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Philosophical Studies -     

A Psychometric Evaluation of the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale with African Americans

The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Sex-Role Egalitarianism Scale—KK (King & King, 1990) in a sample of 171 African American college students. Examination of the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients suggested that the SRES—KK is a reliable measure of gender role attitudes for African Americans. The construct validity of the instrument was assessed and supported by an examination of differences between men's and women's scores. The results of the study support the use of the SRES-KK with African American samples. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.     

Cloze probability and completion norms for 498 sentences: Behavioral and neural validation using event-related potentials

Three decades after their publication, Bloom and Fischler’s (1980) sentence completion norms continue to demonstrate widespread utility. The aim of the present study was to extend this contribution by expanding the existing database of high-constraint, high cloze probability sentences. Using the criteria established by Bloom and Fischler, we constructed 398 new sentences and presented these along with 100 sentences from their original list to be normed using a sample of 400 participants. Of the 498 sentences presented, 400 met criteria for high cloze probability—that is, .67 or higher probability of being completed by a specific single word. Of these, 321 sentences were from the new set and an additional 79 were from Bloom and Fischler’s set. A high degree of correspondence was observed between responses obtained by Bloom and Fischler for their high-constraint set. A second experiment utilized an N400 event-related potential paradigm to provide further validation of the contextual constraint for the newly generated set. As expected, N400 amplitude was greater for sentences that violated contextual expectancy by ending in a word other than the newly established completion norm. Sentence completion norms are frequently used in cognitive research, and this larger database of high cloze probability sentences is expected to be of benefit to the research community for many years to come. The full set of stimuli and sentence completion norms from this study may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/ content/supplemental.     

Examining approaches to encourage COVID-19 vaccination on social media

Following the release of the first COVID-19 vaccinations many people utilized social media to promote vaccination among their social circles. These attempts to persuade others to get vaccinated ranged from positive encouragement (e.g., emphasizing the prosocial benefits and positive outcomes) to shame and threats (e.g., name calling and threating to end friendships over vaccination status). The present study investigated how these different social media messages affected COVID-19 vaccination intentions. In June 2021, shortly after vaccines had been made freely available to anyone over the age of 16 in the United States, unvaccinated participants read a manipulated Twitter message designed to be either encouraging or shaming. Message-type did not significantly affect intentions to become vaccinated against COVID-19; however, participants who saw the encouraging message reported that the post made them feel more likely to get vaccinated. Self-efficacy was also manipulated but did not reveal any significant effects. Additional analyses suggest that having personal experience with COVID-19 moderates reactions to these different messages. We discuss limitations and promising avenues for future research on the effects of social media messages on health behaviors.     

Effectiveness of an attachment-based intervention for the assessment of parenting capacities in maltreating families: A randomized controlled trial

Even though Parenting Capacity Assessments (PCAs) are essential for child protection services to support placement decisions for maltreating families, presently no evidence-based PCA protocols are available. In this randomized controlled trial, we tested the quality of an attachment-based PCA protocol based on Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD). We recruited 56 parent-child dyads (M_age children = 3.48 years) in Dutch family residential clinics that conduct PCAs to support placement decisions. After pretest, families were randomized to receive the Regular Assessment Procedure (RAP) (n = 28), or an additional assessment based on VIPP-SD (n = 28). An immediate post-test and a 10-month follow-up were conducted. Multilevel models showed that therapists felt equally confident about their recommendations regarding child placement for both groups and that they equally often modified their initial placement recommendations. Moreover, children in the VIPP-SD group did not show fewer behavior problems and did not experience recurring child maltreatment less often than children in the RAP group. Thus, we found no evidence that PCAs incorporating the VIPP-SD protocol outperformed PCAs as usual. We discuss possible explanations why in the current study VIPP-SD did not seem to add to the quality of the RAP.     

Women in the National Guard: Experiences with children during deployment

More women of the National Guard and Reserves have deployed to combat zones overseas than ever before. Upon reintegration, these soldiers often face a number of stressors related to their combat zone experiences and readjustment to civilian life. One of these stressors is the reintegration with family, partners, and children. This qualitative study involved interviews with 30 women from the National Guard regarding their reintegration experiences with their children. Four categories were revealed from the data: (a) Concerns for Children’s Well-being, (b) Sense of Loss (c) Reintegration: Personal Challenges, and (d) Reintegration: Children’s Reactions. Implications for clinical work with returning soldiers and further research are discussed.     

A test of the social development model during the transition to junior high with Mexican American adolescents

Mexican American adolescents have higher rates of externalizing problems than their peers from other ethnic and racial groups. To begin the process of understanding factors related to externalizing problems in this population, this study used the social development model (SDM) and prospective data across the transition to junior high school from 750 diverse Mexican American families. In addition, the authors examined whether familism values provided a protective effect for relations within the model. Results showed that the SDM worked well for this sample. As expected, association with deviant peers was the primary predictor of externalizing behaviors. There was support for a protective effect in that adolescents with higher familism values had slower rates of increase in association with deviant peers from 5th to 7th grades than those with lower familism values. Future research needs to determine whether additional culturally appropriate modifications of the SDM would increase its usefulness for Mexican American adolescents.