studies & articles
The Blog
One of the many pleasures of being a professor was feeling the need to stay on top of the research in psychology. When I first learned about the half-life of knowledge, the literature typically said it was 3-5 years in technical fields. As a retired professor, I am still a member of the American Psychological Association and subscribe to a service that delivers abstracts and open-source articles from a large number of journals. As an alumna of Harvard, I also get information from them and I have the time to peruse multiple sources. This is a pleasure most professionals don’t have, especially if they value
work-life balance.
I still love research and, when I was asked to write the blog, I enthusiastically agreed. I try to select articles based on their relevance to practitioners, but also to capture both emerging themes and important corrections. I am hopeful that, moving forward, we will have ways to enable readers to easily engage in conversations with me and each other.
-Dr. Karen Nelson
Two studies of parenting efficacy
Today, I am presenting two studies of parenting. The first a positive approach and the second focused on predictors of harsh parenting and recommended interventions. First, Resnik, Garbacz, Stormshak & McIntyre (2023) published “Family-centered Prevention to Enhance Proactive Parenting and Parental Self-Efficacy During Early Elementary School” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract:
Does anyone benefit from exclusionary discipline?
I have written before about discipline. Here, I summarize an article that adds to our understanding. Wang, Scanlon, & Del Toro (2023) published “Does Anyone Benefit from Exclusionary Discipline? An exploration on the direct and vicarious links between suspensions for minor infraction and adolescents’ academic achievement” in American Psychologist. I begin with the edited impact statement and abstract (I am omitting references for sake of brevity but all claims are well-documented):
Three studies of racial bias
Here, I present three studies that address interesting racial biases. First, Elenbaas Luken Raz, Ackerman & Kneeskern (2022) published “This kid looks like he has everything”: 3- to 11-year-old children’s concerns for fairness and social preferences when peers differ in social class and race in Child Development. Here’s the abstract:
Harsh Parenting Practices
Speyer, Hang, Hall & Murray (2022) published “The role of harsh parenting practices in early- to middle-childhood socioemotional development: An examination in the Millennium Cohort Study” in Child Development.
The interplay between father–adolescent phenotypic resemblance and interparental conflict in predicting harsh discipline
Platts, Sturge-Apple, Davies & Martin (2022) published “The Interplay Between Father–Adolescent Phenotypic Resemblance and Interparental Conflict in Predicting Harsh Discipline” in Journal of Family Psychology. I found this study intriguing because I have often heard people make judgments about a child that project qualities from the parent the child most resembles.
The policing paradox
Del Toro, Jackson & Wang (2022) published “The Policing Paradox: Police stops predict youth’s school disengagement via elevated psychological distress” in Developmental Psychology. I have written before about punitive practices inside schools and their adverse impacts on children. This study examines the effects of police stops on school engagement. Here’s the abstract