To Die For: The Semiotic Seductive Power of the Tanned Body

Human skin burns with prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light. This simple physiological process acquires meaning through social interaction—whereby tanned skin assumes symbolic and semiotic properties. In this article we examine the meanings of tanned skin by focusing on the semiotic seductive power of the tanned body. Drawing from forty qualititative interviews, we examine the motives, beliefs, and experiences of people who tan their skin artificially, that is, through exposure to tanning lamps, in order to understand how tanned skin assumes meaning for them. We analyze the practice of artificial tanning and the interplay among processes of seduction, impression management, self‐expression, and the construction, exchange, and interpretation of embodied sign‐values.     

Support,Discrimination, and Alcohol Use Among Racially/Ethnically Diverse Sexual Minority Youths

Rates of alcohol use for sexual minority youths are nearly twice that of their heterosexual peers, yet specific risk and protective factors associated with alcohol use among sexual minority youths remain unclear. Structural equation modeling is used to examine relations among alcohol use, peer and family support, and discrimination among 207 diverse sexual minority youths. Discrimination had no relationship to alcohol use; however, it was negatively associated with peer and family support. Peer support was associated with greater alcohol use among bisexual youths. This study adds to our understanding of the roles of discrimination, social support, and alcohol use among diverse sexual minority youths.     

The contribution of social support to children and adolescents' self-perception: The mediating role of bullying victimization

The purpose of this article is to report on a study that explores the linkages among self-perception, perceptions of social support, and bullying involvement among children and youth, with a focus on how bullying victimization mediates the association of social support and self-perception. We employ Harter's multidimensional model of self-esteem (1999; 2012), which highlights the inextricable link of social support to global self-esteem but does not explore the contribution of bullying involvement to this association. Our findings indicate that social support is associated with self-perception, and that traditional victimization mediates the association between social support and self-perception for three self-perception measures: social acceptance, physical appearance, and global self-worth. Contrary to our expectations, cyberbullying victimization was not found to mediate the relationship between social support and self-perception. These findings underscore the importance of exploring both traditional bullying victimization and cyberbullying victimization in relation to social support in order to understand their effect on development and wellbeing. More broadly, this study's finding that social support was a significant buffer to bullying victimization emphasizes the necessity of developing prevention and intervention strategies which are relationship-based and implemented early in young people's lives.     

College student contraceptive use: A multivariate analysis

This study investigated the relationship of 22 variables—categorized as relating to sexual history, relationship, social support, contraception beliefs, and personality factors—to contraceptive use by college women and men. The use of effective contraception by both women and men was primarily associated with partner support for contraception; and the choice between oral contraceptives and condoms was associated with frequency of intercourse.     

The Relationship Between Romantic Partner Support Styles and Body Image Disturbance

ABSTRACT

American women have long been affected by perceptions of beauty being described as the thin female idealizing standards far below the standards for what is considered the ideal body weight. Women have also been strongly influenced by their partners and the opinions that are expressed. To explore this concept further, 170 females were assessed to determine whether romantic partner social support could be a predictor of female body image and eating disturbances. Of the 117 participants that met full criteria for the project, the measures for figure rating preferences, eating disturbance, and body image dissatisfaction were investigated. Along with these indicators, intimate bonding, self-esteem, stress, general social support, and romantic partner support were also collected. Statistical results supported that higher body image dissatisfaction was inversely related to the perception of lower levels of romantic partner support. In addition, esteem support was predictive of female body image disturbance, with no support style being predictive of female eating disturbance. Therefore, findings in this study highlight that receiving support from a romantic partner and general support from other intimates can be directly related to report levels of body image disturbance and anxiety associated with physical appearance. Results are presented to assist evidence-based practice efforts stressing the need to identify and foster all possible types of supportive communication used within intimate relationships.     

Gambling Participation and Social Support Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Community Study

The purpose of this preliminary study was to examine associations between leaving home to engage in bingo or gambling activity and indices of physical and mental health and social support among a representative community cohort of 1016 elderly people. Cross-sectional and longitudinal data gathered from a prospective epidemiological study in a rural, low socio-economic status, area of Pennsylvania was employed. The cohort had a mean age of 78.8 (SD = 5.1) (range 71–97) and participated in three consecutive biennial waves of data collection. Nearly half (47.7) of the cohort reported gambling. To predict gambling, the independent variables included age, sex, education, employment, social support, depressive symptoms, self-rated health, alcohol use, cigarette use, and cognitive functioning. In cross-sectional, univariate analyses, gambling was associated with younger age, sex (male), fewer years of education, greater social support, lower depression scores, better self-rated health, alcohol use in the past year, and higher cognitive functioning. In a cross-sectional multiple regression model, younger age, greater social support, and alcohol use in the past year remain strongly and independently associated with gambling activity. Longitudinally, age, sex, social support, alcohol use, and gambling are predictive of future gambling activity. The results revealed that gambling may offer a forum of social support to older adults who are often isolated as they age.     

Beliefs About Others’ Perceptions—Gender Typicality: Scale Development and Relationships to Gender Nonconformity,Sexual Orientation,and Well-Being

The purpose of this study was to develop a measure of “other-perceived” gender typicality and test its relationship with gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, and psychological distress. Data on these variables were collected from 632 participants (142 heterosexual men, 77 gay men, 50 bisexual men, 174 heterosexual women, 85 lesbian women, and 104 bisexual women). We designed a Beliefs About Others’ Perceptions—Gender Typicality (BOP-GT) scale on which participants reported how masculine or feminine they thought other people perceived their gendered behavior, interests, appearance, and activities. Factor analysis identified five factors: appearance, emotional response, sporting interests, occupational interests, and interpersonal style. Recalled childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) was significantly associated with each BOP-GT subscale. Heterosexual men rated that other people perceived them to be more masculine scoring on the BOP-GT compared to heterosexual women. Gay men and lesbian women showed cross-sexed patterns on the BOP-GT total scale, appearance, emotional response, and sporting interests scores. Bisexual men and women were generally no different from the other male and female groups, respectively. Bisexual women had greater distress scores, and the BOP-GT emotional response subscale was associated with somewhat greater distress scores. The BOP-GT measure may have use in future research on understanding gendered self-concepts.     

Evaluating a Product Donation Program: Challenges for Charitable Capacity

This article offers one of the first efforts at describing the impact of a national product donation program. Despite the importance of in‐kind giving to the corporate and charitable sectors, little research has explained how in‐kind gifts are used effectively once they leave the donor's hands. In this study we examine outcomes and impacts associated with a product donation program, including numbers served, a faith‐based mission, the ability to process product donations effectively, the extent of performance measurement, and the effect of program experience on continued participation. Data come from Good360's Framing Hope program, a partnership between The Home Depot stores and local charities across the United States. Our findings support the organizational capacity literature in suggesting that experience with this program only partly mitigates the challenges of participation and that success may be due to how central the program is to organizational objectives.     

Work-Family Conflict Among Dual-Earners: Are Partner,Family, and Friends Resources or Liabilities?

Using dyadic data from a random sample of dual-earner couples from an upper Midwestern city in the US (N?=?99), this study examined how each partner’s strain and support from family, partner, and friends relate to work-family conflict. The findings showed several significant relationships. Among men, friend support was associated with lower work-to-family conflict and higher family-to-work conflict, whereas partner support was related to lower family-to-work conflict. Partner strain was associated with work-to-family conflict among women and family-to-work conflict among men. Men’s friend support was related to less work-to-family conflict among women, and women’s family support was associated with less family-to-work conflict among men. Men’s friend strain was associated with higher family-to-work conflict among women. The implications of these findings were discussed, with an eye towards identifying theoretical and practical implications of this study.     

Empathy and drug use behaviors among African-American adolescents

The current study proposed that empathy may indirectly play a protective role for adolescents in drug use behaviors and that this relationship will be mediated by self-regulatory strategies found in drug refusal efficacy. We predict that empathy will be linked to prosocial behavior and aggression, though we do not believe that they will mediate the relationship between empathy and drug use. The sample included 498 African-American adolescents in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. The results of structural equation modeling provided support for our hypotheses. Empathy was significantly and positively associated with drug refusal efficacy and prosocial behavior. Empathy was negatively associated with aggression. Drug refusal efficacy was negatively related to past 30-day drug use, providing evidence for the fully mediating role of drug refusal self-efficacy on empathy and past 30-day drug use. Consistent with our predictions, aggression and prosocial behavior were not significantly associated with past 30-day drug use. These findings may be useful in the context of programming efforts for drug prevention.     

Development of guidelines for designing appliances for older persons

The ability of older adults to use a domestic appliance depends on their comprehension of the appliance's operation. This may depend on transfer of understanding from similar, more familiar technology. While this may assist their interaction with the new device, it may constrain the discovery of new functionality not represented in the familiar technology, and, thereby, constrain the discovery of advanced functionality. Older adults experience declining cognitive abilities associated with attention, perceptual encoding, and memory (cueing and recall). Designing appliances to extend cognitive abilities provides opportunity to prolong functional independence. Concepts from cognitive psychology, human factors, and gerontology are reviewed to explain age-related behavior towards technology to support innovative product development of technologies for older adults.     

Latino adolescent substance use: A mediating model of inter-parental conflict,deviant peer associations,and parenting

Substance use among Latino adolescents continues to be a growing concern for researchers and clinicians. This paper reviews relevant literature regarding the impact of inter-parental conflict (IPC), deviant peer associations (DPA) and parenting behaviors, namely as parental support, psychological control, and parental monitoring knowledge on substance use among Latino adolescents. Although mediating models of IPC and similar parenting behaviors on adolescent externalizing behaviors have been represented in empirical studies, none have included the influence of peer associations or have analyzed these factors with substance use among Latino adolescents in the U.S. This study investigated direct relationships of IPC and DPA with adolescent substance use, and tested parental support, psychological control and parental monitoring knowledge as mediators between those relationships in Latino adolescents. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze direct and indirect relationships of the variables mentioned among 744 Latino adolescents. Results indicated that DPA was positively associated with substance use, parental monitoring knowledge was negatively associated with substance use and that parental monitoring knowledge partially mediated the relationship between DPA and substance use. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of areas of focus for interventions.     

Condom Use Trajectories in Adolescence and the Transition to Adulthood: The Role of Mother and Father Support

Few studies have investigated how mother and father support differ on predicting youths' sexual risk behavior. We therefore examined the influence of parental support on condom use trajectories and its correlates in a predominantly African American sample [(N=627; 53% female; M = 14.86 years (SD=. 64)] from adolescence to young adulthood. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling to examine the relationship between condom use, substance use, psychological distress and parental support prospectively. We found that consistent condom use decreased over time and was associated negatively with psychological distress and substance use. Furthermore, both maternal and paternal support were associated with more condom use over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for HIV prevention programs.     

A Network Perspective of Organizational Innovation

Current explanations undertheorize success across the broad stages of innovation, which include product invention, development, implementation, and success. While existing scholarship typically examines one, sometimes two, of these stages, innovation must be viewed more broadly with success resulting from the involvement of a wide range of actors including the firm, alliance partner, and overall network. In this article, I apply a network perspective to explain success across these stages. The argument I develop is that different types of networks are more relevant to certain stages of innovation. Network activity that increases from lower to higher levels of analysis is associated with success across the stages of innovation. Specifically, firm inventors influence product invention, successful product development and implementation are associated with dyadic‐level relationships between strategic alliance partners, and product success is impacted by a firm's central location in its entire network of strategic alliances. Results from regression models provide broad support for network approach advocated in this article.     

Social Networking Among Health Sciences University Students: Examining Social Network Usage,Social Support,and General Well-Being

Social network sites (SNSs) are organized around users who join an internet network to engage in daily discussions and postings. Though research informs us about SNSs usage, no published research addresses the use of social network sites among health science professionals. This study examined the relationship between social network usage, social support, and general well-being among undergraduate and graduate students. This study provides results that identify significant relationships (p < .001) associated with SNS usage and the variables of social support and general well-being among this study population. These results can inform the use of SNSs in university health sciences educational programs.     

Sexual assault and alcohol use: exploring the self-medication hypothesis

Though a link between sexual victimization and alcohol use has been well documented, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. The current study used path analysis to examine the role of self-reported levels of psychological distress and the function of alcohol use as indirect pathways between adult sexual assault and alcohol use. Participants were 318 undergraduate female victims and nonvictims of adult sexual assault. Results showed that a history of sexual assault was associated with increased psychological distress, which in turn contributed to alcohol use via negative reinforcement. Taken together, these findings provided support for the hypothesis that women who have been sexually assaulted consume alcohol, in part, to self-medicate. The implications for future research are discussed.     

Marijuana use, introspectiveness, and mental health

Conflicting evidence suggests that marijuana use may be associated with either positive or negative mental health. This study explores the possibility that the association of marijuana use with mental health differs among various subgroups of users. Specifically, we investigate the hypothesis that marijuana use and the personality disposition of introspectiveness interact in their effects on psychological well-being. Results support this hypothesis and show that marijuana use is associated significantly with psychological distress for highly introspective individuals. In contrast, marijuana use has no such association for those low on introspectiveness. Additional evidence shows that marijuana use involves primarily self-oriented cognitive and emotional experiences for highly introspective individuals, whereas for those low on introspectiveness it is characterized more often by perceptual distortions and sensorimotor sensations.     

Toward a dimensional model of risk and protective factors influencing children's early cognitive,social, and emotional development during the COVID-19 pandemic

Variation in infants’ home environment is implicated in their cognitive and psycho-social development. The pandemic has intensified variations in home environments through exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities, and increasing psychological stressors for some families. This study investigates the effects of parental (predominantly maternal) mental health, enriching activities and screen use on 280 24- to 52-month-olds’ executive functions, internalising and externalising problems, and pro-social behaviour; with socioeconomic status and social support as contextual factors. Our results indicate that aspects of the home environment are differentially associated with children’s cognitive and psycho-social development. Parents who experienced sustained mental distress during the pandemic tended to report higher child externalising and internalising problems, and executive function difficulties at follow-up. Children who spent more time engaged in enriching activities with their parents showed stronger executive functions and social competence six months later. Screen use levels during the first year of the pandemic were not associated with outcomes. To mitigate the risk of persistent negative effects for this ‘pandemic generation’ of infants, our study highlights the importance of supporting parents’ mental health. As our results demonstrate the impact of social support on mental health, investing in support services and interventions promoting building support networks are likely to be beneficial.