Life Stress and Unmarried, Black Fathers' Attitudes Toward Attachment: The Moderating Role of Shift-and-Persist.

Unmarried, Black fathers' positive engagement contributes to children's health and development beginning in early infancy. For many men, preparations for parenthood begin before birth as expectant fathers formulate parenting attitudes that can promote secure infant-father attachment relationships. This study examined aspects of life stress as predictors of prenatal attitudes toward attachment -- the extent to which expectant fathers endorsed promoting attachment security in their infants.

Attachment relationship quality with mothers and fathers and child temperament: An individual participant data meta-analysis.

A growing body of research suggests that, compared with single parent-child attachment relationships, child developmental outcomes may be better understood by examining the configurations of child-mother and child-father attachment relationships (i.e., attachment networks).

Configurations of mother-child and father-child attachment relationships as predictors of child language competence: An individual participant data meta-analysis.

An individual participant data meta-analysis was conducted to test pre-registered hypotheses about how the configuration of attachment relationships to mothers and fathers predicts children's language competence. Data from seven studies (published between 1985 and 2014) including 719 children (M : 19.84 months; 51% female; 87% White) were included in the linear mixed effects analyses.

Conceptual comparison of constructs as first step in data harmonization: Parental sensitivity, child temperament, and social support as illustrations.

This article presents a strategy for the initial step of data harmonization in Individual Participant Data syntheses, i.e., making decisions as to which measures operationalize the constructs of interest - and which do not.

Social integration buffers the impact of financial distress on coparenting.

The authors of this study examined how families may pull upon their shared social networks to generate positive relationship dynamics in the midst of financial distress. Prior research regarding the relevance of social integration to the associations between financial distress and the coparenting relationship have produced mixed and limited results. This study explores how each partner's belief that the couple is integrated within a supportive social network interacts with the strain of financial hardship to influence the coparenting relationship.

Configurations of mother-child and father-child attachment as predictors of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems: An individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis.

An unsettled question in attachment theory and research is the extent to which children's attachment patterns with mothers and fathers jointly predict developmental outcomes. In this study, we used individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis to assess whether early attachment networks with mothers and fathers are associated with children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. Following a pre-registered protocol, data from 9 studies and 1,097 children (mean age: 28.

Pleasure in parenting as a mediator between fathers' attachment representations and paternal sensitivity.

The present study examined the mediating role of pleasure in parenting in the link between fathers' attachment representations and paternal sensitivity among 138 father-infant dyads from a rural part of the southeastern United States. First-time fathers' attachment representations were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) prenatally. Pleasure in parenting-a multidimensional construct assessing positive attitudes and beliefs toward the parenting role-was coded from fathers' interviews at 3 months.

A unified energy-optimality criterion predicts human navigation paths and speeds.

Navigating our physical environment requires changing directions and turning. Despite its ecological importance, we do not have a unified theoretical account of non-straight-line human movement. Here, we present a unified optimality criterion that predicts disparate non-straight-line walking phenomena, with straight-line walking as a special case.

Pathways linking childhood trauma to rural, unmarried, African American father involvement through oxytocin receptor gene methylation.

Father involvement contributes uniquely to children's developmental outcomes. The antecedents of father involvement among unmarried, African American fathers from rural areas, however, have been largely overlooked. The present study tested a conceptual model linking retrospective reports of childhood trauma and early adulthood social instability to father involvement among unmarried, African American men living in resource-poor, rural communities in the southeastern United States.

A novel Movement Amplification environment reveals effects of controlling lateral centre of mass motion on gait stability and metabolic cost.

During human walking, the centre of mass (COM) laterally oscillates, regularly transitioning its position above the two alternating support limbs. To maintain upright forward-directed walking, lateral COM excursion should remain within the base of support, on average. As necessary, humans can modify COM motion through various methods, including foot placement.

Paternal Support and Involvement in Unmarried Fragile Families: Impacts on Long-Term Maternal Mental Health.

Fragile families are defined as those that include unmarried or romantically unstable parents who have children and are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Mothers in fragile families may experience risk factors that lead to increased depressive symptoms that inhibit their ability to bounce back after stressful events. Risk factors for poorer maternal mental health may include declines in father involvement and a lack of coparenting support.

Pleasure in parenting and father-child attachment security.

This study examined relations between father-child attachment security and both paternal sensitivity and fathers' pleasure in parenting. At 12 months of age sensitivity was coded from father-infant interactions and pleasure in parenting was coded from fathers' interviews assessing attitudes toward the parenting role. Father-child dyads participated in the Strange Situation Procedure assessing attachment relationship quality.

Paternal stimulation and father-infant attachment.

This study examined the longitudinal associations between fathers' observed parenting behaviors and father-infant attachment ( = 58 father-infant dyads). Fathers were observed playing with their infants at 9 months postpartum and were assessed for stimulating behaviors (i.e.

Gait variability following abrupt removal of external stabilization decreases with practice in incomplete spinal cord injury but increases in non-impaired individuals.

Background: Individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) exhibit considerable lateral center of mass (COM) movement variability during gait transitions from a stabilizing to unassisted environment, while non-impaired individuals do not. To understand how iSCI influences gait adaption, we examined persons with and without iSCI performing repeated locomotor transitions. We hypothesized that, with practice, individuals with iSCI would prioritize COM control performance during the transition as exhibited by a reduction in kinematic variability.

Associations between father involvement and father-child attachment security: Variations based on timing and type of involvement.

This study examined associations between father involvement and father-child attachment security, and whether those associations differed as a function of timing (workday and nonworkday) and/or type (accessibility, caregiving, and play) of involvement. Eighty father-child dyads participated when children were approximately 3 years old. Fathers completed a time diary interview assessing the various forms of involvement, and attachment was assessed using the Attachment Q-Set (Waters, 1995) following 90 min of father-child observation in the home.

Intimate Partner Violence and Children's Attachment Representations during Middle Childhood.

Despite long-standing hypotheses that intimate partner violence (IPV) may undermine children's ability to form secure attachment representations, few studies have empirically investigated this association. Particularly lacking is research that examines IPV and attachment during middle childhood, a time when the way that children understand, represent, and process the behavior of others becomes particularly important. Using data from a sample of African American children living in rural, low-income communities ( = 98), the current study sought to address this gap by examining the association between physical IPV occurring early in children's lives and their attachment security during the first grade.

Associations between early caregiving and rural, low-SES, African-American children's representations of attachment relationships.

Little research has examined the legacy of early maternal care for later attachment representations among low-income and ethnic minority school-aged children. Using data from a sample of 276 rural, low-income, African-American families, this study examined associations between maternal care in infancy and children's representations of attachment figures in middle childhood. Maternal care was coded from 10-min home-based observations at 6, 15, and 24 months of age.

From Fathers to Sons: The Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting Behavior among African American Young Men.

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of fathering among young, African American fathers in rural communities. A sample of 132 African American young men living in the rural South reported on the quality of their relationship with their biological and social fathers in the family of origin, their own involvement with their young children, and relational schemas of close, intimate relationships. Results of path analyses supported the hypothesized mediational model, such that a better relationship with one's biological (but not social) father predicted increased father involvement in the next generation, and this association was partially mediated through positive relational schema after controlling for a range of covariates.

The Influence of Community Disadvantage and Masculinity Ideology on Number of Sexual Partners: A Prospective Analysis of Young Adult, Rural Black Men.

Young, rural Black men are disproportionately affected by sexually transmitted infections (STIs), a consequence, in part, of multiple sexual partnerships. We conducted a prospective study that examined the influence of masculinity ideology on changes in numbers of sexual partners in this population. We focused on a set of high-risk attitudes termed reputational masculinity.

Romantic Relationship Commitment Behavior Among Emerging Adult African American Men.

Contextual and intrapersonal factors affecting the development of African American men's romantic relationship commitment-related behavior were investigated. Socioeconomic disadvantage during early adolescence was hypothesized to predict harsh, unsupportive parenting practices. Harsh parenting was hypothesized to result in youths' emotion-regulation difficulties, indicated by elevated levels of anger during mid-adolescence, particularly when men were exposed to racial discrimination.

Autobiographical memories of childhood and sources of subjectivity in parents' perceptions of infant temperament.

The current study examined whether autobiographical memories from parents' own childhoods, prebirth expectations, and personality traits contributed to their perceptions of their infants' temperament. It also investigated whether mothers and fathers differed in the extent to which these three sources of subjectivity predicted their perceptions. During the third trimester of pregnancy, expectant mothers and fathers in 96 families completed assessments of their personality traits and expectations for their children's temperament, as well as provided characteristic memories of their relationships with their own caregivers as children.

Structure of reflective functioning and adult attachment scales: overlap and distinctions.

This investigation examined the structure of reflective functioning (RF) - an understanding of the links between mental states and behaviors - and adult attachment scales. Both RF and traditional adult attachment scales were coded based on 194 prebirth Adult Attachment Interviews (AAI). Correlational and factor analyses indicated considerable overlap between RF and traditional AAI coding.

Pathways to HIV-Related Behavior Among Heterosexual, Rural Black Men: A Person-Centered Analysis.

We investigated the psychosocial mechanisms linking personal and contextual risk factors to HIV-related behavior among 498 rural Black men. We characterized HIV-related behavior in terms of profile groups and hypothesized that contextual and personal risk factors (childhood adversity, community disadvantage, incarceration, and racial discrimination) would predict HIV-related behavior indirectly via two psychosocial mechanisms: impulsivity and negative relational schemas. Study results documented three HIV-related behavior profile groups.

Father Involvement and Young, Rural African American Men's Engagement in Substance Misuse and Multiple Sexual Partnerships.

This study was designed to examine the associations of biological father and social father involvement during childhood with African American young men's development and engagement in risk behaviors. With a sample of 505 young men living in the rural South of the United States, a dual mediation model was tested in which retrospective reports of involvement from biological fathers and social fathers were linked to young men's substance misuse and multiple sexual partnerships through men's relational schemas and future expectations. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that levels of involvement from biological fathers and social fathers predicted young men's relational schemas; only biological fathers' involvement predicted future expectations.

Correlates of Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Among Young, Rural African American Men.

Objective: We investigated the social, behavioral, and psychological factors associated with concurrent (i.e., overlapping in time) sexual partnerships among rural African American young men with a primary female partner.