Factors influencing parental investment : does parental financial allocation vary as a function of perceived child sexual orientation?
Abstract
An evolutionary perspective on parental investment suggests that natural selection might have favored mechanisms by which parents can evaluate the likelihood of a given offspring’s chances of successful reproduction. Adopting such a perspective, an online survey-based monetary allocation task was employed to test the hypothesis that parental investment was positively related to likelihood of offspring heterosexuality, such that vignettes describing heterosexual offspring would receive more money than vignettes describing homosexual offspring. Results did not support this hypothesis, as investment in offspring was unrelated to perceived offspring sexual orientation. However, exploratory analyses revealed that increasingly negative attitudes towards lesbians and gays predicted decreased investment in offspring. Such findings could serve to embolden civil rights activists in their struggle for increased LGBT social rights. Future research in this area would benefit from correlational research examining real familial relationships and investment patterns, rather than experimentally simulated relationships, to increase the external validity of findings and to reduce social desirability bias.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
A Parent Involvement Program Focusing on Fine Motor and Language Development and its Effect on Parent Participation at HomeKindergarten curriculum today has become more academically oriented, particularly emphasizing the development of literacy. However, when children come to school lacking fine motor, language development skills, and exposure to literature, they are at a disadvantage. Fine motor skills are necessary for writing and drawing, while exposure to language and literature is essential for reading skills and social interaction. Parent involvement at home can help with children’s academic performance by meeting these pre-existing needs. The purpose of this study is to develop emerging literacy in kindergarten children through fine motor, language development and children’s literature activities at home. The authors designed a variety of home activities meant to complement work done at school. Parents filled out feedback questionnaires before the program began and after its completion. The program was evaluated based on student answers to questions and brief conferences, observations, oral language arts assessment, and fine motor skill screening of students. The authors found a 95% increase in fine motor skills and an increase in the language arts skills of students with attendant increases of verbal communication and reading activity at home. The findings suggest parent involvement at home increase a child’s emerging literacy skills.
-
Parental Involvement: Barriers Hispanic Parents FaceAbstract Parental involvement in education is considered to be one of the key contributing factors to students’ academic success whose benefits have been well established. In spite of this, lack of parental involvement continues to be one of the leading concerns schools in the United States face, especially among Hispanic parents whose children have long been characterized by low levels of high school completion and highest dropout rates of any other ethnicity. Findings indicate that Hispanic parents face unique barriers, such as language barriers, low levels of education, and economic hardships that hinder their involvement in their children’s education and that traditional approaches aimed at increasing parental involvement, which focus on school-based involvement, have proved largely ineffective with Hispanic parents as they fail to consider the factors that dissuade parents from becoming involved. These insights can inform schools and educators’ efforts of increasing parental involvement by identifying and creating awareness about the factors that influence and preclude parental involvement among Hispanic parents.
-
Associations of parental alcohol use disorders and parental separation with offspring initiation of alcohol, cigarette and cannabis use and sexual debut in high-risk families.Background and aims: Parental alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and parental separation are associated with increased risk for early use of alcohol in offspring, but whether they increase risks for early use of other substances and for early sexual debut is under-studied. We focused on associations of parental AUDs and parental separation with substance initiation and sexual debut to (1) test the strength of the associations of parental AUDs and parental separation with time to initiation (age in years) of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use and sexual debut and (2) compare the strength of association of parental AUD and parental separation with initiation. Design: Prospective adolescent and young adult cohort of a high-risk family study, the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). Setting: Six sites in the United States. Participants: A total of 3257 offspring (aged 14-33 years) first assessed in 2004 and sought for interview approximately every 2 years thereafter; 1945 (59.7%) offspring had a parent with an AUD. Measurements: Diagnostic interview data on offspring substance use and sexual debut were based on first report of these experiences. Parental life-time AUD was based on their own self-report when parents were interviewed (1991-2005) for most parents, or on offspring and other family member reports for parents who were not interviewed. Parental separation was based on offspring reports of not living with both biological parents most of the time between ages 12 and 17 years. Findings: Parental AUDs were associated with increased hazards for all outcomes, with cumulative hazards ranging from 1.19 to 2.71. Parental separation was also an independent and consistent predictor of early substance use and sexual debut, with hazards ranging from 1.19 to 2.34. The strength of association of parental separation with substance initiation was equal to that of having two AUD-affected parents, and its association with sexual debut was stronger than the association of parental AUD in one or both parents. Conclusions: Parental alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and parental separation are independent and consistent predictors of increased risk for early alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use and sexual debut in offspring from families with a high risk of parental AUDs.
