The purpose of this study was to test a theoretical model that examined the extent to which cognitive readiness to parent, perceived difficult child temperament, observed parenting behaviors, and positive coping styles predicted parenting stress among young, low-income, first-time, African-American mothers. One hundred and twenty African-American,…

The linkages between self-regulation in childhood, risk proneness in early adolescence, and risky sexual behavior in mid-adolescence were examined in a cohort of children (N=518) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The possible mediating role of two early adolescent variables (substance use and negative peer pressure) was also…

An empirical research study based upon the expectancy-value model of Eccles and colleagues (1983) investigated the effect of gender-role orientations on psychological dimensions of female athletes' sport participation and the likelihood of their continued participation in a stereotypical masculine activity. The model (Eccles et al., 1983) posits…

The author conducted an empirical study based on structural equation modeling with a convenience sample of 246 individuals with the goal of demonstrating that recycling behavior is a routine conduct and should be addressed as such in educational materials. Although the classic hierarchy of effects dominates the interpretation of recycling behavior…

In this article, we formulate a nonlinear structural equation model (SEM) that can accommodate covariates in the measurement equation and nonlinear terms of covariates and exogenous latent variables in the structural equation. The covariates can come from continuous or discrete distributions. A Bayesian approach is developed to analyze the…

Cudeck and Browne (1983) proposed using cross-validation as a model selection technique in structural equation modeling. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of eight cross-validation indices under conditions not yet examined in the relevant literature, such as nonnormality and cross-validation design. The performance of each…

Background: Longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging studies have demonstrated increasing volumes of white matter and regionally-specific inverted U shaped developmental trajectories of gray matter volumes during childhood and adolescence. Studies of monozygotic and dyzygotic twins during this developmental period allow exploration of genetic and…

The author's purpose in this study was to test 4 hypotheses that proposed different paths for the influences of children's television viewing on their academic achievement. Data were drawn from the 1997 Child Development Supplement (CDS) to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The population for this study included 1,203 children between the…

Objective: To devise and test a model describing the process of help-seeking for child psychopathology in professional and informal service settings. Method: Using structural equation modeling, associations between several help-seeking stages, and the influence of child, family, and context characteristics on these stages were investigated in 246…

Objectification theory proposes that the objectification of women's bodies causes women to self-objectify, adopting an outsider's view of themselves. Engaging in a high amount of self-objectification is thought to place women at increased risk for mental health problems such as body dissatisfaction and depression. It was hypothesized that…

Parental monitoring, assessed as (perceived) parental knowledge of the child's behavior, has been established as a consistent predictor of problem behavior. However, recent research indicates that parental knowledge has more to do with adolescents' self-disclosure than with parents' active monitoring. Although these findings may suggest that…

Childhood abuse was investigated as a potential mediator of the intergenerational transmission of externalizing behaviors (EXT) in adulthood among a large general population sample drawn from the National Comorbidity Survey. Community participants (N = 5,424) underwent diagnostic and psychosocial interviews and reported on their own adult symptoms…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine how school social composition is related to perceived collective efficacy. Several hypotheses tested in this research were derived from social cognitive theory and based on the extant literature. Participants: Data were drawn from 1,981 teachers in 41 K-8 schools in a diverse urban school…

Direct and indirect effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and previous mathematics achievement on high school advanced mathematics course taking were explored. Structural equation modeling was carried out on data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study: 1988 database. The two variables were placed in a model together with the mediating…

Several empirical studies have attempted to estimate the effect of low self-control on criminal and "analogous" behaviors. Most of these studies have shown that low self-control is an important feature of the cause(s) of crime. Although research is beginning to emerge that targets more specifically the "roots" of self-control via parental…