Adolescent autonomy,parent-adolescent conflict,and parental well-being

The present study examines whether parents' reports of well-being are related to the level of parent-adolescent conflict in the family and their youngsters' level of emotional autonomy. The sample is composed of 129 intact families with a first-born child between the ages of 10 and 15. Measures included parents' reports of midlife identity concerns, self-esteem, life satisfaction, psychological symptoms, and parent-adolescent conflict, as well as youngsters' reports of emotional autonomy vis-à-vis parents. Findings indicate that (1) parents' experience of midlife identity concerns is positively related to the level of emotional autonomy reported by same-sex children; (2) mothers', but not fathers', well-being is negatively related to the intensity of parent-adolescent conflict; and (3) socioeconomic status moderates the relation between parental well-being and parent-adolescent relations. These results are discussed in terms of psychoanalytic and parental stress perspectives on parental well-being during the adolescent years.The work described herein has been conducted during the second author's tenure as a Faculty Scholar under the William T. Grant Foundation's Program in the Mental Health of Children and is supported as well by a grant to the second author from the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin.Received Ph. D. in Child and Family Studies from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Major research interests are in the psychological well-being of parents with adolescent children.Received Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University. Major research interests are in social relations during adolescence.     

Exploring three approaches to identity development

Identifications from the past, current feedback from social relations, and one's own priorities combine to make up one's identity. These insights were incorporated into three separate identity development programs and administered to 57 high school seniors. Pretests and posttests included the Rasmussen Scale of Ego-Identity and a Self-Identity Social-Similarity Grid. Significant differences in change were demonstrated on the grid between the experimental groups and the control. That there were no significant changes in the Rasmussen scores highlights the diverse attempts to operationalize the many aspects of Erikson's theory. Suggestions for administering and evaluating future identity development programs are made.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Major interests are identity and moral development.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Major interests are adolescent social and moral development.     

The contribution of family structure and differentiation to identity development in females

We examined the relationship between Minuchin's structural family model, adolescent separation-individuation, and identity development. One hundred sixty-four female undergraduate students completed the Structural Family Interaction Scale Revised (SFIS-R), the Parental Relationship Inventory (PRI), and the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) scale. Exploratory Factor Analysis of the SFIS-R and PRI scales indicated that two factors, Proximity-Differentiation and Generational Hierarchy-Differentiation, accounted for 90% of the variance. Canonical correlation analysis with the two factor scores and age included in the predictor variables, and the four measures of ego identity included in the dependent variables, yielded two significant roots. The results supported Minuchin's model.Received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Major interests are family factors influencing adolescent development and family assessment.Received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Major interests are family factors and the separation/individuation process.Received Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Major interests are statistical issues related to chi-square analyses.     

Defendant characteristics and judgment behaviors of adolescent mock jurors

Fictitious court cases involving child abuse were presented to 140 male undergraduates and 140 male junior high school students to determine if the tendency to deal harshly with alleged criminals is dependent upon certain defendant characteristics. Results indicate that younger adolescent jurors give longer sentences than older adolescent jurors, and male defendants receive longer sentences than female defendants. While no significant main effects for case content were found, younger jurors gave longer sentences and attributed more responsibility to a parent who beat his/her child, while older adolescent jurors attributed more responsibility and prescribed longer sentences to a parent who burned the child. Implications for future research with adolescent jurors are discussed.Received Ph.D. from Lehigh University, Major interests include adolescent and adult personality and social development, developmental abnormalities, and jury behavior.Received Ph.D. from Lehigh University. Major interests are personality and sex-role development, and psychology and the law.Received Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. Major interests are cognitive development, guilt feelings, and jury behavior.     

Late adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with their parents: Relationships among deidealization,autonomy, relatedness,and insecurity and implications for adolescent adjustment and ego identity status

Questionnaire data from 376 undergraduates (mean age=19.3 years) were used to test a model describing interrelationships among deidealization, relatedness, autonomy, and insecurity in late adolescents' relationships with their parents. As expected, deidealization predicted greater autonomy and less relatedness (i.e., more disengagement), greater disengagement predicted greater insecurity, and greater insecurity predicted less autonomy. However, disengagement from parents proved to be a double-edged sword in that it was linked not only to insecurity, but also to feelings of greater separateness and self-directedness in relation, to parents. Additional analyses identified significant associations between the adolescent/parent relationship variables and the adolescents' psychological health and ego identity status.Received her Ph.D. from Yale University. Major interests are in parent/child relationships during late adolescence and young adulthood.Received her B.A. from University of Virginia and M.A. from Michigan State University. Major interests are in adolescent development and pediatric psychology.Received her B.A. from Duke University and M.A. from Michigan State University. Major interests are in adult children of alcoholics and adolescent separation/individuation.     

Ego identity status and values among high school females

To test the hypothesis that adolescent females who are high in ego identity have high interests in religious and political values, the relationship between the ego identity status of 80 senior high school females and their response to the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values was examined. Participants classified as being identity achievements, moratoriums, and foreclosures had higher religious value scores than did diffusions; however, the expected differences on political value scores were not found. Two-thirds of the identity achievers came from homes disrupted by divorce or death of one parent, while less than 20% of the members of the other three statuses came from broken homes.This report is based on the first author's M.A. thesis, which was submitted to the Graduate School, Texas Woman's University, 1978.Received her M.A. from Texas Woman's University. Major interests are ego identity formation and female adolescent development.Received Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Major interests are developmental effects of stress and neurophysiology.     

Development of an objective measure to assess ego identity in adolescence: Validation and replication

Three studies that evaluate the reliability and validity of the Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Adams and Grotevant, 1983) are reported. In Studies 1 and 2, college students in Texas and Utah, respectively, completed the identity measure, the Extended Range Vocabulary Test, and the Crowne-Marlowe Social Desirability Scale and released achievement results from their college records. The identity measure was found to have acceptable reliability (both internal consistency and test-retest) and validity (content, factorial, discriminant, and concurrent). In Study 3, scale scores from the objective identity measure correlated in the predicted pattern with ratings of identity exploration and commitment made from the Ego Identity Interview. Although the objective measure is not intended to replace the interview, it would appear to be useful in a number of situations where administration of the interview is impractical.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dan Tousley in the data collection and data analysis phases of this research. Data collection and analyses for Study 3 were provided by grants from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the University of Texas Research Institute, and the University of Texas Institute of Human Development and Family Studies to Harold D. Grotevant and Catherine Cooper, Co-Principal Investigators.Study 2 was supported by the W144 regional research grant on The Development of Social Competency in Children with funding from the United States Department of Agriculture and the Utah State University Agricultural Experiment Station, directed by Gerald Adams.Received Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Minnesota. Research interests concern the contribution of family relationships to personality and identity development in adolescence.Received Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Research interests include adolescent social and personality development.     

Adolescent egocentrism-sociocentrism and self-consciousness

A standardized and objectively scored scale of adolescent egocentrism-sociocentrism (AES) and a self-consciousness scale were given to 44 subjects each in the sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades and college. The AES assesses three components of egocentrism including the personal fable, the imaginary audience, and general self-focuses, as well as sociocentrism and nonsocial subscales. As predicted, the personal fable and imaginary audience declined with age. The self-focus subscale showed a curvilinear relationship with age, while, again as predicted, sociocentrism increased and nonsocial focuses declined. Adolescent egocentrism, as expected, correlated positively with self-consciousness even with age controlled. Implications for the theories of egocentrism and sociocentrism in the adolescent years are discussed.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Major interests are adolescent social cognition and social development.     

Adolescent autonomy and parental stress

The present investigation explores the relationship between adolescent autonomy and parental stress among families with children aged 10–17. Independent measures were obtained from parents and children. Parents of early adolescent children reported significantly more stress than parents of preadolescents or middle adolescents. Parents of first-born children reported significantly more stress than did more experienced parents. Although mothers and fathers reported comparable levels of overall parental stress, their stress was, in part, the result of different factors. Fathers reported higher levels of stress if their children reported not following their advice and being involved in deviant activities. For mothers, stress was significantly related to their children's desire for greater autonomy. Emotional detachment was not a significant predictor of parental stress for either mothers or fathers. Implications of the findings for the parent-child relationship during adolescence are discussed.Received Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1984. Research interests include parent-adolescent relations and the work-family interface.Research interests include home-school relations and parenting.Received Ph.D. in 1978 from the Pennsylvania State University. Research interests are in adult development and aging.     

Correlates of adolescent pessimism: A study of the beck hopelessness scale

This study examines correlates of the Beck Hopelessness Scale within an adolescent population. Consistent with studies employing adults as subjects, Hopelessness scores were found to be associated with depression and external locus of control. Additionally, a significant positive correlation was found between Hopelessness scores and an index of general maladjustment. The Hopelessness measure was, however, found to be unrelated to self-reported health status.Data for this study were collected as part of a larger investigation involved with the development and validation of an adolescent measure of life stress which was funded by a grant to the senior author from the University of Washington Graduate School Research Fund.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Northern Illinois University. Major interests are clinical-child psychology and psychopathology of children and adolescents.Major interests are clinical-child psychology and suicide.     

Memories of menarche: Age,preparation, and prior knowledge as determinants of initial menstrual experience

The relationships between age at menarche, preparation for menarche, and initial experience of menarche, were assessed in a retrospective questionnaire administered to 97 college-aged women. The more knowledgeable a girl was prior to menarche, the more adequate she perceived her preparation for menarche to have been; and the older she was at the time of menarche, the more likely she was to report a positive initial experience. These data support clinical anecdotes describing initial responses to menarche, and provide information about the factors which can moderate the extent to which menarche is experienced as a traumatic and disruptive event.Portions of this research were presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Hartford, Conn., April 1980.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Tufts University. Major interests are psychobiology and adolescent development.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University. Major interests are clinical psychology and personality development.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. Major interest is cognitive development.     

Parents' and teachers' beliefs about adolescents: Effects of sex and experience

Three studies examine beliefs that parents and teachers have about adolescents. A distinction is made between category-based beliefs (concerning adolescents as a group) and target-based beliefs (concerning individual adoles cents). In Study 1, 90 late elementary and junior high school teachers indicated degree of agreement with a set of category-based statements about adolescents. Parents of early adolescents in Study 2 (N=1272) responded to category- and target-based statements. Study 3 compares the responses of teachers in Study 1 and parents in Study 2. Both teachers and parents endorsed beliefs that adolescence is difficult, and that adults can have an impact. Compared to fathers, mothers believed more in difficulty and in the negative effects of biological change on behavior. Parents of daughters believed adolescence is more difficult than parents of sons. Among teachers, amount of experience with adolescents was positively associated with the belief that adolescence is a difficult period of life. For parents, the effect of amount of experience was mixed. Experience had a greater impact on the category-based beliefs of teachers than parents. Possible influences on the origins and modification of beliefs are discussed.Received Ph.D. in psychology from The University of Michigan. Research interests: adolescent development, effects of pubertal development on social development, hormones and behavior in early adolescence, and family processesCurrently on leave from The University of Michigan. Received Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles. Research interests: development of self-concept, subjective task value, interests, and activity preferences, especially during early and middle adolescence. Dr. Eccles is also investigating the impact of school and family experiences on these constructs.Received Ph.D. in psychology from The University of Michigan. Research interests: the impact 6f family stress on adolescent development and family decision-making practices.Received Ph.D. in educatiqn from The University of Michigan. Research interests: adolescent development, middle years education, teacher beliefs, and classroom processes.Received M. A. in education from the University of Michigan. Research interests: adolescent development, classroom environments, and supporting beginning teachers.Received Ph.D. in social work and psychology from The University of Michigan. Research interests: family processes and development.Portions of this paper were presented at the 1987 biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development. This research was made possible by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH31724-04, -05) to Jacquelynne S. Eccles, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD17296-01, -02, -03,S1) to Jacquelynne S. Eccles.     

Hungarian adolescents' self-concept

Hungarian and United States adolescents' self-image was studied using the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ). In Hungary, 1,163 younger and older male and female adolescents were studied using a Hungarian translation of the OSIQ. Analyses of endorsement patterns of OSIQ items showed that Hungarian and American adolescents endorsed many items in the same way. Similarities in endorsement patterns were much more common between the two countries than were differences. Analyses of OSIQ scales showed that for most scales younger Hungarian adolescents reported better adjustment than younger American adolescents. Differences were not as great or reversed in the older age groups. Implications for cross-cultural studies of adolescent self-image were drawn based on these results.Received M. D. from the Semmelweis Medical university in Budapest. Research interest is complex somato-mental health care of adolescents.Received M. D. from the University of Chicago. Major interests are concepts of mental health and the developmental psychology of adolescence.Director, Forensic Psychology, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center. Received J. D. from the University of Chicago School of Law; received Ph. D. in human development from the University of Chicago. Research interests are adolescence and delinquency.Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University. Received Ph. D. in psychology from the University of Chicago. Major interests are psychotherapy research and adolescence.     

The development of autonomy among learning handicapped and nonhandicapped adolescents: A longitudinal perspective

Factors that influence the development of adolescent autonomy were examined in a longitudinal study of 30 learning handicapped and 30 nonhandicapped adolescents. Autonomy was represented by three separate measures: distance from parental supervision, responsibility, and deviance. Findings suggest that handicapped adolescents lag behind their nonhandicapped peers in achieving separation from parental supervision, in part because of more restrictive parental rules. But the gap appears to be shrinking as the handicapped adolescents are making strides to catch up during the high school years. In both groups, the families where autonomy is achieved with the least amount of discord are those where parents relax control gradually during the period of adolescence.This research was supported by Grant No. HD23097 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.Received Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University of California, Irvine. Current interests include adjustment problems of learning handicapped young adults.Received Ed.D. from Columbia University. Current interest is social competence and family relations of learning handicapped populations.     

Perceived parental rearing practices and styles of coping

In order to study the relation between parental rearing practices and coping dispositions, 75 females and 65 males completed the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory and the COPE, a measure of general coping dispositions. Those who reported their parents had an authoritative rearing style (warmth and nurturance coupled with close monitoring and age-appropriate demandingness) used more social support and problem-focused coping than those who reported their parents used other rearing styles. In general, perceived parental warmth was related to the greater use of social support and problemfocused coping. Parental firm control was associated with increased problemfocused and reduced emotion-focused coping. The findings are discussed in the context of parental rearing styles indirectly influencing coping dispositions through their impact on feelings of competence and personal control.This research is based on a masters thesis conducted by the first author under the direction of the second author. Portions of this study were presented at the March 1992 Meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Washington, DC.Received Ph.D. from Syracuse University. Research interests include adolescent coping processes.Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois-Urbana. Research interests include adolescent self development and coping.     

Family contexts of pubertal timing

This study examined the influence of pubertal timing upon family interactions in normal and psychiatric adolescent samples. An important feature of our approach is its emphasis upon micro-analysis of family behaviors (individual speeches) and family processes (theoretically specified speech pairings). Rather than assume that global family patterns (e.g., power) shift in response to pubertal changes, we follow how types of speeches and speech sequences are associated with different pubertal timing. Using the previously constructed family coding system, the Constrainig and Enabling Coding System, we found that on-time adolescents and their parents differed from both off-time groups (early or late). These results are discussed in terms of current implications and suggestions for future research.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the SRCD Study Group on Timing of Maturation, October, 1983, at the Education Testing Service, Princeton, NJ. This research was supported by NICHD Grant 1 R01 HD18684-01, and an NIMH Research Scientist Award (Dr. Hauser).Received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Research interest is adolescent development within the family and impact of chronic illness on adolescent development and family interaction.Received her B.A. from Wellesley College. Research interests are in humor and attractiveness.Received his M.A. from Boston University. Research interests are in methodology and statistics.Received Ed.D. from Harvard University. Research interests are in adolescent development within the family, and family coping with stress.Received M.D. from University of Chicago. Research interests are in psychosocial aspects of diabetes.Received Ed.D. from Harvard University. Research interests are in developmental psychopathology, and moral and ego development.Received Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Research interests are in assessment of ego development and family systems.Received Ph.D. from University of Miami. Research interests are in family studies and adolescent development.     

The social context of teenage childbearing: Effects on the infant's care-giving environment

The effects of maternal age and the social context on the home environment, and maternal behaviors of adolescent and older mothers, as well as the stability of the care-giving environment, were studied. Fifty low-middle socioeconomic status (SES), primiparous, Caucasian mothers and their fullterm healthy infants were included. At four months, support systems and life stress were assessed, as well as the home environment and maternal behaviors. At two years, a similar home visit was conducted in a subsample. Adolescent mothers had less education, lower SES, and a different child care support system. They also differed in the home environment and maternal behaviors at four months. Some of these differences disappeared when maternal education and SES, or child care support and life stress, were controlled. Moderate correlations were observed between four months and two years home environment and maternal verbalizations. Thus, a combination of maternal age and other social factors mediate the negative characteristics of the adolescent mother's care-giving environment, which is relatively stable during the infancy period.Received Ph. D. from Harvard University. Main research interests are sociocultural aspects of development, teenage pregnancy, and infant temperament.Received Ph. D. from University of California, Los Angeles. Main research interests are determinants of neonatal and infant development and statistical systems.Received Ph. D. from Brown University. Main research interests are mother-child interaction, and language acquisition in the hearing impaired.Received M. D. from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines. Main research interests are both animal and human studies during the perinatal period.     

Factors related to cigarette smoking during adolescent pregnancy

Previous research suggests that maternal smoking during pregnancy remains prevalent, particularly among adolescents. However, little is known about the factors related to smoking during adolescent pregnancy. The goal of the present study is to identify intrapersonal, familial, and peer factors that are related to smoking during adolescent pregnancy, and to determine the relative degree to which they affect this behavior. Interviews were conducted with 241 unmarried pregnant adolescents who planned to carry their pregnancies to term. Consistent with previous studies, 27% of the respondents reported daily smoking during pregnancy, and whites reported higher rates of use than members of other racial groups. Smoking during adolescent pregnancy was related to intrapersonal, familial, and peer factors. The results of a regression analysis suggest that perceived parental disapproval of smoking during pregnancy, friends' cigarette use, and race play a particularly important role in this behavior. The implications of these findings for preventive programs are discussed.Research reported here and the preparation of this report were supported by Grant DA-05208 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.Received M.A. in sociology from the University of Washington. Research interests include health behaviors, and the relationship between social stratification and health.Received Ph.D. in social welfare from the University of Washington. Research interests are in adolescent development, gender issues in adolescent development, and health promotion and problem prevention with children and adolescents. Received Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington. Research interests are adolescent problem behaviors, and particularly adolescent sexual decision making.Received M.S. in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Research interests: adolescent substance use, pregnancy and parenthood, and peer relations.     

Phenomenological aspects of psychosocial maturity in adolescence. Part I. Boys

This paper explores the phenomenological and psychodynamic differences between adolescent boys who score at the high and low extremes of the Psychosocial Maturity Inventory. The development of psychosocial maturity is viewed against the background of adolescent ego development. The freedom from impulse, the gains in self-esteem, the resolution of sexual identity, and the growth of autonomy that are the outcomes of the adolescent process all contribute to a higher degree of individual and social adequacy. The growth of heterosexuality, however, is shown to have a complex and nonlinear relationship to psychosocial maturity.Preparation of this paper was supported by funds from the National Institute of Education, Contract No. NE-C-00-3-0013.Received Ph. D. in psychology from the University of Michigan. Main research interests: psychology of adolescence and psychology of women.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College. Main interest: personality development from childhood through adolescence.Main interest: Evaluation methodology.For a complete discussion, see Greenberger and Sørensen (1974).     

Adolescent discipline: Different family members' perception

Adolescence is perhaps the most difficult period of child rearing for parents. This study attempted to identify disciplinary techniques used by parents as perceived by mothers, fathers, and their adolescent children. Results indicated several significant areas of intrafamilial disagreement in regard to disciplinary techniques utilized, although all subjects tended to agree that some form of verbal reasoning was the primary disciplinary technique utilized with these adolescents.This study was funded, in part, by the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (H-644) and the School of Home Economics, The University of Georgia.Received his Ph.D. in child and family studies from the University of Tennessee. Current interests include adolescent development, family influences on sex-role development, and dual-work families.Received her Ph.D. in sociology from Iowa State University. Major interests include family research methodology, assessment of family power, and marital dissolution.Received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Texas. Current research interests include parenting, sex roles, and socialization across the life-span.