilar over decreasing movement velocity and increasing movement time conditions. Movement time was the most influential variable in mediating sub-movement characteristics and the spatial/temporal outcome accuracy and variability of discrete aiming tasks – a role that was magnified in the explicit task demands of time-matching. The time-matching and time-minimization task goals in discrete aiming induce qualitatively different control processes that progressively contribute beyond the minimal time conditions to task-specific space-time accuracy and variability characteristics of the respective movement speed-accuracy functions.     

Ecological Predictors of Disciplinary Style and Child Abuse Potential in a Hispanic and Anglo-American Sample

Recent attention to multicultural issues has sparked recognition that parenting is also a culturally construed phenomenon. The present study involved a diverse sample of 90 Anglo-American and Hispanic parents examining predictors based on distal/proximal levels as conceptualized in the ecological model. The study examined background characteristics (e.g., minority status, educational level, income), intrapersonal (anger, parenting competence, parenting satisfaction), and extrapersonal (social support) factors in the prediction of child abuse potential and dysfunctional disciplinary style. Parents participated anonymously in an in-home assessment. Neither minority status nor income predicted abuse potential or parenting style beyond what was accounted for by educational level. The pattern of findings for the sample suggests the relative importance of anger expression, parenting self-efficacy, and social support satisfaction in both abuse potential and disciplinary style for both Hispanic and Anglo-American parents. Future research directions with diverse samples are considered, including the need for measures specifically designed to assess parenting issues in diverse cultural groups.     

Parental involvement in competitive youth sport settings

ObjectivesBased on ecological systems theory [Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the purpose of this study was to examine parents’ involvement in competitive youth sport settings.DesignData were collected through two distinct phases of fieldwork. Phase 1 involved longitudinal data collection with four families. Phase 2 involved observations of youth soccer settings.MethodData were collected from four families via individual interviews and audio-diaries and were supplemented through 120 h of observation. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using grounded theory methodology.ResultsParents’ verbal reactions to their children's sport performance behaviors were placed on a continuum moving from more supportive to more controlling comments. These comments were categorized as praise/encouragement, performance contingent feedback, instruction, striking a balance, negative comments, and derogatory comments. Parents experienced empathy in that they perceived sharing the emotions their children felt in sport, and these emotions appeared to change in relation to dynamic game and contextual circumstances. Parents also thought that they possessed knowledge and expertise of sport, which they perceived enabled them to make comments to their children.ConclusionA series of reciprocal and bi-directional relationships were central to parents’ involvement in competitive youth sport.     

Regularized Partial and/or Constrained Redundancy Analysis

Methods of incorporating a ridge type of regularization into partial redundancy analysis (PRA), constrained redundancy analysis (CRA), and partial and constrained redundancy analysis (PCRA) were discussed. The usefulness of ridge estimation in reducing mean square error (MSE) has been recognized in multiple regression analysis for some time, especially when predictor variables are nearly collinear, and the ordinary least squares estimator is poorly determined. The ridge estimation method was extended to PRA, CRA, and PCRA, where the reduced rank ridge estimates of regression coefficients were obtained by minimizing the ridge least squares criterion. It was shown that in all cases they could be obtained in closed form for a fixed value of ridge parameter. An optimal value of the ridge parameter is found by G-fold cross validation. Illustrative examples were given to demonstrate the usefulness of the method in practical data analysis situations. We thank Jim Ramsay for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The work reported in this paper is supported by Grants 10630 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the first author.     

中国传统生态哲学论

本文从生态文明之生态哲学的新视野透视中国传统哲学,认为中国传统哲学包含了内在关系存在论(“人以自然而存在,自然以人而存在”)的生态存在观、自然无为的生态实践观、道在万物的的生态价值观、人副天数的生态伦理观以及“寡欲”“节葬”的朴素生态主义的适度消费观。     

技术文明社会的生态危机意识--评法兰克福学派的科技决定论

本文介绍和分析了法兰克福学派内部在如何看待科技的生态功能问题上的两种迥然不同的观点,指出了它们各自论点中存在的误识和留给人们的启迪,论证了科技进步与合理解决环境污染,生态平衡等全球性问题之间密不可分的关系。