Leisure Behavior Pattern Stability During the Transition from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Leisure is an important context in which human development occurs. Changes in leisure behavior patterns may indicate changing developmental needs or reflect contextual changes that impact leisure behavior. The transition from adolescence to young adulthood provides an excellent opportunity for the study of the stability of leisure behavior as individuals' contexts are changed with the adoption of adult roles and the potential for disruption of leisure patterns exists. Previous studies investigating leisure and the transition from adolescence to young adulthood have tended to be cross-sectional and focus on specific leisure behaviors rather than identifying patterns of leisure behavior. The present study involved a longitudinal investigation of leisure behavior patterns over a three-year period during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, and determined the nature of leisure pattern stability and instability during this period. In general, leisure pattern stability was the most common pathway into young adulthood. The patterns of leisure behavior and the nature of the changes that occurred with the transition from adolescence to young adulthood differed to some degree for males and females, although similarities in patterns and transitions were also found.     

Staying Cool Across the First Year of Middle School

As students transition into middle school they must successfully negotiate a new, larger peer context to attain or maintain high social standing. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which the maintenance, attainment, and loss of a cool status over the course of the sixth grade is associated with student and classroom levels of physical, verbal, and relational aggression. To address this goal, we studied a sample of 1985 (55% girls) ethnically diverse adolescents from 99 sixth grade classrooms in the United States. Attaining a cool status at any point across the school year was associated with stronger aggressive reputations. Additionally, classroom norms for aggressive behavior moderated the association between changes in aggression over the school year and the stability of coolness such that students who maintained their coolness across the school year showed greater increases in their verbally aggressive reputations from fall to spring when they were in classrooms with higher levels of aggression. The findings illustrate the importance of fitting in with social norms for maintaining a high social status among a new set of peers in middle school.     

High School Drinker Typologies Predict Alcohol Involvement and Psychosocial Adjustment During Acclimation to College

This study examined differences among distinct types of high school drinkers on their alcohol involvement and psychosocial adjustment during the first semester of college. Participants were 147 college freshmen (66% female; 86% Caucasian) from a large Southeastern public university who reported on high school drinking and college stress, affect, drinking, and parenting. We used person-centered analyses to reveal relative stability in drinker typologies over the college transition and found some support for the lay-theory that restrictive parenting moderates this stability, with abstainers reacting against restrictive parenting in college through alcohol use. Finally, findings supported Block and Block's (1980) theory of ego-control and resilience such that high school experimenters showed better adaptation than abstainers and heavier users on indices of negative and positive affect. We discuss implications for a person-centered approach to the study of alcohol involvement during the college transition and the need to incorporate parenting constructs in college alcohol use research.Major interests are: Parenting and family processes related to adolescent substance use, and alcohol use across the college transition.Major interests are: Adolescent and young adult substance use and abuse.

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Individual and Family Predictors of the Perpetration of Dating Violence and Victimization in Late Adolescence

Teen dating violence is a crime of national concern with approximately one-fourth of adolescents reporting victimization of physical, psychological, or sexual dating violence each year. The present study examined how aggressive family dynamics in both childhood and early adolescence predicted the perpetration of dating violence and victimization in late adolescence. Children (n = 401, 43 % female) were followed from kindergarten entry to the age of 18 years. Early adolescent aggressive-oppositional problems at home and aggressive-oppositional problems at school each made unique predictions to the emergence of dating violence in late adolescence. The results suggest that aggressive family dynamics during childhood and early adolescence influence the development of dating violence primarily by fostering a child’s oppositional-aggressive responding style initially in the home, which is then generalized to other contexts. Although this study is limited by weaknesses detailed in the discussion, the contribution of longitudinal evidence including parent, teacher, and adolescent reports from both boys and girls, a dual-emphasis on the prediction of perpetration and victimization, as well as an analysis of both relations between variables and person-oriented group comparisons combine to make a unique contribution to the growing literature on adolescent partner violence.     

More Than a Just a Game: Video Game and Internet Use During Emerging Adulthood

The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer understanding of the pattern of video game and internet use among college students and to examine how electronic leisure was related to risk behaviors (i.e., drinking, drug use, sex), perceptions of the self (i.e., self worth and social acceptance), and relationships with others (i.e., relationship quality with parents and friends). Participants included 813 undergraduate students (500 young women, 313 young men, M age = 20, SD = 1.87) who were mainly European American (79%), unmarried (100%) and living outside their parents’ home (90%). Results suggested that (a) video game use was linked to negative outcomes for men and women, (b) different patterns of video game and internet use existed for men and women and (c) there were different relations to risk behaviors, feelings about the self, and relationship quality based on the type of internet use, and based on gender. The discussion focuses on the implications of electronic leisure on the overall health and development of young people as they transition to adulthood.     

Gender Differences in Self-Perceptions and Academic Outcomes: A Study of African American High School Students

There is increasing divergence in the academic outcomes of African American males and females. By most accounts, males are falling behind their female peers educationally as African American females are graduating from high schools at higher rates and are going on to college and graduate school in greater numbers. Some have suggested that school completion and performance is associated with how students feel about themselves. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in the relationship between self-perceptions and 2 academic outcomes among a sample of 243 African American high school sophomores. The results suggest that, overall, females are more favorably oriented toward high school completion. Both male and female students with more positive self-perceptions have stronger intentions to complete the current year of high school. Higher grade point averages were more strongly associated with greater self-efficacy for females than for males. Given these findings, increased attention to educational programming, societal messages, and future research is warranted.     

The Interplay Between Interpersonal Stress and Psychological Intimate Partner Violence Over Time for Young At-Risk Couples

The substantial number of young people in romantic relationships that involve intimate partner violence, a situation deleterious to physical and mental health, has resulted in increased attention to understanding the links between risk factors and course of violence. The current study examined couples’ interpersonal stress related to not liking partners’ friends and not getting along with parents as contextual factors associated with couples’ psychological partner violence and determined whether and when couples’ friend and parent stress increased the likelihood of couples’ psychological partner violence. A linear latent growth curve modeling approach was used with multiwave measures of psychological partner violence, friend stress, parent stress, and relationship satisfaction obtained from 196 men at risk for delinquency and their women partners over a 12-year period. At the initial assessment, on average, the men were age 21.5 years and the women were age 21 years. Findings indicated that couples experiencing high levels of friend and parent stress were more likely to engage in high levels of psychological partner violence and that increases in couples’ friend stress predicted increases in couples’ partner violence over time, even when accounting for the couples’ relationship satisfaction, marital status, children in the home, and financial strain. Interactive effects were at play when the couples were in their early 20s, with couples being most at risk for increases in psychological partner violence if they experienced both high friend stress and low relationship satisfaction. Couples’ friend stress had the greatest effect on psychological partner violence when the couples were in their early to mid 20s when levels of friend stress were high. As the couples reached their 30s, low relationship satisfaction became the leading predictor of couples’ psychological partner violence.     

Patterns of Aggressive Behavior and Peer Victimization from Childhood to Early Adolescence: A Latent Class Analysis

The developmental period characterized by the transition from childhood and elementary school to early adolescence and middle school has been associated with increases in aggressive behavior and peer victimization. Few longitudinal studies, however, have examined the stability of aggression and victimization during this critical transition. This study uses latent class analysis (LCA) to examine patterns of aggressive behavior and victimization during the transition to middle school among urban, public school students (N = 458; Girls = 53%; Latino/a = 53%; M age at t1 = 10.2 years). Independent LCA models were conducted using self-reported data assessing subjects’ involvement in aggressive conduct and victimization during the spring semesters of grades four, five, and six. Elementary school students in the fourth grade initially belonged to one of four groups identified as aggressor, victim, aggressor-victim, and uninvolved latent classes. Contrary to prior research, membership in these classes changed significantly by the time students completed their first year of middle school with most youth participating in episodes of aggression and victimization during the transition. Six common paths that describe patterns of aggressive behavior and victimization from the last two years of elementary school to the first year of middle school were found. Findings are discussed in the context of social dominance theory and prior research that has found greater stability in aggression and victimization among early adolescents.     

Anticipated Transition to Adulthood: The Effect of Educational Track,Gender, and Self-Evaluation on Finnish and Polish Adolescents' Future Orientation

In Finland and Poland, a total of 352 (192 boys and 160 girls) 17-year-old general secondary and vocational school students participated in a study investigating their anticipated transition to adulthood. In times of large sociohistorical change in both countries, Finland (economic depression) and Poland (change from socialism to market economy), we investigated to what extent those changes were reflected in the students' probability estimations (for potential goal attainment in three future life domains; education, occupation and family life), generational comparison (attaining a life different from the life of parents), future time extension (for anticipated events in those life domains), and self-evaluations (self-esteem and control over future). The results showed that girls in both countries expressed a higher level of probability for success in education than boys did. As expected, vocational school students in both countries expressed a lower probability of success in future occupation than general secondary school students did. General secondary school students from both countries expressed higher levels of self-esteem and control over future than vocational school students did. Unexpectedly, no differences between boys' and girls' probability estimations for family life were found, in either country. However, girls from both countries anticipated an earlier and more rapid transition to adulthood than boys did, thus reflecting social time tables. The results suggested that the educational track remains a significant stratifying factor in times of societal change in both countries.     

Shyness, Sociability, and Parental Support for the College Transition: Relation to Adolescents’ Adjustment

A path model was tested in an ethnically diverse sample of 350 college students in which shyness, sociability, and parental support for the college transition were related to loneliness and friendship quality. Furthermore, friendship quality and loneliness were related to depression and anxiety. High levels of shyness, low levels of sociability, and low levels of parental support were related to high levels of loneliness. High levels of parental support for the college transition were related to more positive friendship quality. Multiple regression analyses suggested that loneliness, but not friendship quality, were related to adolescents’ anxiety and depression. In addition, the interaction between shyness and sociability was significantly related to anxiety for African-American adolescents such that adolescents who reported low levels of sociability in combination with high levels of shyness reported the highest levels of anxiety. There was also a significant interaction between sociability and parental support for African-American adolescents such that high levels of sociability in combination with low levels of parental support for the college transition were related to high levels of anxiety. For White adolescents, only loneliness was related to anxiety. Nina S. Mounts is an associate professor at Northern Illinois University. She received her PhD in child and family studies from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her major research interests are on linkages between parent and peer contexts, parental management of adolescents’ peer relationships, and peer influence on adolescents. David P. Valentiner is an associate professor at Northern Illinois University. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from University of Texas-Austin. His major research interests are cognitive and emotional factors in anxiety disorders, including the development and maintenance of social anxiety. Katherine Anderson is a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her MS in developmental psychology from Northern Illinois University. Her major research interests are on career identity development in college students. Michelle Boswell is a graduate student at Northern Illinois University. She received her MS in clinical psychology from Northern Illinois University. Her major research interests are on parenting effects on bullying and victimization.     

Adults' attachment patterns: Coping with separations

The present study was designed to examine the correlation between attachment patterns of adults and reactions to separations from their significant others on both a phenomenological and a representational level. Cluster analysis technique was used to classify 137 college students into four attachment pattern categories: secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and controlling (compulsive care giver). On the phenomenological level, the current relationships of the subjects with their parents and romantic partner were assessed, in order to explore how they manage the developmental task of separation from one's parents. On the representational level we assessed, using a projective test (the SAT) subjects' responses to mild and severe separations. As expected, subjects with different attachment patterns coped with separations according to their attachment style. For example, secure subjects coped well with this developmental task. They tended to live outside the parental home and to attribute the highest significance to their romantic partner while sustaining close communication with their mother. Ambivalent subjects also tended to live outside their parental home but were all single and reported less committed and close relationships with romantic partners. On a representational level they reacted with strong anxiety, rejection, and self-blame to separations and even mild separations elicited strong attachment reactions. Avoidant subjects tended to refrain from dealing with the developmental task of separation, while controlling subjects were characterized by their use of mechanisms of reaction formation. Overall the results underscore the importance of considering attachment patterns of adults in our attempts to understand coping with the developmental task of separation.Received Ph.D from Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Research interests include attachment and close relationships.Received M.A. degree from the University of Haifa. Research interests include transition to adulthood.Received Ph.D. from Cornell University. Research interests include intimacy, ecological influences on the development of close relationships, and children's friendships.     

The Timing of Home Leaving: A Comparison of Early,On-Time,and Late Home Leavers

This study employs the National Survey of Families and Households of 1988 to study the predictors of age at home leaving for three groups of home leavers: early, on time, and late. Predictors examined include family structure, family formation, and personal characteristics. Discriminant analysis suggests that predictors vary by age of home leaving, and that the differences between early and other types of home leavers are most salient. The impact of family structure is the strongest for early home leaving, but much less for on-time and late home leaving.     

The Role of Protective Factors in Supporting the Academic Achievement of Poor African American Students During the Middle School Transition

In this study of 62 African American families living in poverty, we examined the main and interactive effects of psychological, family, and school factors on students' grade point average across the middle school transition. Both parent interviews and student surveys were collected, resulting in three major findings. First, students experienced a significant decline in grade point average across the transition from elementary to middle school. Second, students who felt more academically efficacious had higher grade point averages across the transition than did their peers. Third, significant interactions were found between family and school factors. These results suggest that rather than focusing exclusively on either parental involvement or the school environment, the combination of both family and school factors may be most effective in supporting the academic achievement of poor African American students during the transition to middle level schools.     

The self-concept of homeless adolescents

Thirty adolescents who had lived away from home for at least six months were compared on self-concept with 120 adolescents living at home. The latter group was divided into equal numbers of adolescents who were employed, unemployed, school students, and college students. The Offer Self-image Questionnaire for Adolescents was used to measure self-concept. Other measures used were the Beck Depression Inventory, the Hopelessness Scale of Beck et al.,and the Rotter Internal External Locus of Control Scale. These were used to examine the relationship between deficits in self-concept and psychopathology. Environmental factors such as family relationships, employment, school achievement, and friendships were also examined. It was found that homeless adolescents demonstrated significant deficits in five areas of self-concept and a specific pattern of deficits was related to hopelessness. Results were discussed with reference to the theory that acting-out behavior mitigates the impact of affective disturbance on self concept.Received her master's of clinical psychology from Macquarie University, Australia. Major interest is adolescent psychopathology and clinical work with homeless adolescents.     

Re-examining Social Work Roles and Tasks with Foster Care

In order to promote developmental outcomes with children and young people and to nurture their positive health and well-being in foster care, social workers and case managers are required to direct professional attention toward both the child or young person and her/his daily living environment(s)—at home, at school, and in the local neighborhoods in which they live. When viewed from an ecological perspective, foster care environments are represented conceptually as a nested cluster of settings ranging from immediate life spaces and networks of relationships in a foster home, at school, and in a neighborhood, to organizational contexts holding a statutory duty of care for children and young people assigned looked after status, along with national policies and statutes which frame foster-care environments. This article explores how social-work roles and tasks with children and young people in foster care change as Social Workers transition from case management roles within state, provincial, or local authority departments to become Supervising Social Workers, or Team Managers of Foster Carers, or Directors of foster care services.     

Young Adolescents' Situational Coping during Adult Intimate Partner Violence

A purposively recruited, ethnically diverse sample (N = 27) of young adolescents and their mothers in domestic violence shelters described adolescents' coping responses during adult intimate partner violence as part of a qualitative study using Life Story methods. Findings revealed competing demands and several responses, including: leaving home, collaborating with family members for safety, calling police, verbally or physically intervening, seeking help outside the family, and palliative responses. Participants provided context-rich accounts of coping and coping goals during violence, including information on help-seeking and police involvement. Implications are discussed for future research and developing interventions to improve safety and psychological outcomes.     

Middle School Aggression and Subsequent Intimate Partner Physical Violence

This study examined the relationship between middle-school aggressive behaviors and young adults’ experiences as victims and perpetrators of intimate partner physical violence. As part of the Reach for Health longitudinal study, surveys were conducted with 977 8th graders who were resurveyed as young adults, when lifetime partner violence was assessed. In this economically disadvantaged sample, the prevalence of middle-school aggression and subsequent partner violence are high among both males and females. In middle school, 32% of girls and 42% of boys reported being in a recent fight and 12% of girls and 17% of boys had threatened another with a weapon. By the time they were 19–20 years old, about 35% of females and males reported being the victims of one or more forms of partner violence; 35% of females and 22% of males reported one or more forms of perpetration. Controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, middle-school aggression is a significant risk factor for partner victimization and perpetration. Early aggression remains an independent predictor of partner violence perpetration and victimization for males and perpetration for females when other middle-school risk behaviors and exposures to physical aggression in the childhood home are taken into account. To reduce partner violence through young adulthood, findings suggest the importance of early interventions that help adolescents learn non-violent strategies for resolving conflicts in cross-gender relationships.Principal Investigator for the study.Co-Principal Investigator and Senior Methodologist.Responsible for developing the survey instrument.Responsible for pilot testing the survey instrument and overseeing field operations.Responsible for data management and conducted statistical analyses.Responsible for convening the Community Advisory Board and developing the survey instrument.     

Residential setting and parent-adolescent relationships during the college years

The relationship of residential setting (living with parents vs. living away from home while attending college) and gender with late adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with parents was examined. Four hundred four undergraduates students (mean age=20 years, 4 months) from two midwestern universities completed surveys. Two hundred four subjects lived with their parents and commuted to school, and 200 lived away at college. Controlling for student's age, parents' education, and financial and family considerations as factors in the choice of a college, living away was associated with greater independence, support, and mutual respect between parents and adolescents. In contrast, students who lived at home felt parents underestimated their maturity, and reported more conflict and avoidance in their relationships with parents. Regardless of residential setting, women reported more mutuality and support in their relationships with parents than men. The results suggest the importance of considering contextual issues during the transition to adulthood.This research was supported by a Campus Grant to the first author from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.Received Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan. Research interests include family relationships, cross-cultural studies, and political development in adolescence and young adulthood.Received Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Penn State University. Research interests include competence during the transition to young adulthood, career development, drug and alcohol use.Research interests include adolescents' relationships with parents and peers and cross-cultural studies.     

Cause for concern: young women and leisure, 1930–50

During the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s the leisure of young women attracted much interest from youth workers, psychologists and educationalists. Indeed, in 1939 their leisure became an organised and respectable focus of state intervention. This article addresses how, and in what ways, the leisure of young women came to acquire significance as an issue of concern, object of analysis, and sphere of intervention. The argument developed here is that public approaches to young women's leisure need to be understood in terms of the ways in which ‘leisure’ was discursively constructed during the inter-war period as a social phenomenon of considerable significance, and how this intersected with discourses on female adolescence within a framework of concern for the stability of British society and democracy. Such concerns about society were strong throughout the inter-war period but were intensified during and immediately after the Second World War. The interconnection of these three themes of ‘leisure’, ‘adolescence’ and societal stability are illustrated with reference to discussions in the 1930s and 1940s about what constituted the problem of young women's leisure and suggestions concerning young women's leisure needs.     

The Korean ‘Examination Hell’: Long Hours of Studying,Distress, and Depression

The goal of this study was to investigate whether the higher rates of clinical depression found among Korean than American adolescents was related to Korean's daily ordeal of studying and schoolwork in preparation for the competitive college entrance examination. A sample of 56 high school seniors in Korea and 62 seniors in the United States provided time-sampling data on the amount of time they spent in daily activities and their affect states during these activities. The Korean adolescents were found to spend much more time in schoolwork and less time in discretionary activities than their American counterparts. Korean adolescents' affect states across daily activities were more negative relative to American adolescents. In the combined sample of Korean and American adolescents spending less time in active leisure activities and experiencing more negative affect states during schoolwork, socializing, and passive leisure activities were related to higher depression. These findings suggest that the effect of the college exam in generating depression in Korean adolescents may be partly mediated through its effect on their daily experience.