Delores E. Smith

Physical Discipline and Socioemotional Adjustment Among Jamaican Adolescents

The study examined the relationship between physical punishment and socioemotional well-being in a sample of Jamaican adolescents. The data indicated that the overwhelming majority of adolescent respondents experienced physical punishment within their families. Physical punishment was significantly associated with adverse psychological and behavioral consequences, in that adolescents reporting being victims of physical punishment also indicated a greater propensity to developmental adjustment problems than their non-victimized peers. However, unlike findings from research emanating from more industrialized cultures, sociodemographic factors were not associated with the incidence of physical punishment. Gender showed statistical significance on all socioemotional dimensions and with behavior problems but not with physical punishment. Implications for policy decisions to reduce children’s exposure to violence within that particular cultural context are discussed.

Violence among youth in Jamaica: a growing public health risk and challenge

En Jamaica, la abrumadora mayoria de los jovenes son personas bien ajustadas social y emocionalmente. Sin embargo, el aumento vertiginoso de las agresiones y la violencia en la ninez, y la conducta delincuencial entre los jovenes se han convertido en una gran preocupacion para la sociedad y constituyen un grave problema de salud publica. A falta de investigaciones definitivas sobre las causas, las especulaciones apuntan a la frustracion, los sentimientos de inadaptabilidad y la falta de autonomia de los jovenes. El proposito de este articulo es revisar la literatura y describir la informacion existente relacionada con la violencia en Jamaica y evaluar la plausibilidad de las suposiciones de la poblacion acerca de los factores relacionados con este problema. Segun la literatura analizada, hay una convergencia de factores a niveles micro y macro que influyen fuertemente en el comportamiento de los ninos y los jovenes jamaicanos. En este trabajo, estos factores se operacionalizan en tres niveles: el individual, el contexto social proximal (la familia y la escuela) y el contexto social distal (i.e., las circunstancias economicas). A partir de la literatura, se concluye que el comportamiento violento de algunos jovenes jamaicanos puede tener sus raices en la confluencia de los problemas que abruman a las familias, los ninos y los jovenes. La exposicion de los ninos a la violencia, tanto en el seno familiar como en la escuela, es particularmente preocupante. Se discuten las implicaciones para las decisiones en politicas.

Creativity and future time perspective: Exploring fantasy and realistic measures

Abstract The purposes of this study were to investigate the relationship between the cognitive dimensions of creativity and Future Time Perspective (FTP) and to explore the usefulness of a real‐world measure of divergent thinking. The sample consisted of 135 female undergraduate students with a mean age of 19 years. Creativity was measured using Guilfords Consequences and FTP was measured using the Future Problem‐Solving Task (FPST). Consequences is a fantasy oriented assessment and the FPST is a realistically oriented assessment. Results showed that Consequences and the FPST were moderately correlated. These findings suggest that both creativity and practicability play important roles in an adolescents ability to solve real‐world future problems. Implications center on the appropriateness and utility of employing real‐life problems in creativity problem‐solving tasks for adolescents.

Family Violence and Aggression and Their Associations With Psychosocial Functioning in Jamaican Adolescents

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationships among selected family interaction variables and psychosocial outcomes in a sample of Jamaican adolescents. The authors hypothesized that adolescent psychosocial outcomes would be negatively associated with physical violence, verbal aggression would be more potent than physical violence, and the combined effect of all aggression and violence would be more detrimental than either form of aggression by itself. Overall, the results supported the authors’ hypotheses about the detrimental effects of negative family interactions on children’s well-being. All the parent–child and interadult variables were positively associated with problematic adolescents’ adjustment. However, the verbal aggression variables indicated a greater adverse effect than the physical violence variables. Additionally, the combined effect of parent–child and interadult aggression and violence indicated greater detriment to adjustment than each factor by itself. Interpretation of the findings within the Jamaican context and direction for future research are discussed.

Pregnancy Status, Self-Esteem and Ethnicity: Some Relationships in a Sample of Adolescents.

Low self-esteem is presumed to predict self-destructive and deviant behaviors, such as drug use, school dropout, and early sexual involvement. The multidimensional construct of self-esteem was used to investigate the relationships among pregnancy status, self-esteem, and ethnicity among 100 pregnant/parenting and never-pregnant African American and European American female adolescents aged 15-19 years of mean age 16.74 years. The sample was comprised of 41 African Americans and 59 European Americans from two Southern states. Self-esteem and pregnancy status were found to be associated for European American adolescents, but not for African American adolescents. Never-pregnant European American adolescents scored significantly better than their same-race pregnant counterparts on 10 of the 12 self-esteem dimensions examined.

Homophobic and transphobic violence against youth: The Jamaican context

Abstract Jamaican LGBTI youth face tragic disparities, the level of which warrants immediate legislative attention. Jamaica has been characterized as one of the most homophobic and transphobic societies globally. Therefore, LGBTI youth routinely experience widespread discrimination and hostility at from the very social institutions (i.e. family, school, community and government) from which they would expect nurturance, care and protection. Also troubling is the fact that despite the country being a signatory to numerous United Nations human rights agreements, there are no legal protections against the discrimination they face. Considering the wealth of empirical evidence on the dire effects of homophobia and transphobia on youth’s well-being, a serious and urgent public health undertaking is necessary to address the homophobia and transphobia and their assumed deleterious outcomes for youth in that context. Comprehensive society-wide measures are obligatory to prevent and reduce the risk of victimization of all youth, but particularly LGBTI youth.

The associations between bullying victimization and internalizing distress, suicidality, and substance use in Jamaican adolescents: The moderating role of parental involvement

The present study investigated whether bullying victimization and parental involvement were associated with internalizing distress, suicidal thoughts and behavior, and substance use in Jamaican adolescents as well as whether parental involvement moderated the relation between bullying victimization and measures of psychological and behavioral distress. Analyses were based on a sample of 1,595 adolescents who were participating in the 2010 Global School-Based Student Health Survey. Data were collected using a complex survey design. Regression models were estimated using weighted data, which allowed us to draw conclusions about the population of Jamaican adolescents. Consistent with findings from international studies, bullying victimization was uniquely and positively associated with feelings of loneliness, sleep difficulties due to worry, smoking frequency, and suicidality for both male and female adolescents as well as with alcohol use frequency for female adolescents. Our pattern of findings also suggested that parental involvement is a more robust correlate of psychological and behavioral adjustment for female adolescents. Female adolescents who reported higher levels of parental involvement were less lonely and less likely to consider or plan suicide. For boys, parental involvement was only negatively related to loneliness. Finally, we found evidence that parental involvement moderated the relation between bullying victimization and cigarette use and considering suicide, although the latter finding was at the level of a nonsignificant trend. Our findings suggest parental involvement may attenuate the relation between bullying victimization and considering suicide but may strengthen the relation between bullying victimization and smoking. We discuss our findings in the context of Jamaican cultural socialization and with an appreciation for the social challenges faced by adolescents experiencing bullying victimization.

School bullying in the Jamaican context through an ecological lens

Childhood bullying is a grave breach of children’s human rights and a serious public health issue. The phenomenon has warranted research attention in developed societies and shown to have serious s...