Revisiting Hispanic Adolescents' Resilience to the Effects of Parental Problem Drinking and Life Stress

Two previous studies found that life stress and parental alcoholism were not as highly related to distress for Hispanic adolescents as they were for European American adolescents (M. Barrera Jr., S. A. Li, and L. Chassin, 1993, 1995). Those findings could be interpreted as evidence of Hispanic youths' resilience, but limitations of the stress measure and the homogeneity of the Hispanic sample threatened this interpretation. The present study improved on those previous studies by using a new measure of uncontrollable stressors and a more heterogeneous Mexican American sample. Participants in this study were 175 Mexican American and 59 European American adolescents and their parents. Unlike the previous studies, results did not show that Mexican American adolescents were more resilient to parental problem drinking or life stress than were European American adolescents. Overall, life stress was related to adolescents', mothers', and fathers' reports of adolescents' psychological distress above and beyond the effects of ethnicity and socioeconomic factors.     

Parental Discipline and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Early Childhood: The Roles of Moral Regulation and Child Gender

We tested whether individual differences in a component of early conscience mediated relations between parental discipline and externalizing behavior problems in 238 3.5-year-olds. Parents contributed assessments of discipline practices and child moral regulation. Observations of children's behavioral restraint supplemented parental reports. Parents and teachers reported on child externalizing symptoms. Parental induction, warm responsiveness, and less frequent use of physical punishment generally were associated with higher levels of moral regulation and fewer externalizing problems. Moreover, moral regulation partially mediated relationships between discipline and externalizing symptoms, with the clearest case of mediation involving induction. However, relationships were found for boys only. Results support a mediation model wherein inductive and physical discipline may influence the expression of boys' externalizing behavior through effects on conscience. Finally, results suggest that different developmental processes may be associated with early externalizing problems in boys and girls, and confirm that fathers' reports contribute to our understanding of the origins of child externalizing problems.     

The developing constraints on parsing decisions: the role of lexical-biases and referential scenes in child and adult sentence processing

Two striking contrasts currently exist in the sentence processing literature. First, whereas adult readers rely heavily on lexical information in the generation of syntactic alternatives, adult listeners in world-situated eye-gaze studies appear to allow referential evidence to override strong countervailing lexical biases (Tanenhaus, Spivey-Knowlton, Eberhard, and Sedivy, 1995). Second, in contrast to adults, children in similar listening studies fail to use this referential information and appear to rely exclusively on verb biases or perhaps syntactically based parsing principles (Trueswell, Sekerina, Hill, and Logrip, 1999). We explore these contrasts by fully crossing verb bias and referential manipulations in a study using the eye-gaze listening technique with adults (Experiment 1) and five-year-olds (Experiment 2). Results indicate that adults combine lexical and referential information to determine syntactic choice. Children rely exclusively on verb bias in their ultimate interpretation. However, their eye movements reveal an emerging sensitivity to referential constraints. The observed changes in information use over ontogenetic time best support a constraint-based lexicalist account of parsing development, which posits that highly reliable cues to structure, like lexical biases, will emerge earlier during development and more robustly than less reliable cues.     

Reducing conflicts between motor vehicles and pedestrians: the separate and combined effects of pavement markings and a sign prompt

The effects of a symbolic "yield here to pedestrians" sign and advance yield pavement markings on pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts, motorists' yielding behavior, and the distance motorists' yield in advance of crosswalks were evaluated at multilane crosswalks at uncontrolled T intersections. In Experiment 1, the sign, when used alone, reduced pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts and increased motorist yielding distance. The use of fluorescent yellow-green sheeting as the background of the sign did not increase the effectiveness of the sign. Further reductions in pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts and further increases in yielding distance were associated with the addition of advance yield pavement markings. In Experiment 2, advance yield pavement markings, when used alone, were as effective in reducing pedestrian/motor vehicle conflicts and increasing yielding distance as the sign combined with pavement markings. These data suggest that the pavement markings were the essential component for reducing conflicts and increasing yielding distance.     

Psychological reactions in Icelandic earthquake survivors

The aim of this study was to explore the psychological consequences of two earthquakes in Iceland in two probability samples of subjects--residents in the exposed area and a control group from an unexposed area. The sample was composed of 52 adults exposed to the earthquakes and 29 adults in a control group. Three months after the earthquakes, both groups were approached with questions from a survey consisting of the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ), the Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSC), the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ), the World Assumption Scale (WAS), and the Crisis Support Scale (CSS). The results revealed that 24% in the exposed group had Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and none in the control group had PTSD. Earthquake-related anxiety, inability to express one's thoughts and feelings, and emotional coping predicted 81% of the HTQ variance for both groups. Previous life events, low self-worth, and luck attributions, together with numbing and the feeling of being let down, predicted 56% of the symptom variance for both groups. When degree of traumatization and emotional coping were added to the model, another 30% of the variance could be explained.     

Body dissatisfaction in married women: the role of spousal influence and marital communication patterns

Family factors and the media have been established as determinants of body satisfaction, yet little research has looked at the contribution of spousal influence in body dissatisfaction. Marital quality and satisfaction can be a protective factor in the health of women, while high rates of criticism have been associated with poorer health outcomes. The present study investigated the relationship between perceptions of family and spousal factors and body dissatisfaction in married women. Additionally, the impact of marital communication was investigated. Seventy-seven married women completed self-report questionnaires assessing familial body-focused comments, spousal evaluation of a wife’s body, marital communication patterns, and body dissatisfaction. After controlling for weight status, women’s perceptions of familial body-focused comments and spousal evaluation emerged as significant predictors of body dissatisfaction. It was also found that more destructive communication patterns moderated the effect of perceived spousal evaluation on body dissatisfaction. This study provides some context for understanding the impact of specific influences on women’s body dissatisfaction.     

Ethical issues at the university-industry interface: A way forward?

This paper forms an introduction to this issue, the contents of which arose directly or indirectly from a conference in May 2001 on Corruption of scientific integrity? — The commercialisation of academic science. The introduction, in recent decades, of business culture and values into universities and research institutions is incompatible with the openness which scientific and all academic pursuit traditionally require. It has given rise to a web of problems over intellectual property and conflict of interest which has even led to corporate sponsors’ suppressing unfavourable results of clinical trials, to the detriment of patients’ health. Although there are those who see the norms of science developing to recognise the importance of instrumental science aiming at specific goals and of knowledge judged by its value in a context of application, none justifies the covert manipulation of results by vested interest.Public awareness of these problems is growing and creating a climate of opinion where they may be addressed. We suggest a way forward by the introduction of nationally and internationally-accepted guidelines for industrial collaboration which contain proper protections of the core purposes of universities and of the independence of their research. Some codes suggested for this purpose are discussed. We note that some universities are moving to adopt such codes of conduct, but argue the need for strong support from the government through its funding bodies.     

Influences of Marital Conflict on Child Adjustment: Review of Theory and Research

This review summarizes the literature on the relationship between marital conflict and child maladjustment with an emphasis on variables that qualify, explain the association, or both. Following a historical review, the modest findings on the strength of the association between marital conflict and child maladjustment is explored. The definition of marital conflict is clarified through specification of its various dimensions (frequency, intensity, content, resolution). The role of variables that serve to moderate and/or mediate the relationship between marital conflict and child maladjustment are elaborated. Mediating models include exposure theories (Modeling, Cognitive–Contextual effects: appraisal of threat and blame, and Emotional Insecurity) and changes in the parent–child relationship (Spillover). Variables that moderate or qualify the relationship include children's cognitions and behaviors, contextual factors, and demographic differences. A model is presented summarizing these mechanisms. Research recommendations are proposed and the clinical implications of this literature are addressed.     

The role of parents' self-esteem, mastery-orientation and social background in their parenting styles

In order to examine the extent to which parents' levels of education, financial resources, self-esteem, and their mastery-orientation versus task-avoidance are associated with their parenting styles and parental stress, data from two studies were analyzed. In Study I, parents of 105 6 to 7-year old children were asked to fill in scales measuring their parenting styles and parental stress, mastery-orientation, financial resources, and their level of education. In Study II, 235 parents were asked to fill in the same scales. An identical pattern of results was found in the two studies. Parents' self-esteem and their use of mastery-oriented strategy were found to be associated with authoritative parenting and low parental stress, whereas parents' low level of education was related to an authoritarian parenting style. The results further showed that the impact of parents' self-esteem on authoritative parenting and parental stress was partly mediated by their use of a mastery-oriented strategy.