The Role of Parenting and Mother-Adolescent Attachment in the Intergenerational Similarity of Internalizing Symptoms

Parental depression has been identified as a risk factor for children's and adolescents' internalizing problems. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the role of maternal parenting behaviors (i.e., responsiveness and autonomy-support) and adolescents' representations of attachment to their mother (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) in the intergenerational similarity of internalizing symptoms. The sample was heterogeneous and consisted of referred (42%) and non-referred adolescents (N=238, 31% female) and their mothers. Both adolescents and mothers reported on internalizing symptoms, parenting behaviors and all adolescents reported on mother-child attachment. Results showed that parenting behaviors and mother-adolescent attachment explain at least part of the intergenerational congruence of internalizing symptoms. Moreover, there were meaningful and specific associations between dimensions of parenting and dimensions of attachment. Higher responsiveness was primarily related to lower avoidance and higher autonomy-support was primarily related to lower anxiety. The current study's results suggest that maternal depressive symptoms relate to maladaptive parenting strategies and insecure attachment representations in adolescents. Further, both attachment anxiety and avoidance seem to relate positively to adolescents' internalizing symptoms. Targeting both parenting and attachment may form a fruitful approach to prevent and treat internalizing problems in adolescence.     

When is Parental Monitoring Effective? A Person-centered Analysis of the Role of Autonomy-supportive and Psychologically Controlling Parenting in Referred and Non-referred Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Over the last few years, the protective role of parental monitoring on adolescent adjustment (i.e., active parental efforts aimed at setting limits and tracking...     

The Relationship between Maternal Overprotection,Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Problems,and Psychological Need Frustration: A Multi-Informant Study Using Response Surface Analysis

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Parents and adolescents may hold discrepant views about parents’ behaviors, which may be related to adolescent maladjustment. The goal of the present...     

Discourse and reality in international information society policy: the dominant scenario and its application in the developing world

Abstract

Since the early 1990s the concept of the information society has taken centre stage on the political agendas of several national governments in the North and South, as well as regional and international institutions, donor organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This article first sets out to analyse and describe both the content of, the evolution in, this policy discourse. It attempts to assess the validity of this discourse in light of the current changes at the global level and in the light of the problems associated with the practical implementation of policy in a developmental context. By so doing, it questions the basic – and overly simplistic – assumptions of the dominant scenario.     

Voluntary environmental agreements in developing countries: the Colombian experience

Voluntary agreements (VAs) negotiated between environmental regulators and polluters are increasingly popular in developing countries. According to proponents, they can sidestep weak institutions and other pervasive barriers to conventional mandatory regulation in such countries. Yet little is known about the drivers of their use and their effectiveness in poor countries. The considerable literature on voluntary initiatives in industrialized countries, where both VAs and socioeconomic conditions differ, may not apply. Using a conceptual framework drawn from the economics literature, we examine four prominent VAs in Colombia, a global leader in the use of this policy. We find that the main motive for using VAs has been to build capacity needed for broader environmental regulatory reform and that partly as a result, VAs’ additional effect on environmental performance has been limited. These findings contrast with those from industrialized country studies, which typically conclude VAs are used as a low-cost substitute for impending mandatory regulation and have few benefits because of weak regulatory pressure. Our findings suggest that in developing countries, VAs may be best suited to capacity building, not environmental management per se.     

Issue salience in regional and national party manifestos in the UK

The study reveals the salience of particular issues in the manifestos of the main British parties for the 1997 and 2003 UK general elections, as well as the 2003 Scottish and Welsh elections, using the method introduced by the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and a modified list of issue categories to reflect the division of government competences between the central and regional governments. Ideological and social base of a party, as well as the delimitation of government competences, are found to be important determinants of issue salience. A more consensual institutional design of the regional government in Scotland and Wales seems to have conditioned larger differences among the issue profiles of parties competing in regional elections, in comparison with general elections. With the institutionalisation of devolution, however, we observe an increase in the similarity of the issue profiles of the same parties in general and in Scottish and Welsh elections, as well as among different parties competing in the same regional elections.     

Developmental Impacts of Child Abuse and Neglect Related to Adult Mental Health, Substance Use, and Physical Health

This study examined the association between officially recorded child abuse and neglect and adult mental health, substance use, and physical health outcomes. Data are from a longitudinal study of more than 30 years in which individuals were interviewed most recently in their mid—30s. Analyses consisted of group comparisons using chi-square tests for categorical variables and independent samples t-tests for continuous measures. Logistic and linear regressions controlled for gender and childhood SES, adult age, marital status, and education. Adults maltreated in childhood reported more symptoms of adult depression, anxiety, and more impairment due to mental and physical health problems. A higher percentage of those with maltreatment histories reported lifetime alcohol problems and appear at greater risk for substance abuse. Most findings of these bivariate analyses remained significant after accounting for gender and childhood socioeconomic status. Somewhat fewer significant results were observed after controlling for adult age, marital status, and education.     

The limits of privacy in automated profiling and data mining

Automated profiling of groups and individuals is a common practice in our information society. The increasing possibilities of data mining significantly enhance the abilities to carry out such profiling. Depending on its application, profiling and data mining may cause particular risks such as discrimination, de-individualisation and information asymmetries. In this article we provide an overview of the risks associated with data mining and the strategies that have been proposed over the years to mitigate these risks. From there we shall examine whether current safeguards that are mainly based on privacy and data protection law (such as data minimisation and data exclusion) are sufficient. Based on these findings we shall suggest alternative policy options and regulatory instruments for dealing with the risks of data mining, integrating ideas from the field of computer science and that of law and ethics.