Prevalence, type, disclosure, and severity of adverse life events in college students

OBJECTIVE: Some information on the prevalence of adverse life experiences is available for the general population and college students, but the extent, nature, and severity of these events is unclear. PARTICIPANTS: The authors recruited undergraduate college students (N = 6,053) from diverse academic settings (public and private schools) and geographic locations. METHODS: They examined the prevalence, nature, severity, and disclosure of adverse events, in addition to reports of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology within the sample. RESULTS: Across multiple studies, prevalence rates of adverse events ranged from 55.8% to 84.5%, replicating previous findings in larger samples. In a subset of undergraduate students (n = 97) who the authors interviewed in greater depth, 9% reported symptoms of clinical PTSD and an additional 11% reported subclinical symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Research using college samples for the study of stressful life events is a useful and reasonable strategy. The authors discuss implications for research, as well as screening and referral services at universities.     

Deviations from the least-cost diets for infants

This paper addresses an on-going controversy in the nutrition literature over the size and significance of the nutrient elasticity with respect to food expenditure. Linear programming methods are used to estimate the least-cost diets for infants in Cebu, Philippines. The results imply that, overall, the actual expenditure is greater than the least-cost expenditure. Data and regression analyses are used to explore the determinants of the deviations from the least-cost diets. The results support the hypotheses that the deviations increase with income due to the diminishing marginal utility of nutrients and that the deviations fall as the nutritional knowledge of the mother increases.I am indebted to Anne Krueger, Marjorie McElroy, John Akin, James Baumgardner, Kevin Rask, Takao Kato, Michael Haines, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. Thanks also to the participants of Duke University International and Labor Workshops. I would like to thank the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill for providing me with the data and the Sloan Foundation for financial support. All errors are my own.     

Using Object Knowledge in Visual Tracking and Reaching

Nine‐month‐old infants were presented with an engaging and challenging task of visually tracking and reaching for a rolling ball that disappeared and reappeared from behind an occluder. On some trials, the infant observed the experimenter place a barrier on the ball's track; the barrier remained partially visible above the occluder throughout the remainder of the trial. When the task involved only predictive tracking, infants' anticipatory gaze shifts were faster when no barrier was present. When the task involved both tracking and reaching, there were more reaches when no barrier was present. If the infant reached, the timing and extension of the reach and the accompanying gaze shift did not differ with regard to the barrier. Because catching the ball was quite difficult for these infants, task demands interfered with the integration of visual information and visuospatial reasoning about the barrier with the reaching action.     

Idiocentrism, allocentrism, psychological well being and suicidal ideation: a cross cultural study

The present study examined the relationship between idiocentrism, allocentrism, psychological well being (self-esteem, depression, and social support), and suicidal ideation among 283 American college students and 343 Chinese college students. Idiocentrism was correlated with high self-esteem, high depression, and low social support, but the relationships were more likely to be significant for women than for men in both cultures. Allocentrism was primarily related to social support. As predicted, high levels of suicidal ideation were correlated with more idiocentrism, but only for women. Allocentrism was related to lower levels of suicidal ideation in both cultures, but the relationship was small. As suicide prevention may start from suicidal ideation treatment, the treatment of suicidal ideation may have to take into account cultural and personal characteristics, such as idiocentrism.     

Parenting,Uncertainty, and Expert Advice: How Privileged American Families Work with Private Counselors in Their Children's College Race

This article uses privileged families who hire Independent Educational Consultants (IECs) as an instance to examine how privileged parents collaborate with individuals whom they consider educational experts to support their children in the college race. We argue that advantaged parents' anxieties about their children have created a market for IECs who provide expert advice in order to mitigate the uncertainties that these parents experience and to manage various goals that they want to achieve at an important turning point in their children's lives. Drawing primarily on interviews with parents who work with IECs, we introduce the concept of “collaborative cultivation” to analyze the processes whereby advantaged parents rely on the expertise and expert status of private counselors to cope with their and their children's vulnerability in the college race while at the same time preparing their children for the unknown future. The parental method of “concerted cultivation” reveals how elite parents rely on individuals they perceive as experts to establish “bridges” between their own social worlds and the academic worlds that appear to beyond their control. This bridging labor points to the myriad cultural beliefs enacted to justify the child‐rearing goals that privileged parents wish to accomplish by working with IECs.     

Reported Peer Conflicts of Children in the United States and Indonesia

U.S. and Indonesian 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children (N=147) reported on multiple occasions conflicts that they experienced with peers. The precursors of conflict, behavior during conflict episodes, and resolutions were coded. Teacher ratings of aggression and social preference were obtained. The conflicts of children in both countries most often occurred between friends, were short, amicably settled, and solved without aggression. Indonesian children reported disengaging from conflict more often than did U.S. children, whereas U.S. children more frequently reported using negotiation. Reports of aggression during conflict were associated with U.S. and Indonesian children's teacher‐rated aggression, whereas reports of disengagement were associated with Indonesian children's teacher‐rated social preference and aggression.     

CAN A HIGH SENSE OF CONTROL AND JOHN HENRYISM BE BAD FOR MENTAL HEALTH?

Social stratification profoundly affects mental health. Specifically, substantial empirical evidence finds that higher status promotes mental health via a higher sense of control and a propensity to cope actively with problems. An unresolved issue, though, is whether the effects of sense of control and active coping on mental health are uniformly beneficial across levels of socioeconomic status. Perceived control and John Henryism, an active coping style, may undermine mental health, especially for lower-status persons, who lack resources. Using data from the National Comorbidity Survey for African Americans, Hispanics, and whites, we find that both sense of control and John Henryism tend to be monotonically related to positive mental health regardless of socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity.     

Stochastic Estimates of Exposure and Cancer Risk from Carbon Tetrachloride Released to the Air from the Rocky Flats Plant

Carbon tetrachloride is a degreasing agent that was used at the Rocky Flats Plant (RFP) in Colorado to clean product components and equipment. The chemical is considered a volatile organic compound and a probable human carcinogen. During the time the plant operated (1953-1989), most of the carbon tetrachloride was released to the atmosphere through building exhaust ducts. A smaller amount was released to the air via evaporation from open-air burn pits and ground-surface discharge points. Airborne releases from the plant were conservatively estimated to be equivalent to the amount of carbon tetrachloride consumed annually by the plant, which was estimated to be between 3.6 and 180 Mg per year. This assumption was supported by calculations that showed that most of the carbon tetrachloride discharged to the ground surface would subsequently be released to the atmosphere. Atmospheric transport of carbon tetrachloride from the plant to the surrounding community was estimated using a Gaussian Puff dispersion model (RATCHET). Time-integrated concentrations were estimated for nine hypothetical but realistic exposure scenarios that considered variation in lifestyle, location, age, and gender. Uncertainty distributions were developed for cancer slope factors and atmospheric dispersion factors. These uncertainties were propagated through to the final risk estimate using Monte Carlo techniques. The geometric mean risk estimates varied from 5.2 x 10(-6) for a hypothetical rancher or laborer working near the RFP to 3.4 x 10(-9) for an infant scenario. The distribution of incremental lifetime cancer incidence risk for the hypothetical rancher was between 1.3 x 10(-6) (5% value) and 2.1 x 10(-5) (95% value). These estimates are similar to or exceed estimated cancer risks posed by releases of radionuclides from the site.