A Pretty Fine Line: Life, Death, Autonomy and Letting it B

The cases of Diane Pretty and Ms B. raise crucial issues about decision-making and autonomy at the end of life. Ms B. was permitted her wish to die rather than live permanently dependent upon a ventilator because her case was constructed as one about withholding consent to medical treatment, which every adult with capacity has a right to do. Mrs Pretty, however, sought active intervention to end her life. Requiring assistance to die, and claiming that this was her human right, she sought an assurance that her husband would not be prosecuted if he helped her. Her claim was rejected and the assurance refused. The cases prompt questions about the nature of autonomy, the influence of others and the different way sin which medical and legal decisions are made. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Anger, Happiness, and Sadness: Associations with Depressive Symptoms in Late Adolescence

This study used self-report and observational methods to examine associations between depressive symptoms and patterns of emotional experience and expression during late adolescence. Fiftyone male and 49 female first and second year college students completed questionnaires on emotion experience and were videotaped while completing a frustrating task with a friend. Emotion expressions were coded from videotapes. Findings revealed associations between depressive symptoms and reporting high anger experience in the past month but displaying low anger with a friend, reporting low happiness but showing high happiness in the task, and reporting high sadness experience. Gender differences were found in depressive symptoms and in observed and reported happiness. Findings highlight the importance of anger and happiness, in addition to sadness, for depression.Received a PhD in child clinical psychology with a minor in developmental psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the role of emotion regulation in the development of psychopathology, particularly the development of depression in adolescence.     

Parenting,Peer Orientation,Drug Use,and Antisocial Behavior in Late Adolescence: A Cross-National Study

The objective of this study was to investigate the links between maternal and paternal bonding, parental practices, orientation toward peers, and the prevalence of drug use and antisocial behavior during late adolescence. A model was tested using structural equation modeling in order to verify the robustness of the investigated links across 3 countries: Canada, France, and Italy. A self-report questionnaire was given to a sample of 908 adolescents, with an equivalent number of girls and boys, in Grade 11. The questionnaire assessed the following variables: parental bonding, parental supervision, parental tolerance, orientation toward peers, involvement in physically aggressive antisocial behavior, non-physically aggressive antisocial behavior, and drug use. The model was robust across the 3 countries, thus confirming a path that identified quality of emotional bonds between adolescents and their parents as a distal variable acting upon deviant behaviors through the following mediators: parental supervision, parental tolerance, frequency of conflicts, and orientation toward peers. Michel Claes is full professor at the Université de Montréal, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Education from Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. His major research interest is in social development in adolescence, with a special focus on intercultural studies.     

Aggressive Problem-Solving Strategies,Aggressive Behavior,and Social Acceptance in Early and Late Adolescence

This study examined the relations between aggressive problem-solving strategies and aggressive behavior, and the intervening role of social acceptance in that relation in early and late adolescence. The subjects were 1655 11- and 17-year-old adolescents (863 girls and 792 boys). They completed a questionnaire measuring aggressive problem-solving strategies, while assessments of aggressive behavior and social acceptance were obtained by peer nominations. The results showed that aggressive problem-solving strategies were significantly but not very highly associated with aggressive behavior among both age groups. The role of social acceptance was of high importance, this being the major finding of this study. The aggressive-accepted adolescents underestimated their aggressiveness, i.e., had as low a level of self-rated aggressive strategies as the nonaggressive adolescents. This was particularly true of the late adolescents. The self-rated strategies of the nonaggressive adolescents were not dependent on their level of social acceptance. Finally, some gender differences were found. The findings are discussed in terms of the development of sociability and social knowledge about the self.     

Changes in Discrepancies Between Desired and Present States of Developmental Tasks in Adolescence: A 4-Process Model

Individuals direct their own development by setting developmental goals and striving for goal attainment. Human development includes reductions in discrepancies between desired and actual states, as is the case in goal attainment and reduction of aspirations, as well as increases of discrepancies, for example, when individuals increase their aspirations or face setbacks. The present study analyzed how ways of changing discrepancies between desired and actual states of solving developmental tasks relate to changes in adolescents' self-esteem across a 2-year period. With regard to discrepancy-reducing processes we found that increases in goal attainment were associated with increased self-esteem whereas reductions of aspirations were not systematically associated with self-esteem change. With regard to discrepancy-producing processes, diminishing of the present state was consistently associated with declines in self-esteem, whereas increases in aspirations showed inconsistent associations with self-esteem changes. The results indicate similarities and differences between developmental regulation in adolescence and adulthood.     

Negative Life Events and Depressive Symptoms in Late Adolescence: Bonding and Cognitive Coping as Vulnerability Factors?

The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of parental bonding and cognitive coping in the relationship between negative life events and depressive symptoms in adolescence. A sample of 1310 adolescents attending an intermediate vocational education school filled out a questionnaire. Adolescents with a poor parental bonding relationship seemed to be more vulnerable to depressive symptoms in the face of adverse life events than adolescents with more optimal bonding styles. Cognitive coping strategies seemed to play an even more important role. The use of self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing, positive refocusing, and positive reappraisal appeared to be related to depressive symptoms. In addition, self-blame, rumination, and positive reappraisal seemed to have a moderating role in the relationship between the amount of stress experienced and depressive symptoms. Developing prevention and intervention programs aimed at the formation of optimal bonding relationships and teaching adolescents adaptive cognitive coping strategies seems advisable.     

Same-sex Versus Other-sex Best Friendship in Early Adolescence: Longitudinal Predictors of Antisocial Behavior Throughout Adolescence

This study examines the relationship between having other-sex versus same-sex best friends and antisocial behavior throughout early adolescence. Participants (N = 955) were recruited in 6th grade and followed longitudinally through 7th, 8th, and 11th grades. Participants were 58% ethnically diverse youth and 48% girls. Results indicate that the frequency of other-sex best friendship remained stable from 6th to 7th grade but significantly increased from 8th to 11th grade. Higher rates of concurrent antisocial behavior were related to having other-sex best friends in 6th grade but not in 7th grade. In 8th grade, there was an interaction between friendship and the sex of friends. Boys with only same-sex best friends and girls with other-sex best friends endorsed higher rates of antisocial behavior. Having other-sex best friends predicted antisocial behavior from 6th to 7th grade and 8th to 11th grade, especially for girls. Implications for the development of early adolescent friendship and antisocial behavior are discussed.

Affective Development from Middle Childhood to Late Adolescence: Trajectories of Mean-Level Change in Negative and Positive Affect

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescence has long been purported to be a period of emotional upheaval, yet relatively little is known regarding normative patterns of change in youth positive...     

The Prospective Associations between Self-Efficacy and Depressive Symptoms from Early to Middle Adolescence: A Cross-Lagged Model

Over the course of adolescence, an increasing number of adolescents experience depression. In order to effectively target depression, identifying risk factors for depressive symptoms is pivotal. Since low levels of self-efficacy were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in previous studies, the current study investigated the bidirectional and prospective associations between depressive symptoms and academic, social and emotional self-efficacy from early to mid adolescence in a cross-lagged path model. The sample consisted of 1,341 adolescents (47?% girls) with a mean age of 14 years, SD?=?0.56. Depressive symptoms and self-efficacy levels were assessed every 6 months over a period of 2.5 years. Depressive symptoms predicted subsequent levels of academic and emotional self-efficacy on all time points, and social self-efficacy on one time point. Self-efficacy did not predict subsequent levels of depressive symptoms. There was no evidence of sex differences in the cross-lagged associations between depressive symptoms and self-efficacy levels. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Sustaining Life: Rethinking Modes of Agency in Vulnerability

ABSTRACT

This article discusses ambivalence in the meaning and attribution of agency, and the role it plays in understanding vulnerability as a concept and condition that is specific to individual bodies. This involves examining agency as an embodied resource that vulnerability might draw upon when bodies endure conditions of uncertainty, detention and exile. The documenting of a partial narrative of an individual who set his body on fire provides an analytic lens through which to investigate the complexity and contextual specificities of vulnerability. The article argues that working with a single modality of agency resulting from a certain slippage between meanings of agency, political agency and resistance, might result in foreclosing alternative forms of living and sustaining lives. Agency is considered more expansively as a capacity for action that is necessarily mediated through situated capabilities, struggles and desires. The article argues for the need to analyse concepts held within a ‘grammar of vulnerability’ in order to discuss modalities of agency that capture both activities of resistance, but also other, often unseen, investments in sensory, affective and physical labours required for everyday activities in which individuals sustain their lives.     

Patterns of Spiritual Connectedness during Adolescence: Links to Coping and Adjustment in Low-Income Urban Youth

Religiosity and spirituality are influential experiences that buffer adverse effects of stressors. Spirituality typically declines during adolescence, although not universally. Using Latent Class Growth Analysis, we examined changes in spiritual connectedness among 188 early (52% female; M age?=?10.77, SD?=?0.65 years) and 167 middle (56% female; M age?=?13.68, SD?=?0.82 years) predominantly African American adolescents participating in a 4-year longitudinal study. Three distinct profiles of spiritual connectedness emerged: low and steady, moderate with declines over the study period, and high and steady. Profile distributions varied across developmental level: there were more early adolescents in the high and steady profile and more middle adolescents in the decliner profile. Youth in the high and steady profile evidenced more goal-directedness and life satisfaction and more effective emotion management and coping strategies than youth in other profiles. Contributions to the positive development literature are discussed.     

Impact of Early Adolescent Externalizing Problem Behaviors on Identity Development in Middle to Late Adolescence: A Prospective 7-Year Longitudinal Study

Adolescents at-risk for problem behaviors can have more difficulties in developing a firm sense of personal identity. Hence the purpose of this prospective longitudinal study was to scrutinize how externalizing problems in early adolescence impact identity development in middle to late adolescence. Participants were 443 (43.12 % female) Dutch adolescents. Teachers rated their externalizing problem behaviors when participants were 11 or 12 years old and their identity formation was studied during five consecutive years (from 14 to 18 years of age). The sample was divided into four groups: boys and girls with a high versus a low-risk for externalizing problem behaviors. Participants completed a self-report measure of identity commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment. Multi-group Latent Growth Curve and profile stability analyses were used to evaluate identity development across adolescence. Findings indicated that high-risk boys and girls reported a less structured identity, with lower levels of commitment and higher levels of reconsideration of commitment. Since externalizing problems behaviors and lack of a coherent sense of identity might reinforce each other, early intervention for high-risk adolescents might foster positive youth development.     

Pubertal Timing and Substance Use in Middle Adolescence: A 2-Year Follow-up Study

Earlier research has associated early puberty with emotional and behavioral symptoms particularly among girls, while among boys, findings have been contradictory as to whether risks are associated with early or late pubertal timing. We studied the association between pubertal timing and substance use behaviors in middle adolescence in a 2-year follow up study of 2,070 (mean age 15.5 years, SD 0.36; 56.4% females) Finnish adolescents. Pubertal timing was measured by age at menarche/oigarche. Eleven years or less was classified as early, 12–13 years as normative and 14 years or later as late pubertal timing. Substance use behaviors were elicited by a number of questions related to alcohol use patterns, smoking and cannabis use. As factors that could explain the association between pubertal timing and substance use, we studied depressive symptoms, delinquency and aggression, and parental monitoring. In boys, all these substance use behaviors were the more common the earlier the puberty and the associations persisted at age 17. Among girls, early pubertal timing was similarly associated with substance use behaviors at age 15, but no longer at age 17. The associations between pubertal timing and substance use behaviors persisted when symptom dimensions and parental monitoring were added into the models. Early puberty is a risk factor for substance use particularly among boys. Among girls, the impact of pubertal timing already tempers off during adolescence.     

Conflict Beliefs,Goals, and Behavior in Romantic Relationships During Late Adolescence

Little is known about social cognition regarding conflict in romantic relationships during late adolescence. The current study examined beliefs, social goals, and behavioral strategies for conflict in romantic relationships and their associations with relationship quality among a sample of 494 college students. Two dimensions of conflict beliefs, constructive and destructive, were identified. Constructive conflict beliefs were associated with relationship-oriented conflict goals and negotiation strategies during romantic conflict. Destructive conflict beliefs were associated with conflict goals focused on revenge or individual needs (self or partner) and with destructive conflict behavior (aggression and compliance). Conflict goals partially mediated links between general conflict beliefs and specific conflict strategies. Conflict beliefs, goals, and behavior also uniquely predicted the degree of conflict and intimacy in romantic relationships.

Vulnerability,Agency and the Ambivalence of Place in Narratives of Rape in Three High-Profile Swedish Cases

For decades, the media have frequently been instrumental in framing rape cases by linking the deed with the place. This study demonstrates that law courts are not innocent of such social framing; on the contrary, they are significant agents. We argue that courts, by shaping the plot in rape cases, participate in an ongoing cultural production of meaning, although in a more subtle and ambivalent way than the media. In a narrative analysis of three contemporary rape cases in Sweden, we bring together feminist research on place with the concepts of vulnerability and agency. We argue that place is framed as ambivalent in relation to vulnerability and agency, and dependent on the positioning of plaintiff and defendant. In court narratives, geographical places are made relevant, including the locations where the alleged rapes took place. Court narratives of rape include highly ambivalent connotations with place in relation to vulnerability and agency, distinguished by different narratives and outcomes in the various instances. The legal and social implications of our work should include an awareness of the relevance of place in relation to rape.     

Identity Orientation, Voice, and Judgments of Procedural Justice During Late Adolescence

This study focused on the relationship between voice and judgments of procedural justice in a sample of older adolescents and examined potential moderating and mediating influences of identity orientation (personal, social, and collective) and negative emotional response. Participants read 1 of 2 different family conflict scenarios (voice and no voice) asking them to imagine themselves in a disagreement with their parents over grades and financial support. In the voice condition, parents were described as making their decision after listening to the participant’s input. In the no voice condition, parents were described as making their decision without listening to the participant’s input. The adolescents then judged the fairness of the parental decisions and responded to questions concerning their identity orientation. Findings indicate that in addition to replicating the effect of voice in a novel context, the present investigation found moderating effects of personal identity orientation on procedural fairness judgments. Additionally, negative emotional response partially mediated the relationship between voice and global judgments of procedural fairness.Mark R. Fondacaro is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of the Levin College of Law Center on Children and Families at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University and his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. His major research interests are ecological jurisprudence and the conceptualization and assessment of procedural justice in legal and extra-legal contexts including the family and the juvenile justice and health care systems.Eve M. Brank is an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of Florida. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology and her J.D. from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her major research interests are parental responsibility laws and juvenile law issues.Jennifer Stuart is a graduate student in counseling psychology at the University of Florida. Her major research interests are adolescent development and delinquency prevention.Sara Villanueva-Abraham received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Florida. Her major research interests are adolescent development and parent-child relationships.Jennifer Luescher is a Forensic Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She received her Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Florida. Her major research interests are in the areas of procedural justice, risk assessment and risk management, and mental health and juvenile justice policy.Penny S. McNatt is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of North Florida. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Florida. Her major research interests are in the area of intergroup relations.     

Purpose Trajectories During Middle Adolescence: The Roles of Family,Teacher, and Peer Support

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - While studies on youth’s purpose have flourished in the last two decades, the work was mostly cross-sectional and derived from Western settings. This...     

Mastery in Middle Adolescence: The Contributions of Socioeconomic Status, Maternal Mastery and Supportive-Involved Mothering

Mastery, or the feeling of power or control over one’s life, is a vital yet understudied covariate of wellbeing in adolescence and adulthood. The goal of the current study was to explore the effects of demographic characteristics (i.e., sex, age, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES)), maternal mastery, and supportive-involved mothering on children’s mastery at ages 16–17 years. 855 teens (47.6 % female) and their mothers provided study data as part of the 1992 and 1998 waves of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (NLSY-79; 24.1 % Hispanic, 36.6 % Black). Hybrid path models indicated that only maternal parenting during middle childhood was linked directly to levels of children’s mastery in middle adolescence; a small portion of the association between parenting and adolescent mastery was attributable to SES. The discussion centers on significance of these findings for future research and theory development.