Bridging between academia and the workplace: lessons learned about translational research on work-family balance

ABSTRACT

Balancing work and family is a continuous and growing challenge, requiring carefully chosen coping strategies. In spite of the growing amount of research on work-family balance, successful, long term solutions are still not readily available to most workers who are trying to cope with the tensions involved in fulfilling both work and family roles. One possible explanation for this lack of translation of research findings in applied settings may lie in how we do work-family research. The present research note presents translational research as a solution to bridge academia and the workplace. More specifically, it shares our experience of a participatory approach to translational research that was adopted in an interdisciplinary research project on work-family balancing strategies. The main objective of this research note is to provide an example of how translational research was carried out in this kind of community-initiated study, and how this approach can facilitate short-term, concrete applications of the knowledge gained from and with the research partners.     

Object Interaction and Walking: Integration of Old and New Skills in Infant Development

Manual skills such as reaching, grasping, and exploring objects appear months earlier in infancy than locomotor skills such as walking. To what extent do infants incorporate an old skill (manual actions on objects) into the development of a new skill (walking)? We video recorded 64 sessions of infants during free play in a laboratory playroom. Infants’ age (12.7–19.5 months), walking experience (0.5–10.3 months), and walking proficiency (speed, step length, etc.) varied widely. We found that the earlier developing skills of holding and exploring objects were immediately incorporated into the later developing skill of walking. Although holding incurred a reliable cost to infants’ gait patterns, holding and exploring objects in hand were relatively common activities and did not change with development. Moreover, holding objects was equally common in standing and walking. However, infants did not interact with objects indiscriminately: Object exploration was more frequent while standing than walking, and infants selectively chose lighter objects to carry and explore. Findings suggest that the earlier appearance of some skills may serve to motivate and enrich later appearing skills.     

Introduction: Resistance in the Twenty‐First Century

This essay introduces the articles that comprise a special issue of Sociological Forum titled “Resistance in the Twenty‐First Century.”     

The Profession of Couple,Marital, and Family Therapy (CMFT): Defining Ourselves and Moving Forward

The field of Couple, Marital, and Family Therapy (CMFT) has evolved and strengthened, but we still have work to do when it comes to identity, comprehensive scholarly resources, empirical support, and name brand recognition. We explore the reasons for these challenges and propose ways to address them: embracing the interdisciplinary nature of the field, consistently organizing treatment effectiveness by problem rather than by intervention model, continuing innovation in theory development, and utilizing more diverse and meaningful research methods. This approach provides a more accurate representation of the scope of practice of CMFTs, the range of mental and physical health problems we address, and the depth and extent of the existing research on the effectiveness of relational therapies.     

Maternal Into‐The‐Face Behavior,Shared Attention,and Infant Distress During Face‐to‐Face Play at 12 Months: Bi‐directional Contingencies

We describe a new maternal intrusion behavior, moving a toy or hand “into‐the‐face” of the infant, and we investigate its bi‐directional associations with infant‐initiated shared attention, infant distress, and infant gaze, during mother–infant face‐to‐face play at 12 months. The play was videotaped split‐screen, with infants seated in a high chair. Videotapes were coded on a 1‐sec time base for mother and infant gaze (at partner, toy, both, or gaze away); infant distress; and maternal intrusion behavior, “into‐the‐face.” We defined “infant‐initiated shared attention” as mother and infant looking in the same second at a toy that the infant‐initiated interest in. We documented that maternal into‐the‐face behavior decreased the likelihood of infant‐initiated shared attention, increased the likelihood of infant distress, and decreased the likelihood of infant gazing away. Reciprocally, infant distress and gazing away increased the likelihood of mother into‐the‐face. In moments when the dyad was engaged in infant‐initiated shared attention, mother into‐the‐face was less likely. This work documents bi‐directional contingencies in the regulation of maternal intrusion and infant behavior during face‐to‐face play at 12 months. We suggest that mother into‐the‐face behavior disturbs an aspect of the infant's experience of recognition.