Boys Meet Girls’ Rights: Bolivian Adolescent Males’ Claims of Commitment to Gender Equality

This article describes a qualitative study exploring the effects of community‐based human rights and pro‐equality education on Bolivian adolescent boys. By privileging the boys’ own voices, the study examines how the boys’ sense of solidarity toward others, derived from the citizenship duties and collegiality emphasised in non‐governmental workshops, impacted their commitment to gender equality. Research implications include the importance of educating young males on females’ rights and listening to the boys’ views on the resulting progress and remaining challenges regarding the attainment of sustainable gender equality in social spheres and public policies.     

Emotion Regulation Via Maternal Touch

The study of emotion elicitation in the caregiver‐infant dyad has focused almost exclusively on the facial and vocal channels, whereas little attention has been given to the contribution of the tactile channel. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of touch on infants' emotions. During the time that objects were presented to the dyad, mothers provided tactile stimulation to their 12‐month‐old infants by either (a) tensing their fingers around the infants' abdomen while abruptly inhaling, (b) relaxing their grip around the infants' abdomen, or (c) not providing additional tactile stimulation (control condition). The results revealed that infants in the first condition (a) touched the objects less and waited longer to touch the objects while displaying more negative emotional displays compared to infants in the control condition. However, no apparent differences were found between infants in the second condition (b) and the control condition. The results suggest that infants' emotions may be elicited by specific parameters of touch.     

Parent – Adolescent Relationships and Girls’ Unhealthy Eating: Testing Reciprocal Effects

This longitudinal study tested the direction of associations between parent –adolescent relationships and adolescent girls’ unhealthy eating. Girls (N= 184) were seen at Time 1 (M age = 14.30 years), and then again 2 years later (Time 2; M age = 16.04 years). At both assessment periods, they completed measures that assessed their eating attitudes and behaviors, relationships with their parents, height, weight, and age of menarche. Whereas unhealthy family relationships have been hypothesized as a precursor to unhealthy eating attitudes and behaviors, it is also possible that increases in these behaviors contribute to more negative relationships within the family. Structural equation modeling was employed to simultaneously investigate the longitudinal influence of parent – adolescent relationships on girls’ unhealthy eating, and girls’ unhealthy eating on parent – adolescent relationships. The model was tested with the following controls: body mass (kg/m²), pubertal timing and age. A longitudinal direct effect was found for unhealthy eating on parent– adolescent relationships; however, no direct effect was found for parent– adolescent relationships on unhealthy eating over time. For middle– and late–adolescent girls, it appears that unhealthy eating behaviors and attitudes are predictive of less positive parent – adolescent relationships over time.     

Maternal Regulation of Daughters' Emotion During Conflicts From Early to Mid‐Adolescence

Primary caregivers play an important role in emotion socialization. Real‐time mother–daughter emotion socialization was examined in 45 mother–daughter dyads with early‐adolescent daughters (age M = 11.80, SD = .27) at the first observation point. Maternal supportive emotion regulation and daughters' emotions were coded during two conflict discussions, 2 years apart. With multilevel survival analysis, the likelihood of maternal supportiveness was predicted both over time, between early and mid‐adolescence, and by daughters' pubertal status. Mothers were more likely to respond to daughters' negative and positive emotions with supportiveness for daughters whose pubertal maturation occurred relatively early. Results suggest that mothers adjust their socialization of daughters' emotions according to their daughters' pubertal development.     

Adolescent Deliberate Self‐Harm: Linkages to Emotion Regulation and Family Emotional Climate

Parents' responses to their children's emotional expressivity have been shown to significantly influence children's subsequent psychosocial functioning. This study hypothesized that adolescents' deliberate self‐harm (DSH) may be an outcome associated with poor emotion regulation as well as an invalidating family environment. The mediational role of specific emotion processes (i.e., poor awareness of emotion, difficulties expressing emotions) between family emotional environment and the frequency of DSH was examined with 131 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents (M age=14.84 years, SD=1.75 years). Results indicated that adolescents who self‐injured reported that this behavior reduced their negative emotional states. Structural equation modeling provided support for the proposed model that family climate influences frequency of DSH through emotion regulation skills but the model held for girls only. A direct model effect was not supported. Emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between family climate and DSH, and direct effects were also observed.     

“We're Supposed to Look Like Girls,But Act Like Boys”: Adolescent Girls’ Adherence to Masculinity Norms

In the ecological systems perspective, gender ideologies are part of the macrosystem that shapes human development. A growing literature indicates that youth accommodate and resist such ideologies, with adherence to masculinity norms being linked with negative adjustment. Most masculinity research focuses on boys’ adherence to masculinity, but girls are also pressured to uphold masculinity norms. Using mixed modeling, we examined girls’ adherence to masculinity and psychological (self‐esteem, depressive symptoms) and social (peer support and conflict) well‐being in the United States (N = 407; M_age = 12.28) and China (N = 356; M_age = 12.41). In both countries, adherence to masculinity was negatively associated with psychosocial well‐being. Chinese girls reported greater masculinity adherence, but associations with psychosocial well‐being were not moderated by nationality.     

Maternal Positive and Negative Interaction Behaviors and Early Adolescents' Depressive Symptoms: Adolescent Emotion Regulation as a Mediator

This study examined the relation between mothers' positive and negative interaction behaviors during mother–child interactions and the emotion regulation (ER) and depressive symptoms of their adolescent offspring. Event‐planning (EPI) and problem‐solving interactions (PSI) were observed in 163 mother–adolescent dyads, and adolescents also provided a self‐report of ER responses and depressive symptoms. Sequential analyses of mother–adolescent behaviors during the interaction tasks indicated that adolescents with more depressive symptoms were more likely to reciprocate their mothers' negative affective behaviors. Adolescents whose mothers displayed less positivity and more negativity (i.e., less frequent positive and more frequent negative behaviors) during the EPI displayed more emotionally dysregulated behaviors in the PSI and reported more frequent maladaptive ER responses. Adolescents whose mothers behaved negatively toward them more frequently during mother–adolescent interactions also reported more depressive symptoms. The frequency with which adolescents engage in maladaptive ER responses mediated the association between maternal negativity and adolescents' concurrent depressive symptoms.     

Longitudinal Patterns in Parent and Friend Emotion Socialization: Associations With Adolescent Emotion Regulation

Adolescents learn about emotions through interacting with parents and friends, though there is limited longitudinal research on this topic. This study examined longitudinal patterns in parent and friend emotion socialization and adolescent emotion regulation. Eighty‐seven adolescents reported on parent and friend emotion socialization. Parents reported on adolescent emotion regulation. Parents’ responses were stable over time and across gender. Friends of girls reciprocated negative emotions more and were less punitive over time, whereas friends of boys increased in comforting and decreased in neglect of negative emotions. Parents and friends evidenced unique effects on adolescent emotion regulation, and the effect of friend socialization responses differed for girls and boys. Future research should examine combinatory influences of multiple socializers on adolescent adjustment.     

Metamorphosis: From ‘Nice Girls’ to ‘Nice Bitches’: Resisting Patriarchal Articulations of Professional Identity

This article explores the random strategies women adopt in resisting patriarchal articulations of their professional identity and the kind of organizational discourses women’s resistance brings about. The focus is on describing the context, dynamics of contradictory tensions and ambivalence inherent in situations of resisting. The article draws upon the authors’ own experiences in academia. In addition to participatory observation, the authors are using themselves as research instruments that enable them to highlight the emotions and ambivalent dynamics in the construction of gendered identities and power relations in organizations. The study indicates that there are several sets of rules in motion in one and the same social situation, such as the rules of organizational behaviour, rules of friendship and the rules of gender relations in public places. By describing two overtly sexualized discourses that women’s resistance brought about, the article highlights that organizational sexuality does not necessarily differ in kind or in degree from ‘street sexuality’ or sexuality in semi‐public places. The study’s findings argue that it is important to extend research to both informal and semi‐formal organizational gatherings. These liminal spaces are important sites of communicative struggles over organizational meanings and identities.     

NGOs’ Resource Capacity Antecedents for Partnerships

Nonprofit organizations strive for continuous improvement in their programs’ effectiveness and sustainability, service efficiency, and accountability. Typically, managers face the need to attain these objectives despite limited or declining resources. For that reason, collaboration with other organizations has become an increasingly favored tactical strategy. However, even with the extensive literature on collaboration, there is a lack of empirical testing of elements or characteristics essential to collaboration. Using survey data from environmental organizations, we find that organizations that have sufficient human resource capacity, more technological resources, and employ females at the leadership level would more likely seek collaboration than would other organizations. Organizations that generate higher internal revenues are less likely to seek collaboration.     

Girls’ Jobs for the Boys? Men,Masculinity and Non‐Traditional Occupations

Occupational segregation by sex remains the most pervasive aspect of the labour market. In the past, most research on this topic has concentrated on explanations of women’s segregation into low paid and low status occupations, or investigations of women who have crossed gender boundaries into men’s jobs, and the potential impact on them and the occupations. In contrast, this article reports on a small‐scale, qualitative study of ten men who have crossed into what are generally defined as ‘women’s jobs’. In doing so, one of the impacts on them has been that they have experienced challenges to their masculine identity from various sources and in a variety of ways. The men’s reactions to these challenges, and their strategies for developing and accommodating their masculinity in light of these challenges, are illuminating. They either attempted to maintain a traditional masculinity by distancing themselves from female colleagues, and/or partially (re)constructed a different masculinity by identifying with their non‐traditional occupations. This they did as often as they deemed necessary as a response to different forms of challenge to their gender identities from both men and women. Finally, the article argues that these responses work to maintain the men as the dominant gender, even in these traditionally defined ‘women’s jobs’.     

Adolescent Transitions to Young Adulthood: Antecedents,Correlates, and Consequences of Adolescent Employment

The antecedents, correlates, and consequences of adolescent employment were investigated in a sample of 251 low‐income, African American youth that were followed since birth. The youth (age: M at preschool = 4.89, SD= .70; M at adolescence = 16.44, SD= .66; M at transition to adulthood = 19.36, SD= .76; and M at early adulthood = 27.67, SD= .75) were the firstborn children of African American teenage mothers who gave birth in Baltimore in the 1960s. Analyses examined the antecedents and correlates of age of entry into employment and stability of employment during adolescence. The associations of adolescent work experiences with subsequent adult education and employment outcomes also were considered. Findings indicate that among this sample of low‐income, African American youth, those who repeated a grade in school during middle childhood were more likely to enter the workforce at later ages than their peers who did not repeat a grade. The small subset of adolescents who never worked (n= 12) appear to be markedly more disadvantaged than their peers who worked. At the transition to adulthood, adolescents who entered the workforce earlier were more likely to complete high school than their peers. In addition, stable employment during the adolescent years had more beneficial effects on young men's chances of attending college than young women's postsecondary education. This pattern of findings is consistent with ethnographic accounts of adolescent employment among poor, minority, urban youth.     

Girls’ Family Labor in Low‐Income Households: A Decade of Qualitative Research

This article analyzes a decade of qualitative research to identify and explore an overlooked survival strategy used in low‐income families: children's family labor. Defined as physical duties, caregiving, and household management responsibilities, children’s—most often girls’—family labor is posited as a critical source of support where low wages and absent adult caregivers leave children to take over essential, complex, and time‐consuming family demands. We argue that there are lost opportunities when children are detoured from childhood to do family labor and that an intergenerational transfer of poverty is associated with those losses.     

‘It’s like we’re locked in a box’: Girls’ and mothers’ experiences of the police and legal system following child sexual abuse

This article focuses on girls’ and mothers’ experiences of police and criminal justice system responses and the impact of investigation processes following reporting of child sexual abuse. Participants spoke of a lack of timely therapeutic provision and the subsequent role of female caregivers in providing support. Problems with criminal justice processes and the subsequent impact on families’ wider lives were also discussed. Findings suggest that criminal justice processes need to be better attuned to these micro level impacts and should show more sensitivity to the overall experience of children in the aftermath of sexual abuse. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Parent–Adolescent Dyads as Temporal Interpersonal Emotion Systems

Research on the role of parent–adolescent relationships in psychosocial adjustment needs a conceptual approach that specifies the processes by which development is nested in the relationship. I forward a new approach and emphasize the need to consider the unique elements that individuals bring to the dyadic system. I also emphasize the need to examine processes at multiple time scales. I highlight the complexity of dyadic system dynamics: Biological predispositions set the foundation for the parent–adolescent relationship and the emotion dynamics that emerge during interactions. As the system gets entrained through repeated interactions over longer time scales, real‐time dynamics coalesce into psychosocial adjustment, which in turn constrains real‐time dynamics. I review the evidence for each of these processes and discuss the implications.     

Maternal input and infants’ response to infant‐directed speech

Caregivers typically use an exaggerated speech register known as infant‐directed speech (IDS) in communication with infants. Infants prefer IDS over adult‐directed speech (ADS) and IDS is functionally relevant in infant‐directed communication. We examined interactions among maternal IDS quality, infants’ preference for IDS over ADS, and the functional relevance of IDS at 6 and 13 months. While 6‐month‐olds showed a preference for IDS over ADS, 13‐month‐olds did not. Differences in gaze following behavior triggered by speech register (IDS vs. ADS) were found in both age groups. The degree of infants’ preference for IDS (relative to ADS) was linked to the quality of maternal IDS infants were exposed to. No such relationship was found between gaze following behavior and maternal IDS quality and infants’ IDS preference. The results speak to a dynamic interaction between infants’ preference for different kinds of social signals and the social cues available to them.     

Adolescent Externalizing Problems: Contributions of Community Crime Exposure and Neural Function During Emotion Introspection in Mexican‐Origin Youth

Models of the etiology of adolescent antisocial behavior suggest that externalizing problems may reflect a susceptibility to crime exposure and a diminished capacity for emotion introspection. In this study, adolescents of Mexican origin completed a neuroimaging task that involved rating their subjective feelings of sadness in response to emotional facial expressions or a nonemotional aspect of each face. At lower levels of neural activity during sadness introspection in posterior cingulate and left temporoparietal junction, and in left amygdala, brain regions involved in mentalizing and emotion, respectively, a stronger positive association between community crime exposure and externalizing problems was found. The specification of emotion introspection as a psychological process showing neural variation may help inform targeted interventions to positively affect adolescent behavior.     

Indirect Effects of Maternal Sensitivity on Infant Emotion Regulation Behaviors: The Role of Vagal Withdrawal

The potential indirect effect of observed maternal sensitivity at 5 months on the development of infants' behavioral regulation of emotion from 5 to 10 months (i.e., distraction and maternal‐orientation behaviors) via infant's vagal withdrawal was investigated (N = 230). Results indicated that maternal sensitivity at 5 months was not directly associated with behavioral regulation at 10 months. However, greater maternal sensitivity at 5 months was associated with greater vagal withdrawal at 10 months, after controlling for vagal withdrawal at 5 months. Further, vagal withdrawal at 10 months was associated with greater orientation toward the mother at 10 months, after controlling for 5‐month orientation behaviors. The indirect effect of maternal sensitivity on maternal‐orientation behaviors was significant, suggesting that infant's vagal withdrawal may be one potential mechanism through which maternal sensitivity is related to behavioral regulation.     

Mother–Adolescent Conflict: Adolescent Goals,Maternal Perspective‐Taking,and Conflict Intensity

Younger and older adolescents were interviewed about their goals in recent disagreements with their mothers. Six goals were identified: instrumental (simply gaining their immediate desire); dyadic concern; achieving emotional support; autonomy; dominance; and nonengagement (avoidance of conflict). Younger adolescents reported significantly more instrumental and significantly fewer emotional support and dominance goals than did older adolescents. Maternal perspective‐taking predicted more dyadic concern and fewer dominance goals, as well as more nonengagement goals for younger adolescents. Dominance goals mediated the effect of maternal dyadic perspective‐taking on conflict intensity for older adolescents.     

Sources and Implications of Maternal Accuracy About Young Adolescents’ Vulnerability to Friendship Jealousy

To assist effectively with social difficulties, parents must accurately understand the peer situations that are difficult for their child. Mothers’ insight into their young adolescent's vulnerability to friendship jealousy was assessed by posing identical vignettes to 72 young adolescents and their mothers and matching their responses. Mothers and children also completed questionnaires on their relationship and the child's adjustment. Mothers as a group were poor judges of their child's jealousy, but considerable variability existed. Accuracy was greater when mother–child pairs were closer. Polynomial regression and response surface analyses indicated that maternal accuracy could dampen the friendship and aggression risks otherwise associated with being vulnerable to jealousy.