Judith L. Gibbons

Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century

by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Jennifer Lynn Tanner (Eds.) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006. 341 pp. ISBN 1-59147-329-2.

Relationship of racial stressors to blood pressure responses and anger expression in black college students.

79.95Reviewed by Judith L. Gibbons Brien K. Ashdown What do laboratory rats, men, and college students have in common? They have often been studied by psychologists as representatives of a larger group, such as nonhuman animals or people in general. More recently, psychologists have turned to studying the species-typical behavior of rats and the roles and behavior of men and boys with respect to their masculine gender. Likewise, college students have served psychologists as representatives of humanity in studies of cognition and social and emotional behavior, but they have been studied infrequently as occupying a distinct developmental period. With some notable exceptions (e.g., Perry, 1970/1999), studies of the development of college-age persons in their own right were scarce until 2000, when Jeffrey Jensen Arnett (2000) proposed a new developmental period. Arnett posited that in modern industrial societies there is a distinct interim between adolescence and adulthood (roughly ages 18 through 25). The term he coined for this period was

RESEARCHING GENDER‐ROLE IDEOLOGIES INTERNATIONALLY AND CROSS‐CULTURALLY

The physiological effects of racism, as a stressor, were examined as they related to blood pressure (BP) and anger experiences in Black college students. Current research has failed to consider the stressful effects of racism as a factor contributing to the higher incidence of essential hypertension among Blacks. Twenty-seven Black college students viewed three excerpts showing racist situations involving Blacks; anger-provoking, nonracist situations; and neutral situations. After each scene, BP was taken, and a mood checklist was administered. The Framingham Anger Scale and the Anger Expression Scale were administered. Analyses revealed that BP significantly increased during the presentation of racist stimuli but not of anger-provoking or neutral stimuli. Self-reports of state anger, as measured by the mood checklist, were significant for both the anger-provoking and racist stimuli. BP scores were significantly correlated to the two trait anger measures. Exposure to racist stimuli was associated with BP increases among Blacks. Such cumulative exposure to racism may have important implications for the etiology of essential hypertension.

Effects of Language and Meaningfulness on the Use of Extreme Response Style by Spanish-English Bilinguals

Although many studies have compared gender-role ideologies internationally and cross-culturally, few researchers have attended to cultural differences in the meaningfulness or conceptual equivalence of the scale items. The literature on the use of instruments internationally is reviewed with respect to potentially universal (etic) constructs and findings. Gender differences in attitudes and the domains in which gender-related behavior is expressed differ internationally. A potential universal dimension is represented by a modern, egalitarian ideology on the one pole and a traditional ideology on the other. Using scales developed in three cultural contexts, we demonstrate that ratings of meaningfulness are correlated with the use of scores distant from the midpoint. Specific recommendations for researchers include consultation with cultural informants and incorporation of culturally specific (emic) items.

Cross-National Gender Differences in Adolescents' Preferences for Free-Time Activities

Response style, specifically the tendency to use response categories that are distant from the midpoint of a Likert-type scale, has been linked to culture and to the personal meaningfulness of the item. In this study, 58 Spanish-English bilinguals completed two gender role attitudes scales—the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and the Historic-Sociocultural Premises Scale (HSCP)—with items randomly assigned to be presented in English or Spanish. The HSCP was rated as more meaningful, and participants used more extreme categories in Spanish. Participants rated items on the AWS as more meaningful and used more extreme categories when items were presented in their first language; meaningfulness did not completely account for the latter effect. The results suggest that both language and meaningfulness affect response style. Response style is important not only as a confounding variable in crosscultural research but as an indicator of personal meaning and other culturally related phenomena such as language.

The sociocultural model of eating disorder development : Application to a Guatemalan sample

According to a procedure developed by Sundberg and Tyler, adoles cents (904, 14 to 16 years of age) from Cyprus, India, the Nether lands, and the United States listed all the free-time activities they could think of, checking those they would consider for themselves. In each sample boys checked relatively more sports activities and more group activities as possible for themselves than did girls, although the result for sports in Cyprus was of borderline signifi cance. The pervasive gender differences in the use of free time correspond with widespread gender-trait stereotyping and may reflect differential socialization practices for girls and boys.

Acculturation, Premigration Traumatic Experiences, and Depression Among Vietnamese Americans

Exposure to Western ideals of appearance along with rapid societal change appears to be salient risk factors for eating disorder development. According to the sociocultural model, internalization of the thin ideal leads to body dissatisfaction and subsequent negative affect and dieting behaviors which increase the risk for eating disorder development. An expanded version of the sociocultural model was examined among an economically stratified sample of 347 girls in grades 5 and 6 from Guatemala City. Questionnaires used to measure disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors, body dissatisfaction, social sensitivity, and internalization of the thin ideal were administered and BMI was calculated following measurement of height and weight. Path analyses showed that the expanded sociocultural model was an excellent fit to the data. Both elevated adiposity and social sensitivity led to increased body dissatisfaction and thin ideal internalization. Thin ideal internalization led to body dissatisfaction and to disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors. Results suggest that developing countries are not immune to the influence of sociocultural risk factors for eating disorders.

L-tryptophan's effects on mouse killing, feeding, drinking, locomotion, and brain serotonin

Summary This study investigated the role of acculturation as a potential mediator or moderator for premigration traumatic experiences (PTE) and depression. The mediator effect refers to an effect in which acculturation mediates the negative impact of PTE on depression. On the other hand, the moderator effect signifies an interaction effect in which acculturation buffers the impact of PTE on depression. In other words, the negative impact of PTE on depression is hypothesized to vary according to different levels of acculturation. These two competing hypotheses were tested in a community-based sample of 261 adult Vietnamese Americans aged 25 and over. The sample consisted of 48% males and 64% of the sample were married. The average length of residence in the U.S. was 7 years. Multiple regression analyses did not support the mediator effect of acculturation, but did support its moderator effect as a buffer of PTE. Specifically, PTE had a much stronger effect on depression among those with lower levels of acculturation than those with higher levels of acculturation. Implications for future research and clinical practices are discussed.

Images of Work, Gender, and Social Commitment among Guatemalan Adolescents

Injections of the serotonin precursor l-tryptophan (25, 50, and 100 mg/kg IP), inhibited mouse killing behavior in rats, as indicated by a dose dependent increase in latencies to attack and kill mice. Tests in 24 hr food deprived rats revealed that feeding behavior was also significantly decreased by about 30% by tryptophan injections (50--100 mg/kg IP). Concomitant with the behavioral changes were increased levels of brain serotonin and its metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid. Drinking, latencies to sniff mice, and ability to locomote on a rotating rod were not affected by l-tryptophan injections, although spontaneous activity in an open field was reliably reduced by 33% with a dose of 100 mg/kg. Thus, while the degree of selectivity for tryptophans effects on behavior remains open to question, these findings are consistent with hypotheses of an inhibitory role for central serotonergic systems, particularly in mouse killing and feeding behaviors.

Opposite-Sex Ideal in the U.S.A. and Mexico as Perceived by Young Adolescents:

The study involved 250 urban Guatemalan adolescents who ranked 10 qualities of either the ideal man or the ideal woman and drew a picture of the ideal person engaged in an activity. Both boys and girls ranked being kind and honest, being very intelligent, and liking children as the most important qualities for both the ideal man and the ideal woman. Drawings of the ideal person most often depicted the ideal person working in a job or at home. Many students attending public schools drew the ideal person sweeping or gardening, whereas many students attending private schools drew the ideal person working in an office. Comments on the drawings often suggested that the ideal person was working for the social good -his or her family, company, or country. These results are interpreted as reflecting both cultural ideals and the developmental stage of adolescence.