Deconstructing maternal sensitivity: Predictive relations to mother‐child attachment in home and laboratory settings

Despite the well‐documented importance of parental sensitivity for child development, there is a lack of consensus regarding how best to assess it. We investigated the factor structure of maternal caregiving behavior as assessed at 12 months by the Maternal Behavior Q‐Sort (Pederson & Moran) with 274 mother‐infant dyads. Subsequently, we examined associations between these empirically‐derived dimensions and child attachment, assessed in the home and laboratory (final N = 157). Three dimensions of maternal behavior were identified, corresponding fairly closely to Ainsworth's original scales. They were labeled Cooperation/Attunement, Positivity, and Accessibility/Availability. Only Cooperation/Attunement consistently predicted home‐based attachment at 15 months and 2 years, and at comparable strength to the overall sensitivity score, suggesting that this construct may be central to sensitivity. At 18 months, compared to their primarily secure counterparts, different types of laboratory‐assessed insecure attachment were associated with different patterns of maternal behavior. Mothers in avoidant relationships (n = 18) were low on Cooperation/Attunement and Accessibility/Availability, but fairly high on Positivity. Mothers of disorganized infants (n = 11) were Cooperative/Attuned but somewhat less Positive toward, and less Accessible/Available to, their infants. A multidimensional approach to parental behavior may facilitate the identification of parenting precursors of insecure parent‐child relationships.     

Simultaneous confidence band for the difference of segmented linear models

Consider comparing between two treatments a response variable, whose expectation depends on the value of a continuous covariate in some nonlinear fashion. We fit separate segmented linear models to each treatment to approximate the nonlinear relationship. For this setting, we provide a simultaneous confidence band for the difference between treatments of the expected value functions. The treatments are said to differ significantly on intervals of the covariate where the simultaneous confidence band does not contain zero. We consider segmented linear models where the locations of the changepoints are both known and unknown. The band is obtained from asymptotic results.     

The Potential of A College Town As A Retirement Community

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential of college towns as retirement communities. The uniqueness of college towns as potential retirement communities are identified and discussed. Differences between college towns and Sunbelt state retirement destinations regarding the factors that are most concerned by retiree migrants in their decision-making for relocation were compared. The results showed no differences between the college towns and the Sunbelt state retirement cities. Only a few differences existed among the college town subgroups. The findings are of value to the senior living industry, local government and chamber of commerce in their efforts in marketing college towns as prospective retirement communities.     

Social Competence in Preschool Children: Replication of Results and Clarification of a Hierarchical Measurement Model

This study tested assumptions and conclusions reached in an earlier confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) study of the social competence (SC) construct for preschool children. Two samples (total N = 408; a new Portuguese sample and one from US samples that had participated in the original study) contributed data. Seven SC indicators were tested for mean differences across age, sex, and sample. Significant sex differences were found for peer acceptance (favoring girls) and for initiating affectively neutral interactions (boys had higher rates), and the sex by sample interaction also was significant for initiating interactions (i.e., effect significant only in the Portuguese sample). In CFAs, the hypothesized structure of SC fits the data and was invariant across sample and age within sample in both measurement and structural tests. The model was invariant at the measurement level for sex within sample tests, but not at the structural level. The results replicate and extend understandings of SC reported in the original study.     

The Effects of Participation Rate on the Internal Reliability of Peer Nomination Measures

Although low participation rates have historically been considered problematic in peer nomination research, some researchers have recently argued that small proportions of participants can, in fact, provide adequate sociometric data. The current study used a classical measurement perspective to investigate the internal reliability (Cronbach's α) of peer nomination measures of acceptance, popularity, friendship, prosocial behavior, and overt aggression. Data from 642 participants attending 10 schools were resampled at different participation rates ranging from 5 percent to 100 percent of the original samples. Results indicated that (1) the association between participation rate and Cronbach's α was curvilinear across schools and variables; (2) collecting more data for a given variable (by using unlimited vs. limited nominations, or two vs. one items) was significantly related to higher internal reliability; and (3) certain variables (overt aggression, popularity) were more reliable than others (acceptance, friendship). Implications for future research were discussed.     

Open Review of Science Publications

Publication of scientific research in print is traditionally peer reviewed anonymously prior to publication, which is a time-tested process but has serious limitations. The advent of the Internet permits postpublication open review online after minimal review by the editors or the author-selected reviewers, which can be quick, that permits the authors to revise the content. Most meritorious articles published online may be selected for publication in print as annual or biennial collections.     

On the use of the scholz-sievers method for dlstribution-free inference about the difference in slopes of two regression lines

A simple adaptation of a distribution-free method due to Scholz (1978) and Sievers (1978) for inference in a single regression setting is proposed for inference about the difference in slopes of two regression lines. We assume that the data are obtained from a designed experiment with common regression constants. A comparison of the proposed method to its competitors-one due to Hollander and the other due to Rao and Gore-indicates superiority of the new method.     

Moment expressions and summary statistics for the complete and truncated weibull distribution

Traditionally, the moments of the Weibull distribution have been calculated using the standard Weibull (Johnson and Kotz, 1970) . This article will expand on that idea and cover the truncated cases for the standard Weibull distributions. Also, the same techniques used for the standard form will be used to derive the moment expressions for the three-parameter complete and truncated Weibull distributions. The summary statistics are then calculated from the moment expressions. Weibull moments involve the gamma and incomplete gamma functions.     

Unbiastld estimation of parametric functions in sampling from two two-truncation parameter families

We consider the problem of UMVU estimation of a U-estimable function of four unknown truncation parameters based on two independent random samples from two two-truncation parameter families. In particular, we obtain the UMVU estimator of functional, P (Y > X). Also the confidence intervals for some parametric functions are obtained.