Social orientation and the social self-esteem of gifted and talented female adolescents

Carlson's developmental theory of self-concept provides a theoretical explanation for equivalent levels of self-esteem among both sexes, despite sex differences in self-concept. The present study tests the applicability of Carlson's theory for a sample of gifted and talented female adolescents by examining three dimensions of possible self-esteem antecedents: actual talent ratings, self-perceptions of talent, and personality attributes. According to Carlson, talent ratings, self-perceptions, and personality attributes consistent with the feminine gender-role stereotype and a social orientation should emerge as positive predictors of the female adolescent's social self-esteem. Results of the regression analyses indicate that the best prediction of the social self-esteem of gifted and talented female adolescents is obtained from a combination of stereotypic feminine socially oriented and stereotypic masculine personally oriented predictor variables. For this sample, constructs such as androgyny appear to be more relevant to the understanding of social self-esteem than dichotomies such as personal-social orientation.This research was supported in part by a grant from the Women's Educational Equity Act, U.S. Office of Education Grant OE G00760497.Received Ph.D. in educational psychology from Case Western Reserve University. Research interest is the career development of the gifted and talented.Received Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Research interests include individual differences, the gifted and talented, and creativity.     

Verbal giftedness and sociopolitical intelligence: Terman revisited

This paper reports on a three-year study of sociopolitical intelligence-defined as the ability to formulate viable solutions to moral, social, and political problems—in adolescence. From an initial sample of 659 intellectually gifted 12- and 13-year-olds, 58 students with the highest SAT-V scores were selected for study. From a later sample of 506 equally gifted 13- and 14-year-olds, 120 students were selected using measures of verbal intelligence (DAT), social insight, and creative potential, as well as academic and nonacademic achievement. On the basis of a variety of personality and cognitive measures the students in both samples were found to be unusually mature and well adjusted but to vary considerably in sociopolitical intelligence. These results suggest in partial agreement with Terman's earlier findings concerning the gifted, that above a certain level of tested intelligence the critical determinants of effective, practical performance may be personality and biographical variables.This research was supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the first author.Received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Berkely. Major interests are personality theory and moral developmentReceived her Ph.D. in psychology from The Johns Hopkins University. Major interests are personality theory and medical psychology.Received his Ph.D. in psychology from The Johns Hopkins University. Major interests are education and developmental psychology.Graduate student in psychology, The Johns Hopkins University. B. A. University of Oregon, 1973. Major research interest is personality correlates of high-level achievement.Main research interest is the development of sociopolitical achievement.     

Adolescent idolization of pop singers: Causes,expressions, and reliance

The study examines the phenomenon of adolescents' idolization of pop singers. Male and female adolescents from three age groups (ages 10–11, 13–14, and 16–17) were compared with regard to the intensity of idolization, its behavioral manifestations, causes for selecting the idol, and reliance for knowledge on the idol. The results of self-reports indicated that the phenomenon of idolization, expressed especially in worshipping and modeling, is strongest in the youngest age group and decreases in intensity with age. Also, it was found that girls idolize singers more than boys. The youngest age group, especially girls, rely on singers with regard to knowledge concerning personal matters. These findings were explained within the frameworks of gender differences, adolescence characteristics, and youth culture development.This paper was prepared while the first and the third authors were on sabbatical at the Department of Psychology, Maryland University, College Park, Maryland.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Hebrew University, 1974. Research interests include school psychology, social cognition, and media psychology.Received Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, 1974. Research interests include political psychology, social psychology, and social development.Received Ph.D. in statistics from the Hebrew University, 1976. Research interests concern applied statistics and nonparametric statistics.Received MA in clinical child psychology, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University.     

Psychological adjustment in a college-level program of marked academic acceleration

The questionnaire responses of 24 markedly accelerated young students were compared with those of 24 regular-aged university students, 23 National Merit Scholars, and 27 students who had qualified for acceleration but instead elected to participate in high school. Measures included the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, California Psychological Inventory, the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, and the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment. Accelerated students differed minimally from the college-aged groups, and not at all from high-ability age mates, on all of the measures, a finding contrary to the expectation that skipping high school is likely to be deleterious to one's adjustment. Both groups of normal-aged college students were more socially assertive. The accelerated students were less conforming and conventional than the others, but mean differences were small and not indicative of admustment difficulties. The study provides no basis for concern about the typical psychological and social adjustment of accelerated students.The research reported here and, in part, the program it describes, were funded by a grant from the William H. Donner Foundation, the support of which is gratefully acknowledged.Received Ph.D. from Standford University. Research interests include the development of gifted and mentally retarded individuals.Received Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Research interests include psychosocial aspects of talent development.     

Life satisfaction,self-concept,and relationship with parents in adolescence

The influence of self-concept and relationships with parents and school on life satisfaction of adolescents was explored in 1156 Chinese junior high school children in Hong Kong. Adopting the multidimensional approach, self-concept was measured globally as well as in four specific aspects, namely, academic ability, social ability, physical ability, and physical appearance. Results show that all self-concept measures are correlated with life satisfaction, but the strongest correlation was found between general self-concept and life satisfaction. This pattern is consistent with American findings in that a higher self-concept was related to more life satisfaction, but the correlation obtained was much weaker in the present study. In a series of regression analyses, it was found that relationship with parents dominated the prediction of life satisfaction, and only the social ability component of self-concept was able to account for a small amount of extra variance. Relationship with school was not related to life satisfaction in any significant way. Implications of these results are discussed.This study was supported by the Centre for Hong Kong Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong through a Social Policy Research Programme on Policy for Prevocational Education in Hong Kong.Received Ph.D. from Massey University, New Zealand. Research interests include educational psychology, operant conditioning, behavior modification, and rehabilitation.Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois in social, industrial, and organizational psychology. Research interests included cross-cultural psychology, social justice, and the psychology of adolescence.     

Perception of epistemic authorities by children and adolescents

The study investigated children's and adolescents' perceptions of epistemic authorities in various knowledge domains. Children and adolescents from 4th, 8th, and 12th grades were asked to evaluate their father, mother, teacher, and friends as epistemic authorities in nine areas of knowledge content. In general, the results indicated that the perception of parents as epistemic authorities decreases with age. Nevertheless, children and adolescents continue to consider one or both parents to be the most important epistemic authorities. The perception of friends as epistemic authority increased relative to other sources in the social domains of knowledge. The perception of teachers as epistemic authority decreases with age, but in the formal knowledge domain it remains relatively stable.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Research interests concern media psychology, knowledge formation, and school psychology. Requests for reprints should be sent to Amiram Raviv at Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel 69978.Received Ph.D. in psychology from University of Pittsburgh. Research interests concern political psychology, social psychology of knowledge, and stereotyping.Received Ph.D. in statistics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Research interests concern nonparametric statistics and applied statistics.Received M.A. degree in clinical child psychology from Tel Aviv University.     

Why do adolescents use drugs? Age,sex, and user differences

This paper makes four points: (1) There is substantial substance use among adolescents in our large rural southwestern sample. (2) Adolescents explain their drug use with five kinds of reasons (i.e., Belonging, Coping, Pleasure, Creativity, and Aggression). (3) Different reasons for using drugs are related to frequency of substance use. (4) There are age, gender, and user differences in the reasons adolescents have for their drug use. After summarizing traditional ways of thinking about drug use, we describe an alternative way for examining such behavior. We use this approach to study relationships between drug use reasons and age, gender, and substance use in 2637 6th–12th-grade students. We then discuss prevention and treatment implications of this research.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include school dropouts, substance use, delinqueccy, personal commitments, health, and identity.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include at-risk youth, substance use, delinquency, narcissism, and identity.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include moral development and personality.     

Adoptees' portrayal of the development of family structure

Young adult adoptees and nonadoptees provided retrospective accounts of family relationships from infancy to young adulthood. Adoptive families were portrayed as more cohesive and adaptable than nonadoptive families. Adoptive fathers were recalled as being closer to their children then were nonadoptive fathers in the years preceding adolescence. Within the same time frame, adoptive mothers were drawn in a less hierarchical relation to their children than were other parents. Also, while adoptive males saw themselves as presently unconnected to their adoptive parents, adopted females perceived themselves as more connected to their parents in the present than any other period of time. Openness of communication and acknowledgment of difference in adoptive family formation varied with graphic retrospective accounts. Results were considered in terms of discontinuities between reported observations of adoptive families and adoptees' personal reflections on family developmental history.Received PhD in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Book. Research interests: adoptive family relations, social attributions of children and their parents.Received M.A. from the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1. Research interests: development of identity, adoption.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Toronto. Research interests: attribution, jealousy, parents' theories of child psychology.     

Developmental Differences in Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Use of Mothers, Fathers, Best Friends, and Romantic Partners to Fulfill Attachment Needs

Adolescents and young adults (three age groups: 12–15, 16–19, and 20–28 years) reported their use of parents, and peers to fulfill attachment functions (proximity-seeking, safe haven, and secure base.) The use of each target figure varied with age and attachment function. Mothers were an important source of security across this age range. They were used as secure base consistently more than fathers or peers for all age groups, and regardless of whether or not participants had romantic partners; but were used less for proximity and safe haven by the two older groups. Best friends were used most and more than others as a safe haven; but were used less by young adults (vs. early adolescents) and by older adolescents with romantic partners. Romantic partners were used most and more than others for proximity; but were used less by early adolescents than by older participants. Fathers were selected less than other targets for all attachment functions. Those with romantic partners turned to them more than to others, and young adults selected their romantic partners as much as friends for safe haven. Those insecurely attached to mother turned to her less and to romantic partners more than did those securely attached. Implications for developmental changes in adolescent attachments are discussed. Professor of Psychology and Applied Human Sciences, Concordia University. Received PhD in social psychology from Ohio State University. Research interests include close interpersonal relationships and adjustment. Received MA in social/developmental psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University. Research interests include attachment and well-being in adolescence Received PhD in developmental psychology from Stanford University. Research interests include parenting, attachment, and adjustment in adolescence Received BA in Psychology (Honors) from Concordia University. Research interests include romantic relationships in adolescence     

Identity commitments and coping with a difficult developmental transition

This longitudinal study examines the effects of contrasting social identities (social vs. academic) on coping responses and adjustment among 32 college freshmen on academic probation. Multiple adjustment indices (depression, college life satisfaction, and academic performance) are assessed at the start and end of the probation semester. Coping responses were assessed in a midsemester interview. Few between-group differences were found on mean levels of coping responses. However, the association between particular coping responses and adjustment indices differed for academically vs. socially oriented students. The effective coping responses were those that were consonant with social identities. Positive social involvements were more effective for socially oriented students, while positive academic involvements were more effective for the academically oriented. These findings remained significant even after controlling for baseline measures of outcomes. Implications are discussed for understanding social support and coping in the context of lifespan development.This article is based on a master's thesis submitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by first author under the direction of the second author. The second author was supported in part by a New Investigator Research Award in Prevention from the National Institute of Mental Health.Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Research intgerests include stress and coping, social support, and community intervention.Received Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. Research interests include clinical-community psychology, ecology of adolescent development, social networks, and preventive intervention.     

Exceptional giftedness in early adolescence and intrafamilial divergent thinking

Two groups of boys and their parents (N=54) were given five divergent thinking tests as one part of a longitudinal investigation on exceptional giftedness in early adolescence. One groups of adolescents was selected because their IQs were above 150, and the other group, was selected because of their outstanding math-science abilities. Canonical and bivariate analyses indicated that there was a strong correlation between the adolescents' divergent thinking test scores and their parents' divergent thinking test scores (Rc=.55). Additionally, there was some indication that these correlations differed in the two exceptionally gifted groups, with the high-IQ group having divergent thinking test scores related to those of both parents, and the math-science group having divergent thinking test scores related only to those of their mothers. These findings are very consistent with earlier investigations on exceptionally gifted adolescents.This research was supported by a grant to M.A.R. from the University Research Council of the University of Hawaii, and by grants to R.S.A. from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.Received Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School. Research interests include creative, gifted, and autistic children, and psychometrics.Received Ph.D. from Boston University. Research interests include child development, long-term family involvement, giftedness, and the achievement of eminence.     

Parental role in teenage driving

Students in 75 high schools in seven states participated in a questionnaire survey. The results showed that high school students want to become licensed as soon as possible and that parents are important in teaching them to drive. Once licensed, the majority of students have their own cars, though they do not typically pay the majority of the costs. Seventy-one percent of licensed students who do not have their own cars reported that they can usually or always use a family car. Most students, particularly younger ones and females, reported that their parents expect them to conform to certain rules or restrictions when driving and when riding as passengers. The most common restrictions were that their parents asked them not to drive after drinking, to tell parents where they were going and with whom, and to be home at a certain time. Students were far less likely to report that their parents required that they wear seat belts.This work was supported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.Received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Yale University. Research interests are highway safety, pedestrian safety, and evaluation of training and education programs.Received a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. Research interests are the factors related to motor vehicle injuries, drinking and driving, and the crash involvement of teenagers.Received a Ph.D. in social psychology from State University of New York at Buffalo. Research interests are health behavior and the role of the individual in public health.     

The inventory of high-school students' recent life experiences: A decontaminated measure of adolescents' hassles

A new decontaminated hassles measure for adolescents, the Inventory of High-School Students' Recent Life Experiences (IHSSRLE), was validated. A pool of 49 items was administered to 99 high-school students along with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Forty-one items were selected for the final form of the IHSSRLE, based on significant positive correlations with the PSS. The alpha reliability of the IHSSRLE was .91, and its correlation against the PSS was .68, p<.01. To guard against capitalization on chance, the same scales were administered to an independent sample of 77 high-school students. The alpha reliability of the IHSSRLE in the new sample was .90 and its correlation against the PSS was .63, p<.01. Factor analysis of the measure yielded eight factors. Intercorrelations among factor-based subscales were sufficiently low to suggest that the IHSSRLE is relatively free from contamination by psychological distress.Received a Ph.D. degree in social psychology from Harvard University. Research interests include personality factors in vulnerability to the adverse effects of stress, and causal factors in drug and alcohol abuse.Received an Honors B.A. in psychology, and a B.Ed, from York University. Main research interests are adolescent stress, and adolescent drug and alcohol use.     

Social psychological factors involved in adolescents' efforts to prevent their friends from driving while intoxicated

The present research examined factors that could be used to improve campaigns geared toward having adolescents prevent their friends from driving while intoxicated. Three areas were examined: (1) adolescents' ability to make accurate judgments of their friends' drunkenness using information about the number of drinks consumed and the time to consume, (2) their perceptions of the consequences that could ensue if they were to attempt to prevent their friends from driving while intoxicated, and (3) their knowledge of viable strategies if they were to attempt such interventions with their friends. The results show that adolescents have perceptual biases when using information about number of drinks and time to consume when making judgments of drunkenness, and that intervention attempts with friends are likely to result in confrontations. The implications of these findings for the timing and content of educational efforts is discussed.This research was supported in part by Grant AA0687502 from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and by the Center for Applied Research at the State University of New York at Albany.Received Ph.D. from University at Albany. Research interest is in social and cognitive psychology.Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois. Research interest is in social and cognitive psychology.Research interest in developmental psychology.Received B.S. from Siena College. Research interest is in social and cognitive psychology.     

The Offer Self-Image Questionnaire for adolescents: Psychometric properties and factor structure

The reliability and validity of the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ) for adolescents were investigated using data from an Australian sample of male and female school students, with an average age of 14.9 years (n=216). Reliability coefficients were high for all subscales except the Morals subscale. Results indicated significant correlations of the OSIQ subscales with Lang and Tisher's Children's Depression Scale of 1978 and small correlations with a measure of social desirability. A factor analysis yielded five interpretable oblique factors that support the concept of a multidimensional self-image. Identification of items contributing little to the subscale alphas, and not loading on the factors yielded by the factor analysis, highlights the need for further development and validation of the OSIQ. Implications for the development of the self-concept at adolescence are also discussed.Received Ph.D. from University of Queensland. Research interests are adolescent development, self-concept, and career development.Received Ph.D. from University of Queensland. Research interests are adolescence, family, and communication.     

General,social, and academic self-concepts of gifted adolescents

Seven hundred seventy-two male and female adolescents (between the ages of 12 and 15) participated in a study concerning the identification and socioemotional situation of various subgroups of gifted students (N=94). In this article only the results concerning general, social, and academic selfconcepts of gifted adolescents are reported. A distinction is made between four groups: two groups of gifted achievers (one with high (N=22) and another with below average creativity questionnaire scores (N=45), a group of gifted underachievers (N =27), and a control group (N=74). The multiple and hierarchical model of self-concept by Shavelson et al.serves as a framework for our approach. The most striking differences are found between gifted achievers and gifted underachievers. The latter demonstrate very low academic self-concept and high test anxiety scores, an external locus of control, and low scores on school well-being and motivation. A positive self-concept in all areas seems to be the driving force for achievements, which are in accordance with high potential intellectual aptitudes. Similar results were reported by Feldhusen.Received M.A. from University of Nijmegen. Research Interests: cognitive development of adolescents, giftedness, and sociometric status.Received Ph.D. from the University of Bonn, Germany. Research interests: early indicators of giftedness, gifted education, and developmental processes of gifted children and adolescents.     

Identity status in high school students: Critique and a revised paradigm

The validity of applying the Marcia identity status paradigm to study of high school students is examined. Uncritical categorization of young adolescents into the identity statuses originally validated upon university students raises various issues. A revised paradigm for study of identity style among high school students is presented. It is suggested that the issues raised—the validity of measures for varying age groups and the role of environmental demands—are related to the eventual formulation of a life-span conceptualization of identity style.Received his Ph.D. from University of Toronto. Research interests are life-span developmental psychology and adolescent behavior.Received B. A. from the Northeastern Illinois University.     

Drug culture expertise and substance use

This study concerns the relationship between knowledge of drug culture and substance use. Results from a sample of 2,635 middle and high school students indicate that (1) knowledge of drug culture is positively correlated with substance use; (2) drug knowledge is more reliable and coherent in older youth; (3) drug knowledge is unrelated to other kinds of knowledge acquired in school; (4) youth exposed to peers' substance use in school have more drug knowledge; and (5) the earlier young people begin using drugs and alcohol, the more they know about the drug culture. Results suggest that knowledge of the drug culture may be an unobtrusive indicator of substance use problems.This project was made possible by a grant from the Tulsa Psychiatric Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include school dropouts, substance use, delinquency, identity, narcissism, and health. To whom correspondence should be addressed.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include school dropouts, substance use, delinquency, personal commitments, identity, narcissism, and health.Received Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in personality psychology. Research interests include moral development and personality.     

Gifted adolescents and intimacy in close same-sex friendships

As most research with gifted children has demonstrated that giftedness has a positive effect on popularity and social self-esteem, it was expected that gifted adolescents would demonstrate higher intimacy with their same-sex closest friends and would tend to evince a more secure attachment style than nongifted cohorts. A total of 56 gifted and nongifted 9th graders completed questionnaires regarding their intimacy with closest same-sex friend and attachment style. However, the hypotheses were not confirmed. Gifted adolescents of both sexes reported lower intimacy with their closest same-sex friends than nongifted adolescents, and they did not differ from the latter in the frequency of the attachment styles they exhibited. These results are discussed in light of the distinction between instrumentality and expressiveness in social relations; it is suggested that gifted adolescents have a stronger instrumental orientation than others. While this may prove conducive to close relationships at the preadolescent stage, it does not give them an advantage during adolescence.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Current research interests are close relationships, attachment, intimacy, and identity formation.     

Components of loneliness during adolescence

Predictors of adolescent loneliness were investigated in two samples of high school students (n=92)and college undergraduates (n=192).Results were similar across samples. Among the high school sample loneliness was significantly predicted by a combination of alienation, a lack of social facility and acceptance, inferiority feelings, negative school attitudes, and a lack of social integration. Among college students loneliness was negatively related to social facility, regularity, approval, and involvement and positively related to alienation, parental disinterest, negative school attitudes, and inferiority feelings.Research interests include loneliness and self-concept.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from Oklahoma State University. Research interests include loneliness and friendships.