Protective and risk influences of drug use among a multiethnic sample of adolescent boys

A measurement model was analyzed to demonstrate a differential distribution and cumulative exposure to psychosocial risk and protective influences of adolescent drug use among ethnically-diverse adolescent samples. The sample included U.S.-born (US) Latino (N = 837), foreign-born (FB) Latino (N = 447), White (N = 632), and African American (N = 618) adolescent boys. Psychological Distress, Peer Drug Use, and Adolescent Drug Use were significantly positively correlated with Peer Drug Use and Adolescent Drug Use. In contrast, Family, School, law abidance, and guilt were significantly negatively correlated with Peer Drug Use and Adolescent Drug Use. Multiple group analyses indicated significant similarities and differences among US and FB Latinos, and Whites. Implications for early prevention, multi-level interventions, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

HIV in young men who have sex with men: a review of epidemiology, risk and protective factors, and interventions

Epidemiological studies have found that young men who have sex with men (YMSM) represent the majority of young people infected with HIV annually in the United States. Further, they are one of the few risk groups to show an increase in the rate of infections in recent years. In addition to these disparities in prevalence and infection rates, there is an inequity in prevention and intervention research on this population. The purpose of this article is to review the existing YMSM literature on HIV epidemiology, correlates of risk, and intervention research. The article concludes that promising future directions for basic research include a focus on multiple clustering health issues, processes that promote resiliency, the role of family influences, and the development of parsimonious models of risk. In terms of intervention research, the article suggests that promising future directions include Internet-based intervention delivery, integration of biomedical and behavioral approaches, and interventions that go beyond the individual level to address partnership, structural, community, and network factors.     

The different voices of helping: Gender differences in recounting dilemmas

Carol Gilligan (1977, 1982) has proposed fundamental gender differences. Women typically conceptualize interpersonal dilemmas in terms of people and their relationships, whereas men often orient to dilemmas as practical problems. Although considerable research has explored these gender differences, they have usually been treated as psychological traits or abstract moral orientations. In this article we show how Gilligan’s theory accounts for gender differences when interviewees described their efforts to prevent others from driving under the influence (DUI intervention). This result extends Gilligan's theory by showing how it can account for real life differences between men and women. By demonstrating the relevance of Gilligan's gender differences to everyday life, we lay a foundation for further sociological exploration of her ideas. His interests include divorce, social demography, and research methods. His book on the intergenerational transmission of divorce will be published by Stanford University Press. Jerome Rabow has been a professor of sociology at the University of California-Los Angeles since 1965. He has published more than 100 articles in the areas of drunk driving intervention, gender and money, education, and race relations. He recently completed Tutoring Matters: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About How to Tutor (Temple University Press, 1999), a book based on the tutoring experiences of his UCLA students. Professor Rabow is also a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles. He is also Research Psychologist and co-director of the Substance Abuse Research Center in the Psychology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Newcomb has published over 200 papers and chapters and has written three books. His research interests include: etiology and the consequences of adolescent drug abuse; structural equation modeling, methodology, and multivariate analysis; human sexuality; health psychology; attitudes and affect related to nuclear war; and cohabitation, marriage, and divorce.     

Relationship qualities of those who live together

Journal of Family and Economic Issues - This review attempts to integrate and conceptualize the many studies conducted on cohabital relationships during the past ten years. Evidence and possible...     

A multidimensional approach to homosexual identity

The existing developmental stage models of homosexual identity do not consider the diversity of human sexual experience. The stage models stem from an essentialist perspective, in which the process of homosexual identity formation is largely a matter of becoming aware of one's underlying, or real, sexual orientation. Once homosexual orientation is identified, the only legitimate outcome is to develop homosexual identity and eventually incorporate that identity as one aspect of the total self. In this paper, we are concerned with those people for whom the stage models are inadequate in describing their experience of sexual identity development. The social constructionist perspective holds that the process of identity formation is a continual, two-way interactive process between the individual and the social environment, and that the meanings the individual gives to these factors influence the development of self-constructs and identity. Sexual identity develops within this contextual framework and, because it is influenced by continual interaction, is fluid over time and experience, throughout one's life. Our model does not rely on the existing developmental models of homosexual identity; rather, our model looks at desire, behavior, and identity as three separate constructs related to sexual identity. We posit that from the social constructionist viewpoint, there is in fact no true endpoint to sexual identity development.