Consider the Children

Summary

In this article, we consider interventions for children exposed to family violence in light of the research on children's problems associated with witnessing family violence. Next, we review risk and protective factors related to these children's adjustment with the view that all children are not similarly affected by exposure to family violence. Against this background, we then move to consider directions for interventions from a systemic perspective. We take into account not only the exposure to interactions between their mother and father, but also children's relationships with their mother, father, and siblings, as well as within broader systems such as the peer group, the school, and the community. We consider the critical challenges within each of these important systems for children exposed to family violence, and we propose some potential interventions to address the problems. Finally, we summarize an evaluation of an intervention that incorporates some of the elements identified by a systemic perspective. The evaluation revealed a significant improvement in children's self-reports of depression and anxiety over the course of the program. Mothers rated their children as significantly improved in emotional and hyperactive behaviour problems. There was no relation between mothers' involvement in counselling and children's improvement. Overall, the results suggest that the Peer Group Counselling Program effectively provided support to children exposed to family violence. Finally, we discuss the steps necessary to support children and families in moving toward violence-free lives.     

Resilience to Childhood Abuse and Neglect in College Students

This study examined the prevalence of a history of childhood maltreatment in a college sample and identified the relationship between being maltreated as a child and later college adjustment in men and women. Results indicate that men who had been maltreated in childhood had more resilient outcomes in college than women who had been maltreated in childhood. Negative life events and protective factors acted as mediators in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and college adjustment for women, and protective factors acted as a moderator in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and college adjustment for men.     

The effect of psychologists’ disclosure of personal religious background on prospective clients

The present study explored the relation of religious coping and spirituality to adjustment and psychological distress in urban early adolescents. The participants were 76 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students attending Catholic day schools in the New York City area. They completed a set of self-report measures assessing religious coping, daily spiritual experiences, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, and psychological distress. Correlational and regression analyses found positive religious coping and daily spiritual experiences to be associated with positive affect and life satisfaction, while negative religious coping was associated with negative affect and psychological distress. The relations generally were more robust among males, and their overall robustness decreased with age. Implications of the findings for research and clinical practice are offered to address the gap (compared to adults) in the literature on youth religious coping.     

Happiness and despair on the catwalk: Need satisfaction,well-being,and personality adjustment among fashion models

According to self-determination theory, well-being and healthy personality development depend on the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. However, various contextual features can interfere with need satisfaction and undermine well-being. We hypothesized that fashion models, who are often valued for superficial reasons (i.e., their looks) and who may not have regular opportunities to cultivate deep relationships or exercise personal control on the job, might experience lower psychological need satisfaction, less well-being, and less optimal personality adjustment. Two studies were conducted in which professional fashion models (N?=?56 in Study 1; N?=?35 in Study 2) were compared to approximately equally large groups of non-models. Fashion models reported slightly lower need satisfaction and well-being but greater personality maladjustment (personality disorder features). Mediation analyses in Study 1 suggested that the lower well-being among models was explained via unfulfilled basic needs. These findings further substantiate the importance of basic need satisfaction for well-being and optimal adjustment.     

Infertility and Adjustment in Women: The Effects of Attachment Style and Social Support

The moderating effects of two psychological resources—attachment style and perceived social support—on adjustment were studied in 109 infertile women, examining the effects of duration of infertility and of primary (the woman has no child of her own) versus secondary (the woman already has a child of her own) infertility. Subjects were administered questionnaires measuring marital adjustment, psychological distress, and well-being. A model viewing attachment style and social support as moderators between stress psychological well-being was explored. The results showed that among the objective characteristics, only duration of infertility had any impact on the psychological measures. Furthermore, the psychological resources were highly associated with the adjustment scores in general. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that attachment style and social support both were related to marital quality and to psychological well-being and that these two resources function as stress moderators. It was concluded that attachment style and social support are important resources for individuals in times of stress, as exemplified in the infertility situation.     

Differences in First Graders' School Adjustment: the Role of Classroom Characteristics and Social Structure of the Group

We examined differences among classes in academic and psychosocial aspects of school adjustment. The sample consisted of 1241 6-7-year-olds in 71 classes from 49 schools. Multilevel analyses showed that 83.5% of the variance was at the child level, 10.3% at the class level, and 6.2% at the school level. Thus, for the part of the variance that was not at the child level, differences among classes were more important than differences among schools. To identify relevant class factors, we focused on classroom characteristics and aspects of the social structure in the class such as integration and openness. Classroom and teacher variables were relatively unimportant compared to social structure indices that yielded significant correlation indicators of social interaction and intellectual competence and explained part of their variance at the class level. This suggested that the structure of the social relations contributed to differences among classes in several aspects of school adjustment.     

Psychological Adjustment to Breast Cancer

Breast cancer remains a highly prevalent and extraordinarily stressful experience for hundreds of thousands of women each year in the United States and around the world. Psychological research has provided a picture of the emotional and social impact of breast cancer on patients' lives, and of factors associated with better versus worse adjustment. Psychosocial interventions have been beneficial in decreasing patients' distress and enhancing their quality of life. Recent research also suggests that psychological factors may be related to potentially important biological disease-related processes. In addition to providing an understanding of the psychological factors in breast cancer, research in this area has provided a framework for research on adaptation to health-related stress in general.     

Personality Dysfunction and the Management of Chronic Medical Illness: A Community Health Sample

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of personality disorders on perceived health status, self-efficacy for management of the chronic illness, and physician perception of patient health. A total of 607 patients with self-identified chronicillness(es) volunteered to participate in the study. Out of this sample, 147 had collaborative physician data indicating a chronic illness. The final sample was 143 due to incomplete data. Results suggested that maladaptive personality characteristics, as measured by the Short-Form of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory (SCATI), were related to a number of important factors that influence self-management of chronic illnesses. When the personality constellations were broken into 3 groups (normal, subclinical, and clinical) significant differences were found on the 3 groups of dependent variables (Subjective Health, Self-Efficacy, Physician Appraisal) for the different personality disorders. These data provide useful information on several factors that influence effective disease management. Clinical implications and directions for future research are provided.     

Study of the adjustment of Western expatriates in Taiwan ROC with the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire

The present paper examined the validity of the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). As criteria of validity three levels of adjustment were used. The study took place among a sample of expatriates ( N = 102) during their assignment in Taiwan. The MPQ has scales for cultural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability and flexibility. The MPQ scales appeared to be predictive of expatriates' personal, professional and social adjustment. In all three domains, emotional stability appeared most consistently as a predictor of adjustment. Social initiative was an additional strong predictor of psychological well-being, as was cultural empathy of satisfaction with life and of the amount of social support in the host country. Flexibility was a predictor of job satisfaction and social support. The study also examined the effects of marital status on adjustment. Married expatriates showed higher levels of adjustment than expatriates who were single or separated.     

Possible antecedents and developmental implications of shame in young girls

The objectives of this study were to assess the effects of parenting style and child emotionality on the development of proneness to shame in young girls, and the mediating effect of shame on the development of adjustment problems. Eighty‐eight girls were assessed twice, at 3 and 5 years of age, along with their mothers and fathers. Shame was assessed by observations (reactions to failure and criticism); parenting style and child emotions (fearfulness, sadness, anger) were measured using parent reports; and adjustment problems were assessed by parent and teacher reports. Girls were more likely to show shame at age 5 when both their mothers and fathers had been relatively authoritarian at age 3; their emotional dispositions did not have any direct longitudinal effects on shame. Authoritarian parenting predicted subsequent internalizing problems as assessed by teachers, but there was no evidence for a mediational effect of shame. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.