How young adults address their parents reflects their perception of parenting

A speaker's use of a title for the listener shows the speaker's deference to the listener. Previous studies suggested that the use of kinship terms in the family also shows deference to the listener. The present study focused on young adults' use of kinship terms for their parents to investigate whether their use of kinship terms reflects their perception of their parenting. The participants were 329 Japanese college students, who answered a questionnaire about their forms of address for their parents, perceived parental emotional accessibility, and perceived parental control. They also reported their satisfaction with their parent–child relationships and the frequency of parent–child communication. The results suggest that young adults who use kinship terms for their parents perceive their parents to be more emotionally accessible and communicate with their parents more than those who do not. Young adults who use kinship terms for their father are also more satisfied with their father–child relationships than those who do not. Young adults' use of kinship terms might signal not only their deference to their parents, but also their acceptance of their parent–child relationships.     

Perceived Discrimination and Health-Related Quality of Life: Testing the Reserve Capacity Model in Hispanic Americans

ABSTRACT

This study tested aspects of the Reserve Capacity Model (Gallo & Matthews, 2003 Gallo, L. C. and Matthews, K. A. 2003. Understanding the association between socioeconomic status and physical health: Do negative emotions play a role?. Psychological Bulletin, 129: 10–51. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Gallo, Penedo Espinosa de los Monteros, & Arguelles, 2009 Gallo, L. C., Penedo, F. J., Espinosa de los Monteros, K. and Arguelles, W. 2009. Resiliency in the face of disadvantage: Do Hispanic cultural characteristics protect health outcomes?. Journal of Personality, 77: 1707–1746. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) as a means of understanding disparities in health-related quality of life appraisals among Hispanic Americans. Questionnaire data were collected from 236 Hispanic participants, including measures of perceived discrimination, optimism, social support, symptoms of trait anxiety, and physical and mental health-related quality of life. Path analysis indicated direct, negative associations between perceived discrimination and both forms of health-related quality of life. Results also showed that these relationships were partially mediated by the reserve capacity variable of optimism and by symptoms of anxiety, though evidence for mediation by anxiety was stronger than for optimism. Findings suggest that perceived discrimination depletes intrapersonal reserves in Hispanic Americans, which, in turn, induces negative emotions. Implications for community-level interventions are discussed.     

Integrating Women's Voices and Theory: A Comprehensive Domestic Violence Intervention for Latinas

Using both academic theories and two decades of experience in community, this article presents the work conducted by Caminar Latino (Latino Journey), a comprehensive intervention for Latino families affected by domestic violence. Having developed in both analogous and independent ways from theories in the academic field, Caminar Latino provides a unique opportunity to explore ways in which ecological theory and tenets of feminist therapy can be combined within a social justice framework to address this severe social problem. Of particular relevance to therapists, advocates and others working in this field is the ongoing inclusion of the voices of women participants as a central tenet of the intervention.     

Do physical and relational aggression explain adolescents' friendship selection? The competing roles of network characteristics,gender, and social status

The role of physical and relational aggression in adolescents' friendship selection was examined in a longitudinal sample of 274 Chilean students from 5th and 6th grade followed over 1 year. Longitudinal social network modeling (SIENA) was used to study selection processes for aggression while influence processes were controlled for. Furthermore, the effects of network characteristics (i.e., reciprocity and transitivity), gender, and social status on friendship selection were examined. The starting assumption of this study was that selection effects based on aggression might have been overestimated in previous research as a result of failing to consider influence processes and alternative characteristics that steer friendship formation. The results show that selection effects of both physical and relational aggression disappeared when network effects, gender, and social status were taken into account. Particularly gender and perceived popularity appeared to be far more important determinants of friendship selection over time than aggression. Moreover, a peer influence effect was only found for relational aggression, and not for physical aggression. These findings suggest that similarity in aggression among befriended adolescents can be considered to be mainly a by-product rather than a leading dimension in friendship selection.     

Negotiating Reintegration and Meanings of Space: Formerly Abducted Youth in Uganda

The war in Northern Uganda has ended, and youth who were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army continue to return to communities. Research conducted in the summer of 2010 in two locations in Uganda, Gulu and Masindi, shows that the process of reintegration is an ongoing process in which formerly abducted youth (FAY) negotiate social relations for reintegration in a very interactive way. FAY consciously decide to stay quiet about their past to avoid compromising social reintegration. The experience‐oriented approach has allowed for an in‐depth exploration and understanding of the reintegration process from the perspective of FAY. In Northern Ugandan cosmology, meaning given to FAY personal spaces dominates. With FAY facing social exclusion by community members and the need to overcome boundaries to reintegration, coping mechanisms are adopted to facilitate reintegration and to carve out personal space within the Northern Ugandan cosmology. In the exploration of the process of negotiating reintegration, a conceptual model is adopted and adjusted to represent personal space within Northern Ugandan cosmology. The main findings suggest that FAY negotiate social relations for reintegration in a very interactive way and that they consciously decide to stay quiet about their past so as to not compromise social reintegration. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stigmatised Identity and Service Usage in Disadvantaged Communities: Residents', Community Workers' and Service Providers' Perspectives

The impact of community stigmatisation upon service usage has been largely overlooked from a social identity perspective. Specifically, the social identity‐mediated mechanisms by which stigmatisation hinders service use remain unspecified. The present study examines how service providers, community workers and residents recount their experience of the stigmatisation of local community identity and how this shapes residents' uptake of welfare, education and community support services. Twenty individual and group interviews with 10 residents, 16 community workers and six statutory service providers in economically disadvantaged communities in Limerick, Ireland, were thematically analysed. Analysis indicates that statutory service providers endorsed negative stereotypes of disadvantaged areas as separate and anti‐social. The awareness of this perceived division and the experience of ‘stigma consciousness’ was reported by residents and community workers to undermine trust, leading to under‐utilisation of community and government services. We argue that stigmatisation acts as a ‘social curse’ by undermining shared identity between service users and providers and so turning a potentially cooperative intragroup relationship into a fraught intergroup one. We suggest that tackling stigma in order to foster a sense of shared identity is important in creating positive and cooperative service interactions for both service users and providers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

College students' search for sexual health information from their best friends: An application of the theory of motivated information management

Guided by the theory of motivated information management, this study investigated the extent to which Singaporean college students' sexual health information‐seeking behaviour could be accounted for by their anxiety of uncertainty discrepancy, their perceived outcomes of information seeking and their perceived confidence in seeking and coping with sexual health information acquired from their best friends. Taking into account that issue relevance may play a role in individuals' health decision‐making, this study also examined the effect of perceived vulnerability on respondents' sexual health information‐seeking behaviour. An online survey was conducted with 202 undergraduate students at a university in Singapore. Respondents were asked to report the frequency with which they sought four types of sexual health information from their best friends: unwanted pregnancy, abortion, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. Survey data showed that respondents' uncertainty discrepancy was positively associated with their anxiety. Anxiety had negative effects on efficacy and outcome expectancy. Outcome expectancy was positively associated with efficacy. Both efficacy and perceived vulnerability accounted for a significant amount of variance in respondents' sexual health information‐seeking behaviour. Findings from this study contribute to a better understanding of young adults' sexual health information behaviour in a Singapore context.     

What is happening in the world of therapeutic communities?

This overview of the contributions to the special edition illustrates something of how the collection of papers reflects the marginal nature of therapeutic communities, and makes parallels as to how they are forever struggling to survive, yet generate a passion of ideas and intellectual resilience that no project-managed health service can extinguish. It briefly describes the theoretical and geographical terrain covered, and signals how the cross-disciplinary incorporation of congruent ideas can be added to the traditional bedrock of therapeutic community practice. It ends by stating the context of the new, and seemingly successful, organization which assembled these contributions into its inaugural conference – and suggests that the journey could, and ultimate should, go further.     

Discomfort in the community. The place of psyche: Between zōē and bios

In this paper, the author considers the treatment of people diagnosed with a psychosis or borderline personality disorder in therapeutic communities from a psychoanalytic perspective, with a particular focus on the work of Jacques Lacan and of André Green. He discusses two key questions. First, how are these patients to recover life? – not just in the biological sense but in terms of subjectivity. Secondly, is it ever really possible to build relationships with them? In relation to this second question, the author emphasizes the importance of the training and supervision of practitioners, as well as their own analysis. Therapeutic communities, above all, he argues, can provide structure and security in a society which is increasingly fragmented and unstable.