White American Students' Recognition of Racial Microaggressions in Higher Education.

Racial microaggressions often occur in U.S. higher education. However, less is known about how White American students reason about their evaluations of racial microaggressions. The current study investigated how 213 White college students (54.46% cisgender women) attending a PWI in the Southeast U.S. in the Fall of 2019 justified their evaluations of the acceptability of racial microaggressions presented in vignettes. Following Social Domain Theory, to assess participants' social reasoning, we conducted quantitative content analysis of participants' open-ended justifications for their evaluations. Multiple regression analyses revealed that participants were less likely to evaluate racial microaggressions as negative the more they employed justifications focused on 1) assuming that the behaviors in the situation followed conventions of the classroom, 2) judging the professor's response as correct, and 3) asserting that the behavior was likely to happen to anyone. Further, the higher participants' endorsement of color-blind attitudes the more likely they were to evaluate racial microaggressions as appropriate. However, reasoning centered on 1) assuming differential treatment based on race, 2) perceiving the behavior as harmful, and 3) considering the behavior was against conventional expectations was associated with finding racial microaggressions to be more negative. The current study highlights the value of investigating underlying reasoning behind evaluating racial microaggressions in addition to color-blind attitudes. The findings suggest that higher education professionals should consider interventions which pay particular attention to unpacking students' reasoning, untangling acceptance of Ethnocentric narratives and providing information that challenges classroom behaviors that, while potentially appearing conventional, in fact perpetuate harm through microaggressions.

US and Chinese preschoolers normalize household labor inequality.

Across many cultural contexts, the majority of women conduct the majority of their household labor. This gendered distribution of labor is often unequal, and thus represents one of the most frequently experienced forms of daily inequality because it occurs within one's own home. Young children are often passive observers of their family's distribution of labor, and yet little is known about the developmental onset of their perceptions of it. By the preschool age, children also show strong normative feelings about both equal resource distribution and gender stereotypes. To investigate the developmental onset of children's recognition of the (in)equality of household labor, we interviewed 3 to 10-y-old children in two distinct cultural contexts (US and China) and surveyed their caregivers about who does more household labor across a variety of tasks. Even at the youngest ages and in both cultural contexts, children's reports largely matched their parents', with both populations reporting that mothers do the majority of household labor. Both children and parents judged this to be generally fair, suggesting that children are observant of the gendered distribution of labor within their households, and show normalization of inequality from a young age. Our results point to preschool age as a critical developmental time period during which it is important to have parent-child discussions about structural constraints surrounding gender norms and household labor.

How College Students in the United States Make Sense of Examples of Gender and Intersectional Microaggressions in Classroom Settings.

Women and racially minoritized college students report frequent experiences of being targets of gender and race-based microaggressions in the classroom context. However, while much research has focused on reports of experiences by targets, less is known about how observers would evaluate and make sense of these microaggressive experiences. Thus the present study used vignettes based on real-life situations to ascertain how 272 college students (76% White, 52% ciswomen) in the United States interpreted gender-based and intersectional microaggressions occurring in the classroom. Thematic analysis revealed that microaggressions were deemed acceptable when participants believed: 1) the situation humorous, 2) the instructor did not cause the situation, or 3) the stereotype/statement to be true. Microaggressions were evaluated negatively when: 1) the topic was deemed sensitive, 2) the classroom was perceived as unsuitable, or the instructor was seen as: 3) making students uncomfortable, 4) being defensive, or 5) teaching misinformation. The findings highlight the complexity involved in observers evaluating and interpreting gender-based and intersectional microaggressions.

Chinese Youth's Reported Social and Moral Transgressions and Strategies for Self-Correction.

The aim of the current study was to explore Chinese adolescent's social and moral transgressions and strategies for self-correction. For this study, following protocols that have been approved by an Institutional Review Board, 61 Chinese adolescents living in Guangzhou, distributed across three age groups: 10-11-year-olds (N=21, M age =11. 03, SD =.43), 12-13-year-olds (N= 20, M age =12.92, SD=.35), and 15-16-year-olds (N=20, M age =16.15, SD=.30), participated in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. The study employed a deductive analytical approach based on prior social domain research on children's and adolescents' transgressions and strategies for self-correction. This study found that Chinese youth reported conventional transgression events more frequently than any other domain. Moreover, many of adolescents' transgressions involved academic considerations, suggesting that how adolescents' time is organized and the social expectations for adolescent behavior influence the types of transgressions and justifications adolescents will make. Furthermore, participants reported developing self-correcting strategies following 73.6% of events, while 74.5% of strategies were reported to be developed by the adolescents themselves. Therefore, the findings suggest that there is room for adults to collaborate with adolescents in developing strategies to prevent future misbehavior and to encourage youth to not only be "good" or "moral," but to be and do better.

What Parents and Children Say When Talking about Children's Gratitude: A Thematic Analysis.

Parent-child conversations are a widely recognized socializing mechanism, linked to children's developing moral agency, empathy, and emotional competence. Similarly, parent-child conversations about gratitude have been linked to growth in children's gratitude. However, the messages that parents and children exchange in conversations about children's gratitude have yet to be investigated in depth. In the current study, we investigate the types of events that parents discuss with their children during times when they saw displays of children's gratitude and events when the children missed the opportunity to display gratitude, along with the messages that parents and children share during these conversations. The study involved a thematic analysis of the gratitude conversations of 43 parent-child dyads (88% mothers, 77% European American, 51% boys, child Mage=10.62, SD=1.15) living in the United States. Gratitude and missed opportunity events primarily involved situations in which the child had the opportunity to attend an event or to receive a material gift, food, or assistance. Three themes characterized parent and child messages. First, parents suggested that being happy was a sign of being grateful, a way to make others happy, and the goal of benefactors' behavior. Second, parents suggested that children should focus on what they receive rather than on what they did not receive. Finally, children conveyed that they could not always be grateful, but that in several cases they were able to both feel and display their excitement and gratitude. In particular, children reported feeling grateful when they received something they thought was special or enjoyable, unique or unexpected, that they knew would make their parent happy or that they felt lucky to have since others did not have it. Together these findings suggest the importance of future research investigating how children and parents coordinate and prioritize the various elements of gratitude moments in deciding how to be grateful and to socialize children's gratitude.

COVID-19 Life Events Spill-Over on Family Functioning and Adolescent Adjustment.

We examined US parent and youth perceptions of how life events, both positive and negative, associated with COVID-19 resulted in changes in family and youth functioning. Families (n = 105, 80% white, 48% male, and 87% mothers) completed surveys during the pandemic (May to July 2020) and 3 years prior (for youth ages M = 10.6, SD = 1.17 and M = 13.6, SD = 1.19). Declines in youth, though not parent, report of open family communication, parental support, and family satisfaction were found. Declines were associated with various domains of pandemic-related stress in parent report, though positive life events served as buffers. Pre-pandemic family functioning also predicted pandemic stress. Spillover effects in turn impacted youth functioning. The current findings shed light on how experiences of the pandemic are linked with family functioning and have implications for how to support families during this time.

Mother Like Mothers and Work Like Fathers: U.S. Heterosexual College Students' Assumptions About Who Should Meet Childcare and Housework Demands.

Many U.S. women report balancing competing demands for labor within the family and the workplace. Prior research has found that young adult heterosexual U.S. women are still anticipating doing the majority of their future family's childcare and housework, though they hold more progressive gender role attitudes than in the past. The aim of the present study was to investigate the assumptions of 176 heterosexual college students in the U.S. (M age = 20.57, 88.64% European American, 51.70% ciswomen, 48.30% cismen) about how childcare and housework should be balanced in the context of work responsibilities. Participants were asked to rate their level of agreement with two items about working mothers and childcare and working fathers and household care, and provided open-ended responses to explain their justifications for their rating. Open-ended responses were thematically coded. Results revealed that most participants wanted mothers to have the choice to work but considered childcare a limiting problem that (primarily) mothers should solve. Similarly, participants believed that working full-time did not excuse a husband from helping with chores, however they did not express concerns with the term "helping" which implies that the husband would not hold any primary responsibility. Overall, the findings suggest the importance for educational and policymaking interventions and future research to highlight practices that support and encourage the role of men in addressing childcare and household needs.

American Heterosexual Emerging Adults' Reasoning about the Fairness of Household Labor.

This study investigated American heterosexual emerging adults' evaluations and reasoning about the fairness of their parents' gendered division of household labor, their future expectations of their own division, and in a third-party situation. A total of 161 American heterosexual (88.20% European American; 50.93% cisgender women), emerging adults (M = 20.60, SD = 1.21) participated in this study. The majority of participants evaluated their parents' and future expected division to be fair. On the other hand, participants were less likely to consider a hypothetical gendered division fair. Equality justification usage, as well as reported parental childcare division predicted differences in fairness evaluations. The present study highlights the importance of employing methods that can capture the complex and multi-faceted nature of fairness evaluations and reasoning about the gendered division of household labor.

Coping and Mental Health in Early Adolescence during COVID-19.

The current longitudinal study examines changes in overall mental health symptomatology from before to after the COVID-19 outbreak in youth from the southeastern United States as well as the potential mitigating effects of self-efficacy, optimism, and coping. A sample of 105 parent-child dyads participated in the study (49% boys; 81% European American, 1% Alaska Native/American Indian, 9% Asian/Asian American; 4% Black/African American; 4% Latinx; and 4% other; 87% mothers; 25% high school graduate without college education; 30% degree from 4-year college; 45% graduate or professional school). Parents completed surveys when children were aged 6-9, 8-12, 9-13, and 12-16, with the last assessments occurring between May 13, 2020 and July 1, 2020 during the COVID-19 outbreak. Children also completed online surveys at ages 11-16 assessing self-efficacy, optimism, and coping. Multi-level modeling analyses showed a within-person increase in mental health symptoms from before to after the outbreak after controlling for changes associated with maturation. Symptom increases were mitigated in youth with greater self-efficacy and (to some extent) problem-focused engaged coping, and exacerbated in youth with greater emotion-focused engaged and disengaged coping. Implications of this work include the importance of reinforcing self-efficacy in youth during times of crisis, such as the pandemic, and the potential downsides of emotion-focused coping as an early response to the crisis for youth.

Unpacking Young Adults' Experiences of Race and Gender-Based Microaggressions.

To date the majority of the research on microaggressions has focused on the experiences of targets, rather than the perpetrators, of microaggresive behaviors. The present study set out to investigate 278 college students' (M age = 19.12, SD = 1.34, 52.52% cisgender women, 74.82% European American) reported types of experience (a) unaware, b) aware, c) observer, d) perpetrator, and e) target) with race and gender-based microaggressive behaviors and the association between their experiences and ambivalent sexist and colorblind racial attitudes. Participants completed an online survey composed of a modified Racial and Ethnic Microaggression Scale (REMS), a modified Female Microaggression Scale (FMS), an Ambivalent Sexism Index, and a Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale. As hypothesized (H1), participants were more likely to have heard of or observed than to report having been the target or perpetrator of microaggressions. In support of our second hypothesis (H2), significant gender and race differences were found in the frequencies of type of exposure to microaggressions. Finally, as expected (H3), exposure to microaggressions was associated with colorblind and ambivalent sexist attitudes. Unexpectedly, however, complete unawareness of the existence of microaggressions did not show any significant associations with social attitudes. This study's findings highlight the importance of unpacking social experiences of discrimination to better understand what types of experiences contribute to being critical of and reducing the commission of microaggressions.

Chinese and South Korean children's moral reasoning regarding the fairness of a gendered household labor distribution.

This study explored age-related changes in Chinese and Korean children's fairness judgments and reasoning regarding the gendered division of household labor. The majority of previous research on this issue has focused on adults' experiences and has been conducted in Western countries. Interviews were conducted with 133 children, 65 Chinese and 68 South Korean, ages 9-11 (N = 48), 12-14 (N = 43), and 16-18 (N = 42). Despite country differences in women's involvement in the workforce, in both countries women do most of the housework. Most participants across ages evaluated a hypothetical scenario in which the mother did most of the work as unfair and endorsed a hypothetical scenario in which housework was divided evenly as fair. Developmental effects were found with younger children in both countries employing more equality justifications and adolescents providing more social convention justifications. In both countries, children described their mother as doing most of the housework and, in contrast with their judgments about hypothetical situations, were evenly divided overall in their evaluations of whether this unequal distribution in their actual families was fair. Korean children were more likely to view their family's division as unfair than Chinese children and were more likely to employ equality justifications in support of those judgments. Unexpectedly, across countries moral reasoning in the form of expectations of equity rather than gender stereotyping was employed to justify an unequal division of labor. This study's findings suggest the value of investigating children's fairness judgments and moral reasoning regarding both hypothetical and actual situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Chinese and South Korean Families' Conceptualizations of a Fair Household Labor Distribution.

OBJECTIVE: The present study set out to investigate how Chinese and South Korean families conceptualize fairness and a fair division of household labor. BACKGROUND: Previous cross-cultural research has found that a good portion of women and men find the gendered division of household labor fair. In response, scholars have attempted to discover what factors lead to a greater likelihood of reporting a gendered division fair. However, the majority of the scholarship on fairness perceptions has been limited to survey methods, in which fairness is not defined, and the individual's reasons for their fairness perception is not investigated. METHOD: This study employed thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with the members of 12 Chinese (N=39) and 12 Korean (N=40) families. RESULTS: No participation in household labor was considered across families to be unfair. On the other hand, the majority of participants justified an unequal division to be fair based on gendered applications of differences in time-availability and levels of tiredness, in which the amount of housework that each member should do was left unspecified. CONCLUSION: Many adult participants believed that fairness should not apply to the family context. Instead, most participants argued that household labor should be divided based on emotional satisfaction, maintained through mechanisms of understanding and agreement. IMPLICATIONS: Future studies on fairness perceptions should clearly define what they mean by "fairness," and the gendering of gender-neutral appearing justifications such as time-availability should be further investigated.