Loneliness and Peer Relations in Adolescence

The present study examined whether adolescent loneliness would be lower within the context of positive relationships with peers. The core conceptual model predicted that hypothesized links between peer‐rated social behaviors or victimization and loneliness would be mediated by social acceptance. Relationship experiences (i.e., social acceptance, reciprocal liking, and romantic relationship history), also were hypothesized to serve as protective factors in the links between social behaviors/victimization and loneliness. Finally, we examined sociometric status group differences in loneliness. Participants were 2091 11th grade students (61 percent girls). As expected, adolescent loneliness was positively associated with shyness, even when social acceptance was controlled. Additionally, loneliness was positively correlated with victimization and inversely related to prosocial and disruptive behavior. The link between victimization and loneliness was fully mediated by social acceptance; no other mediational models were supported. Also, the three relationship experience variables were unique predictors of loneliness (with social acceptance explaining the bulk of the variance in loneliness). There was no evidence, however, that social acceptance moderated the links between social behavior or victimization and loneliness. Sociometric analyses revealed that neglected and shy‐rejected, but not aggressive‐rejected adolescents, were lonelier than average peers.     

Do Parenting and Family Characteristics Moderate the Relation between Peer Victimization and Antisocial Behavior? A 5‐year Longitudinal Study

Past research has demonstrated that relationships with peers and parents play salient roles in various child outcomes. However, little research has examined the confluence of these two factors in the context of peer victimization. In particular, little is known about which family and parental factors mitigate or intensify the impact of adverse peer relations. The current study bridged this gap by testing whether maternal support and family conflict moderated the association between peer victimization and antisocial behavior. Moderation effects were found for girls but not boys. Cross‐lagged path analyses of nationally representative longitudinal data (N = 1046; 53 percent boys; Time 1: M_age = 10.7) showed that, among girls, higher levels of maternal warmth and mother–child communication significantly attenuated the link between early peer victimization and later antisocial outcomes. By contrast, greater family conflict significantly increased antisocial outcomes among girls who experienced peer victimization. For boys, early peer victimization significantly predicted antisocial outcomes, regardless of parenting and family factors. All findings remained significant even after controlling for preexisting antisocial tendencies and demographic factors, as well as for the stability of victimization in the model.     

Emotional Climate in Families Experiencing Homelessness: Associations with Child Affect and Socioemotional Adjustment in School

This study examined associations among family‐level risks, emotional climate, and child adjustment in families experiencing homelessness. Emotional climate, an indirect aspect of emotion socialization, was indexed by parents’ expressed emotion while describing their children. Sociodemographic risk and parent internalizing distress were hypothesized to predict more negativity and less warmth in the emotional climate. Emotional climate was expected to predict observer‐rated child affect and teacher‐reported socioemotional adjustment, mediating effects of risk. Participants were 138 homeless parents (64 percent African‐American) and their four‐ to six‐year‐old children (43.5 percent male). During semi‐structured interviews, parents reported demographic risks and internalizing distress and completed a Five Minute Speech Sample about their child, later rated for warmth and negativity. Children's positive and negative affect were coded from videotapes of structured parent‐child interaction tasks. Socioemotional adjustment (externalizing behavior, peer acceptance, and prosocial behavior) was reported by teachers a few months later. Hypotheses were partially supported. Parent internalizing distress was associated with higher parent negativity, which was linked to more negative affect in children, and parent warmth was associated with children's positive affect. Neither emotional climate nor child affect predicted teacher‐reported externalizing behavior or peer acceptance, but parental negativity and male sex predicted lower prosocial behavior in the classroom. Future research directions and clinical implications are discussed.     

Making Professional Decisions in Research: Measurement and Key Predictors

The professional decision-making in research (PDR) measure was administered to 400 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded and industry-funded investigators, along with measures of cynicism, moral disengagement, compliance disengagement, impulsivity, work stressors, knowledge of responsible conduct of research (RCR), and socially desirable response tendencies. Negative associations were found for the PDR and measures of cynicism, moral disengagement, and compliance disengagement, while positive associations were found for the PDR and RCR knowledge and positive urgency, an impulsivity subscale. PDR scores were not related to socially desirable responding, or to measures of work stressors and the remaining impulsivity subscales. In a multivariate logistic regression analysis, lower moral disengagement scores, higher RCR knowledge, and identifying the United States as one’s nation of origin emerged as key predictors of stronger performance on the PDR. The implications of these findings for understanding the measurement of decision-making in research and future directions for research and RCR education are discussed.     

OPTIMAL PUNISHMENT SCHEMES WITH STATE-DEPENDENT PREFERENCES

The optimal tradeoff between the certainty and severity of punishment is studied in a setting in which individuals are more sensitive to changes in certainty than severity and have state-dependent preferences—being convicted of a crime reduces utility at every wealth level. In this setting it is not optimal to set the probability of punishment at one even if it is costless to convict criminals, because reducing the certainty of punishment also reduces the probability that offenders' utility functions shift downward. The optimal level of certainty is therefore lower than that implied by prior studies based on state-independent preferences. (JEL K42, D81)     

Effectiveness of intervention into substance abuse disorders in women with comorbid depression.

Victimization was supported by the occurrence of various forms of abuse--sexual, physical, and emotional--and the difficulty in establishing healthy intimate relationships. Because relapse is common, nurses must be alert for faulty negative thinking, behaviors, and feelings that might lead to relapse.