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.     

Sense of Community and Positive Adult Beliefs Toward Adolescents and Youth Policy in Urban Neighborhoods and Small Cities

Understanding adult beliefs about adolescents is an emerging issue for researchers and policy-makers. The purposes of this study were to describe adult beliefs regarding the motivation and ability of young people to contribute to their communities, and to test the hypothesis that adults with a strong sense of community would have more positive views of young people and youth policies. Two samples of adults—a race/ethnically diverse population from an urban northeast city (N = 321) and a more homogeneous population from smaller cities in a midwest state (N = 430)—were queried through telephone interviews. Parallel analyses were conducted to compare the pattern of results across the 2 distinct populations. In both samples, upwards to 60% of adults had moderate-to-strong appraisals of adolescents as community resources. Adults from the midwest, however, tended to have more favorable beliefs about adolescents. Adult beliefs about adolescents and youth policy were largely independent of sociodemographic background. In contrast, and as predicted, adult sense of community and safety accounted most significantly for individual variation in beliefs in both populations. The results indicate that society may be receptive to a new frame of reference about young people, and that local efforts to build a sense of community among adults may result in more positive beliefs about adolescents.     

Adolescents' perceptions of their attachment relationships with their mothers,fathers, and friends

This study explored changes in New Zealand adolescents' perceptions of their attachment relationships with their mothers, fathers, and friends. The main findings revealed that from early to late adolescence: Males and females remained stable in their quality of affect toward their mothers. With increasing age, females utilized their mothers for support and proximity more, whereas males utilized their mothers for support and proximity less. With increasing age, males and females rated their quality of affect toward their fathers as lower and utilized their fathers for support and proximity less. Females had a higher quality of affect toward friends than males regardless of age, but both males and females increased their utilization of friends for support and proximity over age. Further analyses revealed that Pacific Island adolescents utilized their mothers less for support and proximity than European/Pakeha adolescents. Adolescents from one-parent families utilized their fathers less for support and proximity and had a lower quality of affect toward him than adolescents from two-parent families. These findings suggested that substantial changes take place in attachment relationships from early to late adolescence and highlighted the need for research to differentiate between the sex of adolescent and sex of parent dyads in order to examine adolescents' affective relationships effectively.This research is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Auckland.Received Ph.D. from the University of Auckland. Research interests are in life span developmental psychology and in the parenting of children and adolescents.Received Ph.D. from the Australian National University. Research interests lie within life span developmental psychology and early cognitive development.Received Ph.D. from the University of Canterbury. Her main interests are in life span developmental psychology and the development of low birth weight babies.     

Adolescent Thriving: The Role of Sparks,Relationships, and Empowerment

Although most social science research on adolescence emphasizes risks and challenges, an emergent field of study focuses on adolescent thriving. The current study extends this line of inquiry by examining the additive power of identifying and nurturing young people’s “sparks,” giving them “voice,” and providing the relationships and opportunities that reinforce and nourish thriving. A national sample of 1,817 adolescents, all age 15 (49% female), and including 56% white, 17% Hispanic/Latino, and 17% African-American adolescents, completed an online survey that investigated their deep passions or interests (their “sparks”), the opportunities and relationships they have to support pursuing those sparks, and how empowered they feel to make civic contributions (their “voice”). Results consistently supported the hypothesis that linking one’s spark with a sense of voice and supportive opportunities and relationships strengthens concurrent outcomes, particularly those reflecting prosociality, during a key developmental transition period. The three developmental strengths also predicted most outcomes to a greater degree than did demographics. However, less than 10 percent of 15-year-olds reported experiencing high levels of all three strengths. The results demonstrate the value of focusing on thriving in adolescence, both to reframe our understanding of this age group and to highlight the urgency of providing adolescents the opportunities and relationships they need to thrive.     

Emotional Coregulation in Mexican-Origin Parent–Adolescent Dyads: Associations with Adolescent Mental Health

Research on the health benefits and consequences of close relationships has suggested the linkage in daily emotions (i.e., coregulation) between close partners is an important relationship dynamic. While the coupling of daily emotions among family members (parent–child and marital dyads) has been widely documented, research examining emotional coregulation among ethnic minority youth during adolescence, a period marked by heightened emotion and risk for psychopathology, remains an important area in need of exploration. This study examined correlates of emotional coregulation in a sample of Mexican-origin adolescents (M_age?=?15.02, SD?=?.83) and their parents (M_age?=?41.93, SD?=?6.70). Dyads reported on daily levels of distress and happiness for 14 consecutive days across two waves of data collection a year apart (n_wave1?=?428 dyads, n_wave2?=?336 dyads). Dyads who reported getting along were more likely to coregulate their daily happiness. Importantly, coregulation of distress was only present in older adolescents who reported above average levels of internalizing symptoms. The results suggest coregulation of distress may shape or be shaped by poor mental health during the later years of adolescence, a time when youth may be establishing a degree of emotional autonomy from parents.

     

Maternal Acceptance and Adolescents’ Emotional Communication: A Longitudinal Study

With substantive evidence suggesting that adolescents’ disclosure is likely a protective factor against problem behaviors, as well as evidence that many adolescents will go to great lengths to avoid sharing information with parents, one may conclude that parents’ face a formidable task. Previous studies have identified parental acceptance as a concurrent correlate of adolescents’ behavioral disclosure, but have neglected to investigate potential ways that parents could encourage their adolescents to feel comfortable disclosing emotional information. The present study extends the literature by using a longitudinal, multi-method, multi-reporter design to examine whether maternal acceptance is predictive of emotional disclosure over time among a racially/socioeconomically diverse sample of 184 adolescents (53% female). Results indicate that adolescents who perceive their mothers as high in acceptance during early adolescence exhibit greater relative increases in both self-reported emotional communication and observed emotional disclosure to their mothers 3 years later. Interestingly, mothers’ perceptions of their own acceptance does not provide any additional predictive value. These findings support the notion that adolescents’ emotional disclosure is an ongoing process that can be fostered in early adolescence, and emphasize the importance of considering adolescents’ perceptions of the relationship to successfully do so.     

Violent Victimization and Perpetration During Adolescence: Developmental Stage Dependent Ecological Models

Using a variant of the ecological-transactional model and developmental theories of delinquency on a nationally representative sample of adolescents, the current study explored the ecological predictors of violent victimization, perpetration, and both for three different developmental stages during adolescence. We examined the relative influence of individual and family characteristics, peers, and neighborhood characteristics on the odds of experiencing violent victimization and perpetration over time with two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health for those adolescents who reported no exposure to violence at Wave 1 (N = 8,267; 50% female; 59% Caucasian; 17% African-American; 14% Hispanic). We found that more proximal factors differentiated between different experiences with violence at Wave 2. Also, negative peers significantly differentiated between violent victimization and perpetration, and this influence was strongest in early adolescence. In exploratory analyses, we found that middle adolescents were particularly vulnerable to their disadvantaged neighborhoods for a high-risk group. This analysis is one of the few that considers multiple ecological contexts simultaneously and provides support for developmental differences within adolescence on the influence that peers and neighborhoods have in predicting violent victimization and perpetration.     

Perceived change of self among adolescents

In order to examine the sense of continuity of adolescents, self-appraisals of retrospective and prospective change or sameness were elicited from Israeli boys and girls in grades 7, 9, and 11 (N=186). With reference to each of 60 self-attributes, these adolescents indicated the amount of change they perceived in themselves, compared with what they were like five years ago. They then estimated how much they expected to change on each attribute five years from now. Most respondents perceived minimal change in themselves, both retrospectively and prospectively. Regression analyses indicated that the lower the amount of perceived change of self, the higher the level of self-perceived adjustment and self-ideal congruence. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for future studies of the sense of continuity in adolescence and beyond.This research was supported in part by a grant from the University Research Council of the University of Haifa.Received his M. A. from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Major interests include adolescent personality and the development of the self-concept during the life span.     

Coping styles of learning disabled adolescents and their parents

The study compares coping styles of 50 learning disabled and nonlearning dis-abled adolescents and their parents. Analyses indicate that learning disabled adolescents show less ability to appraise a source of stress and seek information in the various domains with which they are expected to cope. Also, they reveal a higher level of pessimism about problems in academic-related domains. Coping patterns of parents of learning disabled adolescents do not show clear differences from parents of nonlearning disabled. Yet mothers of learning disabled adolescents tend more to seek and accept help. Learning disabled adolescents' coping is clearly related to coping or more specifically to difficulties in coping of their parents. Results are discussed in the context of the special difficulties of the learning disabled during adolescence and the role their parents play during this developmental stage.Received Ph. D. from Bar Ilan University. Research interests include developmental and family processes in normal and pathological adolescents.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Main interests are developmental and family processes in adolescence.Received M.A. in counseling from Tel Aviv University.Received M.A. in counseling from Tel Aviv University.     

Predictors of Adolescents’ Disclosure to Parents and Perceived Parental Knowledge: Between- and Within-Person Differences

Adolescents’ willingness to share information with parents is a central process through which parents gain knowledge of their adolescents’ lives. This paper addresses four questions important to understanding adolescents’ decisions to voluntarily disclose areas of parent-adolescent disagreement: What are the contribution of parent-adolescent agreement and adolescents’ non-disclosure of disagreement to adolescents’ perceptions of parental knowledge?; Which adolescents are most likely to disclose to parents in case of disagreement?; Under what conditions are adolescents more or less likely to disclose disagreement?; and What type of non-disclosure will different adolescents use and under what conditions? Self-report data from 120 adolescents (M age=15.8) revealed that failure to disclose disagreement, but not overall agreement, predicted perceived parental knowledge. Adolescents from authoritative homes and those less involved in disapproved leisure were more likely to disclose disagreement and less likely to lie. Within-person differences in disclosure were predicted by the presence of explicit rules and adolescents’ beliefs about required obedience.Dr. Darling is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on social relationships during adolescence, with a special interest in contextual variation in developmental processes. Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Darling atDr. Cumsille is a developmental methodologist whose research focuses on adolescent well-being.Dr. Caldwell's research focuses on the experience of adolescent leisure, with a particular interest in adolescent boredom and well-being.Dr. Dowdy is a developmental psychologist specializing in adolescent social relations.     

Secrets in the bedroom: Adolescents' private use of media

This essay discusses the functions of solitary media use within the ongoing daily emotional lives of adolescents. I review evidence suggesting that adolescents find in solitary TV watching and especially music listening, the opportunity, first, to cultivate a newly discovered private self: teens use media to explore numerous possible selves including those that are desired and feared. Second, I propose that solitary media experiences provide adolescents an important context for dealing with stress and negative emotion. Popular music listening allows adolescents to internalize strong emotional images around which a temporary sense of self can cohere.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the fifth biennial meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence, San Diego, California, February 10–13, 1994. Much of the research upon which this paper is based was funded by NIMH grant No. 1 R01 MH38324 awarded to Reed Larson and Maryse Richards.Received his Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Chicago. Research focuses on the temporal and emotional organization of daily life, especially in adolescence and within adolescents' families.     

The Adjustment of Adolescents During the Transition into High School: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

Although much research exists regarding the transition into junior high school, surprisingly few studies have focused on the move into high school. The present study employed a short-term longitudinal design to assess the adjustment of adolescents as they made the transition from junior high to high school. Changes in adolescents' sense of autonomy, perceived stressors, social support, sense of school membership, grade point average (GPA), and attendance were assessed. Coping strategies were also considered at each time point. Also, because parents who feel better about themselves may offer more support to their adolescents, parents of the adolescents in the study completed measures assessing their stressors and coping mechanisms. Results indicated that the adolescents did experience significant changes during the initial transition into high school that were related to GPA and sense of school membership. Perceived support from parents was also related to adolescents' adjustment to the transition. The study bridges a gap in the literature on school transitions by addressing the transition to high school in light of adolescent and parent variables. Implications for practices by school personnel and future research suggestions are provided.     

Age differences in adolescent future-oriented goals,concerns, and related temporal extension in different sociocultural contexts

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which differences in agegraded sociocultural contexts influence adolescent future-oriented goals, concerns, and related temporal extension. Ninety-five 13–14-year-old Australian boys and 104 girls, 87 16–17-year-old Australian boys and 81 girls, 67 13–14-year-old Finnish boys and 86 girls, and 56 16–17-year-old Finnish boys and 107 girls were investigated. Half of the subjects in each group came from an urban environment and half from rural regions. The subjects filled in the Hopes and Fears Questionnaire measuring the content and temporal extension of goals and concerns. Overall, the results showed that adolescent goals, concerns, and related temporal extension reflected the major developmental tasks of their own age and early adulthood. However, interesting cross-cultural, gender, and urban rural differences were also found, reflecting variation in societal options and cultural values. For example, Australians were more interested in leisure and more concerned about their own health and global issues. Later school transitions meant that in older age groups the Finnish adolescents expected goals related to their future education and occupation to be actualized later than Australian youths did. Because of a lack of career options, interest in a future occupation decreased with age among adolescents living in rural regions.Received Ph.D. from University of Helsinki. Research interests are adolescent development and cognitive and attributional strategies as pathways to problem behavior. To whom correspondence should be addressed.Received Ph.D. from La Trobe University. Research interests are higher education policy, research management, women and careers, and adolescence.Received M.A. from University of Helsinki. Research interests are identity development and problem solving.     

Does Humor Explain Why Relationally Aggressive Adolescents are Popular?

The association between relational aggression and popularity during early adolescence is well established. Yet, little is known about why, exactly, relationally aggressive young adolescents are able to achieve and maintain high popular status among peers. The present study investigated the mediating role of humor in the association between relational aggression and popularity during early adolescence. Also considered was whether the association between relational aggression and humor varies according to adolescents’ gender and their friends’ levels of relational aggression. Participants were 265 sixth-grade students (48 % female; 41 % racial/ethnic minority; M _age = 12.04 years) who completed peer nomination and friendship measures in their classrooms at two time points (Wave 1: February; Wave 2: May). The results indicated that Wave 1 relational aggression was related to Wave 1 and 2 popularity indirectly through Wave 1 humor, after accounting for the effects of Wave 1 physical aggression, ethnicity, and gender. Additional analyses showed that relational aggression and humor were related significantly only for boys and for young adolescents with highly relationally aggressive friends. The results support the need for further research on humor and aggression during early adolescence and other mechanisms by which relationally aggressive youth achieve high popular status.     

Identity in adolescence: Influences of dysfunction and psychosocial task issues

The Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI) was utilized in two studies to investigate task resolutions (trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity) in adolescence. In the first study, a comparison of delinquents and non-delinquents indicated that delinquents have less successful task resolutions. In the second study, a comparison of adolescents with high and low dysfunctional attitudes again revealed that troubled adolescents have less successful task resolutions. In this study, 7th graders, 12th graders, first-year college students, and junior and senior college students participated. Older adolescents demonstrated more successful task resolutions than younger adolescents, and different identity issues were salient during early adolescence as compared to later adolescence. Also, first-year college students had more problems with identity consolidation and less positive overall task resolutions than high school seniors or college juniors and seniors. A life-context approach to identity formation is discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the first biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Madison, Wisconsin, March 1986, and at the Midwestern Psychological Association meetings, Chicago, Illinois, 1987 and 1989.M.A. degree in psychology from University of Toledo. Research interests: identity development, cognitive and perceptual development.Ph.D. from University of Toledo. Research interests: personality and cognitive development in adolescence, infant cognitive development.     

The Ethnicity of Adolescent Research

The study of adolescence may have come of age, but it remains debatable whether research appropriately considers the ethnic diversity of adolescence. Given a heightened interest in supporting a more inclusive approach to adolescent research, this study takes stock of how seriously we actually are pursuing a more inclusive study of adolescence. To do so, this study examines the extent to which six leading journals dedicated to the study of adolescence publish articles that include ethnic participants, report the nature of that inclusion, and present findings that consider the ethnic dimensions of their samples. Although results reveal some diversity among journals, trends do emerge. For example, the study of adolescence is quite international: overall, more than 40% of 1283 empirical articles (published from 2000 to and including 2006) report findings from non-U.S. samples. If we remove international studies from our analyses, we find that the vast majority of studies (93%) describe the ethnic composition of their samples. That finding diverges considerably from reports from other fields of research. Also unlike other fields of research, studies from journals on adolescence do tend to include ethnic groups. The majority (68%) of articles actually do not have samples with a majority of participants from European American groups. Over 40% of articles present empirical analyses relating to identified ethnic groups, and at least 19% present findings that focus on one ethnic group (rather than comparing one to another). We do, however, find relatively ignored groups (such as Native and Asian Americans) and a tendency to lump diverse groups into five dominant ethnic groups or into “other” groups. We place these findings in the context of research on adolescence and explore their significance. Roger J.R. Levesque is Professor of Criminal Justice, Indiana University. He is Editor of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.     

The evolutive style of identity formation

In the study of differentiation of Styles of Identity formation with a sample of high school age adolescents, a group of the participants were found (by discriminant analysis) to have common features and to be a distinct group that displays an Evolutive Style of Identity Formation. The characteristics of this style are examined in this article, which focuses on the conceptual discussion of the significance of the Evolutive Style for the model of Styles of Identity Formation.Received Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Manchester, England. Research interests include psychosocial development in adolescence and young adulthood.     

An 18-Year Model of Family and Peer Effects on Adolescent Drug Use and Delinquency

The interrelationship of family and peer experiences in predicting adolescent problem behaviors was examined in an 18-year longitudinal sample of adolescents (N = 198) from conventional and nonconventional families. Positive associations among early childhood predictors and adolescent problem behaviors were consistent with problem behavior theory. The most powerful predictors of teen drug use and delinquent behaviors were similar behaviors by peers. Peer behaviors, however, were in turn predicted by earlier family-related variables and the quality of peer relationships in childhood. This study provides supporting evidence that strong peer effects in adolescence reflect even earlier processes in childhood and highlight the importance of linkages from early childhood experiences in family and peer contexts to the development of problem behaviors in adolescence. Implications for prevention and intervention programs are discussed.