The factorial and discriminant validity of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES‐D) scale was examined for a sample of 116 parents who were praticipating in family support programs designed to prevent child abuse and neglect. Participants' self‐reports of depressive symptoms as measured by the CES‐D were analyzed in relation to their self‐esteem (measured with the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem scale) and state and trait anxiety (measured with Spielberger's State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory). Factorial validity was adequate, and results indicated a moderate correlation between the CES‐D and self‐esteem and state anxiety. However, a high correlation was obtained between the CES‐D and trait anxiety, which suggests that the CES‐D measures in large part the related conceptual psychological domain of predisposition for anxiousness.

A nonrandom socioeconomically homogeneous convenience sample of 150 young adolescent mothers, 260 older adolescent mothers, and 242 older mothers was analyzed according to their standing on key determinants of parenting. The results of a discriminant analysis showed that the young teen mothers differed from the older mothers in terms of knowledge of child development, punitive attitudes toward childrearing, and level of depression. Accuracy of classification was improved with the discriminant function for younger and older mothers, but decreased by 20% for older adolescents.

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Understanding why young adults consume alcohol the way they do can lead to more effective educational programming for promotion of students' personal health and safety. The authors examined the predictive role of expectations about alcohol, perceived peer norms of consumption, awareness of rules, and individual self-efficacy in conjunction with demographic variables for male and female college students' weekly alcohol consumption. The sample of 4,960 students analyzed here is 10 to 20 times larger and more nationally representative than the samples used in similar studies. The authors used a general linear model; 41% of the men's variance and 33% of the women's variance in self-reported weekly alcohol consumption were explained by the set of predictors. In descending order of variance accounted for in male and female students' self-reported weekly alcohol consumption, perceived gender-specific norms of consumption, expectations about the effects of alcohol, and the importance of drinking in high school were significant predictors for both men and women. The salience of psychological variables for young adults' consumption of alcohol underscores the importance of recognizing individual predictors of behavior in the broader ecological context in which those behaviors are performed.

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