Fathers' Early Emotion Talk: Associations With Income,Ethnicity, and Family Factors

Contextual, mother‐, child‐, and father‐level variables were examined in association with fathers' emotion talk to infants during a shared picture book activity, in an ethnically diverse, low‐income sample (N = 549). Significant main effects included the rate of emotion talk from fathers' romantic partners (i.e., the infant's mother), infant attention and distress, and sensitive parenting. Significant interactions were also found. Higher income African American fathers referred to negative emotions more than non‐African American higher income fathers. In addition, African American fathers who demonstrated more negative and intrusive parenting referred to positive emotions more than non‐African American fathers who demonstrated negative and intrusive parenting. Our findings support family systems theory and, specifically, the interdependence of individuals' behaviors within the family unit. Interaction effects are discussed with respect to cultural variation in beliefs about parenting behaviors and the cultural experience of African Americans, including the Black cultural experience and the minority experience.     

Work, income, the economy, and married fathers as child-care providers

Previous research on fathers as child-care providers indicates a need to study the father’s role in child care in the context of different economic cycles. Using data from the 1988, 1991, and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine whether father’ availability and the couple’s economic resources are differentially related to child care by fathers over time. We focus on the differences between 1991—a recession year—and 1988 and 1993—two nonrecession years. Increased availability of fathers is significantly related to higher levels of fathers’ participation in child care in all three years. Relative economic resources between husbands and wives help explain care by fathers only during the recession year, whereas family income is important only in the nonrecession years. These results suggest that in the future, researchers should acknowledge fluctuations in the economy when studying husbands’ participation in traditional female tasks, as macroeconomic shifts appear to impact the likelihood of married fathers caring for their preschoolers during mothers’ working hours.     

Predictors of well-being among college students

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Identification of health-related risk behaviors associated with well-being in college students is essential to guide the development of health promotion strategies for this population. The purposes were to evaluate well-being among undergraduate students and to identify health-related risk behaviors that predict well-being in this population. Methods: A cross-sectional Web-based survey of undergraduate students was conducted at a metropolitan university in the Southeast United States. A total of 568 students responded (response rate 14.2%). Data were collected on health-related risk behaviors using the National College Health Assessment II. Results: Controlling demographic characteristics, the best predictive model included physical activity, current tobacco user, depression, ever received mental health services, and sleep quality, which was the strongest predictor (β = .45, p < .001). This model explained 35% of the variance in well-being. Conclusions: Interventions that promote sleep quality among college students may be most beneficial in improving well-being.     

Pursuing Political Persuasion: War and Peace Frames in the United States after September 11th

Despite the prominence of framing analysis in social movement research, the ways that power-holders and challengers attempt to persuade the general public remain under-theorized. We develop a multidimensional typology of what content producers frequently anticipate will make their frames potent. Moreover, we argue that several contextual factors influence which of these dimensions are emphasized in frames. To assess these propositions, we conducted an analysis of statements issued by President Bush and 10 US peace movement organizations following the September 11th attacks. Both sides touched upon all dimensions. President Bush's statements took advantage of discursive and emotional opportunities in crafting messages supportive of war and repression. Illustrating their strategic nature, PMO statements either appropriated or rejected dominant discourses for any single dimension. While peace groups took advantage of emotional opportunities, oppositional cultures curtailed their use of discursive opportunities. Lacking democratic legitimacy and rational legal authority, peace groups devoted a higher proportion of text to establishing the empirical credibility and the moral authority of their claims. The study advances social movement theory by highlighting the interplay of culture, power, and agency in the production of public collective action frames.     

Organizational construction of intrinsic motivation

Some psychological theorists claim that the worker's level of intrinsic motivation or alienation stems from the meeting between universal drives and personality characteristics and the material attributes of job tasks. Social theorists—focusing on organizational socialization and cultural practices—emphasize the firm's capacity to manipulate the meaning of a task independent of its material qualities. This social construction of a task's meaning may shape the intrinsic rewards a worker associates with it. Little empirical evidence exists that clarifies the conditions under which the psychological or the social model holds, particularly the conditions under which socialization practices within the firm can shape the worker's level of intrinsic motivation associated with specific tasks. We argue that the intrinsic value associated with a task is determined by its centrality to and fit with the organization's normative social and technical structure. Based on a study of eighty-four staff members within a bureaucratic organization we found that workers perceived high levels of intrinsic value for tightly controlled and routine tasks when the firm's rationalized methods of organizing were seen as legitimate. This interaction operated independently of the direct (usually negative) influence of task control on intrinsic value. A contingency model of intrinsic motivation is proposed, taking into account both the material structure of a work task and its fit with the firm's social and technical structure. Here the perceived legitimacy of the organization's structure conditions whether tightly controlled and routine tasks are viewed as alienating or as intrinsically motivating.     

INCOMPLETE DATA IN GENERALIZED LINEAR MODELS WITH CONTINUOUS COVARIATES

This paper proposes a method for estimating the parameters in a generalized linear model with missing covariates. The missing covariates are assumed to come from a continuous distribution, and are assumed to be missing at random. In particular, Gaussian quadrature methods are used on the E-step of the EM algorithm, leading to an approximate EM algorithm. The parameters are then estimated using the weighted EM procedure given in Ibrahim (1990). This approximate EM procedure leads to approximate maximum likelihood estimates, whose standard errors and asymptotic properties are given. The proposed procedure is illustrated on a data set.     

Maximizing both external and internal validity in longitudinal true experiments with voluntary treatments: The “combined modified” design

Human services interventions are most rigorously evaluated with true experimental designs in longitudinal experimental field trials (LEFTs). However, differential self-selection or attrition often pose a serious threat to the LEFTs internal validity. This threat can be largely overcome by describing all conditions in advance to prospective subjects and securing their agreement to participate in and complete whichever condition is selected at random by a Lottery. This solution, however, in turn then poses the external validity problem that the program's effects on those who would participate in a Lottery may well be different than its effects on those who would participate in any single condition. In the present paper, we describe a new design, termed the Combined Modified Design, which assesses and overcomes this problem. This new design, in which a modified version of the Randomized Invitation Design (in which only one condition, assigned at random, is described to a potential subject, but outcome measures are obtained on everyone) is combined with the Lottery LEFT, is illustrated with a hypothetical example.