Solving for the X: Aspirations and Expectations of College Students

We questioned if there is a set of values and goals that distinguish Generation X individuals by asking 462 college students in four institutions to think ahead ten years, and rate the importance of success in various life domains to their future satisfaction. We also asked them to indicate obstacles, if any, that might prove to be barriers as they sought their life goals. As predicted, there was considerable value consensus across race, gender, and social class categories, and little to suggest that Generation X college students differ from preceding generations in their core concerns; for example, women students attached greater importance than men to attaining family goals, but men and women students did not differ in the importance they attached to economic success. Unexpectedly, we found that students of color rated economic success as more important than did white students. Women students of both races, and minority students of both genders, anticipated discrimination as a likely future obstacle. Contrary to the popular assumption of Generation X alienation, most students thought it likely that they would achieve their life goals, although students whose parents were less well-educated expressed concern that difficulties with connections, money, and getting the right education might impede their future success. Despite the general optimism of the youths we studied, we found no correlation between college academic performance as measured by grade point average, and the importance attached to future material success, suggesting that their hopes for the future may not be founded on present effort and accomplishment.     

Intellectual ability,rationality, and intuitiveness as predictors of warranted and unwarranted optimism for future life events

The social calculations involved in assessing one's life chances were examined. Undergraduates estimated the probability that they would experience positive and negative life events and the probability that others would experience the same events. Participants evinced considerable bias in their estimates, expressing the belief that they would experience more desirable and fewer undesirable events than others. Important individual differences in these biases were found. Particularly regarding academic/career events, those with superior intellectual ability expressed more bias than their peers. Surprisingly, even students in the bottom third of intellectual ability displayed considerable academic/career bias. Cognitive style was also linked with the extensiveness of biased perceptions: individuals high in Need for Cognition were more optimistically biased than their peers in the academic/career domain. Also, relative to participants whose cognitive style was more rational, those who relied on intuitive processing believed that both positive and negative events were more likely to be experienced, by both the self and others. Finally, students who eventually dropped out of college were lower in Need for Cognition and had more unrealistic expectations regarding both positive and negative life events than students who remained in school. These findings are discussed in terms of general adolescent phenomena, such as individuation, identity, and the personal fable, and cognitive factors, such as the knowledge of base rate information and the availability heuristic.Received Ph.D. in 1989 from West Virginia University.Research interests include contextual influences on adolescence reasoning and problem solving, the impact of motivational and context-sensitive goals on reasoning and problem solving, and the interactions among adolescent critical thinking, self-serving biases, and identity information.Received M. A. in Clinical Psychology from Western Carolina University. Currently enrolled in Penn State University Ph.D. Program in Counseling Psychology. Research interests include intellectual development and assessment, personality assessment, and work place adjustment.     

African American Mothers' and Daughters' Beliefs about Possible Selves and their Strategies for Reaching the Adolescents' Future Academic and Career Goals

The current study combines qualitative and quantitative data to examine beliefs and strategies related to possible selves within a sample of 22 rural African American female adolescents and their mothers. Mother–daughter pairs responded to interview questions pertaining to the adolescents' desired possible selves. Pairs also completed a possible selves Q-sort focusing on the personal attributes, roles, and life circumstances that might be expected for an adolescent's future adulthood. Academic and occupational selves were the most prominent possible selves discussed during the interviews. A mother's exposure to college influenced her strategies for helping her daughter reach academic and career goals. Findings from the Q-sort data indicated two distinctive mother–daughter groups, with one group emphasizing daughter's personal attributes and the other group putting greatest weight on the daughter's future occupations and life circumstances. The relative importance of possible selves was related to the strategies that mothers and daughters used to help the adolescent reach her goals.     

College Students’ Adjustment: The Role of Parent–College Student Expectation Discrepancies and Communication Reciprocity

Parents’ influence on college students’ adjustment is underestimated frequently. As college students often set goals based on their perceptions of their parents’ expectations, discrepancies between college students’ and their parents’ expectations may be related to their adjustment. The purpose of this study was to examine parent–college student expectation discrepancies and communication reciprocity as predictors of college students’ adjustment in a diverse sample of 69 male and 105 female freshmen and sophomores from a large southeastern university. A subsample of their mothers and fathers also participated in this study. Correlational results revealed that college students report experiencing lower levels of self-worth and adjustment when higher expectation discrepancies are present between themselves and their parents. Regression results also indicated that expectation discrepancies and college students’ perceptions of communication reciprocity are important predictors of college students’ self-worth and adjustment. Such findings suggested that teaching assertive communication skills to college students and their parents may serve as a means of promoting positive outcomes for college students.

Women's self concept and belief: A feminist approach to empowerment symbolism

Because most cultures use the metaphor of Male Godhead to legitimate male control of earthly objects, their women are led to internalise a self-image in which their natural purpose is read as the primary and ultimate bearers and carers of life. This cosmological task is defined as inferior, thus masking the fact that women develop an identity in which their self-evaluation includes the needs and contentment of others. Prevented from operating the same ethical values as their men, their minds and bodies mediate the pain caused to them and others by the limited moral responsibility required of men whose goals must be competitive and instrumental. The effort to articulate symbols to convey the female experience of personal identity as communal identity has involved the international women's movements to provide images unifying materials and spiritual purposes, and simultaneously to force men to see this as superior intersubjective praxis. Empowering women by asserting their interpersonal self-image as the norm is prerequisite for rationalising economic legal and scientific thinking.     

Diffusion within Marcia's identity-status paradigm: Does it foreshadow academic problems?

The present investigation attempted to ascertain longitudinally whether diffuseness about academic goals and plans would predict subsequent underachievement. Identity-status interviews were administered to 98 firstsemester college students. Their grade point averages (GPA) were obtained for their first six semesters in college. SAT and conceptual-level scores were used to generate predicted GPAs. Underachievement was operationally defined as a positive discrepancy between predicted-minus-observed GPA: underachievement=predicted observed GPA. Evidence for the hypothesized relationship between diffusion and academic underachievement was not found. To the contrary, Diffusions during their freshman year showed a tendency for relativeoverachievement (predicted observed GPA). The possibility of heterogeneity within Marcia's diffusion status was considered. Some diffuselike individuals may see their current lack of commitment and concern as a hiatus, whereas others may be truly unconcerned and myopic about their lives. A significant association between foreclosure and underachievement was found when the subjects were freshmen. This relationship was not replicated with an independent sample of 90 high school students. A post hoc interpretation focused on differences between transient and long-term Foreclosures and the role that the college environment may potentially play in instigating personal identity crises. The need for longitudinal tests on this account is underscored.     

The inventory of parent and peer attachment: Individual differences and their relationship to psychological well-being in adolescence

The results of two studies are reported. Study I involved the development of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA), a self-report instrument for use with adolescents. Subject were 179 college students aged 16–20 years. Item content of the instrument was suggested by attachment theory's formulations concerning the nature of feelings toward attachment figures. In Study II, the convergent validity of the IPPA was examined. Also, a hierarchial regression model was employed to investigate the association between quality of attachment and self-esteem, life-satisfaction, and affective status. Respondents were 86 adolescents from the Study I sample. As hypothesized, perceived quality of both parent and peer attachments was significantly related to psychological well-being. Results of the development of a theoretically focused, exploratory classification scheme indicated that adolescents classified as highly securely attached reported greater satisfaction with themselves, a higher likelihood of seeking social support, and less symptomatic response to stressful life events.She received her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the study of attachment, stress and coping styles in adolescence.He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. His research interests include attachment relationships across the life span and their influence on personality, and the development of deaf children.     

Psychosocial development in three generations of college students

The college years are a time of significant growth in the individual's adaptive capacities in the cognitive, emotional, and social domains. Erikson 's theory of 1963 predicts that the college years are specifically a time of growth in the psychosocial issue of ego identity, but along with this development are increases in other aspects of psychosocial functioning. The opportunity to test this prediction across three cohorts of college students was presented through an expanded follow-up study of Constantinople's 1969 classic investigation of psychosocial development in a sample of over 300 undergraduates. Data were collected from undergraduates attending the same university in 1977 and 1988, allowing for a three-wave cross-sectional sequences design. The results indicated that, for all times of measurement and most of Erikson's psychosocial stages, college seniors generally had higher development than their younger classmates. Furthermore, females generally had higher psychosocial development scores than did males. The lack of cohort differences in the observed patterns of development and the minimal extent of cohort differences across college classes suggests that personality development during college is relatively uninfluenced by shifting psychosocial pressures over decades of social change.Received Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. Research interest is human factors.Received Ph.D. from Columbia University. Research interest is psychosocial development in adulthood.     

Freshman withdrawal from college: A positive step toward identity formation? A follow-up study

Withdrawal from college can be a positive step toward separation from parents and identity formation. Subjects for the present study were all persons who withdrew from a random sample of 432 members of a large freshman class (154 males and 278 females). Subjects were divided into withdrawers versus continuers, with the former group being subdivided into transfers versus nontransfers and withdrew passing versus withdrew failing. All subjects were compared in terms of their responses to a freshman orientation questionnaire and a follow-up interview. The results indicate that both male and female withdrawers as a total group were significantly more dissatisfied with their lives (p<0.05 andp<0.025, respectively) at the time of admission than were continuers Follow-up results also suggest that many of the withdrawers left college and were able to deal with their dissatisfaction in creative ways. Transfers versus nontransfers, as well as withdrew-passing versus withdrew-failing students were also significantly different from each other along several dimensions at the time of admission. The findings have implications for administrators and researchers.This article is based on the author's doctoral dissertation.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. Current interests are adolescent and adult personality and psychopathology.     

The Korean ‘Examination Hell’: Long Hours of Studying,Distress, and Depression

The goal of this study was to investigate whether the higher rates of clinical depression found among Korean than American adolescents was related to Korean's daily ordeal of studying and schoolwork in preparation for the competitive college entrance examination. A sample of 56 high school seniors in Korea and 62 seniors in the United States provided time-sampling data on the amount of time they spent in daily activities and their affect states during these activities. The Korean adolescents were found to spend much more time in schoolwork and less time in discretionary activities than their American counterparts. Korean adolescents' affect states across daily activities were more negative relative to American adolescents. In the combined sample of Korean and American adolescents spending less time in active leisure activities and experiencing more negative affect states during schoolwork, socializing, and passive leisure activities were related to higher depression. These findings suggest that the effect of the college exam in generating depression in Korean adolescents may be partly mediated through its effect on their daily experience.     

Mothers’ Differential Treatment of Adolescent Siblings: Predicting College Attendance of Sisters Versus Brothers

Current estimates suggest that by 2015, 60% of college students will be women, a change since 1970 when 59% were men. We investigated family dynamics that might explain the growing gender gap in college attendance, focusing on an ethnically diverse sample of 522 mixed sex sibling dyads from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We examined whether the difference between sisters' and brothers' reports of their mothers' expectations for, and involvement in, their education during adolescence predicted their differential odds of college attendance seven years later. Sisters were more likely than brothers to attend college, and this gap was more pronounced among non-Whites and non-Asians. Sisters also had higher grades in school than their brothers. Although there were no gender differences overall in maternal educational expectations or involvement, brothers reported greater maternal involvement than sisters in non-White and non-Asian families. After controlling for family background factors, the average of siblings' reports of maternal treatment, and differences between siblings' grades, the results revealed that as sisters reported greater maternal educational expectations than their brothers, it became more likely that only the sister rather than only the brother in the family attended college. The difference between brothers' and sisters' reports of their mothers' educational involvement and their odds of attending college showed the same pattern of association but was not statistically significant. These results suggest that within-family social comparisons may play a role in sisters' and brothers' choices about attending college.     

Antecedents of Chinese Parents’ Autonomy Support and Psychological Control: The Interplay Between Parents’ Self-Development Socialization Goals and Adolescents’ School Performance

Despite ample evidence for the benefits of parental autonomy support and the harms of parental psychological control to Chinese adolescents’ well-being, little is known about what foreshadows these parenting behaviors among Chinese parents. The current research addressed this gap in the literature. It tested the hypothesis that parents’ endorsement of self-development socialization goals (i.e., regarding a positive sense of self in terms of holding optimistic attitudes toward oneself, feeling autonomous in one’s actions, and establishing one’s independence from others, as important for adolescents to develop) and adolescents’ school performance may interact to predict parental autonomy support and psychological control in urban China. Three hundred and forty-one Chinese seventh graders (mean age?=?13.30?years, 58?% female) and their parents (186 mothers and 155 fathers) participated. Parents reported on their own and their spouses’ endorsement of self-development socialization goals; adolescents reported on parental autonomy support and psychological control; and adolescents’ grades were obtained from school records. Significant interactions were found between parents’ socialization goals and adolescents’ grades in predicting parenting behaviors. When adolescents were doing well at school, the stronger parents’ endorsement of self-development socialization goals, the greater their autonomy support and the lesser their psychological control; when adolescents were doing poorly at school, regardless of parents’ socialization goals, their autonomy support was relatively low and their psychological control was relatively high. These findings highlight a tension between parental concerns over adolescents’ self-development and academic success, which needs to be resolved to promote autonomy support and prevent psychological control among urban Chinese parents.     

The Same Old Song?—Stability and Change in Relationship Schemas from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Relationship schemas are core elements of personality that guide interpersonal functioning. The aim of this study is to examine stability and change in relationship schemas across two developmental epochs—adolescence and young adulthood—in the stories that people tell about their interactions with others. Using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method, relationship themes were coded from semistructured interviews conducted in adolescence and again at age 25. The sample consisted of 40 participants in a longitudinal study of adolescent and young adult psychological development. There was considerable stability in the frequency with which particular themes were expressed in the narratives of adolescents and young adults. Significant changes from adolescence to young adulthood included a decrease in the perception of others as rejecting and of the self as opposing others. Young adults saw themselves and others more positively, and used a broader repertoire of themes in their relationship narratives than they had as adolescents. The basic continuity and particular changes in relationship schemas found in this study are consistent with knowledge about the adolescent-to-young-adult transition derived from other empirical and clinical findings. Relationship schemas may be rich units of study for learning about the development of interpersonal functioning.     

Physical attractiveness,body attitudes,and self-concept in late adolescents

Seventy male and 119 female late adolescents, enrolled in a college introductory psychology course, rated 24 body characteristics in terms of (1) how important each part was in determining their own physical attractiveness and (2) how physically attractive they assumed each of these parts of their own bodies were. In addition, all subjects responded to a short self-concept scale. Results indicated that males and females rated the importance of the body characteristics for their own physical attractiveness in a markedly similar manner and that mean physical attractiveness ratings were significantly related to the self-concepts of females but not of males. Moreover, the attractiveness ratings of a larger number of individual body parts were significantly related to self-concept for females than for males. Finally, a visual inspection technique for determining physique type was found related to self-concept in males, while this was not the case with a traditional anthropometric index of physique type. Sex differences in the role of physical attractiveness in personality and interpersonal behavior development are discussed.Received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York. Current research interests include the relation of organismic variables to personality/social development.Received his Ph.D. in personality and developmental psychology from the University of Michigan. Current research interests include the psychology of women and physical attractiveness.     

Social Well-Being in university students

Students were surveyed at a private liberal arts university as to their social well-being. Students were found to have a number of concerns. As measured by the General Well-Being Schedule, students were found to show signs of moderate to severe distress, especially in terms of depression and concerns about their health and vitality. High social well-being was found to be associated with students who viewed themselves as healthy and were integrated with, and concerned about, others. Low social well-being was associated with students who were in college for primarily instrumental reasons and who lacked social integration.This study was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation and the University of San Francisco's Institute for Non-Profit Organization Management.Received B.A. in sociology from Westmont College, M.A. in sociology from Marquette University, and Ph.D. in sociology from Washington State University. Currently conducting research on volunteering and nonprofit organizations, religious nonprofit organizations, and substance abuse among adolescents and college students.     

Romantic Relationships and Body Satisfaction Among Young Women

In the present study we examined associations between young women's romantic relationships and their body image. Ninety-five heterosexual couples (women's mean age=22.46 and men's mean age=24.38) participated in this study. We examined young women's satisfaction with their own bodies, their perceptions of their significant others’ satisfaction with their bodies, and their significant others’ actual satisfaction with their bodies using the Contour Drawing Rating Scale women's weight status was assessed using body mass index (BMI). Relationship constructs examined included relationship quality and the length of couples’ romantic relationships. Results indicated that females were more dissatisfied with their bodies than they perceived their significant others to be and were more dissatisfied than their significant others actually were. Analyses further indicated that the longer women had been in a relationship with their significant other, the more likely they were to incorrectly believe that their significant other wanted them to look thinner.Assistant Professor at Rutgers University. She received her PhD in psychology from the University of California at Riverside in 2002. Her research focuses on the development of body image and dieting behaviors and on understanding relations between personality and health.Assistant Professor at Villanova University. He received his PhD in psychology from the University of California at Riverside in 2002. His research focuses primarily on interpersonal theory.     

College Women and Personal Goals: Cognitive Dimensions that Differentiate Risk-Reduction Sexual Decisions

As the twenty-first century begins, a high level of participation in premarital sexual intercourse by college women is well-documented. But, in the research exploring risk-reduction sexual behaviors, the relationship of cognitive abilities to responsible sexual behavior has been under-researched. Anonymous questionnaires were administered to 626 never-married, heterosexual women at a midwestern university to examine personal goal-setting, a cognitive variable postulated to be related to risk-reduction sexual behavior. Women who frequently set goals were more religious, optimistic about life, conservative in sexual attitudes, comfortable with their sexuality, and more psychologically sexually satisfied. Those who less often set goals were more likely to drink alcohol prior to sexual intercourse, become more intoxicated, and less likely to ask if new sex partners had STI(s). The cognitive variable, goal-setting, did differentiate college women who made responsible sexual decisions from those who engaged in risk-taking sexual behaviors.Professor Emerita of Family and Consumer Science, Texas State University-San Marcos. Received her PhD from the University of Texas, Austin in Child Development and Family Relations and is a Certified Marriage and Family Therapist, American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and licensed in the State of Texas. Her research interests include sexual attitudes and behavior of college students, adoption attitudes of unmarried pregnant teens, and teen pregnancy/parenting programs.University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Received his PhD from the University of Florida in Family Sociology and is a Clinical Fellow, American Academy of Clinical Sexologists and Fellow, National Council on Family Relations. His research interests include sexual attitudes and behavior of college students, adoption attitudes of unmarried pregnant teens, female sexual adjustment, and perceptions of the female physiological sexual response.     

What Do They Want in Life?: The Life Goals of a Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Generational Sample of High School Seniors

This study investigated ethnic as well as gender and generational similarities and differences in the life goals among graduating high-school seniors. Adolescents came from six ethnic groups: White, African, Mexican, Other Latino, Filipino, and East/Southeast Asian Americans. Their self-articulated medium-range life goals were grouped into 8 major categories such as occupational, educational, familial, and material goals. Group differences in various aspects of future plans, such as priorities given to different life goals, time frame of attainment, and perceived controllability over their attainment, were also examined. Hypothesized group differences based on current social realities and small-scale qualitative studies on ethnic minorities were not found; there were very few ethnic, gender, and generational differences in adolescents’ life goals. All groups reported a higher priority for, earlier expected attainment of, and more control over their medium-range educational and occupational goals than their family-related and material goals. Further, long-term educational and occupational aspirations were high across all groups. There were moderate ethnic differences in educational expectations and none for corresponding career expectations. Thus, current inequalities in educational and occupational attainments across ethnic groups were only partially reflected in the life goals of adolescents on the brink of graduating from high school.This study was supported by the School of Social Ecology and the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine; as well as the Max-Planck-Award for International Cooperation granted to Jutta Heckhausen and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). We are indebted to Susan Farruggia, Ph.D. and Laura Gil-Trejo for their valuable contribution to data collection and help in the day-to-day management of the overall project. We also acknowledge with appreciation the assistance of numerous undergraduate research assistants in data collection and data entry.Developmental psychologist with current interests in the familial factors that affect motivation and disengagement with life goals in adolescence and young adulthoodDevelopmental psychologist with current interests in cross-cultural human development,and the neural bases of math and language learning.Developmental psychologist with clinical training. Her current interests are in the cross-cultural study of familial and peer factors in adolescents’ and young adults’ psychological well-beingClinical psychologist with research interests in the links between economic stress and behavioral disorderDevelopmental psychologist with a current focus on developmental regulation during major life-course transitions, in particular the transition from school to work and to college