Perspectives on contemporary lesbian relationships

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the special issue on contemporary lesbian relationships. The beginning notes some of the prominent changes that have occurred in the past 15 years in the visibility and positive representation of lesbian couples in our popular U.S. culture. The remainder focuses on identifying and summarizing the primary themes of the special issue, including the implications of changes in marriage rights, the acknowledgment and exploration of the effects of sexual minority stress, and a shift in the framing of research to better reflect the diversity of lesbian relationship experiences.     

On shifting ground: First-time parents’ ideal world of paid work and family time

We examined first-time fathers’ and mothers’ perspectives about their ideal world of support in the context of dominant social ideology, ethno-cultural ideals, and the pragmatics of their everyday family, workplace, and socioeconomic circumstances during their first 18 months as parents. Twelve Canadian-born and six Chinese immigrant couples participated in individual in-depth interviews. We conducted a three-part analysis: fathers’ perspectives, mothers’ perspectives, and couples’ perspectives. Fathers focused on fulfilling dual fathering ideals of ‘time with family’ and ‘providing for family’; mothers emphasized fulfilling a mothering ideal of ‘caring for children'. Examining couples’ perspectives revealed a more nuanced understanding of their shared focus on ‘caring for family'. Parents in this study found the current social ideal of the ‘new’ father, who is both financial provider and nurturing co-parent, appealing, yet difficult to achieve. Couples wanted informal (i.e. family and social network) support, along with formal (i.e. workplace and childcare) support to enable them to provide family care and financial stability for their family. Findings contribute to understanding family and paid work experiences and decision-making among couples as new parents. We offer insights into the complexity of intersections among social ideals, personal expectations, family care, and paid work for fathers and mothers.     

Connected political consumers: transforming personalized politics among youth into broader repertoires of action

This study explores political consumerism motivations in an effort to understand the complex ways in which this lifestyle practice fits into the broader participation repertoires of young citizens. We begin by outlining the psychological motivations for political consumerism, and theorize how they might orient political consumers toward (and away from) online expressive, political, and civic participation. In particular, we examine how the desire to gratify distinct psychological needs shapes navigation of the digital media environment in search of information and connection, and how this, in turn, shapes participation. Results of a national survey of young adults show that value-expressive, social-identification, and social-approval motivations for green living relate differently to participation, and that online community embeddedness mediates these relationships. The findings suggest that connecting to likeminded others via digitally-enabled communities can transform individual concerns into collective concerns, and extend participation from the private spheres of everyday life into the public sphere.     

Use of online crowdsourcing platforms for gambling research

Crowdsourcing platforms like Amazon’s Mechnical Turk and Crowdflower have been touted to be a cost-effective way to collect large amounts of behavioural data. Across four large-n studies, gambling-related behaviours, tendencies and traits among participants in these labour markets were examined. In Studies 1 and 2, both conducted on Crowdflower, problem gamblers (as measured by the benchmark Problem Gambling Severity Index) comprised 24.5% and 21.9% of participants, respectively. In Study 3, conducted on Mechanical Turk, problem gamblers comprised 9.0% of participants. In Study 4, a two-wave longitudinal study conducted on Crowdflower, problem gamblers comprised 13.5% of participants in wave one and 14.8% of participants in wave two. In Studies 2 and 3, strong convergent associations were demonstrated across various measures of problem gambling tendencies and general gambling involvement. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that gambling was associated with personality traits (impulsivity, sensation-seeking, self-control), risk attitudes, affect, and behavioural risk-taking consistent with previous research. In Study 4, it was demonstrated that measures of problem gambling have acceptable test-retest reliability. Online crowdsourcing platforms appear to offer access to samples with remarkably high proportions of problem gamblers. However, this characteristic means that such samples are not necessarily representative of gambling tendencies among more general populations.     

Maternal Lifetime Trauma Exposure,Prenatal Cortisol,and Infant Negative Affectivity

Little research has examined the impact of maternal lifetime trauma exposure on infant temperament. We examined associations between maternal trauma history and infant negative affectivity and modification by prenatal cortisol exposure in a sociodemographically diverse sample of mother–infant dyads. During pregnancy, mothers completed measures of lifetime trauma exposure and current stressors. Third‐trimester cortisol output was assessed from maternal hair. When infants were 6 months old, mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire‐Revised. In analyses that controlled for infant sex and maternal age, education, race/ethnicity, and stress during pregnancy, greater maternal trauma exposure was associated with increased infant distress to limitations and sadness. Higher and lower prenatal cortisol exposure modified the magnitude and direction of association between maternal trauma history and infant rate of recovery from arousal. The association between maternal trauma history and infant distress to limitations was somewhat stronger among infants exposed to higher levels of prenatal cortisol. The analyses suggested that maternal lifetime trauma exposure is associated with several domains of infant negative affectivity independently of maternal stress exposures during pregnancy and that some of these associations may be modified by prenatal cortisol exposure. The findings have implications for understanding the intergenerational impact of trauma exposure on child developmental outcomes.     

Mental illness etiology beliefs among African American men with serious mental illness and their social support networks

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 26 African American men with serious mental illness who were consumers of community mental health services and 26 members of their social support networks. All participants were asked what they believed had caused the consumers’ mental illness. Consumer participants most commonly identified chronic life stressors as a causal factor, while social supports most often identified intrinsic factors such as genetics or biology as causes of mental illness. Some support participants believed that unintentional drug use had precipitated the onset of mental illness or had no causal theories. The fact that some support participants could not identify a causal explanation may indicate failure on the part of mental health care systems to engage with consumers’ social support networks and provide education about mental illness and its causes. The implications of etiology beliefs on mental health service utilization are discussed.     

A Mixed-Methods Inquiry Into Trans* Environmental Microaggressions on College Campuses: Experiences and Outcomes

ABSTRACT

The experiences, including with environmental microaggressions, and well-being of trans* collegians remain an under-researched topic. In this mixed-methods study of a survey sample of 152 trans* collegians, multivariable regression findings suggest that the frequency of experiencing select trans* environmental microaggressions (e.g., not having access to comfortable bathrooms as a trans* person) are associated with increased risk for poorer academic outcomes (e.g., developmental challenges) but are not associated with mental health outcomes. Furthermore, interviews with 18 trans* collegians suggest that students face several systemic microaggressions, including difficulties advancing trans* inclusion. Various reactions, including paths of resistance, were identified. Implications are discussed.     

Cambodian Refugee Families: Impacts of Immigration-Related Stressors on Intergenerational Relationships

The purpose of this study was to elucidate Cambodian refugees’ perceptions of immigration-related stressors and their impacts on intergenerational relations during the processes of immigration and settlement. We used narrative analysis to evoke older immigrants’ voices as they transitioned to the United States. Thirty-one Cambodian immigrants were interviewed using open-ended interview guides informed by ethnographic tenets of data collection. Participants expressed (a) changes in family structure and elder isolation and (b) intergenerational ambivalence and elder’s dependence on adult children as products of immigration-related stressors. Implications of these results for refugee and immigrant mental health research are discussed.     

Bootstrap-calibrated empirical likelihood confidence intervals for the difference between two Gini indexes

Measuring the difference between two Gini indexes is important in comparing the inequality between two groups. This paper systematically provides confidence intervals for this difference. First, normal approximation- and bootstrap-based confidence intervals are provided for the difference. Second, empirical likelihood (EL)-based confidence intervals are proposed according to a ratio statistic that is proven to have a weighted Chi-squared distribution with one degree of freedom. Third, two calibration approaches are established to improve the undercoverage issue of the EL method; these two approaches are augmented EL and bootstrap-calibrated EL. Monte Carlo simulations show that bootstrap-calibrated EL generally outperforms other methods in constructing confidence intervals. In the simulations, these methods are compared with the permutation method to test the equality of two Gini indexes. Lastly, these methods are applied to real data.     

Who gets to look nice and who gets to play? Effects of child gender on household expenditures

We examine the relationship between a child’s gender and family expenditure using data from the Polish Household Budget Survey. Having a first-born daughter as compared with a first-born son increases the level of household expenditures on child and adult female clothing, and it reduces spending on games, toys and hobbies. This could be a reflection of a pure gender bias on behalf of the parents or a reflection of gender complementarities between parents’ and children’s expenditures. We find no robust evidence on gender differences in educational investment, measured by kindergarten expenditure. The analysed expenditure patterns suggest a so-far unexamined role of gender in child development. Parents in Poland seem to pay more attention to how girls look and favour boys with respect to activities and play, which could have consequences in adult life and contribute to sustaining gender inequalities and stereotypes.