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"A close-up examination and exploration, How We Live Now challenges our old concepts of what it means to be a family and have a home, opening the door to the many diverse and thriving experiments of living in twenty-first century America. Across America and around the world, in cities and suburbs and small towns, people from all walks of life are redefining our "lifespaces"--the way we live and who we live with. The traditional nuclear family in their single-family home on a suburban lot has lost its place of prominence in contemporary life. Today, Americans have more choices than ever before in creating new ways to live and meet their personal needs and desires. Social scientist, researcher, and writer Bella DePaulo has traveled across America to interview people experimenting with the paradigm of how we live. In How We Live Now, she explores everything from multi-generational homes to cohousing communities where one's "family" is made up of friends and neighbors to couples "living apart together" to single-living, and ultimately uncovers a pioneering landscape for living that throws the old blueprint out the window. Through personal interviews and stories, media accounts, and in-depth research, How We Live Now explores thriving lifespaces, and offers the reader choices that are freer, more diverse, and more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond"--

Two studies examined adults' willingness to accept help from children. In Study I adults were less willing to accept free art lessons from competent children than from competent adults. Help-acceptance from children was not increased by suggesting to subjects that by accepting the lessons they would help the children to become better teachers of art. Study 2 replicated the latter finding, and also examined certain personality correlates of helpaccepting, including self-esteem, need for approval, and sex-typing. Women were more likely to accept help than men, and subjects scoring high on the femininity scale of Spence's Personal Attributes Questionnaire accepted help more than subjects scoring low on that scale. Self-esteem and need for approval were useful moderator variables. Often, different relationships between help-accepting and other variables were obtained for subjects scoring high on self-esteem or need for approval than for subjects scoring low on those variables. Social implications of adults' reluctance to accept help from children are discussed.

In an investigation of help-requesting behavior, 26 college-age subjects were given a spelling test during which approximately half could ask for help from a child, the rest from a same-aged adult. Though both helpers were presented as equally competent spellers, subjects asked for
help less frequently from the child than from the adult. This reluctance to ask a child for help appeared to be due to embarrassment at requesting help from a social inferior. Results were discussed in terms of further research on the role of embarrassment and perceived status in help-seeking
interactions.

Providing the first empirical evidence of discrimination against singles, participants in multiple experiments favored married couples over various types of singles and failed to recognize such differential treatment as discrimination. In four experiments, undergraduates and rental agents read descriptions of multiple applicants for a rental property and chose one. The applicant pool, varying across experiments, included a married couple and different types of singles. Although the applicants were similar on substantive dimensions, participants consistently chose the married couple over the singles and explicitly stated that the applicants' marital status influenced their choice. In Experiment 5, participants read examples of housing discrimination against singles and other more recognized stigmatized groups. Participants rated discrimination against singles as more legitimate than discrimination against virtually all of the other groups.

'In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten haben sich klassische Beziehungsmuster geändert. Neben der traditionellen Ehe finden sich heute nichteheliche Lebensgemeinschaften, Paare, die getrennte Haushalte führen (LATs) und gleichgeschlechtliche Paare. Daneben wurden Singles zu einer viel diskutierten Gruppe. In Anbetracht der Vielzahl an Lebensformen könnte man annehmen, dass negativ geprägte Stereotype gegenüber Singles zurückgegangen sind. Die Studie zeigt allerdings, dass noch immer verheiratete Personen positiver beurteilt werden als Singles. Beispielsweise werden Singles als einsamer, weniger einfühlsam und weniger fürsorglich eingeschätzt. Es zeigt sich aber auch eine tendenzielle Aufweichung des negativen Stereotyps: (jungen) Singles werden einige positive Eigenschaften zugeschrieben. Hierbei moderieren Merkmale der bewertenden Person die Einschätzung. Vor allem jüngere Frauen und ältere Singles haben ein relativ positives Bild von Singles und beurteilen sie im Vergleich zu verheirateten Personen als geselliger und weltgewandter.' (Autorenreferat)