Coping Trajectories from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: Links to Attachment State of Mind

The objective of this study was to examine the links between coping and attachment. In a longitudinal study of 112 participants, coping behavior was assessed at five points in time during adolescence (starting at the age of 14 years) and early adulthood. In addition, at the age of 21 years, state of mind regarding current and earlier attachment experiences was assessed by employing the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). In both adolescence and early adulthood, differences in coping styles were found to be related to differences in attachment. Individuals classified as secure dealt with their problems more actively by using their social network during adolescence and at the age of 21 years. Both secure and dismissing individuals used more internal coping than those with a preoccupied state of mind. Latent growth curve modeling revealed that differences in active and internal coping between secure and insecure individuals applied to the rate of change in these coping styles between 14 and 21 years, with participants in the secure group showing much steeper growth in both coping styles. Only minor differences were found with respect to withdrawal as a coping style. The results represent first evidence that coping trajectories during adolescence and young adulthood are linked with attachment state of mind.     

Use of Technology in Delivering Career Services Worldwide

The authors review the trends in the use of computers in the delivery and support of career guidance and counseling identified at the symposium International Perspectives on Career Development. The papers presented emphasized that 20th‐century computer‐based systems continue to be used, mainly delivered via the World Wide Web. These systems are enhanced through audio, video, graphics, strategies to provide needs assessment, and support by cybercounselors or expert system design. The papers also revealed a new trend: the use of elegant Web sites to store and search immense libraries of resources needed by professionals and clients and to facilitate communication and collaboration among professionals in cyberspace. Concerns, issues, and resources related to many areas, including the readiness of clients to use computer‐based systems, were also raised; existing sources of guidelines are noted.     

Gender,lineage, and fertility‐related outcomes in Ghana

A growing literature examines the empirical relationship between the joint reproductive preferences of marital partners and reproductive outcomes in Africa. Less explored is how spousal power in decision making may be influenced by lineage type. Using pooled data from Ghana, we investigate how lineage affects gendered reproductive decision outcomes and find some evidence that matrilineal women are more able than nonmatrilineal women to translate their reproductive preferences into action consistent with their goals.     

2½‐Year‐Old Children Use Animacy and Syntax to Learn a New Noun

We examine how attention to animacy information may contribute to children's developing knowledge of language. This research extends beyond prior research in that children were shown dynamic events with novel entities, and were asked not only to comprehend sentences but to use sentence structure to infer the meaning of a new word. In a 4 × 3 design, animacy status (e.g., animate agent, inanimate patient) and labeling syntax (agent, patient, nonlabel control) were varied. Across most events, 2 1/2‐year‐old participants responded as if they expected animate entities to be named. However, in a prototypical (animate agent‐inanimate patient) event condition, children responded differentially across different syntactic structures. Thus, the clearest evidence for attention to syntactic cues was found in the prototypical event condition. These results suggest that young children attend to the animacy status of unfamiliar entities, that they have expectations about animacy relations in events, and that these expectations support emerging syntactic knowledge.     

How Welfare Policies Affect Adolescents' School Outcomes: A Synthesis of Evidence From Experimental Studies

Using data from 8 random assignment studies and employing meta‐analytic techniques, this article provides systematic evidence that welfare and work policies targeted at low‐income parents have small adverse effects on some school outcomes among adolescents ages 12 to 18 years at follow‐up. These adverse effects were observed mostly for school performance outcomes and occurred in programs that required mothers to work or participate in employment‐related activities and those that encouraged mothers to work voluntarily. The most pronounced negative effects on school outcomes occurred for the group of adolescents who had a younger sibling, possibly because of the increased home and sibling care responsibilities they assumed as their mothers increased their employment.     

Transnational Migration: Bringing Gender In

This article aims to bring gender into an even tighter transnational migration focus by broadening and deepening our original framework of “gendered geographies of power,” linking it more directly to existing and emerging scholarship. We examine and highlight previously neglected areas such as the role of the state and the social imaginary in gendering transnational processes and experiences. We identify topics that remain under‐appreciated, under‐researched, and/or under‐theorized. Finally, we initiate a discussion of how a gendered analysis of transnational migration can help bridge this particular research to other gendered transnational processes under study that do not privilege migration.     

Four‐Month Attentional Regulation and Its Prediction of Three‐Year Compliance

The extent to which 4‐month attentional regulation during an infant‐mother still‐face situation and 12‐month attachment security during the Strange Situation predicted rates of compliance and noncompliance during a cleanup task at 36 months was examined longitudinally in 70 infant‐mother dyads. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that infants who showed more attentional regulation during the still‐face situation with mothers later showed a higher rate of committed compliance and a lower rate of situational compliance during cleanup with mothers. Furthermore, lower levels of attentional regulation were later associated with higher rates of assertive behavior, but only for infants in an insecure attachment relationship.