Assessing Politicized Sexual Orientation Identity: Validating the Queer Consciousness Scale

Building on psychological theories of motivation for collective action, we introduce a new individual difference measure of queer consciousness, defined as a politicized collective identity around sexual orientation. The Queer Consciousness Scale (QCS) consists of 12 items measuring five aspects of a politicized queer identity: sense of common fate, power discontent, system blame, collective orientation, and cognitive centrality. In four samples of adult women and men of varied sexual orientations, the QCS showed good test-retest and Cronbach’s reliability and excellent known-groups and predictive validity. Specifically, the QCS was positively correlated with identification as a member of the LGBTQ community, political liberalism, personal political salience, and LGBTQ activism and negatively correlated with right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. QCS mediated relationships between several individual difference variables and gay rights activism and can be used with both LGBTQ people and allies.     

The demography of words: The global decline in non-numeric fertility preferences, 1993–2011

This paper examines the decline in non-numeric responses to questions about fertility preferences among women in the developing world. These types of response—such as ‘don’t know’ or ‘it’s up to God’—have often been interpreted through the lens of fertility transition theory as an indication that reproduction has not yet entered women’s ‘calculus of conscious choice’. However, this has yet to be investigated cross-nationally and over time. Using 19?years of data from 32 countries, we find that non-numeric fertility preferences decline most substantially in the early stages of a country’s fertility transition. Using country-specific and multilevel models, we explore the individual- and contextual-level characteristics associated with women’s likelihood of providing a non-numeric response to questions about their fertility preferences. Non-numeric fertility preferences are influenced by a host of social factors, with educational attainment and knowledge of contraception being the most robust and consistent predictors.     

Grandparental Involvement and South African Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being

This study was designed to explore the grandparent-grandchild relationship from the perspective of South African adolescents, and to investigate whether grandparental involvement is independently associated with adolescents’ psychological well-being. Data were collected from 204 adolescents (mean age = 13.69) using a school-based survey. Results revealed high levels of contact between grandparents and grandchildren, although involvement varied depending on grandparent, grandchild, and family characteristics. Grandparental involvement was significantly associated with more adolescent prosocial behavior, independent of parental involvement. The findings suggest a unique association between grandparental involvement and prosocial behavior that is robust across different cultural contexts.     

The Relationship Between Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury and Family Functioning: Adolescent and Parent Perspectives

We explored parent and adolescent reports of family functioning, how this differed if the parent was aware that their child self‐injured, and how parental awareness of self‐injury was related to self‐injury frequency, self‐injury severity, and help seeking. Participants were 117 parent–adolescent dyads, in 23 of which the adolescent self‐injured. Adolescents who self‐injured reported poorer family functioning than their parents, but parents who did not know about their child's self‐injury reported similar functioning to parents whose children did not self‐injure. Parents were more likely to know that their child self‐injured when the behavior was severe and frequent. Help‐seeking was more likely when parents knew about self‐injury. Family‐based interventions which emphasize perspective‐taking could be used to effectively treat self‐injury.     

‘Cruel necessity’: capitalism,the discourse of sympathy,and the problem of the slave trade in the age of human rights

How did Frenchmen profiting from colonial slavery respond to the emergent discourse of human rights? Le commerce de l'Amérique par Marseille (1764), a trade manual by Auguste Chambon, provides exceptional insight into the moral imagination of eighteenth-century commercial capitalists. Chambon encouraged the French to pursue slaving more aggressively. Yet rather than deny the problem of slavery, he questioned openly whether slavery violated morality, religion, and natural rights, responding to Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire from a rare Catholic-inspired perspective. Lamenting slavery as a ‘cruel necessity’ for France, Chambon enabled merchants to represent themselves as sympathetic and patriotic while preserving profits.     

The Role of Coping Strategies in Understanding the Relationship Between Parental Support and Psychological Outcomes in Anxious Youth

The current study examined the moderating role of coping strategies on psychological outcomes at varying levels of parental support in a sample of clinically anxious youth. Youth (N?=?174, mean age 11.89) completed the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist, Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale, Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children and Children’s Depression Inventory. Data was gathered at a large, university-based anxiety disorders treatment clinic. This nonexperimental design analyzed the use of active and avoidant coping strategies as a moderator of anxiety and depression, while controlling for parental support. Results revealed active coping strategies did moderate the relationship between parental support and anxiety, however, not as expected while the significant moderation role of avoidance coping was mixed. Findings showed that anxious youth with more parental support and more active coping were at risk for higher levels of anxiety, yet protected from higher depression. Avoidant coping strategies did moderate in a manner that was predicted for higher anxiety symptoms. Results suggest increased need for parental involvement in the treatment of anxiety disorders in youth.     

Moral Emotions and Social Activism: The Case of Animal Rights

Why do some people and not others become involved in social movements? We examined the relationships between a moral emotion—disgust—and animal activism, attitudes toward animal welfare, and consumption of meat. Participants were recruited through two social networking websites and included animal activists, promoters of animal use, and participants not involved in animal-related causes. They took an online survey which included measures of sensitivity to visceral disgust, attitudes toward animal welfare, and frequency of meat eating. Animal activists were more sensitive to visceral disgust than were promoters of animal use or nonaligned participants. Disgust sensitivity was positively correlated with attitudes toward animal welfare but not with meat consumption. The relationship between animal activism and vegetarianism was complex; nearly half of animal activists ate meat, and half of the vegetarians did not consider themselves to be animal activists. We argue that conflicts over the moral status of animals reflect fundamental differences in moral intuitions.