On the complex relationship between resilience and hair cortisol levels in adolescence despite parental physical abuse: a fourth wave of resilience research.

Introduction: To understand the family's role in adolescents' mental health development and the connection to neurodevelopmental disorders related to experienced parental physical abuse, we first explored resilience pathways longitudinally and secondly, connected the identified patterns to adolescents' hair cortisol levels that are rooted in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis as the main stress response system and connected brain structure alterations. Methods: We analyzed longitudinal online questionnaire data for three consecutive high school years (from seventh to ninth grade) and four survey waves from a representative sample of n = 1609 high school students in Switzerland on violence-resilience pathways. Furthermore, we collected students' hair samples from a subsample of n = 229 at survey wave 4. About 30% of the participating adolescents had been physically abused by their parents. Out of the overall sample, we drew a subsample of adolescents with parental abuse experiences (survey wave 1 n = 509; survey wave 2 n = 506; survey wave 3 n = 561; survey wave 4 n = 560). Results: Despite the odds, about 20-30% of adolescents who have experienced parental physical abuse escaped the family violence cycle and can be called resilient. By applying a person-oriented analytical approach via latent class and transition analysis, we longitudinally identified and compared four distinct violence-resilience patterns. We identified violence resilience as a multidimensional latent construct, which includes hedonic and eudaimonic protective and risk indicators. Because resilience should not solely be operationalized based on the lack of psychopathology, our latent construct included both feeling good (hedonic indicators such as high levels of self-esteem and low levels of depression/anxiety and dissociation) and doing well (eudaimonic indicators such as high levels of self-determination and self-efficacy as well as low levels of aggression toward peers). Discussion: The present study confirmed that higher cortisol levels significantly relate to the comorbid pattern (internalizing and externalizing symptoms), and further confirmed the presence of lasting alterations in brain structures. In this way, we corroborated the insight that when studying the resilience pathways and trajectories of abused adolescents, biological markers such as hair cortisol significantly enhance and deepen the understanding of the longitudinal mechanisms of psychological markers (e.g., self-determination, self-esteem, self-efficacy) that are commonly applied in questionnaires.

Navigating Stigma in Romantic Relationships Where One or Both Partners Sell Sexual Services.

Romantic relationships are an important part of our social identities and well-being. In this paper, we report on qualitative findings with thirty Canadian couples, interviewed together, where it was known that one or both partners sell sexual services for a living. We asked a series of open-ended questions related to the background of the couple's relationship, their day-to-day interactions and work-related stressors. Participants talked about the ongoing negotiations they engage in as a couple, the benefits of being open to each other about working in the sex industry, and how they manage its emotional toll on their partnership. We conclude that there are various ways that sex workers are able to maintain intimacy in their romantic relationships after sex work has been disclosed. Widespread social stigma attached to sex work, complicated by criminalization in countries such as Canada, nevertheless threatens relationship quality in the long run.

"The Prostitution Problem": Claims, Evidence, and Policy Outcomes.

Prostitution, payment for the exchange of sexual services, is deemed a major social problem in most countries around the world today, with little to no consensus on how to address it. In this Target Article, we unpack what we discern as the two primary positions that undergird academic thinking about the relationship between inequality and prostitution: (1) prostitution is principally an institution of hierarchal gender relations that legitimizes the sexual exploitation of women by men, and (2) prostitution is a form of exploited labor where multiple forms of social inequality (including class, gender, and race) intersect in neoliberal capitalist societies. Our main aims are to: (a) examine the key claims and empirical evidence available to support or refute each perspective; (b) outline the policy responses associated with each perspective; and (c) evaluate which responses have been the most effective in reducing social exclusion of sex workers in societal institutions and everyday practices. While the overall trend globally has been to accept the first perspective on the "prostitution problem" and enact repressive policies that aim to protect prostituted women, punish male buyers, and marginalize the sex sector, we argue that the strongest empirical evidence is for adoption of the second perspective that aims to develop integrative policies that reduce the intersecting social inequalities sex workers face in their struggle to make a living and be included as equals. We conclude with a call for more robust empirical studies that use strategic comparisons of the sex sector within and across regions and between sex work and other precarious occupations.