Publications by authors named "Jennifer J Harman"

Background: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Parental Alienation (PA)are forms of adverse events negatively affecting children globally. The current study was to identify a revised ACEs measure that includes a screening item for PA.

Methods: A total of 231 undergraduate students, ages 18 to 37, were surveyed for this analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Theory and research have described developmental processes leading to damaged parent-child relationships, such as those that occur during a divorce. However, scholars dispute the scientific status of the literature on children who form unhealthy alliances with one parent against the other-termed parental alienation (PA). This comprehensive literature review tests competing descriptions of the PA literature.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Parental alienation occurs when a child aligns with one parent and unjustifiably rejects the other as a result of parental alienating behaviors. This article provides an overview of current research and theory regarding the losses alienated children endure. Parental alienating behaviors alter the child's beliefs, perceptions, and memories of the alienated parent, triggering a cascade of profound losses for the child.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Emotional reactions to a partner's extradyadic romantic interests are assumed to be negative and characterized by jealousy, an emotional state that arises over a perceived threat to one's relationship. Yet, reactions may also be positive, and involve compersion, or taking joy in one's partner's pleasure in other sexual and relational encounters. Although some have argued that compersion is the opposite of jealousy, research suggests that compersion and jealousy may not be opposing constructs, despite being treated this way in both theoretical and empirical research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Polyamory is the practice of having multiple emotionally close relationships that may or may not be sexual. Research concerning polyamory has just begun to determine how relationships among partners in polyamorous arrangements may vary. Most of the research assessing perceptions of polyamorous partners has focused on primary-secondary configurations; however, non-hierarchical configurations exist and can involve having multiple primary partners or having only non-primary partners.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Despite affecting millions of families around the world, parental alienation has been largely unacknowledged or denied by legal and health professionals as a form of family violence. This complex form of aggression entails a parental figure engaging in the long-term use of a variety of aggressive behaviors to harm the relationship between their child and another parental figure, and/or to hurt the other parental figure directly because of their relationship with their child. Like other forms of family violence, parental alienation has serious and negative consequences for family members, yet victims are often blamed for their experience.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Research on polyamorous relationships has increased substantially over the past decade. This work has documented how polyamory is practiced and why individuals might pursue such arrangements. However, there is a lack of a systematic investigation of who is in polyamorous relationships and how they might differ from individuals in monogamous relationships.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Despite marked improvements over the last few decades, maternal mortality in Tanzania remains among the world's highest at 454 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Many factors contribute to this disparity, such as a lack of attendance at antenatal care (ANC) services and low rates of delivery at a health facility with a skilled provider. The Wazazi Nipendeni (Love me, parents) social and behavioral change communication campaign was launched in Tanzania in 2012 to improve a range of maternal health outcomes, including individual birth planning, timely ANC attendance, and giving birth in a healthcare facility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In consensually non-monogamous relationships there is an open agreement that one, both, or all individuals involved in a romantic relationship may also have other sexual and/or romantic partners. Research concerning consensual non-monogamy has grown recently but has just begun to determine how relationships amongst partners in consensually non-monogamous arrangements may vary. The current research examines this issue within one type of consensual non-monogamy, specifically polyamory, using a convenience sample of 1,308 self-identified polyamorous individuals who provided responses to various indices of relationship evaluation (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

According to gender role theory, individuals who confirm expectations associated with their gender roles are rewarded and judged against these expectations when they deviate. Parental roles are strongly tied to gender, and there are very different expectations for behaviors of mothers and fathers. This study examined how mothers' and fathers' behaviors that support or discourage a positive relationship with the other parent are perceived in terms of their acceptability.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study draws on a social norms framework to examine the influence of interview context-specifically the presence of other women and men-on women's reported attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV) in Ethiopia, where IPV rates are among the highest in the world. The sample (16,515 women, ages 15-49) was taken from Ethiopia's 2011 Demographic and Health Survey. Results showed the odds of women "justifying" IPV to be nearly twice as great when other women were present during the interview, and nearly half in the presence of men.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Through this exploratory study, we sought to better understand Nepali female commercial sex workers' (FCSWs') experiences in order to inform HIV prevention and health promotion interventions for this vulnerable and hard-to-reach population. Data were collected through phenomenological interviews with eight FCSWs. Through analysis we reveal promising intervention points to enhance FCSW health, empowerment, and overall well-being.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Over the last few decades, food portion sizes have steadily increased by as much as 700% (Young & Nestle, 2002). Food portions are often much larger than dietary guidelines recommend, leaving individuals to manage their food consumption on their own and making it necessary to understand individual factors impacting food consumption. In the current paper, we focus on self-efficacy for portion control.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rising rates of HIV in Nepal signal an impending epidemic. In order to develop culturally appropriate and effective actions and programmes to reduce HIV transmission, it is necessary to understand attitudes, behaviours and norms surrounding sexual networking and safer-sex practices in Nepal. Nepali women are thought to be at increased risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV, sexual violence and exploitation and other sexual health disparities due to cultural scripts limiting access to education, ability to control sexual relationships and acceptability in discussing sex and sexual health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study's objective was to describe awareness of, access to, belief in, and utilization of the healing tea Kikombe cha babu and other alternative treatments for HIV in Tanzania. Associations with HIV testing, treatment, and prevention behaviors are also explored. A survey with questions about alternative medicine was administered to a sample in Tanzania using a stratified, multistage random selection method.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study is an evaluation of a pilot of the Let's Talk Intervention for Nepali women for effectiveness in increasing sexual health communication between women and the men in their lives. The intervention included 88 women in Kathmandu and spanned three 2-hour group sessions. Baseline, posttest, and follow-up knowledge, attitude, and behavior surveys were completed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The information-motivation-behavioral skills model was used to investigate which factors were associated with condom accessibility among undergraduate college aged adults. Our aim was to also examine moderating effects of erotophobia/erotophilia and alcohol use, as these have been related to sexual risk and prevention behaviors among young adults.

Method: Participants completed survey questionnaires on personal computers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The purpose of this study was to develop and test the feasibility of conducting a sexual health intervention for women in Nepal, a country with high political and economic instability and strong patriarchal systems. Of the 88 women enrolled, 100% retention was obtained over three sessions, and 85% completed a 1-month follow-up. Recruitment was so effective that some women were placed on a waitlist.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a single-session peer-led safer sex intervention, based on the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills theoretical model, for college students residing in campus residence halls. Participants (N = 108) were assigned to either an hour long control or 5-module intervention session. Compared to the control condition, the intervention increased participants' information and women's subjective norms about preventative behavior.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Suboptimal adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) may have serious consequences for HIV patients, and for public health overall. The Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model of HAART adherence can be used to understand the dynamics of HAART adherence and to intervene with patients to promote more optimal levels of adherence. This article reviews the core hypotheses of the IMB model of HAART adherence and describes available correlational and experimental evaluations of the model, outcomes of adherence intervention trials that applied the model, and IMB model-based interventions that are currently under evaluation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Scientific rigor in intervention trials is frequently used in systems that identify effective interventions for dissemination. In these systems, and in work that synthesizes bodies of research, percent attrition is often considered a fatal threat to validity. However, differential attrition, versus percent total, is of primary concern.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Transmission rates of HIV infection have increased steadily among heterosexual adults, however current theoretical models have not been tested statistically at the dyadic level in which risk behaviors occur. The purpose of the current study was to test an Information-Motivation-Behavioral skills (IMB) model of HIV risk behavior (IMB) specifically articulated for heterosexual couples in established relationships using data from both members of 75 dyads. The multilevel relationship-oriented information-motivation-behavioral skills (RELO-IMB) model was evaluated at the individual and dyadic level of analysis to examine partner differences on core variables.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The use of heuristic biases and the false consensus effect can lead individuals to misperceive risk of HIV infection. The current paper presents the results of two studies which sought to examine whether individuals, (a) weigh risk relevant information accurately in their assessments of HIV risk, and (b) are susceptible to the false consensus effect in their assessments of actual intimate partner risk behaviors. The results of the first study support the hypothesis that individuals do not use objective risk information based on probability statistics in their assessments of HIV risk.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate behavioral HIV risk reduction interventions targeting people who inject drugs. We included 37 RCTs evaluating 49 independent HIV risk reduction interventions with 10,190 participants. Compared to controls, intervention participants reduced injection drug use (IDU) and non-IDU, increased drug treatment entry, increased condom use, and decreased trading sex for drugs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

HIV-positive persons who do not maintain consistently high levels of adherence to often complex and toxic highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens may experience therapeutic failure and deterioration of health status and may develop multidrug-resistant HIV that can be transmitted to uninfected others. The current analysis conceptualizes social and psychological determinants of adherence to HAART among HIV-positive individuals. The authors propose an information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model of HAART adherence that assumes that adherence-related information, motivation, and behavioral skills are fundamental determinants of adherence to HAART.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF