Child Well‐Being: What Does It Mean?

The notion of child well‐being appears in a large number of publications nowadays. Our review of the literature underlines both the oddly pathogenic approach to child well‐being and the scarcity of papers discussing a still poorly defined notion. Through this review, we identified the recourse to a binary language; from there, we derived five theoretical axes that heed the multidimensional and multilevel nature of well‐being, although for each one, a pole is here predominantly developed. We argue in favour of an override of a one‐dimensional, single‐level, unipolar approach to child well‐being and an exploration of its otherwise underdeveloped positive, hedonic, subjective, spiritual and collective dimensions.     

Is Marriage More Than Cohabitation? Well‐Being Differences in 30 European Countries

The study aims to assess, first, whether there is a gap in well‐being between unmarried cohabitants and the married, second, if selection factors can explain this so‐called cohabitation gap, and third, if the size of the cohabitation gap differs across countries and how this can be explained. We use pooled data from young adults (18–44) in 3 rounds of the European Social Survey (N ? 31, 500). Multilevel regression analyses show that there is a moderate cohabitation gap that can be partly explained with the selection factors material resources and religiosity. Country differences were clear and could partly be explained with the level of institutionalization: In countries where cohabitation is more accepted and more prevalent, the cohabitation gap is smaller.     

Supporting Children’s Social and Emotional Well‐being: Does ‘Having a Say’ Matter?

This article argues the importance of ensuring initiatives aimed at improving children’s social and emotional well‐being are based on sound participatory principles. The discussion posits links between the recognition of children, dialogic approaches to participation, changing conceptualisations of children and childhood, and children’s well‐being. It explores these links in light of one particular initiative, Seasons for Growth ( Graham, 1996, 2002 , Seasons for Growth; Loss and Grief Education Program. MacKillop Foundation), an education programme built around emerging evidence that giving children a voice assists them to adapt to family change. The paper concludes with insights into what is involved when we locate notions of ‘having a say’ as a key element in promoting children’s well‐being.© 2010 The Author(s). Journal compilation 2010 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.     

Is Parental Attachment Security Contextual? Exploring Context‐Specific Child–Parent Attachment Patterns and Psychological Well‐Being in Taiwanese Youths

Scant research to date has explored the possibility of context‐specific variation in attachment security within a given relationship. In this paper, two cross‐sectional studies were designed (1) to develop and validate context‐specific attachment scales in Traditional‐Chinese and (2) to explore variations in attachment security within a given parental relationship but between the contexts of sport and academics, relating them to global attachment patterns and indicators of psychological well‐being. Results indicated that Taiwanese youth can and do perceive contextual variation within a given parental relationship. However, the relationship between such contextual variation and psychological outcomes was complex. Contextual variation may be a meaningful and useful way to explore and think about within‐parent attachment fluctuation.     

Does Partner Responsiveness Predict Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well‐being? A 10‐Year Longitudinal Study

Motivated by attachment theory and recent conceptualizations of perceived partner responsiveness as a core feature of close relationships, the authors examined change in hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being over a decade in a sample of more than 2,000 married adults across the United States. Longitudinal analyses revealed that perceived partner responsiveness—the extent to which individuals believe that their partner cares for, appreciates, and understands them—predicted increases in eudaimonic well‐being a decade later. These results remained after controlling for initial hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being, age, gender, extraversion, neuroticism, and perceived responsiveness of family and friends. Affective reactivity, measured via an 8‐day diary protocol in a subset of the sample, partially mediated this longitudinal association. After controlling for covariates, perceived partner responsiveness did not prospectively predict hedonic well‐being. These findings are the first to document the long‐term benefits of perceived partner responsiveness on eudaimonic well‐being.     

Doing It All? Mothers' College Enrollment,Time Use,and Affective Well‐being

The rising share of women in college with dependent children and growing emphasis on two‐generation policies for reducing socioeconomic inequality have galvanized research aimed at determining whether mothers' increased education can improve their and their children's well‐being. Yet as part of this effort, scholars have overlooked signs that mothers' college enrollment may not be unequivocally good for families. This research brief aims to bring greater attention to this side of the story. The authors analyze time diary (2003–2015) and well‐being data (2010, 2011, 2013) from the American Time Use Survey. The authors find that mothers in college experience a time squeeze that limits their time in caregiving, self‐care, and work, on one hand, and school‐related activities, on the other. This time squeeze may explain why mothers enrolled in college (compared with mothers who were not in school) also reported less happiness and more fatigue during activities with their children.     

Do Infants Recognize Engagement in Social Interactions? The Case of Face‐to‐Face Conversation

This study explores 12‐month‐olds' understanding of face‐to‐face conversation, a key contextual structure associated with engagement in a social interaction. Using a violation‐of‐expectations paradigm, we habituated infants to a “face‐to‐face” conversation, and in a test phase compared their looking times between “back‐to‐back” (conceptually novel) and “face‐to‐face” (conceptually familiar) conversations, while simultaneously manipulating perceptual familiarity in a 2 × 2 factorial design. We also analyzed dynamic changes in pupil dilation, which are considered a reliable measure of cognitive load that may index processing of social interactions. Infants looked relatively longer at perceptual changes (new speaker positions) but not at conceptual change (back‐to‐back conversation), suggesting that face‐to‐face conversation may not elicit particular expectations, and so may not carry any particular conceptual significance. Moreover, on the first test trial, larger pupil dilation was observed for familiar conditions, suggesting that familiarity with perceptual features could enhance processing of conversations. Thus, this study undermines assertions regarding infants' conceptual understanding of the social signals underlying engagement. Infants may rather recognize such signals through their perceptual familiarity and associated positive feelings. This may then increase their engagement when observing and participating in others' collaborative activities, in turn allowing for the development of knowledge regarding others' intentions.     

Is Self‐Compassion Selfish? The Development of Self‐Compassion,Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Adolescence

Both self‐compassion and empathy have been theorized to promote prosociality in youth, but there is little longitudinal data examining this possibility. We assessed self‐compassion, empathy, and peer‐rated prosociality yearly, in a cohort of 2,078 youth across 17 schools (M age at T1 = 14.65 years; 49.2% female), as they progressed from Grade 9–12. We utilized multi‐level modeling to predict prosocial behavior, nested within students, classes, and schools. We found that self‐compassion and empathy uniquely predicted peer‐rated prosocial behavior. However, only empathy predicted increases in prosocial behavior across time. While self‐compassion is not selfish, it does not appear to facilitate the development of kindness toward adolescent peers. Self‐compassion may help to buffer against possible negative effects of empathic distress.     

Relieving the Time Squeeze? Effects of a White‐Collar Workplace Change on Parents

Employed parents perceive a time squeeze even as trends from the 1960s show they are spending more time with their children. Work conditions (e.g., hours and schedule control) would seem to affect both parents' time with children and perceived time squeeze, but most studies rely on cross‐sectional data that do not establish causality. The authors examined the effects of the introduction of a workplace flexibility initiative (Results Only Work Environment [ROWE]) on changes in mothers' and fathers' perceptions of the adequacy of their time with children and actual time spent with children (N = 225). Baseline data show the importance of work conditions for parents' sense of perceived time adequacy. Panel data show that mothers (but not fathers) in ROWE report increased schedule control and improved time adequacy, but no change in actual time spent with children, except that ROWE increases evening meals with children for mothers sharing few meals at baseline.     

Who Do I Look Like? Gaining a Sense of Self‐Authenticity Through the Physical Reflections of Others

The question Who do I look like? rarely arises for individuals raised in a biological family context. In contrast, searching adoptees report an incomplete sense of physical self from not seeing their bodily traits reflected in biological relatives. Meeting birth relatives and matching physical characteristics creates a stronger sense of self‐authenticity. An analysis of these social processes provides a unique opportunity to contribute to the symbolic interactionist understanding of the relationships existing among the physical body, self, and the reflected appraisals of others. An integration of phenomenological theoretical concepts with symbolic interactionist concepts furthers that understanding.     

The Development of Impulse Control and Sensation‐Seeking in Adolescence: Independent or Interdependent Processes?

This study examines whether changes in impulse control and sensation‐seeking across adolescence and early adulthood reflect independent or interdependent developmental processes. Data are drawn from a national longitudinal study (N = 8,270; 49% female; 33% Black, 22% Hispanic, 45% non‐Black, non‐Hispanic). An autoregressive latent trajectory model is used to test whether development in one trait influences development in the other. Although levels of these traits are inversely correlated, we do not find evidence that change over time in either trait is influenced by the prior level of the other. This failure to reject the null hypothesis is consistent with the view that sensation‐seeking and impulse control are the products of distinct neuropsychological systems that develop independently of one another.     

Hanging Out With Which Friends? Friendship‐Level Predictors of Unstructured and Unsupervised Socializing in Adolescence

Companions are central to explanations of the risky nature of unstructured and unsupervised socializing, yet we know little about whom adolescents are with when hanging out. We examine predictors of how often friendship dyads hang out via multilevel analyses of longitudinal friendship‐level data on over 5,000 middle schoolers. Adolescents hang out most with their most available friends and their most generally similar friends, not with their most at‐risk or similarly at‐risk friends. These findings vary little by gender and wave. Together, the findings suggest that the risks of hanging out stem from the nature of hanging out as an activity, not the nature of adolescents' companions, and that hanging out is a context for friends' mutual reinforcement of preexisting characteristics.     

Does the Person‐of‐the‐Therapist Training (POTT) Promote Self‐Care? Personal Gains of MFT Trainees Following POTT: A Retrospective Thematic Analysis

As we recognize how taxing our profession can be, therapist's self‐care has become a salient topic in mental health. However, we are still discerning how to promote self‐care in our practice and in training. In this paper, we present a study on the personal gains that MFT students experienced after participating in the Person‐of‐the‐Therapist Training (POTT). We propose that the reported changes (better understanding of self, change to self, relational changes, and change as a process) constitute improvements in the trainees’ well‐being, and can therefore be considered self‐caring behaviors and practices. We state that models like POTT, that focus on embracing our vulnerability, can help clinicians be more caring toward ourselves. We conclude this paper by presenting clinical and training recommendations.     

Does Activism in Social Science Explain Conservatives’ Distrust of Scientists?

Data from the General Social Survey suggest that conservatives have become less trustful of scientists since the 1970s. Gauchat argues that this is because conservatives increasingly see scientific findings as threatening to their worldview. However, the General Social Survey data concern trust in scientists, not in science. We suggest that conservatives’ diminishing trust in scientists reflects the fact that scientists in certain fields, particularly social science, have increasingly adopted a liberal-activist stance, seeking to influence public policy in a liberal direction.     

Gender Mainstreaming in a Development Project: Intersectionality in a Post‐Colonial Un‐doing?

This article explores some critical reflections engaged in as part of the earliest stages of applying for an international development project grant. Though most of the funding came from the North, which had the potential to reproduce typical North–South relations, both parties involved in the project agreed to predicate relationships on principles of equity in an attempt to decolonize relationships, or what could be seen as a sort of ‘un‐doing’ of traditional colonial relations. Tensions emanating from within and among the teams at early meetings underscored the complexity of un‐doing colonial relationships, as well as the way that colonial relations awkwardly but seamlessly intersect with gendered, classed and heteronormative individual and organizational relations. It also highlights the messiness and difficulty in transform(ing) hegemonic social conditions in a single international institution or project.     

Signs of Change? At‐Home and Breadwinner Parents' Housework and Child‐Care Time

The authors analyze American Time Use Survey data to examine patterns in domestic work among at‐home and breadwinner parents to gauge how time availability, relative earnings, and gender shape time use in couples with extreme differences in earnings and work hours. They find that involvement in female‐typed housework is an important driver of overall housework time. It is counternormative housework behavior by at‐home fathers that shapes conclusions about how time availability, relative resources, and gender influence parents' housework. Although time availability appears to shape child care in comparable ways across parents, mothers are more engaged in child care than similarly situated fathers. Overall, comparisons point to the importance of distinguishing among gender‐normative housework tasks and accounting for differences in engagement on work and nonwork days. The results provide a basis for assessing the social significance of growing numbers of parents in work–family roles that are not gender normative.     

Why Does Involvement in Voluntary Associations Promote Trust? Examining the Role of Network Diversity

Scholars argue that trust is fundamental to maintaining a healthy society, and consequently, recent evidence that trust may be declining in the United States has generated an interest in the determinants of trust. According to the social capital literature, particularly the work of Robert Putnam, involvement in voluntary associations influences the development of generalized trust. One way in which organizational participation is thought to foster trust is through creating more diverse, or bridging, social networks. However, scarcely any research has empirically examined this mechanism. Using data from the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, I test whether network diversity (ties to persons from different social backgrounds) accounts for some of the influence of organizational involvement on trust. The results suggest that the influence of involvement in multiple associations on trust is largely mediated by its influence on network diversity. In addition, while recent research observes that some predictors of trust vary by race and ethnicity, I find no differences in these relationships across non‐Hispanic white, African American, and Latino respondents.