Maternal depression,parental attributions,and adolescent psychopathology: An evaluation using observational and video-mediated recall methods

Parenting styles associated with maternal depression are a risk factor for adolescent psychopathology, and maternal attributional styles may be a key mechanism in this relationship. Mother-adolescent dyads (N = 180; 96 male; ages 10–15) completed in-person interactions and then the mothers participated in a video-mediated recall procedure to assess maternal attributions. Maternal depression was associated with negative attributions. Negative attributions were associated with low parental acceptance, aggressive parenting, and low positive parenting. Positive maternal attributions were associated with less aggressive parenting, and more positive parenting during one interaction task. Adolescent externalizing behaviors were associated with negative attributions. Future research should evaluate whether maternal attributions mediate the association between maternal depression and both parenting behaviors and adolescent mental health.     

Abuse and Parental Characteristics,Attributions of Blame,and Psychological Adjustment in Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of abuse and parental characteristics on attributional content and determine the relative contribution of different attributions of blame in predicting psychological symptomatology among adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. One hundred eighty-three female undergraduates with a history of childhood sexual abuse completed self-report questionnaires. Abuse characteristics were significantly related to attributions. Family- and perpetrator-blame accounted for significant variability in psychological symptomatology, beyond the contributions of abuse characteristics, family environment, and self-blame. Implications for research and treatment are discussed.     

Illegitimate tasks are not created equal: Examining the effects of attributions on unreasonable and unnecessary tasks

ABSTRACT

Illegitimate tasks are tasks that violate norms for what the employee should do as part of the job, and have been found to harm employees’ well-being. The current research uses a mixed methods design to examine the role of attributions on the two types of illegitimate tasks: unreasonable and unnecessary tasks. A sample of 432 engineers described a specific illegitimate task that was assigned to them, the attributions they made and their response. They also completed a quantitative questionnaire. Results from both the qualitative (event level) and quantitative (person level) portions of our study portray differences in the attributions made to unreasonable and unnecessary tasks, as well as differential negative effects on employees’ emotions. In addition, hostile attribution bias was found to moderate the relationship between illegitimate tasks and negative emotions, particularly for unreasonable tasks. This supports the theoretical basis for illegitimate tasks because unreasonable tasks pose a potentially greater risk to the employee’s self-worth than unnecessary tasks that are more often assigned at random.     

Developmental Trajectories of Sympathy,Moral Emotion Attributions,and Moral Reasoning: The Role of Parental Support

We examined the role of parental support to children's sympathy, moral emotion attribution, and moral reasoning trajectories in a three‐wave longitudinal study of Swiss children at 6 years of age (N = 175; Time 1), 7 years of age (Time 2), and 9 years of age (Time 3). Sympathy was assessed with self‐report measures. Moral emotion attributions and moral reasoning were measured with children's responses to hypothetical moral transgressions. Parental support was assessed at all assessment points with primary caregiver and child reports. Three trajectory classes of sympathy were identified: high‐stable, average‐increasing, and low‐stable. Moral emotion attributions exhibited high‐stable, increasing, and decreasing trajectories. Moral reasoning displayed high‐stable, increasing, and low‐stable trajectories. Children who were in the high‐stable sympathy group had higher self‐reported support than children in the increasing and low‐stable trajectory groups. Children who were in the high‐stable moral emotion attribution group or the high‐stable moral reasoning group had higher primary caregiver‐reported support than children in the corresponding increasing trajectory groups. Furthermore, children who were members of the high‐stable group in all three moral development variables (i.e., sympathy, moral emotion attribution, and moral reasoning) displayed higher levels of self‐reported parental support than children who were not.     

Causal Attributions and Parents’ Acceptance of Their Homosexual Sons

This Internet-based study examined the association between Israeli parents’ attributions regarding the cause of their son’s homosexuality and their level of acceptance of their homosexual son. The sample (N = 57) was recruited via Internet Web sites (gay forums and support groups). Findings suggest that more essentialist (versus constructivist) causal attributions were associated with higher levels of parental acceptance. Length of time parents knew of their son’s homosexual orientation predicted the degree to which their attributions were essentialist. Implications are discussed.     

Attributions of Responsibility in a Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Vignette Among Respondents with CSA Histories: The Role of Abuse Similarity to a Hypothetical Victim

Previous research suggests that similarity to a victim may influence attributions of responsibility in hypothetical child sexual abuse scenarios. One aspect of similarity receiving mixed support in the literature is respondent child sexual abuse history. Using a sample of 1,345 college women, the present study examined child sexual abuse history, similarity to victim, and attributions of responsibility to a hypothetical victim, family member, and perpetrator in a child sexual abuse vignette. Results revealed no group differences in responsibility ratings among respondents with and without child sexual abuse histories. However, among the 133 respondents with child sexual abuse histories, results indicated that similarity to victim moderated the relationship between vignette characteristics, respondent history, and responsibility attributions. Results suggest that similarity to a victim may influence ratings in a self-preserving manner.     

Attitudes to Food Gardening from a Generational Perspective

Abstract

The paper sheds light on why older gardeners want to grow their own food and younger people do not. Only since the coming of democracy in 1994 has the potential of food gardens attracted the attention of South African development practitioners and policy makers. Sustainable food garden projects build on a culture of gardening that has its roots in rural subsistence farming. While food gardens were commonly regarded as a tool for rural development, rapid migration to the cities has introduced urban cultivation as a strategy to provide food and income security for the urban poor. This case study reports in-depth discussions with twenty active older gardeners in a small town in the predominantly rural Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The highly motivated gardeners cited reasons for growing food that went beyond basic needs for food security and livelihoods and included aesthetics, morality, and health and well-being. However, they attributed mainly negative attitudes to the younger generation that aspires to a modern lifestyle which excludes food gardening. Follow-up group interviews with young people confirmed these attributions. The discussion focuses on intergenerational transmission of values and its implications for sustainable community development.     

Culpability Attributions towards Juvenile Female Prostitutes

This study addresses a gap in the research literature concerning predictors of culpability attributions towards juvenile female prostitutes (JFPs). Three hundred undergraduate participants read a vignette describing a JFP and responded to a series of measures. Results supported a causal pathway whereby stronger perceiver sexism predicted stronger negative affective evaluations of, and weaker empathic reactions toward, the JFP. Stronger negative affective evaluations and weaker empathic reactions, in turn, predicted stronger culpability attributions toward the JFP. Also, participants who were provided information about the JFP's extensive victimisation history and coercion into the trade, relative to participants who were not provided this information, attributed lesser culpability to the JFP. Finally, stronger culpability attributions toward the JFP related to weaker recommendations of restorative justice (i.e. counselling/mental health services for the JFP) and stronger recommendations of retributive justice (i.e. incarceration for the JFP). Study implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key Practitioner Message

• Stronger perceiver sexism predicts stronger negative evaluations of, and weaker empathic reactions towards a juvenile female “prostitute.”
• Stronger negative evaluations of, and weaker empathic reactions towards a girl in the sex trade in turn predict stronger culpability attributions towards her.
• Provision of information about a prostituted youth's victimisation history and coercion into prostitution mitigates culpability attributions toward her.
• Public education that highlights juvenile prostitution as a form of child sexual exploitation may be critically important to minimising punitive social cognitions about survivors of the commercial sex trade.

     

Role of Various Fault Attributions and Other Factors in Children's Anticipated Response to Hypothetical Peers With Undesirable Characteristics

Two studies examined the role of various fault attributions and other factors in children's anticipated response to hypothetical peers described as having an undesirable characteristic. The children were found to distinguish among various fault attributions (i.e., general, onset, and perpetuation; study 1), and they tended to agree more strongly that the peers were responsible for the perpetuation than the onset of these characteristics (studies 1 and 2). In study 1, perceiving an aggressive or overweight peer as similar to a friend and believing that the overweight peer will overcome this undesirable characteristic were found to be associated with a relatively favorable response to these peers. The more strongly the children agreed that (1) an aggressive peer is generally at fault for his/her undesirable characteristic (study 1) and (2) peers who are aggressive, overweight, shy, or a poor student are at fault for the onset of their undesirable characteristics (study 2), the less favorably they anticipated responding to these peers. Unexpectedly, attributing responsibility to forces ‘outside the peer's control’ (i.e., parents and biology) for his/her undesirable characteristic in study 2 was not found to be associated with a relatively favorable response to any peer with an undesirable characteristic.     

The Impact of a History of Child Sexual Abuse on Maternal Response to Allegations of Sexual Abuse Concerning Her Child

Mothers exhibit a wide range of emotional responses to the discovery that their children may have been sexually abused. The clinical lore suggests that a personal history of child sexual abuse (CSA) may influence maternal reactions to such a discovery. Interestingly, however, while the impact of a history of CSA has been examined in many different populations, the impact of such a history has rarely been studied with respect to nonoffending mothers of CSA victims. The current investigation, therefore, aimed to compare nonoffending mothers with and without a history of CSA with respect to demographic variables, psychosocial functioning, and personal responses to the CSA allegations concerning their children. Nonoffending mothers with a history of CSA exhibited more general symptom distress as measured by the SCL-90-R and reported greater feelings of aloneness in facing the crisis of the CSA allegations. However, maternal history of CSA did not differentiate the groups with respect to demographic variables or maternal responses to the CSA allegations concerning their children. Implications of these findings are discussed.