Parental Investment Patterns in a Shifting Economy

经济转型中的父母投资模式

• 批准号: 1147671
• 负责人: Daphne Bugental
• 金额: $ 49.83万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-03-01 至 2016-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1147671&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Parental; Investment; Patterns; Shifting; Economy

This project examines the effects of national and personal economic factors on the functioning of families. The welfare of the young is influenced by the economic resources available to their parents. That is, parental access to economic resources influences the ways parents invest their time, attention, and financial resources in the care of the young. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that parental investment strategies shift in response to parents' current access (or expected future access) to economic resources. As a novel prediction, the proposed studies will measure the ways in which those investment patterns differ based on the risk level of the child. For example, the child's preterm status serves as a potential risk factor for adverse health outcomes. Past work has shown that at risk children are the recipients of either (1) parental neglect/abuse, or (2) exceptionally high levels of care. This research tests the basis for these polarized outcomes of such children. Although parents experiencing or projecting a poor economic outlook are predicted to invest more in low risk than high risk children, parents experiencing or projecting a strong economic outlook are predicted to invest more in high risk than in low risk children. This pattern presumably has an evolutionary origin, but is still observed across cultures or families that differ in national or personal wealth.Higher levels of parental investment are expected to pose an important compensatory pattern in the future outcomes of children -- in particular, the future outcomes of at-risk children. The proposed studies will measure the route by which such outcomes occur, that is, the influence of parental investment patterns on children's physiological responses. Specifically, the project will assess changes in children's hormones and enzymes that are known to react to stress. Such physiological changes, in turn, should predict adverse or positive health outcomes for these children.The research is concerned with the investment patterns shown by both mothers and fathers. Although many of the responses are expected to be similar, others may differ. The research also tests investment patterns for Anglo and Latino families. However, nodifferences are anticipated across groupings due to the universal nature of parental investment patterns. The research will make use of different approaches in testing predictions: (1) a cross-sectional study will measure parents' initial investment strategies soon after children are born, (2) a longitudinal study will assess children's outcomes across the first 3 years of life, and (3) an experiment will test the ways parents change their future projections about parenting when exposed to media images that suggest positive or negative future economic outcomes.This research assesses the effects of economic factors on the well-being of at-risk children. Predictions are relevant to the selective consequences of national and family economic variables on the outcomes of more vulnerable children. Findings will also provide the groundwork for the development of theory-based interventions that promote paternal investment in at-risk children, thus extending the investigator's past work documenting the effectiveness of an early intervention for increasing maternal investment in very young at-risk children. Findings will also have implications for the similarities or differences in the potential effectiveness of early interventions for families from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

本项目研究国家和个人经济因素对家庭功能的影响。年轻人的福利受到他们父母可获得的经济资源的影响。也就是说，父母对经济资源的获取会影响父母在照顾孩子上投入时间、注意力和财政资源的方式。这项拟议的研究将检验这样一种假设，即父母的投资策略会随着父母目前(或预期未来)对经济资源的获取而发生变化。作为一项新的预测，拟议的研究将根据儿童的风险水平衡量这些投资模式的不同方式。例如，儿童的早产状态是造成不良健康后果的潜在风险因素。过去的研究表明，处于危险中的儿童会受到(1)父母忽视/虐待，或(2)异常高水平的照顾。这项研究测试了这些孩子两极分化的结果的基础。尽管经历或预测经济前景不佳的父母预计会比高风险儿童在低风险儿童上投资更多，但经历或预测经济前景强劲的父母预计会比低风险儿童投资更多。这种模式可能有进化的起源，但在国家或个人财富不同的文化或家庭中仍然可以观察到。更高水平的父母投资预计将对儿童的未来结果--特别是高危儿童的未来结果--构成重要的补偿模式。拟议的研究将衡量这种结果发生的途径，即父母投资模式对儿童生理反应的影响。具体地说，该项目将评估儿童荷尔蒙和酶的变化，这些荷尔蒙和酶已知会对压力做出反应。反过来，这些生理变化应该会预测这些孩子的健康结果是不利的还是积极的。这项研究关注的是母亲和父亲表现出的投资模式。尽管许多人的反应预计会相似，但其他人可能会有所不同。这项研究还测试了盎格鲁和拉丁裔家庭的投资模式。然而，由于父母投资模式的普遍性，预计不同群体之间不会有差异。这项研究将使用不同的方法来测试预测：(1)一项横断面研究将衡量父母在孩子出生后不久的初始投资策略，(2)一项纵向研究将评估孩子出生后3年的结果，以及(3)一项实验将测试父母在接触到暗示未来经济结果积极或负面的媒体图像时，如何改变他们对未来育儿的预测。这项研究评估了经济因素对高危儿童幸福感的影响。预测与国家和家庭经济变量对更易受伤害儿童的结果的选择性后果有关。研究结果还将为开发以理论为基础的干预措施奠定基础，以促进父亲对高危儿童的投资，从而扩展调查员过去的工作，记录早期干预对增加母亲对高危儿童非常年轻的投资的有效性。研究结果还将对来自不同文化和种族背景的家庭的早期干预的潜在有效性的相似性或差异性产生影响。