Emotional Experience as a Function of Social Context: The Role of the Other

Inconsistencies in previous findings concerning the relationship between emotion and social context are likely to reflect the multi-dimensionality of the sociality construct. In the present study we focused on the role of the other person by manipulating two aspects of this role: co-experience of the event and expression of emotion. We predicted that another's co-experience and expression would affect emotional responses and that the direction of these effects would depend upon the manipulated emotion and how the role of the other person is appraised. Participants read vignettes eliciting four different emotions: happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger. As well as an alone condition, there were four conditions in which a friend was present, either co-experiencing the event or merely observing it, and either expressing emotions consistent with the event or not showing any emotion. There were significant effects of co-experience in the case of anger situations, and of expression in the case of happiness and sadness situations. Social appraisal also appeared to influence emotional response. We discuss different processes that might be responsible for these results.     

Family Time Activities and Adolescents' Emotional Well‐being

The literature is divided on the issue of what matters for adolescents' well‐being, with one approach focusing on quality and the other on routine family time. Using the experience sampling method, a unique form of time diary, and survey data drawn from the 500 Family Study (N = 237 adolescents with 8,122 observations), this study examined the association between family time and adolescents' emotional well‐being as a function of the type of activities family members engaged in during their time together. Hierarchical linear model analyses revealed that eating meals together was beneficial to adolescents' emotional well‐being, especially when fathers were present. Family leisure was also beneficial to teens' well‐being. By contrast, productive family time (e.g., homework) was associated with lower emotional well‐being, as was maintenance family time (e.g., household chores), but only when adolescents engaged in it with both parents.     

The Family Context of Assent: Comparison of Child and Parent Perspectives on Familial Decision‐Making

Assent guidelines currently fail to include an assessment of a child's decision‐making ability, experience and interest. This paper summarises a two‐stage study, conducted in the United Kingdom, exploring perspectives on children's decision‐making power and ability within their family, as an indicator for overall decision‐making readiness. Children desired to make some decisions but knew their parents held ultimate authority. Parents believed their children could make some decisions and actively trained them through involvement in daily decisions. Researchers should strive to include children in enrolment decisions to some degree, based on a consideration of their expectations for involvement informed by their daily family context.     

Very Preterm and Full‐Term Infants’ Response to Socio‐Emotional Stress: The Role of Postnatal Maternal Bonding

Very preterm (VPT) infants are at risk for altered socio‐emotional stress regulation, even in the absence of perinatal complications. Moreover, becoming a mother of a VPT infant is a traumatic event, which might affect the establishment of a bonding relationship toward the infant during the postnatal period. The main aim of the present study was to assess the association between maternal postnatal bonding and socio‐emotional stress response in 3‐month‐old VPT infants, compared to full‐term (FT) controls. Thirty‐three VPT and 28 FT infant‐mother dyads underwent the maternal Face‐to‐Face Still‐Face (FFSF) procedure to assess socio‐emotional stress regulation. Maternal postnatal bonding was measured through the Maternal Post‐Natal Attachment Scale (MPAS), which includes three scales: Quality of attachment, Absence of hostility, and Pleasure in interaction. The VPT infants exhibited less self‐directed and other‐directed regulatory behaviors during the Still‐Face episode. Mothers of VPT infants reported lower Quality of attachment compared to FT counterparts. Importantly, higher levels of Quality of attachment were associated with more other‐directed behaviors during the Still‐Face episode in FT dyads, whereas this was not observed in VPT dyads. In conclusion, VPT infants might be exposed to a double‐risk condition for socio‐emotional development, encompassing both difficulties in stress response and the exposure to a less‐than‐optimal maternal bonding.     

The Relation Between Peer Victimization and Adolescents' Well‐Being: The Moderating Role of Ethnicity Within Context

This study examined the moderating effects of individual ethnicity and school ethnic composition on the relation between peer victimization and adolescents' well‐being. Participants were 4,593 sixth grade students attending 36 schools categorized as ethnically diverse or predominantly African American, European American, or Latino American. Multilevel models revealed relations between participants' ethnicity and their reported frequency of overt but not relational victimization. Findings did not support the hypothesis that adolescents in the minority group in their school would be more frequently victimized than adolescents in the majority group. Furthermore, contrary to hypothesis, the relation between the reported frequency of victimization and well‐being did not vary as a function of the interaction between adolescents' ethnicity and their schools' ethnic composition.     

The Role of Emotion Processing in the Association between Parental Discipline and Adolescent Socio‐Emotional Development

This research investigated whether biases in processing threatening emotional cues operate as an indirect pathway through which parental harsh discipline is associated with adolescent socio‐emotional functioning. Participants were 192 adolescents (M age = 12.4), and their parents assessed over two years. Findings revealed two significant indirect pathways involving fear processing. Greater parental harsh discipline was linked to more emotional response inhibition difficulty for fear, which was linked to more depressive symptoms in the following year. Greater parental harsh discipline was also associated with more emotional response inhibition difficulty for fear, and thereby, more peer problems later. Findings suggest that adolescent emotional processing operated as an indirect pathway linking parental harsh discipline and adolescent socio‐emotional functioning within the broader social context.     

Relational Self‐Construal as a Moderator of Social Support in Career Decision Making

The authors examined relational self‐construal as a moderator of the influence of social support on career decision‐making difficulties among 352 college students (65% women, 63% Caucasian). Results of hierarchical regression analyses supported the hypothesis that individuals with higher relational self‐construal reported fewer difficulties in terms of lack of information and inconsistent information in career decision making as social support increased. Social support, however, did not reduce career decision‐making difficulties for those with lower relational self‐construal. Relational self‐construal did not moderate the relationship between social support and lack of readiness in career decision‐making difficulties as expected, possibly because of conceptual and measurement issues. Results suggest counselors work from relational and contextual perspectives to foster clients' self‐views and to use social support to facilitate their career decision making.     

Children and Families’ Involvement in Social Work Decision Making

This review summarises the research literature on children’s and parents’ involvement in social work decision making, which is regarded, in policy terms, as increasingly important. In practice, however, it tends to be messy, difficult and compromised. Different individuals or groups may have different understandings of participation and related concepts, while differences of age and disability also mediate effective user engagement. The literature highlights common themes in effective participatory practice with both children and their parents. Central to this are the establishment of relationships of trust and respect, clear communication and information and appropriate support to participate.     

Adolescents' Career Decision‐Making Process: Related to Quality of Attachment to Parents?

This longitudinal study examined how adolescents' perceptions of attachment security with parents relate to their process of choosing a major in higher education. The participants were 281 students who were investigated at the beginning, middle, and end of Grade 12. Findings showed that higher perceived security with mother, but not with father, predicted higher levels of coping with the career decisional tasks of orientation, broad and in‐depth environmental exploration, and self‐exploration in the future. However, perceived security did not relate to the degree of change in decisional tasks during Grade 12. Finally, results suggested that the association between perceived security with mother and the decisional tasks of orientation, broad and in‐depth environmental exploration, and self‐exploration was mediated by adolescents' career decision‐making self‐efficacy.     

Decision Making in Voluntary Career Change: An Other‐Than‐Rational Perspective

The authors present a qualitative study of voluntary career change, which highlighted the importance of positive emotions, unplanned action, and building certainty and perceiving continuity in the realization of change. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to broaden theoretical understanding of real‐life career decision making. The accounts of 8 women who had changed careers were explored, and the analysis supported other‐than‐rational perspectives of career decision making. An action‐affect‐cognition framework of decision making is proposed. The framework adds the role of emotion and the importance of self‐regulation to existing theory of career decision making. Implications for career counseling are discussed.     

The Role of Ethical Theories in Decision Making by Social Workers

This study analyses the arguments provided by a convenience sample of 62 Israeli social workers for their preferred ethical principles in terms of ethical theories. Content analysis of arguments given in four different contexts shows that the large majority of social workers in the study based their arguments on either deontological or utilitarian ethical concepts, less frequently using concepts from virtue theory, rights theory and care theory of ethics. However, the analysis reveals a discrepancy: when social workers were requested to justify their rank ordering of ethical principles without reference to a specific practice situation, they most frequently preferred concepts reflecting deontological theory of ethics, such as right intention, universalism, and duty. In contrast, when confronted with a specific practice situation, the social workers' most frequently chosen concepts were relating to results, consequences, and utility, concepts identified with the utilitarian theory of ethics. In view of the findings, the need for more thorough knowledge of a variety of ethical theories and their potential role in ethical decision making in social work practice and education are discussed.     

Family Environment and Adolescents' Well‐Being Before and After Parents' Marital Disruption: A Longitudinal Analysis

Although previous research has noted that children of divorce tend to fare less well than peers raised in families with two biological parents, much less is known about how parents' marital disruption affects children as a continuous process in its different phases. Based on two waves of a large, nationally representative panel, this study demonstrates that even before the disruption, both male and female adolescents from families that subsequently dissolve exhibit more academic, psychological, and behavioral problems than peers whose parents remain married. Families on the verge of breakup are also characterized by less intimate parent‐parent and parent‐child relationships, less parental commitment to children's education, and fewer economic and human resources. These differences in family environment account for most well‐being deficits among adolescents in predisrupted families. Furthermore, the deterioration in different domains of the family environment appears to be associated with maladjustment in different aspects of children's lives. The postdisruption effects on adolescents can either be totally or largely predicted by predisruption factors and by changes in family circumstances during the period coinciding with the disruption. Finally, the analyses indicate that female adolescents are as likely to be affected by the parental divorce process as male adolescents.     

Child‐focused Parenting after Separation: Socio‐legal Developments and Challenges

In this article I utilise developing ideas in family law as a backdrop against which to discuss changing assumptions about parenting. In particular, I examine the gender‐neutral assumptions within family law in Australia and elsewhere in the light of seemingly contradictory evidence about the value of post‐separation fathering. That men were equally capable of providing effective parenting was by no means clear at the time that the principle of gender‐neutrality became common in family law—the 1960s and 70s. Only recently, has burgeoning research on fathering begun to more clearly affirm its value and to clarify the conditions under which pre and post separation fathering makes a positive difference. Paradoxically, it is at this very time that legally based challenges to the gender‐neutral, shared‐parenting philosophy of the 1995 Australian Family Law Reform Act have begun to emerge. The often‐perplexed interface between law, social science research and therapeutic intervention presents many challenges. I conclude the article by flagging a number of questions relevant to family therapists in this difficult field of work.     

Parents' Partnership Decision Making After Divorce or Widowhood: The Role of (Step)Children

Using data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Surveys, this study investigated divorced and widowed parents' (N = 350) decision making about living arrangements after repartnering: Twenty‐eight percent lived apart together (LAT) and others lived together (remarried or cohabiting). The focus was on determinants of LAT: Women, older respondents, residents of larger cities, and parents of 2 or more children are more apt to LAT. On the basis of additional qualitative interviews with LAT respondents (n = 25), the reasons for LAT were investigated. Data showed that many children are involved in pure boundary work in an effort to guarantee the continuation of their family. Other (step)children use the sabotage or refusal types of boundary work, not accepting the new partner or excluding a parent from contact, especially with grandchildren. Many of these efforts are successful. To preserve the ties with their children, parents often adapt their decision making about the living arrangements with a new partner accordingly.     

Understanding Sterilization Regret in the United States: The Role of Relationship Context

Although one fourth of sterilized reproductive‐aged women in the United States express a desire to have their sterilization procedures reversed, the pathways leading to sterilization regret remain insufficiently understood. Particularly little is known about how cohabitation affects the likelihood of sterilization regret. This study used data from the 2006 to 2010 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate how relationship context shapes women's risk of sterilization regret. Our findings point to higher levels of regret among women who were cohabiting, rather than married or single at the time of sterilization. Experiencing poststerilization union dissolution or poststerilization union formation was also associated with an elevated risk of regret. Together, poststerilization union instability and selected background characteristics largely explained elevated levels of regret observed among women who were cohabiting at the time of sterilization. An association between regret and poststerilization union instability persisted, however, even when socioeconomic and reproductive background factors were controlled.     

Resilience and Decision‐Making Strategies as Predictors of Career Decision Difficulties

The purpose of this study was to examine resilience and decision‐making strategies as predictors of difficulties experienced during the career decision‐making process. College students (N = 364) responded to measures of resilience, career decision‐making strategies, and career decision difficulties. Results indicated that resilience and decision‐making strategies accounted for 46% of the variance in career decision difficulties. Resilience had a greater influence on problems encountered during decision making than on problems encountered at the outset of the process. Different decision‐making strategies appeared to be related to difficulties encountered at different stages of the decision‐making process. For example, aspiration for an ideal occupation was positively associated only with lack of readiness. Procrastination was the only strategy related to all three decision difficulties: lack of readiness, lack of information, and inconsistent information. The results indicated the importance of decreasing procrastination at all stages of decision making and the need to promote resilience to deal with decision difficulties.     

Intra‐ and Interracial Best Friendships During Middle School: Links to Social and Emotional Well‐being

This study examined patterns of intra‐ and interracial best friendships during middle school and their associations with social and emotional well‐being. We hypothesized that intraracial friendships would be beneficial for racial or ethnic minority youth because such relationships provide protection and solidarity in a discriminatory society. Results revealed that most youth had only intraracial best friends during middle school, but 38% had at least one interracial best friend. Associations between interracial best friendships and well‐being varied by racial group; Black and Asian American youth with only interracial best friends reported lower emotional well‐being than those with only intraracial best friends. Additionally, intraracial best friendships were associated with higher conflict than interracial best friendships, especially for Black and Latino youth.     

False Economy: Financialization,Crises and Socio‐Economic Polarisation

Over the last few decades, a range of profound and widely recognised changes have affected the global economy and global labour markets, driven by a growing imbalance of power between financier dominated capital and labour, a scenario facilitated by the extended availability of labour due to the process of globalisation of itself and, to some degree, by labour supplanting technologies (Standing, 2011, Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2011). However, arguably, what is less clearly understood is that the financial sector's role in this overall process and, indeed, increasing power rests to no small extent on its capacity to ‘conjure’ wealth from credit creation and, often, opaque practices that are highly abstracted and/or only tenuously connected to real economic activity (Korten, 2009). This shift, and the latter in particular, it is argued, in addition to producing a sequence of financial crises culminating (thus far) with the crash and recession of 2007/8, has fundamental implications for the future shape of the global economy, labour markets and, as a consequence, the life chances and opportunities that potentially confront succeeding generations, assuming that trends continue on their present course. This piece considers these issues with particular emphasis on their implications for the UK and its citizens.