Capital Structure of Nongovernmental Development Organizations

In the first international study of this kind, we analyze the capital structure of 364 nongovernmental development organizations (NGDOs) from three different countries: Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom. We observe lower debt ratio values in the United Kingdom, and significant differences between countries were found by testing an econometric model with the five classical determinants of leverage, considering total debt and both long‐ and short‐term debt. We find support for the pecking order theory, and we broadly discuss some possible reasons for the obtained differences.     

Shifting STEM Stereotypes? Considering the Role of Peer and Teacher Gender

This study builds on research on the power of counter‐stereotypical cues, as well as intergroup contact theory, to consider whether interactions with a female teacher and female peers in a high school engineering classroom decrease male students' gender/science, technology, engineering, and math stereotypical beliefs and whether this varies according to the initial strength of their stereotypical views. Analyses reveal that among male students who initially reject stereotypes of male superiority, more female peers in the classroom leads to a further decrease in their stereotypical views by the end of the year. In contrast, boys who held strong stereotypical beliefs became less stereotypical by the end of the course when they had a female teacher. Implications for future research and current educational reforms are discussed.     

Perspectives on Filial Responsibility Among Uprooted Families From South Lebanon

This study focuses on filial responsibilities among uprooted families. Views of 20 mothers and 20 adolescents and young adults from southern Lebanon residing in Israel were compared to identify the roles that adolescent children assume and the perceived effects of these roles. Eight domains of filial responsibilities were agreed upon: language broker, cultural broker, financial supporter and breadwinner, surrogate parent and sibling caretaker, emotional supporter of parents, mediator of family conflicts, heritage transmitter, and role model. The roles had simultaneous positive effects and negative effects. The discussion illustrates the importance of cultural context of country of origin and the host culture. Moreover, it suggests implications of the findings for research and practice.     

Adolescent Conflict Appraisals Moderate the Link Between Marital Conflict and Physiological Stress Reactivity

The goal of this study was to advance understanding of how adolescent conflict appraisals contribute uniquely, and in combination with interparental conflict behavior, to individual differences in adolescent physiological reactivity. Saliva samples were collected from 153 adolescents (52% female; ages 10–17 years) before and after the Trier Social Stress Test. Saliva was assayed for cortisol and alpha‐amylase. Results revealed interactive effects between marital conflict and conflict appraisals. For youth who appraised parental conflict negatively (particularly as threatening), negative marital conflict predicted dampened reactivity; for youth who appraised parental conflict less negatively, negative marital conflict predicted heightened reactivity. These findings support the notion that the family context and youth appraisals of family relationships are linked with individual differences in biological sensitivity to context.     

Developmental Latent Patterns of Identification as Mostly Heterosexual Versus Lesbian,Gay, or Bisexual

Scant research exists on the development of mostly heterosexual identity, the largest sexual orientation minority subgroup. We used longitudinal latent class analysis to characterize the patterns of identification with lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), or mostly heterosexual identities from ages 12 to 23 in 13,859 youth (57% female) in a U.S. national cohort. Three classes emerged: completely heterosexual (88.2%), mostly heterosexual (9.5%), and LGB (2.4%). LGB class youth generally identified with sexual minority identities by ages 12–17. In contrast, mostly heterosexual class youth identified with sexual minority identities gradually, with steady increases in endorsement starting at the age of 14. Developmental implications of these differential patterns are discussed.     

Contributions of Look Duration and Gaze Shift Patterns to Infants’ Novelty Preferences

Data from 72 infants, tested using a serial paired‐comparison paradigm, were analyzed to better understand infant novelty preferences. Infants between the ages of 15 and 26 weeks were tested in three studies with familiar stimuli displayed adjacent to novel stimuli on each trial. Differences in look duration, look number, and gaze shifts directed at novel versus familiar stimuli were assessed to measure their contributions to group and individual novelty preferences. Infants produced longer looks for novel stimuli in all three studies, and stimulus differences in look duration accounted for more than 50% of the variability in individual novelty preferences. Infants that produced more looks to novel rather than familiar stimuli did not produce overall novelty preferences unless they also looked longer at novel stimuli. Gaze shift patterns did not predict individual novelty preferences, and novel stimuli did not determine where infants looked. The infants’ visual exploration was constrained by memories for the direction of the previous look as well as by the attention‐holding features of novel stimuli.     

The Effect of Social Responsiveness on Infants' Object‐Directed Imitation

Previous research has demonstrated that social interactions underlie the development of object‐directed imitation. For example, infants differentially learn object action sequences from a live social partner compared to a social partner over a video monitor; however, what is not well understood is what aspects of social interactions influence social learning. Previous studies have found variable influences of different types of caregiver responsiveness on attention, language, and cognitive development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how the responsive style of a social partner influenced the learning of object‐directed action sequences. Infants interacted with either a sensitive or redirective experimenter before the learning trial. Results revealed infants changed their patterns of engagement; infants interacting with a sensitive experimenter had longer periods of attentional engagement than infants interacting with a redirective experimenter. Furthermore, during the learning trial, the amount of sensitivity during interaction with the social partner predicted learning scores. These findings suggest that infants' attention is influenced by social partners' interactive style during ongoing interaction, which subsequently affects how infants learn from these social partners.     

Examining identity development among gay men of color

Within the past few decades, there has been an explosion of articles examining “gay identity.” Yet, much of this work continues to center on the experiences of gay White men or fail to adequately examine the process of identity development, even when “identity” is central to the discussion. This review outlines 4 theoretical perspectives used to explore gay men of color and identity development. Taken together, these 4 perspectives can offer a rich opportunity to explore the ways that gay men of color come to develop an identity that simultaneously addresses their racial and sexual identities. I argue that examining identity development among gay men of color can help sociology better understand the identity process and provide new insights into examining intersectionality by demonstrating that identities are not only intersectional but also contextual.     

Palm Distributions for Log Gaussian Cox Processes

This paper establishes a remarkable result regarding Palm distributions for a log Gaussian Cox process: the reduced Palm distribution for a log Gaussian Cox process is itself a log Gaussian Cox process that only differs from the original log Gaussian Cox process in the intensity function. This new result is used to study functional summaries for log Gaussian Cox processes.     

Estimation and Inference Procedures for Semiparametric Distribution Models with Varying Linear‐Index

More flexible semiparametric linear‐index regression models are proposed to describe the conditional distribution. Such a model formulation captures varying effects of covariates over the support of a response variable in distribution, offers an alternative perspective on dimension reduction and covers a lot of widely used parametric and semiparameteric regression models. A feasible pseudo likelihood approach, accompanied with a simple and easily implemented algorithm, is further developed for the mixed case with both varying and invariant coefficients. By justifying some theoretical properties on Banach spaces, the uniform consistency and asymptotic Gaussian process of the proposed estimator are also established in this article. In addition, under the monotonicity of distribution in linear‐index, we develop an alternative approach based on maximizing a varying accuracy measure. By virtue of the asymptotic recursion relation for the estimators, some of the achievements in this direction include showing the convergence of the iterative computation procedure and establishing the large sample properties of the resulting estimator. It is noticeable that our theoretical framework is very helpful in constructing confidence bands for the parameters of interest and tests for the hypotheses of various qualitative structures in distribution. Generally, the developed estimation and inference procedures perform quite satisfactorily in the conducted simulations and are demonstrated to be useful in reanalysing data from the Boston house price study and the World Values Survey.