The Protective Effects of Religious Beliefs on Behavioral Health Factors Among Low Income African American Adolescents in Chicago

Religious involvement has long been argued to have protective effects for negative behavioral health outcomes for vulnerable youth. This study builds on the existing resilience literature and need for more studies that examine protective factors associated with behavioral health. A sample of 638 low-income African American adolescents in Chicago to examine within group variations of the influence of religious involvement on delinquency, school engagement, substance use and sexual risk behaviors, and whether such relationships differ by gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Logistic regression findings documented that greater religious involvement was protective with regards to lower rates of delinquency, drug use, risky sexual behaviors and higher rates of school engagement, and that gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status varied for several of these relationships. Overall findings are discussed with regards to future research.     

Reducing the effects of the stereotype threat that girls perform less well than boys in mathematics: the efficacy of a mixed debate in a real classroom situation

The present research aims at testing the effects of the mixed debate in a classroom situation on reducing the stereotype threat according to which girls perform less well than boys in mathematics. Our work is based on studies conducted on stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson in J Person Soc Psychol 69:797–811. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.69.5.797, 1995), as well as those aiming to reduce the impact of stereotype threat on stereotyped populations (Huguet and Régner in J Educ Psychol 99(3):545–560. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.545, 2007; Marx and Roman in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 28:1185–1197. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672022812004, 2002; Spencer et al. in J Exp Soc Psychol 35:4–28. https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1998.1373, 1999). We will more particularly study Smith and Postmes' (Br J Soc Psychol 50(1):74–98. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466610X500340, 2010) work on small group discussions used to reduce the influence of the threat. Results indicate that having a debate as such reduces the impact of the stereotype threat in girls. Possible interpretations of the results and future research perspectives will be put forward.

     

Exposure to Verbal Parental Aggression and Sexual Activity Among Low Income African American Youth

The study examined whether witnessing verbal parental aggression (VPA) was related to sexual activity among mostly low income African American youth, and whether psychological symptoms mediated this relationship. Five hundred and sixty-three African American high school adolescents (ages 13–19) completed self-administered questionnaires, which assessed demographics, psychological problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, aggression and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms), witnessing VPA, and sexual activity. Participants who witnessed high versus no VPA were 2 times more likely to report sexual activity. This relationship was mediated by aggression for males and females, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms for females only. Youth service providers should be trained to understand the prevalence of co-occurring problems such as exposure to VPA, aggression, PTSD symptoms, and sexual activity, with the goal of more effectively supporting the healthy development of African American youth.     

Stability in ordered and icosahedral aluminium–transition metal alloys

Abstract

We present calculated electron state densities for A1T (T is a transition metal) compounds and icosahedral Al₈₆T₁₄ alloys which suggest that the relative stability of different short-range atomic arrangements varies inversely with the electron state density at the Fermi level. Using this argument, we show that the absence ofstable highly coordinated configurations is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the existence of icosahedral Al₈₆T₁₄ alloys.     

The Impact of the Antitobacco Norm on the Selected Mode of Cognitive Dissonance Reduction

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that when behavior violates an antismoking injunctive norm, dissonance is aroused, but the injunctive norm constrains how people reduce their discomfort. In Experiment 1, participants with positive or negative attitudes toward public smoking wrote an essay for or against a ban on public smoking. Whereas attitude change occurred for those whose counter‐attitudinal essay supported the antismoking norm, those whose counter‐attitudinal essay violated the antismoking norm did not change their attitudes to reduce dissonance. In Experiment 2, participants who wrote against the ban on public smoking eschewed attitude change in favor of reducing dissonance through trivialization and act rationalization. The discussion focuses on how maintaining social connections makes cognitions resistant to change when dissonance is aroused.