Social Competence and Substance Use Among Rural Youth: Mediating Role of Social Benefit Expectancies of Use

The present study examined the mechanisms by which social competence may be associated with substance use during early adolescence. The sample consisted of rural youth (N = 1,568) attending 36 junior high schools in a midwestern state. Structural equation modeling indicated that social competence had a direct protective association with substance use in that those youth who were more socially confident, assertive, and had better communication skills reported less smoking and drinking. Further analyses revealed that the relationship between social competence and substance use was fully mediated by social benefit expectancies of use. These findings suggest that poorly competent youth turn to smoking and alcohol use because they perceive that there are important social benefits to doing so, such as having more friends, looking grown up and cool, and having more fun. Prevention programs that teach youth interpersonal skills may reduce the initiation of substance use by improving social competence and providing youth with more adaptive means of gaining approval from peers.     

Social support factors and drinking among college student males

The present investigation focused on social support and social competence among male college freshmen and the relation of these variables to alcohol use and psychological adjustment. Recent critical analyses of the social support literature suggest that studies in this area have generally failed to distinguish between different modes of support. Therefore, measures pertaining to possible dimensions of the social support construct (i.e., social network characteristics and perceived social support) were administered to 137 male college freshmen, along with a measure of social competence, and these data were factor analyzed. As a result, three interpretable factors were identified: Network Functions, Perceived Intimacy/Support, and Social Competence. Measures representing social network characteristics (e.g., network size, density, amount of social contact), perceived support, and social competence were used to predict alcohol use and psychological symptomatology. Results indicated that alcohol use was positively related to social network characteristics that reflect high levels of social interaction (e.g., network density, amount of social contact) and measures of social competence. Drinking was not significantly related to measures of perceived social support. Psychological symptomatology was negatively related to measures of perceived support, social competence, and network density. Thus, this study concludes that different modes of support and different measures of psychological adjustment should not be treated as if they are equivalent. And this study reaffirms a growing concern that the social context provides frequent opportunities for alcohol use and abuse in a college community.     

Remediation of Social Withdrawal in Young Children:

The last 15 years have witnessed a marked increase in the development of intervention techniques designed to promote isolate children's friendships and to increase their peer group interactions. However, there has been a paucity of research directed towards defining social competence and its underlying skill components. With the practitioner in mine, the present report presents a recent intervention strategy for remediating social withdrawal, followed by our current development of a skill deficit model designed to expand our knowledge case of causal contributors. PEERS, a broad-based intervention program, involves all of the child's social agents, thus assuring him/her of entry into the peer group in an atmosphere of social support. Our more comprehensive view of social withdrawal examines deficits in four skill areas: the child's social, language, and motoric competences, and the parents' child-rearing ability. Additional research is needed to pinpoint the precise relationship between these skill components and social withdrawal. With the further contributions of researchers in the field, we foresee the development of a more refined set of intervention procedures which the practitioner may use selectively to meet the individual needs of each child.     

Social Skills Training with Court-Adjudicated Youths

The theoretical and programmatic issues in the development of a social skills training program for court-adjudicated youths are described. The first issue discussed is the relationship between a youth's social competence and the likelihood of his or her engaging in inappropriate or illegal activity. This relationship is proposed as a series of questions about the underlying assumptions of this treatment approach. Research relevant to each of these questions available during our program development is reviewed. Next, the relevant issues in the development of a social skills training program are organized along the dimensions of content, methodology, and practicality. The resulting social skills training program is described with major research findings. Finally, future research directions in social skills training are proposed.     

Social competence during adolescence: Social sensitivity,locus of control,empathy, and peer popularity

In male and female adolescents aged 14, 15, 17, and 18 years of age, the predictive relationship between social competency and peer relations and age differences in social competence were studied. Based upon a social deficit hypothesis, linear age differences were observed in social knowledge, locus of control, and a trend in empathy. Some sex differences were found, but no sex by age interactions were observed. The predicted relationship between social competency and peer popularity was supported, but was different according to sex of the adolescent.Support for this project was provided by the Science/Education Administration of the USDA and the Utah State University Agricultural Experiment Station through the W144 Regional Research Project on Social Competency in Childhood.Received Ph.D. from Penn State University. Research interests are adolescent personality and social development.     

Research and Practice in Three Areas of Social Competence:

Authors of applied research on social competence have generally concentrated on three areas: social assertion, interviewing skills, and conversational ability. Researchers and practitioners hold some similar and some different perspectives regarding a number of methodological variables within this literature. These studies are reviewed, and conclusions are offered about areas of strengths and future research needs and trends.     

The Applicability of Social Skills Training Research

Children who have problematic peer relationships or lack friends have been found to be more likely than other children to experience adjustment problems in young adulthood. The effectiveness of social skills training methods specifically designed to enhance children's peer relationships is evaluated. The evaluation includes an examination of "coaching" procedures compared with alternative procedures and control groups, as well as a consideration of follow-up analyses. The applicability of "coaching" methods is evaluated on the basis of a small scale survey of social skills training procedures in use at social service agencies, guidance centers, hospitals, and clinic settings. Modifications and combinations of social skills training methods are then discussed.     

Social,Academic, and Behavioral Competence of Depressed Children: Relationship to Diagnostic Status and Family Interaction Style

This study compared the social adjustment and academic performance of 15 psychiatrically hospitalized children with depression to 14 children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 20 normal community children, ages 7–14. The relationship between children's interpersonal and academic competence and the quality of direct family interactions was also examined. Analyses revealed an association between children's adaptive functioning and both diagnostic status and family transactional processes, as assessed by two 10-minute conflict-solving tasks. Major findings were as follows: (a) depressed children and children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders received similarly low ratings of social competence in comparison to normal controls; (b) academic performance of depressed children was similar to normal controls and better than children with schizophrenia spectrum disorders; and (c) children with poorer social competence and more behavioral problems were more likely to have parents who showed negative affect during family problem-solving tasks. The implications of these results for understanding the relationship between psychiatric impairment and children's social and academic development were discussed.     

Associations Among Empathy,Social Competence, &; Reactive/Proactive Aggression Subtypes

Differences between proactive and reactive aggression subtypes on self-reported measures of empathy, social competence, and expectation for reward were examined among 433 middle school students (65.4% White, 33.9% Black). As hypothesized, males scored higher on proactive and reactive aggression scales and lower on empathy measures than females. K-means cluster analysis yielded the following four distinct groups: reactive, proactive, proactive/reactive aggressive, and uninvolved. Overall, uninvolved (nonaggressive youth) had higher empathy and social competence scores and lower expectation of reward for the use of aggression. The reactive and proactive groups did not differ significantly on study variables. Limitations and implications are discussed. Graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her M.S. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main research interests are in youth aggression, specifically the influence of social cognitive factors and peer groups on adolescent aggression. Associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University. Her major research interests focus on several health related behavior, including bullying and youth aggression and disordered eating in adolescents.     

Social Skills Training and Assessment with Children:

Research suggesting a relationship between early peer relations and later life adjustment has prompted a growing number of researchers to develop intervention stratgies for isolated, rejected, and friendless children. Although most of these strategies have been on a "skill deficit" hypothesis and have taken the form of teaching children specific social skills, there is considerable disagreement in the field as to what skills should be learned and how skills should be trained. This problem has been exacerbated by the fact that, although a variety of skills training methods exist in the literature, most have been developed from implicit rather than explicit theories of social competence and skill learning. This paper represents an attempt to organize many of the concepts and principles presently used to develop social skills training methods for children within a cognitive-social learning perspective. The following pages focus on the identification of skill deficits that may lead to later social difficulties and on the derivation of skills training methods that might be used to remediate each type of deficit. The implications of the proposed training methods for program assessment and implementation are also considered.     

Socioenvironmental Risk and Adjustment in Latino Youth: The Mediating Effects of Family Processes and Social Competence

The direct and mediated effects of socioenvironmental risk on internalizing and externalizing problems among Latino youth aged 10–14 were examined using prospective analyses. Participants in this study were 464 Latino mother and child dyads surveyed as part of the Welfare, Children & Families: A Three City Study. It was hypothesized that socioenvironmental risk (i.e., maternal psychological distress, maternal parenting stress, neighborhood disadvantage, and perceived financial strain) would influence later adolescent adjustment by interrupting important family processes and interfering with opportunities for adolescents to develop appropriate social competence. Using path analyses, the mediational model was compared across high and low acculturation groups. With two exceptions, the models for the high and low acculturation groups were equivalent. Results supported a mediated effect between early socioenvironmental risk and later adjustment problems for the low acculturation group through family routines and adolescent social competence. Among families high in acculturation, socioenvironmental risk effects were partially mediated through family routines and adolescent social competence. Finally, a path from gender to maternal monitoring was present in the low acculturation group model but not the high acculturation group model. Assistant professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas. Her major research interests are risk and resiliency processes in minority youth. Assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests are the effects of microenvironmental factors in the externalizing and internalizing behaviors of European American and Latino youth. Assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests are risk and protective factors in children and adolescents at-risk because of parental substance abuse.     

Social Competence in Late Elementary School: Relationships to Parenting and Neighborhood Context

Despite evidence that neighborhoods confer both risk and resilience for youth development, the existing neighborhood research has a number of methodological limitations including lack of diversity in neighborhoods sampled and neighborhood characteristics assessed. The purpose of this study was to address these methodological limitations of existing research and to examine the relationship of neighborhood structural and social characteristics to family-level social processes and teacher-reported social competence during early adolescence. The study sample of 3,624 fifth graders (51?% girls) was ethnically diverse, including roughly even proportions of non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic youth. Neighborhood measures included economic disadvantage derived from the U.S. Census, physical and social disorder obtained by direct observation, and social capital from parental reports. Family-level social processes included parent reported family cohesion and youth reported maternal and paternal nurturance. We found that neighborhood factors significantly associated with youth social aggression and social competence but not social withdrawal, after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and parenting factors. There was limited evidence of moderation of family influences by neighborhood characteristics as well as the moderation of neighborhood effects by children’s gender. Neighborhood physical disorder was associated with increased social aggression among boys but with increased social withdrawal among girls. Implications of the study’s findings for research on neighborhoods and adolescent development and the development of preventive interventions are discussed.     

Personal and Ecological Assets and Academic Competence in Early Adolescence: The Mediating Role of School Engagement

Although the role of school engagement in influencing children’s academic competence has been recognized in past theory and research, how school engagement may mediate the relationships between ecological and personal resources and academic competence remains largely unknown. Using structural equation modeling procedures, the present study was aimed at examining the role of school engagement in mediating the associations between ecological and personal assets and academic competence. Data from 960 participants (45.6% boys) who took part in the Grades 5 and 6 assessments of the longitudinal, 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development were used. Evidence was found for a model positing two distinct school engagement components, Behavioral and Emotional, and for the role of these facets of school engagement in the relationships between developmental assets and later academic competence. Personal and ecological assets had indirect effects on later academic competence, via behavioral and emotional school engagement. Behavioral and emotional school engagement predicted academic competence differently. Emotional engagement was indirectly linked to academic competence, via behavioral engagement. Behavioral and emotional engagement also had different individual and contextual antecedents. Implications of the findings for evaluating the role of behavioral and/or emotional school engagement in academic competence and positive youth development are discussed.     

Predictors of Physical Competence in Adolescent Girls

Physical competence, comprising athletic competence and physical appearance competence, is positively related to feelings of self-worth in adolescent girls. This study compared the relationships of psychological, physiological, and maturational constructs with perceived physical competence in adolescent girls. Perceived physical appearance and perceived athletic competence, peer acceptance, body weight, body mass index (BMI), aerobic fitness (VO₂max), physical activity level, and menarcheal status were assessed. Global self-worth was highly correlated with peer acceptance, perceived physical appearance, and perceived athletic competence in this sample. Regression analyses indicated that peer acceptance was the best predictor of perceived physical competence. Additional predictors of perceived physical appearance and athletic competence are discussed. Results suggest that postmenarcheal and larger girls may be at risk for low perceptions of physical competence. Enhancing competence feelings among adolescent girls may be accomplished by emphasizing friendship and social interaction within physical activity.     

Family relationships and social competence during late adolescence

Data from a large sample of late adolescents was used to examine associations between family relationships (reported closeness to parents and siblings) and perceived social competence. Significant positive relationships were found between family bonds and the social competence measures, which included social self-esteem, instrumentality, expressiveness, shyness, and degree of satisfaction/ease in same- and opposite-sex peer relationships. There was no evidence of differential effects of sibling versus parent relationships upon adolescent social competence.This project was supported by NIMH Grant 5 R01 MH34570.Received Ph.D. from Northwestern University.     

Perceived Social Support and Early Adolescents’ Achievement: The Mediational Roles of Motivational Beliefs and Emotions

Although a bulk of literature shows that perceived social support (PSS) influences academic achievement, the mechanisms through which this effect operates received little empirical attention. The present study examined the multiple mediational effects of motivational beliefs (competence beliefs and subjective value) and emotions (anxiety and enjoyment) that may account for the empirical link between PSS (from parents, peers and teachers) and mathematics achievement. The participants of the study were 238 grade 7 students (average age = 13.2 years, girls = 54%, predominantly native Dutch middle class socioeconomic status). A bootstrap analysis (a relatively new technique for testing multiple mediation) revealed that the motivational beliefs and the emotions, jointly, partially mediated the effect of PSS on achievement. The proportion of the effects mediated, however, varied across the support sources from 55% to 75%. The findings lend support to the theoretical assumptions in the literature that supportive social relationships influence achievement through motivational and affective pathways.     

Children's responses to interpersonal obstacles as a predictor of social competence

Children's responses to interpersonal obstacles and the relationship of these responses to social competence were investigated using the Social Problem Situation Analysis Measure. In this procedure, children respond to standard vignettes and then have their initial response negated by the examiner. The data showed that indices of problem-solving skills instandard andobstacle situations were indeed complementary. Problem solving in response to obstacles was the strongest predictor of self-concept and teachers' ratings of studients' adjustment. Expectancies in standard situations were most predictive of behavioral problem solving and social isolation. The discussion emphasized implications for theory and research into the way in which social problem solving under obstacle conditions relates to different indices of social competence.This study was supported in part by grants to the first author from the William T. Grant Foundation (with John Clabby) and NIMH.Received Ph.D. from University of Connecticut. Research interests include primary prevention and social competence promotion.Received Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Research interests include stress and coping processes.Received Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Research interests include theory and assessment, self and psychopathology.     

论社会保险权

社会保险法的直接的社会目的是保障劳动者的社会保险权利。社会保险权作为劳动者基本人权的内容 ,主要体现在劳动者生存权的保障上。劳动者在社会保险法律关系中 ,是受益主体 ,更是权利主体。社会保险基金的来源 ,在一般意义上应该是社会筹集 ,国家、雇主和劳动者都有责任。社会保险基金的管理 ,应该由政府主管并由政府委托的部门具体运作 ,但考虑到我国是一个社会主义国家 ,应该研究劳动者对于基金管理和使用的介入和监督的问题