The Devil is in the Detail: Clinicians,Academics and Researchers Resolving the Problems of Clinical Research

The difficulties associated with conducting valid family therapy research within a clinical practice discourage many potential researchers. This article will describe collaboration between a group of academics, researchers and clinicians who decided to explore the process and efficacy of systemic family therapy conducted within a working private practice. The specific questions we are addressing are, whether the requests clients bring to their first session of therapy can be reliably classified by practitioners, whether these requests change over time, and whether the nature of the request is associated with therapist and client ratings of therapeutic outcome. Additional questions about the form and nature of the therapeutic alliance as experienced by both client and practitioner are also being explored. This paper will map the passage of the work from inception to its current state where over 140 clients are active participants. In doing so attention will be paid to the obstacles encountered: practical, financial and ethical, and the solutions devised to address these.     

Parenting as a Dynamic Process: A Test of the Resource Dilution Hypothesis

In this paper, we tested the resource dilution hypothesis, which posits that, because parenting resources are finite, the addition of a new sibling depletes parenting resources for other children in the household. We estimated growth curve models on the self‐reported parenting practices of mothers using four waves of data collected biennially between 1994 and 2000 on a nationally representative sample of 2,082 Canadian children aged 2 to 5 at initial interview and in continuously intact, two‐biological‐parent households. Results showed that when new children were added to the household, mothers exhibited declines in positive interaction, but increased their levels of consistent parenting. Taken together, these findings suggested that parenting resources were reallocated, rather than diluted, when family size increased.     

Male Role Endorsement Explains Negative Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Among Students in Mexico More Than in Germany

Anti-gay attitudes vary across cultures because the larger social context plays a role in attitude formation. Psychological correlates of these attitudes have been investigated in the United States and Europe. Endorsement of traditional gender roles has emerged from that research as a central correlate, next to religiosity and personal contact with lesbians/gay men. In a cross-sectional study, we tested whether these correlates are relevant in Mexico, characterized as an androcentric culture in which both gender-role traditionalism and religiosity are high, using a college-age student sample (N = 63). Because we relied on self-reports, the motivation to appear nonprejudiced was also assessed. We found typical gender differences in attitudes toward gay men. In bivariate tests, anti-gay attitudes were related to male role endorsement, contact with lesbians/gay men, and religiosity. In a multivariate analysis, variance in attitudes was explained by male role endorsement; personal contact or religiosity did not explain additional variance. In a German comparison sample (N = 112), male role endorsement played a smaller role. Variance in anti-gay attitudes in the German sample was also related to personal contact, religiosity, and the motivation to appear nonprejudiced. We discuss the centrality of (male) gender-role endorsement in cultures with high gender-role traditionalism.     

Exploring youths' perceptions of the hidden practice of youth work in increasing social capital with young people considered NEET in Scotland

This small-scale research explores the generation of social capital in young people growing up in one urban area and one rural area in Scotland via community-led youth work projects that aim to re-engage young people categorised as NEET (Not in Employment Education or Training). By looking at their varied and complex biographies, it considers young people's experiences and perceptions of their communities and their transitions from education to the workplace. Using social capital as a theoretical lens, we examined the impact that youth work can have not just on these important transitions but also upon the young people themselves. By visiting two different sites of engagement we were able to explore whether the type of initiative (media or sports) or place (urban or rural) had an impact on the generation of capital for young people. The youth work practice in both areas acted as a glue between the young people and their communities, creating opportunities where the two could be bound together and relationships created. This occurred in both sites regardless of the area or type of initiative and confirmed in this study that youth work acts as a site of capital building.     

Online measures of looking and learning in infancy

Infants in laboratory settings look longer at events that violate their expectations, learn better about objects that behave unexpectedly, and match utterances to the objects that likely elicited them. The paradigms revealing these behaviors have become cornerstones of research on preverbal cognition. However, little is known about whether these canonical behaviors are observed outside laboratory settings. Here, we describe a series of online protocols that replicate classic laboratory findings, detailing our methods throughout. In Experiment 1a, 15-month-old infants (N = 24) looked longer at an online support event culminating in an Unexpected outcome (i.e., appearing to defy gravity) than an Expected outcome. Infants did not, however, show the same success with an online solidity event. In Experiment 1b, 15-month-old infants (N = 24) showed surprise-induced learning following online events—they were better able to learn a novel object's label when the object had behaved unexpectedly compared to when it behaved expectedly. Finally, in Experiment 2, 16-month-old infants (N = 20) who heard a valenced utterance (“Yum!”) showed preferential looking to the object most likely to have generated that utterance. Together, these results suggest that, with some adjustments, online testing is a feasible and promising approach for infant cognition research.     

Marginalized Mothers: Parenting Without a Home

The authors of this study used participatory and interpretive methods to capture the lived experience, strengths, and needs of homeless mothers. The interview data obtained challenge unfounded stereotypes and provide information about women's coping behaviors and resilience. The findings were developed in collaboration with shelter guests and staff and have important implications for public and university policy and shelter programs. For example, researchers need to become more aware of the limitations of current psychological theories and assessment tools designed to measure "effective coping" in disenfranchised individuals. To accomplish this goal, increased collaboration among researchers, activists, policy makers, and homeless families is recommended (e.g., by instituting roundtable discussions as a standard part of shelter programs). It is also suggested that professional staff who work with women living in poverty avoid using deficit-oriented, victim-based models of intervention, and that staff provide women with opportunities to participate in the development of the curriculum for parenting classes.