Partnership Transitions and Maternal Parenting

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,975) to examine the association between mothers' partnership changes and parenting behavior during the first five years of their children's lives. We compare coresidential with dating transitions, and recent with more distal transitions. We also examine interactions between transitions and race/ethnicity, maternal education and family structure at birth. Findings indicate that both coresidential and dating transitions were associated with higher levels of maternal stress and harsh parenting; recent transitions had stronger associations than distal transitions. Maternal education significantly moderates these associations, with less educated mothers responding more negatively to instability in terms of maternal stress, and more educated mothers responding more negatively in terms of literacy activities.     

Home-Making: Supports and Barriers to the Process of Home

The process of home-making changes over a lifetime. For many, including newly resettled homeless people, the home-making process is difficult, challenging, and sometimes unsuccessful. This paper draws on research concerning the experiences of homeless individuals and families in New York and studies of single homeless adults in London and Dublin. It argues that there are supports and barriers to the home process, which include social, physical, environmental, financial, and practical factors. Central conclusions are that home does not arrive with a roof over a person's head, but rather that home-making is a complex social psychological process. Developing supports to home-making may offer tangible ways to enable this process to flourish.     

Object Permanence in Five‐and‐a‐Half‐Month‐Old Infants?

Event Set × Event Set designs were used to study the rotating screen paradigm introduced by Baillargeon, Spelke, and Wasserman (1985). In Experiment 1, 36 5 1/2‐month‐old infants were habituated to a screen rotating 180° with no block, a screen rotating 120° up to a block, or a screen rotating 180° up to and seemingly through a block. All infants were then tested on the same 3 events and also a screen rotating 120° with no block. The results indicate that infants are using novelty and familiarity preference to determine their looking times. To confirm this, in Experiment 2, 52 5 1/2‐month‐old infants were familiarized on either 3 or 7 trials to a screen rotating 180° with no block or a screen rotating 120° with no block. All infants were then tested on the same test events as in Experiment 1. Infants with fewer familiarization trials were more likely to prefer the familiar rotation event. The results of these 2 experiments indicate that infants did not use the possibility or impossibility of events but instead used familiarity or novelty relations between the habituation events and the test events to determine their looking times, and suggest that the Baillargeon et al. study should not be interpreted as indicating object permanence or solidity knowledge in young infants.     

Understanding hoarding in older adults

Compulsive hoarding is a debilitating disorder that is only recently becoming understood. Hoarding has been studied primarily in the general population, with only a few researchers focusing on hoarding in older adults, even though the prevalence and severity of the disorder appears to increase with aging. Hoarding seriously affects the quality of one's life and can also cause safety and health problems for individuals and the community. Established treatments for hoarding are relatively new and often need to be extended over a long period of time. Nurses can play an important role in helping identify the problem of hoarding in older adults, determining the types of safety and health hazards that need to be addressed, and contacting the appropriate community agencies.     

The 4R-SUCCESS program: promoting children’s social and scholastic skills in dyadic classroom activities

Research on peer mediated learning shows that students learn through interactions with classmates, but little is known about the skills that children need to be productive learning partners, and educators lack programs for teaching children how to collaborate effectively with classmates. Described in this article is a program of research that was undertaken to address these needs by: (1) empirically creating a collaborative skills curriculum for grade school children, and (2) developing, refining, and implementing a class-wide program for improving grade school children’s social and scholastic skills for collaborative learning activities (i.e., the 4R-SUCCESS program).     

Development and Application of a Probabilistic Risk–Benefit Assessment Model for Infant Feeding Integrating Microbiological,Nutritional, and Chemical Components

A probabilistic and interdisciplinary risk–benefit assessment (RBA) model integrating microbiological, nutritional, and chemical components was developed for infant milk, with the objective of predicting the health impact of different scenarios of consumption. Infant feeding is a particular concern of interest in RBA as breast milk and powder infant formula have both been associated with risks and benefits related to chemicals, bacteria, and nutrients, hence the model considers these three facets. Cronobacter sakazakii, dioxin‐like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl‐PCB), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were three risk/benefit factors selected as key issues in microbiology, chemistry, and nutrition, respectively. The present model was probabilistic with variability and uncertainty separated using a second‐order Monte Carlo simulation process. In this study, advantages and limitations of undertaking probabilistic and interdisciplinary RBA are discussed. In particular, the probabilistic technique was found to be powerful in dealing with missing data and to translate assumptions into quantitative inputs while taking uncertainty into account. In addition, separation of variability and uncertainty strengthened the interpretation of the model outputs by enabling better consideration and distinction of natural heterogeneity from lack of knowledge. Interdisciplinary RBA is necessary to give more structured conclusions and avoid contradictory messages to policymakers and also to consumers, leading to more decisive food recommendations. This assessment provides a conceptual development of the RBA methodology and is a robust basis on which to build upon.     

Methodological approaches to the analyses of elder abuse screening measures: Application of latent variable measurement modeling to the WC-RAPS

While several elder abuse screens exist, few measure risk and none target long-term support services. The aims were to examine the psychometric properties of the Weinberg Center Risk and Abuse Prevention Screen (WC-RAPS), comparing approaches to modeling self-reported risk and abuse in relation to reported Adult Protective Services contacts. Methods: The sample (n = 7,035), admissions to managed long-term care (79%) and short-term rehabilitation (20%), was primarily (66%) female, with mean age 77.6 (SD = 9.10); 7% each were African American and Latino and 12% Asian. Latent variable models were used to examine measurement properties of six indicators of abuse and five of risk. Results: Good model fit and stable subscale measurement models were observed across analyses. Reliability was >0.80 across methods, and concurrent criterion validity estimates were as expected. Conclusion: Evidence supported the reliability and concurrent criterion validity of the risk and abuse subscales in an ethnically diverse cohort.     

Preferences,rational choices and economic valuation: Some empirical tests

This study focuses on the respondent rationality hypothesis, usually assumed to be true in Discrete Choice Experiments. We examine lexicographic preferences, the influence of consistency, and the role of task complexity in the individual choice process. To this end, we carry out rationality tests in a survey on forest recreation. Results show that choice set orderings do not impact on choice probability. If a violation of continuity or consistency axioms does impact on choice probability, the Willingness-To-Pay estimators calculated using the total sample and the sub-samples of “irrational” respondents are not significantly different. This serves as a basis for discussing the traditional concept of rationality.     

Volunteers work for lesbian,gay, bisexual,transgender, and queer rights: Motivations at a Rochester social justice organization

The reasons volunteers contribute to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) social justice organizations are multifaceted and need further exploration. This pilot study (N = 35) sought to understand volunteer motivations at a Rochester, New York social justice organization fighting for LGBTQ rights. Understanding motivations for volunteerism and volunteers' perceptions about the relative advantages and obstacles of current volunteer experiences at their agency were the primary goals of the study. The study found that these volunteers are motivated primarily by their personal values, mission of the organization, and desire to develop and maintain social relationships with the LGBTQ community. Implications for volunteer resource management and research are explored.