Overcoming emotional and attentional obstacles: A dynamic multi-level model of goal maintenance for job seekers

Income Volatility and Parenting Styles During Hard Times

Parenting styles are often the focus of interventions aimed at mitigating disparities in children's well-being. Although research has sought to establish parenting differences across income groups, the extent to which income itself drives such differences is disputed. Little attention has focused on income volatility, despite its secular rise and recent salience and the links between volatility and parenting drawn by theories across the social and developmental sciences. I investigate whether and how income volatility affects parenting styles using data from the 2009-2022 UK Household Longitudinal Study and an empirical approach that addresses measured and unmeasured common causes of volatility and parenting. Self-reports of parenting styles are differently associated with income instability across income groups. Mothers with higher but more unstable household and labor incomes report lower warmth. When households accumulate benefit income, reports of harsh or more permissive practices become more frequent among mothers with higher incomes and less frequent among those with lower incomes. Despite instability due to labor income losses, fathers with lower incomes report higher warmth in their interactions with their children, whereas fathers with higher incomes report the opposite. These findings suggest that theories, public debates, and policies could be retailored to address the role of income changes in family life.

Adolescents’ Family Socioeconomic Status, Teacher–Student Interactions, and Career Ambivalence/Adaptability: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

Using three-wave longitudinal data, this study tested the potential mediating roles of teacher–student relationship quality and teachers’ career support efficacy in the association between Chinese adolescents’ family socioeconomic status (SES) and career development ( N = 1410). Results showed that adolescents’ family SES at Wave 1 was negatively associated with their career ambivalence at Wave 3 via positive associations with both teacher–student relationship quality and teachers’ career support efficacy at Wave 2. Moreover, adolescents’ family SES at Wave 1 was positively related to career adaptability at Wave 3 via its positive association with teachers’ career support efficacy at Wave 2. This study highlighted the important role of teacher–student interaction in adolescents’ career development.

The Relationship Between Family Socioeconomic Status and Career Outcomes: A Life History Perspective

Based on the life history perspective, this study tested a serial mediation model in which family socioeconomic status (SES) related to person–job fit via resource scarcity, career exploration, and goal persistence. We expected that when seeking employment, higher SES students would perceive lower resource scarcity, and, in turn, adopt more adaptive career behaviors (i.e., career exploration and goal persistence) to maximize career success, which would then lead to better person–job fit upon graduation. Using a sample of 224 final-year students (mean age 21 years, 77% male), we found, as expected, that higher SES was related to more career exploration and goal persistence via lower perceived scarcity and that exploration and persistence were related to better person–job fit. In addition, higher SES was indirectly related to person–job fit via scarcity and the two career behaviors. The findings highlight the importance of family SES in young people’s career development.