Research and News from the Center for Families at Purdue University

August 1, 2024

More than a side-hustle: Satisfaction with conventional and microtask work and the association with life satisfaction

Jeremy Reynolds

Gig platforms promise attractive, flexible ways to earn supplemental income. Academics, however, often describe gig work as low-quality work, suggesting that it is less satisfying than conventional work.

August 1, 2024

Patterns of individual differences in executive functions for preschoolers from low-income backgrounds: Associations with pre-academic skills

David Purpura

Primarily studying executive functions of children from low-income backgrounds in comparison to more affluent peers can promote a deficit perspective that they are uniformly lacking in skills.

July 31, 2024

Researchers create online tool to research the four-day school week

Elizabeth Day

Growing adoption of a four-day school week in many communities across the United States is raising questions about this trend in education.

July 27, 2024

Ethnic/Racial Discrimination, School Cultural Socialization, and Negative Affect: Daily Diaries Reveal African American, Asian American, and Latinx Adolescents’ Resilience

Annabelle Atkin

Adolescents of color are particularly poised to experience the mental health crisis partly due to the absence of a clear-cut solution that prepares them to cope with ethnic/racial discrimination.

July 26, 2024

Exploring the role of salon professionals in identifying sex trafficking and violence victims in Indiana

Laura Schwab-Reese

Sex trafficking victims often have touchpoints with salons for waxing, styling, and other body modification services required by traffickers.

July 25, 2024

Sibling relational aggression: Developmental change and associations with family relationships across adolescence

Kim Updegraff

Sibling relational aggression is an understudied social and family process that is of developmental significance in adolescence, a period of interpersonal relationship development.

July 23, 2024

Understanding Rewarding and Challenging Nursing Experiences During the Pandemic in Five Countries: Toward Strengthening the Workforce

Vicki Simpson

Nurses are now more likely to leave their current role in direct patient care than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Country culture and the organization of health care systems drive nurses’ decisions to leave or stay in the profession.

July 23, 2024

Illness-related partner communication predicts better health, COVID, and social-contextual outcomes amid the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study of students with concealable chronic health conditions

Rosie Shrout

In this longitudinal study of students with concealable chronic health conditions (CCHCs), we applied components of interpersonal disclosure process models to investigate how illness disclosures and perceived partner responsiveness conferred health and social benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

July 22, 2024

Secondary Analysis of Sweetness Liking from Pilot Study Replacing Sugar Sweetened Soda with Flavored, Unsweetened Sparkling Water

Cordelia Running

This study aimed to evaluate changes in sensory ratings (liking, sweetness intensity, “just about right” (JAR) level of sweetness) of 0–10.7% w/w sugar in soda after 1 and 2 wk of replacing sugar-sweetened soda consumption with unsweetened, flavored, sparkling water.

July 22, 2024

What We Can All Learn About Parenting From the Parents of Olympic Athletes

Travis Dorsch

Accepting the gold medal as part of the freestyle relay team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the 18-year-old swimmer recognized that her dreams were coming true. At the same time, she was roiling with self-criticism about the parts of her...