Injunctive Norms and Problem Gambling among College Students

Two studies examined the relationships among injunctive norms and college student gambling. In study 1 we evaluated the accuracy of perceptions of other students’ approval of gambling and the relationship between perceived approval and gambling behavior. In study 2 we evaluated gambling behavior as a function of perceptions of approval of other students, friends, and family. In study 1, which included 2524 college students, perceptions of other students’ approval of gambling were found to be overestimated and were negatively associated with gambling behavior. The results of study 2, which included 565 college students, replicated the findings of study 1 and revealed positive associations between gambling behavior and perceived approval of friends and family. Results highlight the complexity of injunctive norms and the importance of considering the reference group (e.g., peers, friends, family members) in their evaluation. Results also encourage caution in considering the incorporation of injunctive norms in prevention and intervention approaches.     

Unplanned sexual activity as a consequence of alcohol use: a prospective study of risk perceptions and alcohol use among college freshmen

OBJECTIVE: The authors' goal was to show how risk perceptions regarding unplanned sexual activity following alcohol use are prospectively related to subsequent alcohol consumption. PARTICIPANTS: Undergraduate students (N = 380) completed questionnaires at 2 time points during their freshman year. METHODS: In the middle of the academic year (T1), students estimated their risk of engaging in unplanned sex and reported their alcohol use during the previous term. Four months later (T2), they again reported alcohol use and indicated whether they had engaged in unplanned sex since T1. RESULTS: Students who consumed more alcohol at T1 rated their risk of unplanned sex more highly, suggesting relative accuracy. Those with higher risk perceptions consumed more alcohol at T2 (controlling for T1 use), suggesting that they maintained the high-risk behavior. Last, those who were unrealistically optimistic (ie, estimated low risk at T1 yet had unplanned sex by T2) reported greater alcohol use at T2. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the role that risk perceptions regarding sexual activity may play in college students' alcohol use.     

Is Work-Family Policy Use Related to the Gendered Division of Housework?

Researchers have proposed that work-family policy use may either reinforce or challenge the existing gendered division of labor within couples, but results from prior studies have been inconclusive. Using data from a regional survey of work and family life, we extend this research by focusing on how housework is divided within couples and by differentiating between traditionally female- and male- typed housework tasks. Results show that among dual-earning women, policy use is not related to share of female- or male-typed tasks. Among dual-earning men, policy use is positively related to share of female-typed tasks and negatively related to share of male-typed tasks. These findings suggest that work-family policy use does not reinforce the gendered division of housework.

Preventing risk for obesity by promoting self-regulation and decision-making skills: pilot results from the PATHWAYS to health program (PATHWAYS)

The overall aim of the two school-based pilot studies was to evaluate whether an approach to prevention that focused on changing child impulse control, decision making, and social competence can be effective in changing attitudes toward food intake and physical activity as risk factors for obesity. The strategy used was to translate specific components of one evidence-based program for violence prevention (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies: PATHS) into an elementary school curriculum program for obesity prevention. Both studies demonstrated significant changes in positive attitudes toward self-regulation of appetitive behavior. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated positive changes in actual food choices and television viewing patterns. Implications are that comprehensive efforts to prevent youth risk for obesity should include as one component school-based curricula that target self-regulation and decision-making skills.     

Dual conditionality in welfare and housing for lone parents in Ireland: Change and continuity?

This article focuses on multiple conditionalities in benefits and housing from the perspective of lone parents in Ireland. The Irish case echoes historical experiences elsewhere and is offered not as an exceptional or extreme case but as an in-depth single case study and a lens for comparison. Although contemporary forms and combinations of conditionalities are new to Ireland, the experience of multiple conditionalities in benefits and housing is not new. Hence, a historical perspective is used to examine contemporary multiple conditionalities in benefits and housing. In the past, conditional regimes for lone parents were justified in terms of moral reformation for first time mothers and avoiding moral contagion of mothers with subsequent pregnancies. In contemporary times, in the case of employment, lone parents are problematised as working part-time and “nesting” on in-work-benefits, and in the case of homelessness, lone parents who prioritise the security of tenure embedded in social housing are accused of “gaming” the system. While acknowledging ambiguities, the paper finds the overlap of welfare and housing discourses contribute, intentionally or unintentionally, to epistemological foundations or understandings of lone parents, shifting public perceptions, and framing them as “problems” to be solved. They simultaneously temper lone parents' expectations. Increased precarity and disempowerment is associated with dual conditionality, and ontological uncertainty is multiplied when experienced cumulatively across employment, social protection, and housing regimes in a context of generally poor public services and labour market precarity and in the historical context of stigmatisation. Nonetheless, lone parents demonstrate considerable agency.     

Checking validity of monotone domain mean estimators

Estimates of population characteristics such as domain means are often expected to follow monotonicity assumptions. Recently, a method to adaptively pool neighbouring domains was proposed, which ensures that the resulting domain mean estimates follow monotone constraints. The method leads to asymptotically valid estimation and inference, and can lead to substantial improvements in efficiency, in comparison with unconstrained domain estimators. However, assuming incorrect shape constraints may lead to biased estimators. Here, we develop the Cone Information Criterion for Survey Data as a diagnostic method to measure monotonicity departures on population domain means. We show that the criterion leads to a consistent methodology that makes an asymptotically correct decision choosing between unconstrained and constrained domain mean estimators. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 47: 315–331; 2019 © 2019 Statistical Society of Canada     

Maternal Postpartum Depression Increases Vulnerability for Toddler Behavior Problems through Infant Cortisol Reactivity

The current study examined the role of hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal reactivity (a physiological indicator of stress) in early infancy as a mediator of the relationship between maternal postpartum depression and toddler behavior problems. Participants were 137 at‐risk mothers and their children participating in a longitudinal study of intergenerational transmission of risk. Mothers’ depression was measured five times during the infants’ first 18 months. Infant cortisol was collected during a social stressor (the still‐face paradigm) when infants were 6 months old, and mothers reported on toddlers’ internalizing and externalizing symptoms at 18 months. Among this sample of high‐risk mother–infant dyads, early postpartum depression predicted atypical infant cortisol reactivity at 6 months, which mediated the effect of maternal depression on increased toddler behavior problems. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Exploring in Silence: Hearing and Deaf Infants Explore Objects Differently Before Cochlear Implantation

Infant development has rarely been informed by the behavior of infants with sensory differences despite increasing recognition that infant behavior itself creates sensory learning opportunities. The purpose of this study of object exploration was to compare the behavior of hearing and deaf infants, with and without cochlear implants, in order to identify the effects of profound sensorineural hearing loss on infant exploration before cochlear implantation, the behavioral effects of access to auditory feedback after cochlear implantation, and the sensory motivation for exploration behaviors performed by hearing infants as well. The results showed that 9‐month‐old deaf infants explored objects as often as hearing infants but they used systematically different approaches and less variation before compared to after cochlear implantation. Potential associations between these early experiences and later learning are discussed in the context of embodied developmental theory, comparative studies, and research with adults. The data call for increased recognition of the active sensorimotor nature of infant learning and future research that investigates differences in sensorimotor experience as potential mechanisms in later learning and sequential memory development.     

The public life of white affects

The growing political power of racialized groups in white‐supremacist societies has unsettled the hegemonic position of whiteness. In the United States, this political shift has led to the linguistic repositioning of whiteness within public discourse as visible and vulnerable rather than unmarked and dominant; such repositioning operates as part of a larger strategy for maintaining white supremacy. Within white publics, which are simultaneously constituted through white public space, white public discourse, and white affects, those who are white‐identified linguistically engage in affective performances that reassert racial dominance by invoking claims of wounded whiteness. The article compares the affective strategies of white public discourse found, on the one hand, in ethnographic interviews with white youth in liberal educational spaces in California and, on the other hand, in the mediatized discourse of the US racist far right. The analysis identifies five affective discourse strategies deployed in the white public discourse of both groups: colormute racism; disavowals of racism; appropriations of diversity discourses; performances of white fragility; and claims of reverse racism. This shared set of discursive strategies is part of the larger convergence and mutual dependence of militant racism and mainstream racism in protecting all white people’s possessive investment in white supremacy.