Do Quality of Services and Institutional Image Impact Students’ Satisfaction and Loyalty in Higher Education?

Social Indicators Research - The objective of this study is to investigate whether the quality of educational services and the university’s institutional image influence students’...     

Facilitating Fatherhood: A Longitudinal Examination of Father Involvement Among Young Minority Fathers

The effects of father absence on children have been well documented in research and range from increased risk of poverty, to increased risk of incarceration (Anderson et al. Family Relations 51(2):148–155, 2002). This study presents a longitudinal evaluation of young father’s involvement with their children conducted within the scope of a teen parenting program in Arlington County, Virginia. The respondents in the study are young, mainly Hispanic fathers who come from lower socio-economic groups. The theoretical foundation for the parenting program was derived from Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model of Change (1979). Three scales of fatherhood involvement were assessed at four time periods, including two years post-program. Results from the evaluation indicated that all three fatherhood scales increased steadily and significantly from pre-test to two years post-program. Results support the notion that fatherhood involvement curricula have the potential to positively influence young fathers and keep them involved with their children. Suggestions for further research and discussion of public policy implications are included in the study.

Parenting and Adolescents' Sexual Initiation

This study draws on social control and social learning theories to examine the role of dating‐specific attitudes and practices as predictors of adolescents' sexual initiation. We include attention to the adolescent's reaction to control attempts as a further means of assessing family dynamics (i.e., frequency of dating disagreements). The study uses longitudinal data from 697 adolescents who were not sexually active at the first interview as well as separate interviews with parents. In models that include all parenting variables, parental caring, parents' preferences that the child should delay sex, and the frequency of dating disagreements were significant predictors of initiation of teen sexual activity.     

Effect of training different classes of verbal behavior to decrease aberrant verbal behavior

Inappropriate verbal behavior that is labeled "psychotic" is often described as insensitive to environmental contingencies. The purpose of the current study was to establish different classes of rational or appropriate verbal behavior in a woman with developmental disabilities and evaluate the effects on her psychotic or aberrant vocal verbal behavior. Similar to a previous study (Arntzen, Ro Tonnessen, & Brouwer, 2006), the results of the current study suggested that the procedure helped to establish a repertoire of appropriate functional vocal verbal behavior in the participant. Overall, the results suggested the effectiveness of an intervention based on training various classes of verbal behavior in decreasing aberrant verbal behavior.     

Community Connections: Social Capital and Community Success1

This article examines the impact of two types of community social capital—ties between civic organizations formed through shared members and ties between residents formed through socializing in local gathering places—on residents’ subjective appraisals of community success. Community social capital studies tend to focus on the first of these types of ties, networks of civic engagement, while the second, gathering place networks, has received relatively little scholarly attention. Studying both allows me to assess the formal and informal arenas of community sociability, providing a more thorough understanding of social capital and community life. I assess the effects of community‐level social capital networks on the individual‐level experience of residing in the community using survey data on 9,962 residents from 99 small towns in Iowa. This rich data set allows me to avoid two shortcomings common in social capital research: I construct genuine network measures of social capital (rather than infer network structure from community attributes) and conduct multi‐level analyses (rather than rely on disaggregation). My findings indicate both types of social capital are positively and significantly associated with resident ratings of community success, suggesting community networks—in both the formal and informal sectors—have important consequences for small towns and their residents.     

Representations of Attachment Patterns in the Family Drawings of Maltreated and Non‐maltreated Children

The study was conducted to investigate and compare the attachment styles of maltreated and non‐maltreated children through the use of the family drawing technique. The sample consisted of ten maltreated and ten non‐maltreated children between the ages of five and 11. The findings revealed that the maltreated children depicted significantly more items in their drawings linked to an insecure attachment pattern than non‐maltreated children, while the non‐maltreated children made use of significantly more drawing features linked to a secure attachment pattern. These results corresponded to scores on the Child Behaviour Checklist (Achenbach, 1991). All maltreated children scored in the clinical range. The family drawings of maltreated children significantly evidenced a greater distress ? represented by an insecure attachment pattern – than the drawings of non‐maltreated children represented by a secure attachment style. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

‘The family drawings of maltreated children significantly evidenced a greater distress’

Citing Literature

Number of times cited according to CrossRef: 16

• Clare Bridget Noonan, Pamela Doreen Pilkington, Intimate partner violence and child attachment: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Child Abuse & Neglect, 10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104765, 109 , (104765), (2020). Crossref
• Peter D. Rehder, W. Roger Mills-Koonce, Nicholas J. Wagner, Bharathi J. Zvara, Michael T. Willoughby, Attachment quality assessed from children’s family drawings links to child conduct problems and callous-unemotional behaviors, Attachment & Human Development, 10.1080/14616734.2020.1714676, (1-18), (2020). Crossref
• Esther Burkitt, Dawn Watling, Hannah Message, Expressivity in children's drawings of themselves for adult audiences with varied authority and familiarity, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 10.1111/bjdp.12278, 37 , 3, (354-368), (2019). Wiley Online Library
• Cecilia Serena Pace, Viviana Guerriero, Giulio Cesare Zavattini, Children’s attachment representations: A pilot study comparing family drawing with narrative and behavioral assessments in adopted and community children, The Arts in Psychotherapy, 10.1016/j.aip.2019.101612, (101612), (2019). Crossref
• Bharathi J. Zvara, Roger Mills-Koonce, Lynne Vernon Feagans, Martha Cox, Clancy Blair, Peg Burchinal, Linda Burton, Keith Crnic, Ann Crouter, Patricia Garrett-Peters, Mark Greenberg, Stephanie Lanza, Emily Werner, Michael Willoughby, Intimate Partner Violence, Parenting, and Children’s Representations of Caregivers, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 10.1177/0886260519888527, (088626051988852), (2019). Crossref
• Zahra Maghami Sharif, Nasrin Yadegari, Hadi Bahrami, Tahere Khorsandi, Representation of children attachment styles in corman’s instruction of family drawing, The Arts in Psychotherapy, 10.1016/j.aip.2017.10.004, 57 , (34-42), (2018). Crossref
• Rajan S. Hayre, Natalie Goulter, Marlene M. Moretti, Maltreatment, attachment, and substance use in adolescence: Direct and indirect pathways, Addictive Behaviors, 10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.10.049, (2018). Crossref
• Rebecca Carr-Hopkins, Calem De Burca, Felicity A Aldridge, Assessing attachment in school-aged children: Do the School-Age Assessment of Attachment and Family Drawings work together as complementary tools?, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 10.1177/1359104517714589, 22 , 3, (402-420), (2017). Crossref
• Emiko Katsurada, Mitsue Tanimukai, Junko Akazawa, A study of associations among attachment patterns, maltreatment, and behavior problem in institutionalized children in Japan, Child Abuse & Neglect, 10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.06.018, 70 , (274-282), (2017). Crossref
• Sherwood Burns-Nader, Examining children’s healthcare experiences through drawings, Early Child Development and Care, 10.1080/03004430.2016.1192616, 187 , 11, (1809-1818), (2016). Crossref
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• Heinz Kindler, Erhebungsmethoden mit Kindern bzw. Jugendlichen zu sexueller Gewalt, Forschungsmanual Gewalt, 10.1007/978-3-658-06294-1, (191-216), (2016). Crossref
• Udo Weber, Klinische Diagnostik Diagnostik klinische bei sexuellem Kindesmissbrauch, Sexueller Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen, 10.1007/978-3-662-44244-9, (173-177), (2015). Crossref
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Volume 21 , Issue 3 May/June 2012

Pages 203-218     

Consumption and Subjective Wellbeing: Exploring Basic Needs,Social Comparison,Social Integration and Hedonism in Peru

Within material poverty contexts, consumption and subjective wellbeing are positively and strongly related. This is usually explained in terms of the increased possibilities to satisfy basic needs that additional spending provides. Other important aspects of consumption, such as its relative, symbolic and hedonic dimensions are not generally considered. The current study explores these aspects in seven poor Peruvian communities through expenditure and motives using regression analysis. Motives for consumption are included in the model drawing on psychologists’ research into the importance of accounting for motives when assessing the impact of material goals on subjective wellbeing. Results reveal that in the Peruvian corridor, consumption has a meaning beyond mere basic needs satisfaction. Status concerns, the reference group, the pleasure of consuming, providing for the household basics and the expectation of escaping social marginalisation are aspects of consumption significantly predicting people’s happiness.

Using a Lag Schedule of Reinforcement to Increase Response Variability in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Lag reinforcement schedules have been shown in previous research to be an effective intervention for teaching verbal and nonverbal response variability to individuals with developmental disabilities. In more recent research, variability itself has been considered a reinforceable behavior in its own right (Susa & Schlinger, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 18, 125–130, 2012). Lag x schedules of reinforcement can be used to teach variability by using contingencies that require responses to differ from previous responses. The present study extended Susa and Schlinger’s, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 18, 125–130, (2012) research by using 3 social questions instead of 1 in a random rotation and included probes to test for generality. A changing-criterion design was used to evaluate the results with one 11-year-old female participant diagnosed with autism. During baseline, the participant provided little variability, with rote responses. During the Lag 1 and Lag 2 phases, appropriate variable verbal responding increased with the use of echoic prompts, visual aids, and an error correction procedure. Further, the results also showed that the participant learned to vary her responses by demonstrating the ability to emit 11 novel prompted responses and 13 spontaneous responses.In addition, the participant was able to retain the skills learned in a maintenance probe conducted 4 weeks postintervention.     

The gender structure of adolescent peer influence on drinking

The interactions of adolescent peers are the subject of both parental angst and scholarly attention. Peer influence is the most consistent predictor of adolescent drinking patterns when controlling for other background characteristics. This study extends these findings to incorporate a theoretical argument derived from status characteristics theory. Using 2980 best-friend dyads constructed from the National Longitudinal Study ofAdolescent Health ("Add Health"), I show that the peer influence process differs by the gender structure of the friendship. Adolescents in same-sex best friendships influence one another mutually, consistent with prior theoretical and empirical approaches to adolescent problem behavior: By contrast, boys in mixed-sex best friendships have influence over their female friends' drinking patterns, while the girls do not have any effect on their male friends' drinking behavior a finding consistent with status characteristics theory. The results indicate that peer influence models that do not take gender into account in the structure of the friendship misrepresent the unequal influence dynamics between boys and girls.