State attachment variability across distressing situations in middle childhood

Contemporary research suggests that attachment has both a trait‐like, stable component, and a state‐like component that varies across contexts. In the current study, we assessed state attachment variability across comparably distressing situations in middle childhood. In two samples, children reported their expectations of maternal support in each situation. Additionally, we administered trait attachment and psychological well‐being measures. Results indicated that, overall, children varied in their expectations across situations: more than half of the variance was explained by intra‐individual differences across situations. Results revealed two components underlying variability: a Signal‐and‐Support component reflecting expectations of support‐seeking and receiving, and a Back‐on‐Track component reflecting expectations of stress reduction and comfort. State attachment variability was related to individual differences in trait attachment: children who are more securely attached at the trait level, overall appear to vary less in their state attachment, likely due to their high mean state attachment scores across situations. When the mean state attachment scores are accounted for, more securely attached children seem to vary more, suggesting that their state attachment expectations are more sensitive to contextual fluctuations. Importantly, degree of state attachment variability explained psychological well‐being over and above trait attachment.     

Predictors of parenting stress in portuguese adolescents' adoptive parents

Parenting stress is related to the characteristics of both the child and the parents, as well as to parent–child interactions. In adoptive families, parenting stress has been identified as an indicator of the family's adjustment to adoption. The stress experienced by parents of adopted adolescents deserves special consideration, as adolescence is a critical period in the adoptees' developmental pathway. The present study aims to identify the adoptee, parents and family related predictors of the adoptive parents' parenting stress, exploring direct and indirect effects. Fifty Portuguese adolescents' adoptive parents participated in this study. Parenting stress was measured by the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used to evaluate the adoptees' (mal)adjustment, according to the parents' perspective. Variables related to the parents' experience of adoption were assessed resorting to the Parent's Interview about the Adoption Process. Results showed that parents' satisfaction and adoptees' adjustment were sequential mediators of the relationship between the parents' experience of family life and parenting stress. These findings provide new insights into adoption research in parenting stress, highlighting the importance of adoption‐related variables such as the parents' adoption experience within the family and family relationships.     

Social movement in stages: a reply to Shultziner and Goldberg

This paper is a reply to Doron Shultziner and Sarah Goldberg's article The Stages of Mass Mobilization: Separate Phenomena and Distinct Causal Mechanisms. The article recognizes the theoretical contribution of the study, in particular the re‐introduction of the largely neglected stage approach in social movement studies. It then raises two major concerns related to how the authors narrow their approach to single episodes of mass mobilization and how definitively they distinguish movement stages.     

Longitudinal Patterns in Parent and Friend Emotion Socialization: Associations With Adolescent Emotion Regulation

Adolescents learn about emotions through interacting with parents and friends, though there is limited longitudinal research on this topic. This study examined longitudinal patterns in parent and friend emotion socialization and adolescent emotion regulation. Eighty‐seven adolescents reported on parent and friend emotion socialization. Parents reported on adolescent emotion regulation. Parents’ responses were stable over time and across gender. Friends of girls reciprocated negative emotions more and were less punitive over time, whereas friends of boys increased in comforting and decreased in neglect of negative emotions. Parents and friends evidenced unique effects on adolescent emotion regulation, and the effect of friend socialization responses differed for girls and boys. Future research should examine combinatory influences of multiple socializers on adolescent adjustment.     

Battles through and about statistics in French pay equity bargaining: The politics of quantification at workplace level

This article proposes to study the discreet ‘battles of numbers’ at workplace level, particularly exacerbated on pay equity, in relation to its potential additional costs for employers. Figures are at once a framework, an object and a resource for power struggles between social partners. This approach is inspired by ‘statactivism’, a research perspective that studies the ways and contexts in which statistics can become tools for social mobilization. In a European context where bargaining is increasingly decentralized to company level, we argue that researchers should pay attention to statistical resources and quantification skills of negotiators, both on the management and unions side. They should also include in their analytical framework the influence of experts and specialists who advise social partners on how to strategically produce and use gender‐sensitive statistics. In this article, two case studies allow us to open the ‘black box’ of equality bargaining, revealing challenges and controversies of gender pay reporting.     

A Shared Presentation: Two Disabled Women on Video

In this paper we share our collaborative experience of making a video in which disabled women present their lives as they wish to portray them. We undertook what we hope will be perceived as emancipatory research, in which disabled and non-disabled women work together to create audio-visual teaching materials. We include a preliminary discussion about the representation of disability on British television broadcasts between October 1991 and March 1992. We look at negative imagery, charity fund raising, and positive images. The paper uses comments by disabled broadcasters and disabled academics, and reflects on their work.     

Criminal Behavior and Rapid Community Growth: Examining the Evidence1

Abstract Sociologists have disagreed sharply over whether rapid, resource-related community growth leads to disproportionate increases in criminal activities. Enough studies have now accumulated, however, to permit a more comprehensive assessment. The existing studies fall into three categories. The first two, which employ county-level data and victimization surveys, have encountered inconclusive and mixed results. By contrast, the 23 before-and-after comparisons in specific communities have been highly consistent: All but 2 of the 23 report greater increases in criminal activity than in population (p <.0001 by the sign test). The mean ratio of increased crime to increased population is over 4.4 to 1; regression analyses lead to more conservative ratios ranging as low as 3.2 to 1 and as high as 3.6 to 1. Despite considerable variations in approaches, methods, and study communities, sufficiently consistent findings show that simple regression equations explain 85–98 percent of the variance. The weight of the accumulated evidence indicates that increases in criminal behaviors are significantly more than proportional to increases in populations in rapid-growth communities. Data from other studies would argue against a generic “social pathology” hypothesis; instead, the accumulated findings may best be explained by narrowly focusing on changes in community social structure that accompany rapid growth and result in impairment of informal social controls, particularly the declines in a community's density of acquaintanceship.     

What Are the Determinants of Open‐Space Ballot Measures? An Extension of the Research*

Objective. This article comments on the findings of Romero and Liserio's “Saving Open Spaces.” Their primary claim is that open‐space ballots are not related in any way to actual land‐use patterns. Methods. First, I present a number of methodological problems with their approach and demonstrate a sample selection bias using their original data. Second, I present some alternate models using data from 350 municipalities in the greater Philadelphia area. Results. I demonstrate that the sample selection bias in Romero and Liserio's model is so acute that all their parameter estimates are jointly zero. With other data, I find that sprawl votes are related to land‐use patterns using a number of different measures. Conclusions. I conclude that open‐space votes are related to land‐use patterns and that this may be explained as a rational response to sprawl by community planning bureaucracies.