Addictive Substances,Users’ Health,and the Government’s Perceived Responsibility: French People’s Perspective

This paper uses a semiparametric latent variable transformation model for multiple outcomes to examine the effect of education and maternal education on female multidimensional well-being and proposes a procedure to build a well-being index that is less susceptible to functional form misspecification. We model multidimensional well-being as an unobserved common factor underlying the observed well-being outcomes. The semiparametric methodology allows us to alleviate misspecification bias by combining multiple indicators into a latent construct in an unspecified, data-driven way. Using data from female participants of the 1974–2010 waves of the US General Social Survey, we find that education, intelligence, and maternal education contribute positively to multidimensional well-being. However, the effects of education and maternal education on female multidimensional well-being declined steadily between the mid-1970s and the 1990s, and have not rebounded since.     

SYSTEMS CONSULTATION AND HEAD START: AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRADITIONAL FAMILY THERAPY

As Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) enter Head Start programs, systems consultation emerges as a viable alternative to providing therapy to enrolled children and families. As systems consultants, family therapists can offer organizational consultation, training, and support to Head Start staff, classroom interventions, and direct work with families. This article describes a multidimensional model for providing comprehensive mental health consultation to Head Start programs. It explores the skills necessary for MFTs to work effectively as systems consultants. Finally, recommendations are made for applying the model in both university and private settings.     

Employees'' understanding of employer-sponsored retirement plans, a knowledge gap perspective

The retirement benefit community is currently undergoing a paradigm shift as many organizations cast aside traditional defined benefit plans in favor of defined contribution plans. In other words, instead of employers providing defined benefit plans that are risk free to employees, many organizations have decided to offer defined contribution plans in which employees are responsible for both contributing to the plan and making the investment decisions required therein.As employees are required to make decisions that will ultimately determine their financial security during retirement, it is crucial that employers develop materials that will equip all employees with knowledge about retirement-related issues. Therefore, this study examined the range of knowledge about retirement-related issues that exists among various employee groups within a particular organization. Results showed that education serves as a strong predictor in determining employees' knowledge about retirement-related concepts. Based on the study's findings, implications for future research regarding the development of materials designed to educate employees about employer-sponsored retirement plans are discussed.     

Women in the middle: generational position and grandmothers' adjustment to raising grandchildren

This study compared the adjustment of two groups of grandmothers who were providing primary care for grandchildren in split-generation households: 25 grandmothers in the oldest generation of their families (G1), and 22 grandmothers who had living parents or in-laws (G2). It was hypothesized that because of potential demands on them as middle-generation women, G2 grandmothers would report greater burden and depression in their caregiving roles than G1 grandmothers. After controlling for numerous factors that are associated with generational position, the hypothesis was confirmed. In addition to being in the middle generation, having grandchildren with problems predicted elevated depression and burden. Grandmothers who were educated beyond high school also reported greater role burden.     

Event-driven production scheduling in SME

One common problem among Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) is to don’t have at disposal formal and simple approaches for production scheduling, especially in case of an event that introduces the requirement of a re-planning. The paper approaches this kind of event-driven re-scheduling problems at the arrival of a new order, when some jobs are under processing, some operation have already finished and other jobs are waiting to be loaded on a machine. For a simple application in a SME, to the operations already started and completed for a job a processing time equal to zero is assigned; the operations already started but not yet completed are interrupted and considered as operations that must be executed for the remaining part of their processing time; all the other jobs are considered for the event-driven job-shop re-scheduling problem. A validation of the procedure in a realistic application is presented.     

Adolescents’ sensitivity in social interactions: an evaluation procedure using film clips / La sensibilidad a las interacciones sociales en adolescentes: un procedimiento de evaluación con escenas cinematográficas

This article presents a procedure designed to evaluate adolescents’ sensitivity in social interactions, an essential component of emotional intelligence, by viewing film clips. The instrument was tested on a sample of 1,536 students in the first and second cycles of secondary education. The construct validity of the measure and its relationship with other variables, by applying factor techniques, discriminant analysis and multiple regression, was evaluated. Regarding the dimensionality, the confirmatory factor analysis showed good fit of the sensitivity scores to a one-dimensional model, χ²(35) = 45.75, p = .11, RMSEA = .02, CFI = .94 and TLI = .92. The discriminant analysis allowed the classification of subjects’ responses into sensitive, ingenuous and over-interpretative responses according to their cognitive maturity (χ²(6) = 91.19, p < .001) and sex (χ²(2) = 11.23, p = .004). The multiple regression analysis showed that sensitivity is related to sex, self-expression in social situations, acceptance by the father and interpersonal intelligence (multiple validity = .46).     

Trajectory Discrimination and Peripersonal Space Perception in Newborns

The ability to discriminate the trajectories of moving objects is highly adaptive and fundamental for physical and social interactions. Therefore, we could reasonably expect sensitivity to different trajectories already at birth, as a precursor of later communicative and defensive abilities. To investigate this possibility, we measured newborns' looking behavior to evaluate their ability to discriminate between visual stimuli depicting motion along different trajectories happening within the space surrounding their body. Differently from previous studies, we did not take into account defensive reactions, which may not be elicited by impending collision as newborns might not categorize approaching stimuli as possible dangers. In two experiments, we showed that newborns display a spontaneous visual preference for trajectories directed toward their body. We found this visual preference when visual stimuli depicted motion in opposite directions (approaching vs. receding) as well as when they both moved toward the peripersonal space and differed only in their specific target (i.e., the body vs. the space around it). These findings suggest that at birth human infants seem to be already equipped with visual mechanisms predisposing them to perceive their presence in the environment and to adaptively focus their attention on the peripersonal space and their bodily self.     

The intergenerational continuity of parental conditional regard and its role in mothers’ and adolescents’ contingent self‐esteem and depressive symptoms

Although research has documented the adverse consequences of parental academic conditional regard in different developmental periods, few studies have examined antecedents and, in particular, the possibility of intergenerational continuity of this parenting dimension. The current study aimed to identify patterns of intergenerational similarity in two types of conditional regard (i.e., positive and negative). Additionally, it examined mothers’ and adolescents’ contingent self‐esteem (CSE) and depressive symptoms as outcomes of this process. In total, 211 mothers and their 10‐ to 16‐year‐old adolescents filled out questionnaires assessing perceived conditional regard in the relationship with their own mother (i.e., grandmothers’, and mothers’ conditional positive (PACPR) and negative regard (PACNR)), contingent self‐esteem (i.e., maternal child‐invested CSE and adolescents’ academic CSE), and maternal and adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Results revealed direct intergenerational similarity for PACPR, but not for PACNR. Within generations, PACPR was related positively to CSE, which, in turn, was related positively to depressive symptoms. Moreover, PACNR was related positively to depressive symptoms. Our findings provide preliminary evidence for the intergenerational continuity of conditional regard, which has important consequences because of its relation to CSE and subsequent depressive symptoms within both generations.