Maureen E. Kenny

Attachment to Parents and Adjustment in Late Adolescent College Students Current Status, Applications, and Future Considerations

The attachment model holds considerable promise for understanding the challenges and adjustment vicissitudes of late adolescent college students. The model is potentially valuable for counseling psychologists, further more, in linking knowledge of developmental theory with counseling intervention and prevention. Existing research supports an association between secure parental attachment and adjustment for first-year college students. A variety of methodological challenges, however, need to be addressed in order to fully assess the validity of attachment-based developmental and intervention models, especially for women and culturally and racially diverse college students.

Best Practice Guidelines on Prevention Practice, Research, Training, and Social Advocacy for Psychologists:

Preventive interventions have been shown to successfully aid the development of children, youths, and adults and avert maladjustment in individuals at risk for negative outcomes. Continued scientific advancement of preventive interventions is crucial to further the health of U.S. children, youths, and families. This article presents 15 best practice guidelines on prevention practice, research, training, and social advocacy for psychology. These guidelines articulate clear standards and a framework for moving the profession toward improving the well-being of a greater number of individuals and communities. The guidelines are intended to assist psychologists in evaluating their preparation for engaging in prevention work and in furthering their understanding through increased knowledge, skills, and experience in prevention.

Setting the Stage: Career Development and the Student Engagement Process.

A longitudinal model assessing the relationship between indices of career development (career planful-ness and career expectations) and school engagement (belonging and valuing) was examined throughstructural equation modeling for a multiethnic sample of urban 9th-grade students ( N 416). The modelwas examined within the context of a career planning intervention implemented in 2 ethnically andracially diverse urban high schools. Higher levels of career planfulness and expectations at the beginningof the year were associated with increases in school engagement over the course of the year. Theobserved relationship between career planfulness and expectations and school engagement is consistentwith emerging models of career development (e.g., R. T. Lapan, 2004) that seek to explicate the valueof career development programming as a component of educational reform.Keywords: school engagement, career development, urban youth, school achievement

Contributions of Parental Attachments to View of Self and Depressive Symptoms among Early Adolescents

Three causal models, examining the relationship of parental attachment to view of self and level of depressive symptoms, were examined for a sample of eighth-grade girls (n = 92) and boys (n = 115). Consistent with the Bowlby construct of the internal working model of self structural equation modeling provided tentative support for the mediating role of view of self in influencing depressive symptoms. Gender differences were found for levels of depressive symptoms and global self-worth. Longitudinal studies with additional variables and multiple informants are needed to further assess the validity of the proposed model

Promoting Emotional Intelligence and Career Decision Making Among Italian High School Students

This article evaluates the efficacy of a training program focused on increasing emotional intelligence (EI), which was developed for Italian high school students. The training was constructed using an ability-based model of EI. It was hypothesized that specific training would increase both ability and self-reported EI and reduce levels of indecisiveness and career decision difficulties. This article outlines relevant literature and provides a description of the intervention, an evaluation of its efficacy, and a presentation of the results with regard to decisional problems.

The Next Frontier: Prevention as an Instrument of Social Justice

Preventive interventions that reduce oppressive societal structures, change attitudes that contribute to oppression, and enhance individual, family, and community strengths that empower persons to resist oppression represent important vehicles for advancing social justice. Social justice prevention is informed by the work of George Albee, in conjunction with ecological theory, positive psychology, the emancipatory communitarian framework, and multiculturalism. This manuscript describes the convergence of these influences in defining a social justice approach to prevention that integrates concerns relevant to context, strengths, culture, and power differentials, and evaluates social justice prevention as represented in current prevention literature.

The Contributions of Emotional Intelligence and Social Support for Adaptive Career Progress among Italian Youth.

Drawing from career construction and positive youth development perspectives, this study explores, among 254 Italian high school students, the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and support from friends and teachers with indices of adaptive career development. Results from the full canonical correlational model revealed that dimensions of EI and teacher support were positively associated with resilience and self-perceived employability. These results suggest that EI and teacher support warrant further investigation as factors that may contribute to adaptive career progress among youth.

Longitudinal Pathways Linking Adolescent Reports of Maternal and Paternal Attachments to Psychological Well-Being

Examined in this study were the relations between adolescent ratings of parental attachment (affective quality of parental relationship and parental fostering of autonomy)and self-reported psychological well-being over the 1-year period from the eighth to the ninth grade. Through structural equation modeling, relations between adolescent perceptions of parental attachments and psychological well-being (positive view of self and low levels of depressive symptoms) at Grades 8 and 9 were tested separately for girls and for boys. Adolescent ratings of maternal and paternal attachment at Grade 8 contributed to changes in well-being I year later for boys only. Adolescent boys `ratings of well-being at Grade 8 were associated with changes in ratings of attachment to father from the eighth to the ninth grade.

Contributions of parental attachment to gay or lesbian disclosure to parents and dysfunctional cognitive processes.

This study examined the relationship among parental attachment, sexual self-disclosure to parents, and dysfunctional cognitions in a sample of 113 gay and lesbian adults. The results of canonical analysis revealed that characteristics of secure attachment to mother and father were positively associated with disclosure to parents and length of time since disclosure, and they were negatively associated with self-reports of dysfunctional cognitions. These results suggest that attachment quality warrants further investigation as a factor that may facilitate disclosure to parents and reduce the risk for dysfunctional cognitions.

Adherence to the Super Woman Ideal and Eating Disorder Symptoms among College Women.

The degree to which three components of the Super Woman construct of femininity [C. Steiner-Adair (1986) “The Body Politic: Normal Female Adolescent Development and the Development of Eating Disorders” Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 14, pp. 95–114], valuing physical appearance, striving for success in multiple roles, and insecure parental attachment, are related to eating disorder symptoms was examined for a sample of 156 college women (84% white, 6% African American, 6% Asian, 3% Latina, 1% another race). Canonical analysis yielded three significant roots, suggesting a complex relationship between components of the Super Woman model and eating disorder symptoms. The first root supports the hypothesized relationship between the three components of the Super Woman model and eating disorder symptoms. The second root suggests that striving for success, when accompanied by a context of secure parental attachment, is positively associated with measures of social competence. The third root highlights the contribution of an emphasis on physical appearance to weight concern, dieting, and bulimic behavior.