Contributions of Matrilineal and Patrilineal Kin Alloparental Effort to the Development of Life History Strategies and Patriarchal Values: A Cross-Cultural Life History Approach

Childrearing behaviors are often shaped by familial and cultural principles that function as guides for socialization goals and effective childrearing practices. For an increasing number of Latino families, the extended kin often acts as a source of childcare support. Due to a scarcity of research on the familial support configurations of Latin American families, the current study utilizes a cross-cultural retrospective approach to explore the associations between matrilineal/ patrilineal kin and life history strategies in relation to childrearing. Applying a family system and life history framework, the present model tested 200 university students from Mexico and Costa Rica on measures of family emotional environment and traditional social values (e.g., familismo/simpatía and patriarchal values). Results found that childcare assistance from patrilineal and matrilineal kin was associated with positive family emotional environment, which weakly mediated the association between kin care and slow life history. Positive associations were also found between matrilineal kin childcare and traditional Latin social values. However, patriarchal values were only predicted by higher levels of patrilineal kin aid. The results are consistent with the general theoretical literature of life history theory and family systems theory, suggesting that high levels of childcare produce positively emotional family climates, which in turn perpetuate the development of prosocial individuals with slow life history strategies. Implications for further research are discussed.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP

Intimate partner violence, interpersonal aggression, and life history strategy

We integrate life history (LH) theory with "hot/cool" systems theory of self-regulation to predict sexually and socially coercive behaviors, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and interpersonal aggression (IPA). LH theory predicts that a variety of traits form LH strategies: adaptively coordinated behavioral clusters arrayed on a continuum from slow to fast. We test structural models examining 2 propositions: (a) "hot" cognitive processes, promoted by faster LH strategies, increase the likelihood of sexually/socially coercive behaviors that make up IPV and IPA; (b) "cool" cognitive processes, promoted by slower LH strategies, buffer against the likelihood of sexually/socially coercive behaviors that make up IPV and IPA. We present single and multisample structural equations models (SEMs and MSEMs) testing hypothesized causal relations among these theoretically specified predictors with IPV and IPA. Study 1 develops a Structural Equation Model for IPV; Study 2 extends the model to IPA using MSEM and provides 5 cross-cultural constructive replications of the findings. Integrating LH theory and hot/cool systems analysis of cognitive processes is a promising and productive heuristic for future research on IPV and IPA perpetration and victimization. </p

Parental Cultural Values, Coparental, and Familial Functioning in Mexican Immigrant Families: Its Impact on Children´s Social Competence

In two-parent families, the ability of parents to negotiate their roles as parents, reaching agreement in childrearing, and being cooperative in sharing parenting (i.e. coparenting), leads to positive family climate, which in turn, impacts positively on children´s social competence. Studies have shown these variables to be relevant for European-American parents. The role of parent's cultural values has received scarce attention in predicting coparental and familial functioning. Additionally, couple's similarity has been found to help explain coparental and familial functioning; however further exploration is needed. Using series of hierarchical multiple regressions as an exploratory form of path analysis, this study tested the connections among the cultural values of familism/respeto, and simpatia, with parental agreement in childrearing and cooperative coparenting (i.e. coparental functioning), and family climate (i.e. familial functioning) in explaining children social competence in a sample of Mexican immigrant parents. Analyses found that the cultural values of familism/respeto and simpatia impact positively coparental functioning within this ethnic group; although the impact is different for mothers and fathers. While simpatia predicted cooperative coparenting for mothers; familism/respeto predicted parental agreement for fathers at the trend level. Whereas parental agreement did predict coparenting for mothers, it was not predictive for fathers. Couples' similarity in culture values proved to have a minimal impact over coparental and familial functioning with a small, trend level effect from similarity in simpatia to cooperative coparenting. Regression analysis for mothers, fathers, and couples failed to predict children social competence. Mexican values of familism/respeto and simpatia play a role in explaining coparental functioning with Mexicans, albeit a different role for mothers and fathers. For mothers, endorsement of harmony and avoidance of conflict (i.e. simpatia) influences coparenting, over and above the effect of agreement on coparenting. Mothers' agreement leads to reports of cooperative coparenting. For fathers, it is endorsement of values proscribing to the value of familism/respeto that impacts fathers' parental agreement. But for fathers, reaching agreement does not necessarily lead to cooperative coparenting. These findings suggest interplay between values endorsement and parental roles. There is also evidence that the shared an endorsement of the value of simpatia leads to coparenting

Estilos de crianza materna: maltrato infantil y consecuencias del castigo. Un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias en Metodología de la Ciencia), Instituto Politécnico Nacional, CIECAS, 1998, 1 archivo PDF, (93 páginas). tesis.ipn.mx

La madre homicida y el mito del instinto materno

&iquest;Por qu&eacute; algunas mujeres matan a sus hijos? Si consideramos lo que la sociedad hegem&oacute;nica establece: la mujer es un ser para los dem&aacute;s, es un ser nutricio cuya funci&oacute;n se cumple s&oacute;lo en el servicio que ofrezca a esos dem&aacute;s con los que vive. La mujer es madre por naturaleza, por antonomasia, la mujer quiere tener hijos porque s&oacute;lo de esta manera siente que est&aacute; completa, porque la maternidad es lo que le da sentido a su vida. La mujer es y se sabe cuerpo. Entonces &iquest;qu&eacute; es lo que lleva a estas madres a matar a sus hijos?&nbsp; El discurso de cinco mujeres que compurgan su condena en las penitenciar&iacute;as de Sonora es analizado en este escrito. Contrariamente a esta idea de la mujer, creemos ver que la madre homicida no s&oacute;lo no se define a s&iacute; misma como madre, sino m&aacute;s bien como sujeto con planes muy claros en los que lo prioritario es la conservaci&oacute;n de sus posesiones, o la b&uacute;squeda de aquello que se ha propuesto como esencial para su vida, donde la identidad de madre y los hijos no figuran, aunque s&iacute; una actitud utilitaria de su feminidad. La mujer busca situarse como individuo con vida e identidad propia, ya no es un ser para los otros, ahora comienza a ser para s&iacute; misma

CO-CRIANZA Y FAMILISMO PREDICTORES DE COMPAÑIA E INTIMIDAD DEL JOVEN HACIA SUS PADRES

En este estudio se prueba el valor predictivo de la Co-crianza en la niñez y el valor cultural familismo característico de los mexicanos sobre el reporte de Compañía e Intimidad del joven con su madre y padre, separadamente. Para ello, en una muestra de 118 jóvenes -provenientes de una familia nuclear- estudiantes de una universidad pública del noroeste de México, contestaron un conjunto de cuestionarios de opción de respuesta cerrada; posteriormente se realizaron análisis multivariados (i.e. path análisis). Los resultados arrojan una diferencia a favor de las mujeres quienes reportan más altos niveles de compañía e intimidad con sus madres; asi como un mayor reporte de co-crianza y familismo. Igualmente se encuentra evidencia de un efecto directo, positivo y significativo de co-crianza y familismo sobre el reporte de Compañía e Intimidad con la madre, no así con el padre. Los datos arrojan que solo la Co-crianza recibida en la niñez explica la compañía e intimidad con el padre que el joven experimenta ya en su vida adulta

Fathers’ care-giving and nurturing: The role of ethnicity and acculturation in European-American and Hispanic-Americans

Se compara modelo de cuidados paternos entre Europeo Americanos e Hispano Americanos para conocer el rol de la etnicidad y aculturación. El modelo incluyó Cuidado Básico, Responsividad, Juego, y Estimulación Cognitiva, y se utilizaron Modelamiento de Ecuaciones Estructurales y Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio. Se realizaron: a) comparación entre modelos (i.e cuatro factores versus un factor); b) equivalencia de medida; y c) diferencia de medias de variables latentes. El modelo de cuatro factores alcanzó mejor bondad de ajuste; los Hispano Americanos menos aculturados estimulan cognitivamente menos a sus infantes; los Europeo Americanos resultaron menos responsivos que los Hispano Americanos independientemente del nivel de aculturación de los últimos. Resulta impreciso asumir que los padres participan en la crianza por igual, la participación varía según grupo étnico y aculturación

Shared Parenting, Parental Effort, and Life History Strategy: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Previous developmental research has found that children from households with high shared parenting, childrearing agreement, and equitable division of parental labor experience positive developmental and social outcomes; a major limitation of these studies is that shared parent- ing measures do not assess the amount of total parental effort the child receives, but instead partitioning the amount of effort between parents. Life History (LH) theory predicts that the total amount of parenting the child receives should produce a greater developmental impact on the future LH strategies of children than precisely how that parental effort was apportioned between mothers and fathers.This report presents a cross-cultural study using convenience samples of university students in Mexico, the United States, and Costa Rica, investigating the relationship of total as well as shared parental effort on family emotional climate and the LH strategy of the participants as young adults.The first study was performed exclusively in Mexico; results indicated that higher levels of shared parenting experienced as a child were associated with Family Emotional Climate also during childhood and with participant adult LH.The second study extended these findings; higher total parental effort predicted shared parenting effort, positive emotional climate, and slower offspring adult life history strategy in the three conve- nience samples of Mexico, the United States, and Costa Rica.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP

Measures of domain-specific resource allocations in life history strategy: Indicators of a latent common factor or ordered developmental sequence?

The psychometric trait approach to human life history, based on common factor modeling, has recently come under some criticism for neglecting to inquire into the developmental progression that orients and executes human life history trajectories (Copping, Campbell, & Muncer, 2014). It was asserted that the psychometric approach wholly focuses on creating a higher-order latent factor of life history by subsuming individual differences with developmental and social experiences, ignoring ontogenetic progression. Implicit in the critique is the assumption that developmental perspectives and latent approaches are mutually exclusive and incompatible with each other. The response to this critique by Figueredo and colleagues (2015) proposed instead that developmental perspectives and latent trait approaches are both compatible and necessary to further research on human life history strategies. The current paper uses three independent cross-sectional samples to examine whether models of human life history are best informed by a developmental perspective, psychometric trait approach, or both.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP

Escala de Bienestar Subjetivo en Cuidadores Familiares de Adultos Mayores (EBEMS/CFAM)

Well-being is a concept that has aroused multidisciplinary interest. Particularly in studies about family caregivers of older adults there has been the need to analyze this attribute facing the imminent increase of family caregivers. The goal of this paper is to describe the design process, the exploratory and confirmatory validation, as well as the usefulness of the current Scale of Subjective Well-Being of Family Caregivers for Older Adults - EBEMS/ CFAM. Results are shown in a sequence, from qualitative analysis, to factor analysis, Rasch modeling and structural equations in four samples of study that, taken together, confirm the validity and reliability of the scale.El bienestar es un concepto que ha despertado un interés multidisciplinar y particularmente en la línea de estudios sobre cuidadores familiares de adultos mayores se ha registrado la necesidad de analizar dicho atributo ante el inminente aumento de familias cuidadoras. El objetivo de este trabajo es describir el proceso de diseño, validación exploratoria y confirmatoria, así como la utilidad actual de la Escala de Bienestar Subjetivo para Cuidadores Familiares de Adultos Mayores � EBEMS/CFAM. Se presenta una secuencia de resultados de análisis cualitativos, análisis factoriales, de modelamiento Rasch y ecuaciones estructurales en cuatro muestras de estudio que, en conjunto, confirman la validez y confiabilidad de la escal