“Comorbidity” of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems in adolescence

The purpose of this study was to examine in a sample of 11,516 secondary school students the extent to which different behavioral, emotional and cognitive problems (a) reflected one or more underlying common factors; (b) actually cooccurred; and (c) were single problems. Principal Component Analyses were performed and percentagewise techniques were used. PCA demonstrated that one or more general syndromes could not by far account for all of the variance of the variables. The results suggest the existence of adolescent subgroups with divergent comorbidity patterns: those who primarily report one single symptom; those who report concurrent symptoms either exclusively in the category of behavioral problems or exclusively in the category of emotional and cognitive problems; and those who report concurrent symptoms in both categories. This distinction between different subgroups has important theoretical, diagnostic, and treatment implications.     

Toward analysis of the relations among the youth counterculture,telephone hotlines,and anonymity

During the 1960s, there emerged a youth culture which had two major orientations: the Counterculture and the Movement. We are well informed about this youth culture, its social values, social norms, and emergent social roles (e.g., hippie, freak, radical, dropout). Part of these social and political movements was the creation of alternative, counterculture, or radical human service programs. Early examples were free medical clinics, drop-in centers, and telephone hotlines. Among the actual differences in these programs compared to older, established human service agencies was (is) the prominent position of the social value of client anonymity. This notion of client anonymity is examined in the attempt to understand its role in the relations among themes of the Counterculture, individual youth, their peers, and youth-serving agencies.Holds degrees in social work and public health and is currently completing a report of a national survey of hotlines and youth crisis programs and working with others in editing papers for a monograph from a conference on evaluating hotlines. The survey data will appear in that publication.     

Current contradictions in adolescent theory

This article points out two contradictions in current adolescent theory. The first is between the classical point of view, espousing the notion of storm and stress, and the empirical view, supporting a concept of adolescence as relatively peaceful and harmonious. The latter approach, however, creates a second contradiction because it does not explain how young people cope with the major adaptations demanded as a result of changes in their physical, social, and emotional spheres of life. The article examines the status of concepts such as the generation gap and identity crisis and concludes with the formulation of a focal theory of adolescence which attempts to resolve the contradictions discussed earlier.Received his B.A. from McGill University, Montreal, and Ph.D. from University College, London. Is both a developmental and clinical psychologist. Major interests include adolescence and the preschool years.     

The Mead/Freeman Controversy is Over: A Retrospect

Seventeen years after Derek Freeman launched his bid to reform anthropology by refuting the ostensible key text of Boasian anthropology, the situation remains at stalemate, with Freeman claiming ungainsayable evidence for closure, whereas his critics claim that his own refutation has been refuted. But no group of anthropologists espouses Freeman's interactionist paradigm, and no studies in anthropological method written since the commencement of the controversy recognize it as a significant contribution to the field. I argue that the Freeman reform of anthropology has no progeny because its basic game plan is not in alignment with the anthropological problem-set that he would reform. Several key examples of misalignment are discussed, including the hoaxing hypothesis.     

Adolescents' moral dilemmas: The context

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology which outlines the kinds of real-life moral dilemmas adolescents spontaneously present in open-ended semiclinical interviews. A coding procedure is introduced which delineates three aspects of these moral dilemmas, conflicts, context, and content, and an analysis is done of the category labeled context. One hundred forty-eight adolescents from two school settings were interviewed. The results show that the majority of both boys and girls in these samples describe moral conflicts in the context of a relationship, particularly involving friends. However, boys are more likely than girls to focus on the the self as the context of the moral dilemma with no other relational context present and significantly more girls than boys focus on relationships rather than self.The authors thank the Dodge, Klingenstein and Kendall Foundations for funding these studies.Her Ed.D. is from Harvard University, M.Ed. from Boston University, and A.B. from Ohio University. She was the Project Director for Carol Gilligan on a coed high-school study. Her present research interests are preservice teacher training and women's development.She is the Project Director of a longitudinal study of moral and social development in female children and adolescents and is the editor ofA Guide to Reading Narratives of Moral Conflict and Choice for Self and Moral Voice. Her Ed.D. is from Harvard University and B.A. is from Ottawa University, Ottawa, Kansas. Her research focuses on a developmental analysis of narratives of relationship in girls.Her B.A. is from Brown University and her research interests are in female development and children of alcoholics.     

A six-year follow-up study of anorexia nervosa subjects with teenage onset

Fifty-one adolescent onset anorexia nervosa (AN) cases recruited after community screening were compared with fifty-one age-, sex- and schoolmatched cases with regard to comorbidity and personality disorders at age 21 years. All 102 cases had originally been examined at a mean age of 16 years. Outcome according to the Morgan-Russell scales was fairly similar to that reported in recent clinic-based samples. Most of the former AN cases were recovered in respect of weight but outcome in social areas was restricted. Obsessive compulsive and avoidant personality disorders and empathy disorders were very much more common in the AN than in the comparison group. Obsessive compulsive behaviors showed a high degree of stability over time and were unrelated to weight problems. Together with empathy disorders they tended to predict outcome better than the eating disorder as such. Affective disorders were common but tended to follow the course of the eating disorder rather than precede or postdate it.Received Ph.D. on Anorexia Nerevosa in Swedish Urban Teenagers at Göteborg University in 1990. Major research interests concern the epidemiology and background factors of eating disorder.Received Ph.D. in 1981 at the University of Uppsala on Neuropsychiatric aspects of perceptual, motor, and attentional deficits in seven-year-old Swedish children. Major research interests are autism, Asperger syndrome, anorexia nervosa, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, mental retardation, lefthandedness, and behavioral phenotypes.Received Ph.D. in 1987 at The University of Uppsala on Deficits in Attention, Motor Control and Perception: Follow-Up from Pre-School to Early Teens. Her major research interests concern attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.     

Work and leisure relationships: An exploration of life possibilities during adolescence

This study explored the relationship between leisure preferences and work/occupational aspiration for adolescents in Singapore and Australia. Three hypothesized relationships between the domains of spillover, compensation, and segmentation were investigated. Except for females in the Australian sample, it appeared that adolescents saw leisure preferences and occupational aspirations as two independent spheres of their personal futures, supporting the segmentation hypothesis.Received Ph.D. from La Trobe. Research interests include adolescence and youth.Received Ph.D. from University of Sydney. Research interests include longitudinal data analysis.     

Who stays? who leaves? an examination of sex differences in staying and leaving

This article examines some of the major variables associated with the staying and leaving process, particularly as it operates similarly or differentially for male and female adolescents. Sixty attitude statements about aspects of school, parents, peers, teachers, and value orientations were obtained from 796 adolescents and factor analyzed. This subset of independent variables, together with a set of personality and ability measures, was then used to predict staying or leaving status. The discriminant analysis was undertaken using leaving status and sex (LVSEX) as the dependent variable. Using a stepwise solution method of discriminant analysis, two significant functions were identified-the first suggesting a sex dimension, the second a stayer-leaver dimension.Received Ph.D. from La Trobe University. Current research interest is adolescent development.Received Ph.D. from University of N.S. W. Current research interest is mathematical reasoning in adolescence.     

The life space and socialization of the self: Sex differences in the young adolescent

In this conclusion we examine the implications of the special issue findings for the development of the self. We discuss how well the young adolescent experiences in schoolwork, maintenance, talk, and leisure provide bases for an evolving adjstment to the adult roles of work, love, and play. Gender differences clearly emerged in the experience of daily life; children entered adolescence with differences in how time is experienced already firmly established, and by midadolescence these differences were intensifying. Our data support the three heuristics of communion versus agency, gender intensification, and the public versus private dichotomy. Concern is raised as to the viability of traditional sex role socialization when adult roles may demand more egalitarian behavior.     

Body type,body esteem,school, and leisure: A study of overweight,average, and underweight adolescents

This study considered the characteristics, sports and leisure involvement, and social relations of approximately 1000 15- to 16-year-old pupils categorized as overweight, underweight, or average in terms of ponderal index scores. Academic attainment, social class and physical education teachers' perceptions were also considered. While results showed that pupils with average physiques were superior to the other two groups in fitness, the main and consistent contrasts among groups revolved around teachers' perceptions, body image, and peer group involvement. Thus overweight and underweight adolescents appeared at some disadvantage in certain social and educational encounters.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen. Main research interests include social factors influencing education, adolescence, sports psychology, community education, and social psychology.Currently completing her M.S. in community health at the University of Nottingham, after which she will take an appointment with the Scottish Health Education Unit in Edinburgh. Received her M.Ed. from the University of Aberdeen. Main interests are handicapped children and sex education.     

Educational trajectory and “action orientation”: Grade and track differences

A life-span developmental perspective suggests that variations in social context will lead to differences among individuals in their action orientations. An action orientation is defined by an individual's values, control beliefs, goal orientation, and decision-making perspective. To investigate differences in the action orientations of adolescents embedded in different contexts, 83 sophomore and senior high school students on either a vocational training or college-preparatory trajectory participated in the study. A discriminant function analysis of action orientations showed that the action orientations of vocational training and college-preparatory students differed: College-preparatory students had a career preparation action orientation and vocational students had an adult preparation action orientation; also, sophomores may have had a socializing orientation. The findings are discussed in terms of the developmental tasks facing students in different grades and on different life-course trajectories. Received Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Research interests are cognitive and social cognitive development in cultural and institutional contexts.Received Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. Research interests include adult developmental and problem solving.     

Was Mead wrong about coming of age in Samoa? An analysis of the Mead/Freeman controversy for scholars of adolescence and human development

This paper presents an analysis of the Mead/Freeman controversy with a focus on Mead's claim that coming of age in 1920s Samoa was accomplished with relative ease. It is concluded that, while Mead appears to have engaged in some inappropriate generalizations to the rest of Samoa from the small island of Ta'u, Freeman's counterevidence to support his claim that adolescence on Ta'u would have been problematic is weak and easily dismissed. Accordingly, Freeman's claim to have refuted Mead's findings is based on evidence that itself is easily refuted. Thus, Mead's pioneering study, which was the first to argue that adolescent storm and stress is not universal, continues to stand the test of time.Received Ph.D. in sociology from York University, Toronto, Canada. Research interests include the empirical investigation of Eriksonian theory, cross-cultural and historical analyses of youth and adolescence, higher education and personal development, and gender roles.     

Acting out of character: Window on the identity crisis

An autobiographical account of acting out of character at a life turning point is presented as a window on a young person's identity crisis. Analysis of that account reveals (1) that the play of the tentative identities reflects the concurrent crisis in the character of that person's society, (2) that the story the person now has to tell sets forth the range of the psychosocial issues active in his life, (3) that the mysteries generated identify for the person the specific issues at crisis, (4) that the novelty of the event itself catalyzes called for changes, and (5) that the metaphor of the out of character actions serves to preview the ultimate resolution.Received M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, in 1964, and psychiatry training at Yale. Interests lie in the area of psychotherapy with disturbed youth, careers of young people who become psychiatric aides in mental hospitals, and group homes for adolescents.     

A Moving Target: Reasons Given by Adolescents for Alcohol and Narcotics Use, 1984 and 1999

Previous studies have investigated adolescents' reasons for alcohol and narcotics use, but have tended to neglect changes in the reasons over time. This study investigates the reasons given by Finnish adolescents for their own alcohol use, and for the use of alcohol and narcotics by others. In 1984, a questionnaire on reasons for alcohol and narcotics use was administered to a sample of adolescents aged 14–16 (N = 396). The questionnaire was administered again to a similar sample (N = 488) in 1999. An increase was found in reasons involving inner subjective experiences, referring to the good feeling and fun resulting from alcohol and narcotics use. In addition, the goals of alcohol consumption were increasingly perceived as drinking to get drunk, and for its own sake. The results suggest that adolescents' attitudes have become more liberal towards alcohol and narcotics use, and that prevention campaigns may be aiming at a moving target of culturally held opinion.     

Chinese Adolescent Immigrants: Factors Related to Psychosocial Adjustment

Chinese adolescent immigrants from the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) are a rapidly growing and understudied group of minority youth. This study examined several factors related to the psychosocial adjustment of 113 Chinese youth who had immigrated to the U.S. from the P.R.C. The study was designed to delineate the relationship between psychosocial adjustment and several demographic variables, family functioning variables, English language proficiency, and value orientation (collectivism vs. individualism). Results indicate the following: (1) participants who received higher family conflict scores, lower family organization scores, and higher authoritarianism scores reported lower levels of psychosocial functioning; (2) participants who preferred to use English reported more individual psychosocial adjustment problems than those who preferred to use Chinese; and (3) the relationship between language preference and adjustment was mediated by value orientation. Results indicated that Chinese adolescent immigrants who preferred English were less collectivistic and that lower collectivism scores were linked to lower levels of psychosocial functioning.     

A measure of risk taking for young adolescents: Reliability and validity assessments

Researchers often define adolescent risk taking in terms of individual behaviors such as alcohol and drug use, early sexual activity, and reckless driving. It is not clear whether these behaviors defined by adults as risky have the same meaning for adolescents. This paper describes the development and preliminary testing of an instrument to assess risk taking among young adolescents. The six item scale was constructed by asking small groups of eighth grade boys and girls to describe things that teenagers your age do for excitement or thrills. The measure was then used in a longitudinal study of 758 young adolescents from three rural counties in Maryland. The scale shows good reliability, as indicated by coefficient alpha and factor analyses. Eighth-grade scores on the scale are associated with the initiation of sexual activity and substance use in ninth grade among virgins and nonusers of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and pills in eighth grade.     

The relative importance of parents and friends in adolescent decision making

In this study 175 older adolescents (83 males, 92 females) nominated their parents, particularly their mothers, then friends of the same sex, as people most important in their lives. While parents were rated as more important than friends overall, problems were more frequently discussed with close friends. Using a matched sampling design, the adolescents' own mothers, fathers, and a close friend of the same sex also responded to a scale where parents' or friends' opinions might be sought as part of adolescent decision making. As predicted, parents were perceived as most important in certain future-oriented areas, whereas for current decisions, friends' opinions were more valued. Several areas of possible parent-peer conflict were also identified.Current interest is the role of social and cultural factors in the development and maintenance of adolescent drinking and other drug use.     

Youth Self-Report of Behavioral and Emotional Problems in a Swiss Epidemiological Study

The Youth Self Report (YSR) was used in a Swiss epidemiological study with 1093 subjects aged 10–17 years. Internal consistency was good for the second-order factors Internalizing Problems, ExternalizingProblems, and the Total Problem Score, whereas it was less satisfactory for almost all syndrome scales. In general, internal consistency coefficients were slightly lower in the Swiss sample than in the U.S. sample. Correlations between the syndrome scales resulted in good replications of the original findings as obtained in the U.S. normative sample. Effect analyses showed that sex is more important than age and nationality (indigenous vs. immigrant subjects). However, all effects were small. Correspondence between YSR and Child Behavior Checklist scores showed that agreement between adolescents' and parents' reports is relatively small.     

Adolescent interpersonal and familial precursors of positive mental health at midlife

Associations between adolescent relationships with peers, adults in the larger community, and parents and successful adult mental health were explored as part of a longitudinal study. Measures included two Q-sort ratings: the adolescent interpersonal Q-sort at age 13 and the Psychological Health Index (PH) at age 50. Nine content clusters were formed from adolescent Q-sort items, and correlations computed between scores on these clusters and PH. In addition, one of the clusters was examined for possible curvilinear relationships. Three clusters related significantly to later mental health: harmonious peer relations, positive relationships with adults outside of the family, and reasonable parental control. Significant curvilinear relation-ships were obtained for a fourth cluster describing adolescents who valued intimate friendship.This research was conducted with assistance from a grant provided by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Award No. 1 F32 MH 0953-01.     

A closer look at adolescent sexual activity

This study of 1228 parochial students in the eastern United States answered questions about adolescent sexuality. Few of the students surveyed claimed that sex was forced or even pressured. Over half of the students reported going steady as their relationship status when experiencing their first intercourse. Another fourth reported that they were dating or knew each other well. Approximately one-fifth of the students reported that drugs or alcohol was used at the time of first sex and three-fourths of them had first sex at either their own home or a friend's home. Nearly half of the students wished they had waited longer before having sex, especially the females and the more religious students. One-half of the nonvirgin students in the sample reported having had only one sexual partner. The implications of this information for setting social policy, designing and implementing effective sex education programs are discussed.Received Ph.D. in family studies/family science, Brigham Young University in 1994. Research and writing interests include adolescent sexuality and related problems, character education, and parenting.serving a sabbatical at BUY—Hawaii currently. Received Ph.D. in psychology at Michigan State in 1966. Research interests concern gender issues, parenting, and adolescent problems.In 1978 received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Washington. Research interests include adolescent problems and social policy.