Cortisol Stress Response Variability in Early Adolescence: Attachment,Affect and Sex

Attachment, affect, and sex shape responsivity to psychosocial stress. Concurrent social contexts influence cortisol secretion, a stress hormone and biological marker of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. Patterns of attachment, emotion status, and sex were hypothesized to relate to bifurcated, that is, accentuated and attenuated, cortisol reactivity. The theoretical framework for this study posits that multiple individual differences mediate a cortisol stress response. The effects of two psychosocial stress interventions, a modified Trier Social Stress Test for Teens and the Frustration Social Stressor for Adolescents were developed and investigated with early adolescents. Both of these protocols induced a significant stress reaction and evoked predicted bifurcation in cortisol responses; an increase or decrease from baseline to reactivity. In Study I, 120 predominantly middle-class, Euro-Canadian early adolescents with a mean age of 13.43 years were studied. The girls’ attenuated cortisol reactivity to the public performance stressor related significantly to their self-reported lower maternal-attachment and higher trait-anger. In Study II, a community sample of 146 predominantly Euro-Canadian middle-class youth, with an average age of 14.5 years participated. Their self-reports of higher trait-anger and trait-anxiety, and lower parental attachment by both sexes related differentially to accentuated and attenuated cortisol reactivity to the frustration stressor. Thus, attachment, affect, sex, and the stressor contextual factors were associated with the adrenal-cortical responses of these adolescents through complex interactions. Further studies of individual differences in physiological responses to stress are called for in order to clarify the identities of concurrent protective and risk factors in the psychosocial stress and physiological stress responses of early adolescents.     

The Burden of Caste on Social Identity in India

Abstract

This paper uses the World Values Survey to investigate the determinants of perceived social status in India. Caste is still the largest determinant, yet not the only one, as income, education and occupation are all relevant factors. However, only unlikely improvements in those economic attributes could offset the burden of being from a low caste or tribe on perceived social rank. This study is part of the literature that shows how the internalisation of prejudice and long-lasting discrimination may have impaired individuals’ self-esteem. The results stress the need to account for self-depreciation when assessing the efficiency of affirmative action policies.     

Catherine Cl ment and Julia Kristeva. The Feminine and the Sacred. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001

And the Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory, by Anneke Smelik. London: Macmillan Press, 1998.

Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader, edited by Elizabeth Fallaize. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Women Preachers and Prophets Through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind, by Anna Battigelli. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.

Cracks in the Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood, by Philip Green. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.

The Women and War Reader, edited by Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Surrealist Women: An International Anthology, edited by Penelope Rosemont. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

The Knotted Subjed: Hysteria and its Discontents, by Elisabeth Bronfen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Ventures into Childland: Victorians, Fairy Tales, and Femininity, by U.C. Knoepfimacher. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.     

Bullies, Gangs, Drugs, and School: Understanding the Overlap and the Role of Ethnicity and Urbanicity

Recent media attention has increased interest in behavioral, mental health, and academic correlates of involvement in bullying. Yet, there has not been much interest in investigating the co-occurrence of other health-risk behaviors, such as gang membership, weapon carrying, and substance use. The potential influence of contextual factors, such as youth ethnicity, urbanicity, and school characteristics, also has been overlooked in previous research. The current study examined different subtypes of involvement in bullying—as primarily a victim, as primarily a bully, as both a victim and bully, and no involvement—and the association with significant health-risk behaviors, including engaging in violence and substance use, as well as academic problems. The analyses use self-report data from 16,302 adolescents (50.3 % female, 62.2 % Caucasian, 37.8 % African American) enrolled in 52 high schools. A series of three-level HLM analyses revealed that bullies and bully/victims were generally at greatest of risk of being involved in violence, engaging in multiple types of substance use, and having academic problems. These findings extend prior research by emphasizing a potential link between involvement in bullying and multiple health-risk behaviors, particularly among urban and African American high school youth.     

Examining Associations Between Race, Urbanicity, and Patterns of Bullying Involvement

Research on the role of race and urbanicity in bullying involvement has been limited. The present study examined bullying involvement subgroups that relate to race, urbanicity, and the perceived reason for the bullying. Self-report data were collected from 10,254 middle school youth (49.8 % female; 62.4 % Caucasian, 19.0 % African American, and 5.6 % Hispanic) and latent class analyses were used to identify three subtypes of bullying involvement: low involvement (50 %), victim (31.3 %), and bully-victim (18.7 %). Irrespective of urbanicity (urban vs. non-urban), African American youth were more likely to be members of either the victim or bully-victim classes than the low involvement class. Further exploration of the community context suggested that urbanicity was associated with the increased likelihood of having been racially bullied. Urban bully-victims were also more likely to have been bullied about money than non-urban bully-victims. Findings underscore the importance of addressing both race and urbanicity for culturally sensitive prevention programming.     

The Day I Will Never Forget: an interview with Kim Longinotto

The documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto talks to Catherine Fowler about her latest film The Day I Will Never Forget (2003) about female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa. Longinotto’s films have consistently interrogated our understanding of womens’ place in the world, and her latest film is no exception. She discusses how she found her subjects: Fardohsa, a midwife who has been campaigning against FGM, a group of girls who have (successfully) taken their parents to court in order to prevent FGM being practised, and Fouzia, a girl of nine who reads a poem that she wrote the day after she was circumcised, asking her mother to explain why she put her daughter through such a painful experience. Longinotto also discusses the ethical issues raised by her filming of a circumcision of two sisters, and the wider issues that her film engages: the powerless position of women in African societies, the confusion of religion and culture in discussions of FGM, and the impact of saying ‘no’ to this practice.