Therapeutic abortion during adolescence: Psychiatric observations

This study investigates the psychological reactions of adolescent girls undergoing abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. As far as we know, this is the largest such group heretofore reported in the psychiatric literature. Two major factors distinguish the adolescent emotional responses from those of adult patients. These are (1) the abortion decision is more outer-other directed by parents, peer group, or sexual partner and is therefore more difficult and hazardous; (2) developmental immaturity contributes to ambivalence about the decision, to a distorted perception of the procedure, and to a variety of pathological reactions. Postabortion symptoms of adolescent patients with successful and unsuccessful outcomes suggest the presence of mourning processes. These are in response to the failure to realize an expectation rather than to an object loss. Preabortion dreams are a potential adjuvant to the refinement of psychiatric diagnosis and prognosis for adolescent abortion patients.Received B.A. and M.S.W. from the University of Michigan; prior experience with adolescent delinquents. Main area of interest is social casework with gynecological and obstetrical patients.     

Friends' interests: A cluster-analytic study of college student peer environments,personality, and behavior

A 27-item measure was developed to assess college peer environments in terms of friends' interests as perceived by individual students. Four dimensions of friends' interests were identified in cluster analyses: Collegiate Activities, Intellectual Pursuits, Apathy or Alienation, and Traditional Adult Orientation. In contrast to previous studies that have focused on peer environment characteristics which were proximal to specific behaviors, the comparatively distal Friends' Interests dimensions were capable of accounting for variation on an array of social, psychological, and behavioral measures. In general, the Collegiate and Traditional clusters were related to a relatively conventional set of individual personality and behavioral variables among college-age men and women; on the other hand, the Intellectual and Apathy dimensions were associated with more unconventional or liberal personality characteristics and behaviors.The research reported here is based on the author's dissertation, which was carried out within a larger longitudinal study of The Socialization of Problem Behavior in Youth, supported by NIAAA Grant No. AA-00232, R. Jessor, principal investigator. The research was conducted while the author was a graduate student in social psychology - personality, and a research assistant at the Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colarado. This article is Publication No. 174 of the Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. Major interests include social environment assessment and program evaluation.     

Use of drugs among Senegalese school going adolescents

Though it may appear more severe and dramatic in most industrialized nations, drug addiction has also become a matter for concern in some developing nations. The problem is even more complex when, prior to the advent of colonialism and the adoption of Western values by those countries, there already existed traditional forms of drug addiction. This paper examines the attitudes of Senegalese school-going adolescents to the problem of drug addiction. It describes the nature, development, and perception of drug addiction in the country from an historical and sociological point of view. It shows the tolerance of Senegalese society toward drugs — some were used in traditional medicine — and its rejection of hard and intermediate drugs, as they are viewed negatively by the society. The authors finally analyze the motivations of the drug addicts which also indicate, in Africa as in the West, a crisis of identity reflecting a global crisis of civilization.We are profoundly grateful to the Belgian Cooperation Service for the material assistance they kindly provided us.Master's degree in Psychopedagogy and a postgraduate in Psychosociology. Research interest is cross-cultural adolescent psychology.Doctor of mathematics and post-graduate in psychopedagogical science. Research interest is cross-cultural adolescent psychology.     

A measure of risk taking for young adolescents: Reliability and validity assessments

Researchers often define adolescent risk taking in terms of individual behaviors such as alcohol and drug use, early sexual activity, and reckless driving. It is not clear whether these behaviors defined by adults as risky have the same meaning for adolescents. This paper describes the development and preliminary testing of an instrument to assess risk taking among young adolescents. The six item scale was constructed by asking small groups of eighth grade boys and girls to describe things that teenagers your age do for excitement or thrills. The measure was then used in a longitudinal study of 758 young adolescents from three rural counties in Maryland. The scale shows good reliability, as indicated by coefficient alpha and factor analyses. Eighth-grade scores on the scale are associated with the initiation of sexual activity and substance use in ninth grade among virgins and nonusers of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and pills in eighth grade.     

A closer look at adolescent sexual activity

This study of 1228 parochial students in the eastern United States answered questions about adolescent sexuality. Few of the students surveyed claimed that sex was forced or even pressured. Over half of the students reported going steady as their relationship status when experiencing their first intercourse. Another fourth reported that they were dating or knew each other well. Approximately one-fifth of the students reported that drugs or alcohol was used at the time of first sex and three-fourths of them had first sex at either their own home or a friend's home. Nearly half of the students wished they had waited longer before having sex, especially the females and the more religious students. One-half of the nonvirgin students in the sample reported having had only one sexual partner. The implications of this information for setting social policy, designing and implementing effective sex education programs are discussed.Received Ph.D. in family studies/family science, Brigham Young University in 1994. Research and writing interests include adolescent sexuality and related problems, character education, and parenting.serving a sabbatical at BUY—Hawaii currently. Received Ph.D. in psychology at Michigan State in 1966. Research interests concern gender issues, parenting, and adolescent problems.In 1978 received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Washington. Research interests include adolescent problems and social policy.     

Developing Principles for Best Practice in Expanded School Mental Health

On the basis of activities of a federally funded national center for school mental health, review of literature on principles for best practice in child and adolescent mental health and school health, and consultation with national experts and family members, a set of 10 principles for best practice in school mental health was developed. A survey was developed enabling 1–6 point Likert ratings (clearly unimportant to clearly important) for each of the 10 principles. With an original sample of 426 people involved in education, school health or mental health, all 10 principles were strongly endorsed, receiving mean ratings ranging between 5.10 and 5.75. On the basis of qualitative feedback from this survey and interactive forums, language for 9 of the 10 principles was revised and a survey reflecting these changes was developed and administered to a validation sample of 86 respondents. As with the original sample, endorsements of the principles were strong, with mean ratings ranging between 5.45 and 5.79. Findings are discussed in relation to advancing interconnected agendas related to quality assessment and improvement and empirically supported practice in school mental health.     

Contextual,cognitive, and adolescent factors associated with parenting in adolescence

In this study, we examined predictors of parenting during adolescence from three domains: the contextual (i.e., stress, support, marital satisfaction), social-cognitive (i.e., beliefs about adolescence), and child (difficulty). Fifty-three mothers and 38 fathers of 13–18 year olds were interviewed and rated on three dimensions of parenting—involvement, autonomy support, and structure. Parents completed questionnaires assessing predictor variables. Results indicated that, for mothers, higher numbers of recent stressful events were associated with less provision of structure and more control. For fathers, relations between views of adolescence and parenting were in evidence; while for both mothers and fathers strong relations between adolescent difficulty and parenting emerged. Relations between perceived difficulty of adolescent and parenting were more apparent in conducive than nonconducive contexts. The differential results for mothers and fathers are interpreted in terms of mothers' greater involvement and less role latitude than fathers. Parents' resources, experience, and expectations are considered in understanding why predictors might be associated with parenting variables.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of Rochester. Research interests include motivational development, parenting, self- and emotion-regulation. Also investigating factors affecting parenting, especially parent involvement.Received a Master's degree from New York University. Current interests involve interpersonal processes in depression.Received a Master's degree from Clark University. Research interests include the development of self-regulation with particular interest in the effects of power, authority, and responsibility on the socialization and disciplining of young children.Received Master's of Social Work degree from Columbia University. Current interests include factors that facilitate adolescents developing connections with the community.     

“Comorbidity” of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems in adolescence

The purpose of this study was to examine in a sample of 11,516 secondary school students the extent to which different behavioral, emotional and cognitive problems (a) reflected one or more underlying common factors; (b) actually cooccurred; and (c) were single problems. Principal Component Analyses were performed and percentagewise techniques were used. PCA demonstrated that one or more general syndromes could not by far account for all of the variance of the variables. The results suggest the existence of adolescent subgroups with divergent comorbidity patterns: those who primarily report one single symptom; those who report concurrent symptoms either exclusively in the category of behavioral problems or exclusively in the category of emotional and cognitive problems; and those who report concurrent symptoms in both categories. This distinction between different subgroups has important theoretical, diagnostic, and treatment implications.     

A six-year follow-up study of anorexia nervosa subjects with teenage onset

Fifty-one adolescent onset anorexia nervosa (AN) cases recruited after community screening were compared with fifty-one age-, sex- and schoolmatched cases with regard to comorbidity and personality disorders at age 21 years. All 102 cases had originally been examined at a mean age of 16 years. Outcome according to the Morgan-Russell scales was fairly similar to that reported in recent clinic-based samples. Most of the former AN cases were recovered in respect of weight but outcome in social areas was restricted. Obsessive compulsive and avoidant personality disorders and empathy disorders were very much more common in the AN than in the comparison group. Obsessive compulsive behaviors showed a high degree of stability over time and were unrelated to weight problems. Together with empathy disorders they tended to predict outcome better than the eating disorder as such. Affective disorders were common but tended to follow the course of the eating disorder rather than precede or postdate it.Received Ph.D. on Anorexia Nerevosa in Swedish Urban Teenagers at Göteborg University in 1990. Major research interests concern the epidemiology and background factors of eating disorder.Received Ph.D. in 1981 at the University of Uppsala on Neuropsychiatric aspects of perceptual, motor, and attentional deficits in seven-year-old Swedish children. Major research interests are autism, Asperger syndrome, anorexia nervosa, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, mental retardation, lefthandedness, and behavioral phenotypes.Received Ph.D. in 1987 at The University of Uppsala on Deficits in Attention, Motor Control and Perception: Follow-Up from Pre-School to Early Teens. Her major research interests concern attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.     

Drawings of the opposite sex: Continued use of the draw a person test and young state hospital patients

The Draw A Person test has continued to be one of the most frequently utilized psychological tests with children and adolescents. This is especially true for the child/adolescent populations in state hospitals. Because of the frequent criticism leveled against the DAP's validity, this study was undertaken in order to provide normative data for the DAP with this particular clinical population. Previous research has focused on the drawings of the same sex as the subjects; this study deals with the characteristics of the drawings of the opposite sex. The subjects were 84 male and 66 female psychiatric patients from the Adolescent Unit (AU) at Rusk State Hospital. As each patient was admitted to the AU, he was scheduled for psychological testing, with the DAP, the Revised Beta, and the MMPI being a part of this testing. The results of this study indicate that IQ ranking is the most significant factor affecting DAP test performance by male subjects. IQ ranking was not found to significantly influence the drawings by females. Neither MMPI test performance nor social background factors were shown to significantly affect DAP test performance. It is suggested that in order for the DAP to become a more objectively utilized personality technique, a scoring method should be developed that takes into account the overall quality of the drawing in conjunction with the individual details of each area of the figure drawn. More focus should also be given to the characteristics of the opposite-sex figure drawn by the subjects and its potential interpretation.Received his M.S. degree in psychology from North Texas State University in 1968. Current interests include establishment of residential psychiatric facilties for children and adolescents, development of new treatment modalities for children and adolescents (i.e., Wilderness Camping Programs for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents), and understanding and developing working knowledge of the criminally insane child or adolescent.Received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Alabama. His research interests include program evaluation and psychometric studies of psychological tests.Received his B.A. degree in mathematics at the University of South Florida in 1968 and his M.S. degree in statistics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1970. His current interest is mental health statistics.Received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University in 1975. His current interest is in assertion training.     

The workplace as a context for the socialization of youth

A number of respected social critics, including the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), have recommended the earlier integration of adolescents into the workplace. The PSAC Panel on Youth (1973) claims that work settings provide opportunities for developing and exercising personal responsibility, taking responsibility for the welfare of others, and establishing more extensive instrumental and social relations with nonfamilial adults. This study of naturally occurring employment among high school students examines these claims about the nature of the workplace. Drawing on interview, questionnaire, and observational data, we argue that the PSAC's expectations are somewhat optimistic. With respect to personal responsibility taking, although many adolescent workers have opportunities for self-management and report performing assigned tasks dependably, very few report going beyond the call of duty. With respect to social responsibility, workers experience only modest levels of task interdependence and centrality to a team effort; yet substantial numbers of adolescent workers feel that their work serves a socially useful purpose. Finally, with respect to intergenerational contact, the workplace fails to induce meaningful interaction with adults. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that if the workplace is to become a truly vital context for adolescent socialization, it needs to be designed more deliberately with such aims in mind.This study is part of a large-scale investigation of the cost and benefits of working to adolescent development. The research program is supported by the National Institute of Education and the Spencer Foundation; dissemination of policy-oriented papers is supported by the Ford Foundation. The authors, who are Co-Principal Investigators of the research program, share equal responsibility for this report.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University. Main research interests are adolescence and social institutions, life-span development, and social policy.Received Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Cornell University. Main research interests are adolescent development, life-span development, and social policy.     

Adolescents at home: An exploratory study of the relationship between perception of family social climate,general well-being,and actual behavior in the home setting

This study investigated the relationship between behavior in the home environment and perception of family social climate and personal well-being in a social-ecological perspective. Participants in the study were 46 eighth-grade students, who provided information on their use of the home environment, their perception of family social climate through the Family Environment Scale (FES), and their sense of well-being through the General Well-Being Questionnaire (GWBQ). Multiple regression analyses revealed several strong relationships between the variables. First, and most important, a strong positive relationship between adolescents' sense of well-being and time spent with adults in leisure and recreational activities in the home was identified. Second, selected home setting behaviors, including watching television, were found to account for approximately 40% of the variance in adolescents' scores on the Intellectual-Cultural Orientation subscale of the FES. Implications were drawn for research on the relationship between perception of social climate, optimal human functioning, and actual behavior in specified settings.This article is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted by the second author to the Department of Psychology, George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University. The data for the study were collected as part of a larger investigation of alienation and integration of adolescents in community settings, which was funded by a grant to the Center for Community Studies, George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, by the National Institute of Mental Health.Received his Ph.D. in psychology from George Peabody College for Teachers. Major interests are problems of adolescents, particularly age segregation and alienation in community settings.Received his Ph.D. in psychology from George Peabody College for Teachers. Major interests are ecological relationships and issues in school and home settings.     

Toward the development of an objective assessment of ego-identity status

Four investigations were completed to develop a self-report measure of ego-identity status. Following James Marcia's definition of diffusion, moratorium, foreclosure, and identity achievement status, a series of Likert-type items were constructed and validated for use in the study of ego-identity formation. Convergent-divergent, concurrent, and predictive validity and test-retest reliability are documented in the reported data. Cross-sectional data suggest the measure will be sensitive to intraindividual change in identity formation. The new Objective Measure of Ego-Identity Status allows researchers to use either a typology or a distribution of stage responses in future longitudinal investigations.This research was supported by a Division of Research Grant at Utah State University.Received his Ph.D. in human development from the Pennsylvania State University. Current research interests include adolescent personality and social development, interpersonal attraction, and family relations.Received her M.S. from Utah State University and is currently a doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University.Received his B.S. from Utah State University and is currently a graduate student at that institution.     

Coping Strategies in Young Male Prisoners

The general aim of this study is to analyze diverse aspects relating to the use of coping strategies among prison inmates. The specific objectives are (a) to analyze which type of coping strategies predominate among prisoners, considering both the focus and the method; (b) to relate the use of coping strategies with variables related to the prison environment: time spent in prison, previous convictions (first-time vs. repeat offenders) and custodial status (remand vs. convicted inmates); (c) to relate the coping strategies with the appraisal of the stressing situation previously described by the prisoners; and (d) to relate the cognitive level to the strategies used. The sample is composed of 107 males between 18 and 25 years of age in the Centre Penitenciari de Joves de Barcelona (Spain). The coping strategies were analyzed by means of the Coping Responses Inventory Adult Form (CRI-Adult; Moos, R.H. (1993). Coping Responses Inventory. CRI-Adult Form. Manual. Psychological Assessment, Resources, Inc., Odessa, FL.). The data indicate that the predominant strategies are those of cognitive approach. Likewise, it was found that there was a certain relationship between the appraisal of the problem described and the strategies used. The variables time spent in prison and previous convictions influenced the use of specific coping strategies. No connection between coping strategies and the intellectual level was found.     

Efficacy of psychiatric inpatient hospitalization for adolescents as measured by pre- and post-MMPI profiles

The efficacy of inpatient hospitalization on emotionally impaired adolescents was investigated using present and past MMPI data. The results indicated that there is a flattening of the profile toward normalcy from time of admission to discharge time. Further statistical analysis revealed that of the 9 clinical MMPI scales, the Depression scale showed greatest change toward improvement.Received Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Major interests are behavior therapy and adolescent psychology.     

Can the first pregnancy of a young adolescent be prevented? A question which must be answered

The title of this paper is a question, and the text of the paper presents some issues and ideas which are the sources of the question. Included are notions from the literature on adolescent cognitive development and their relation with the notion of prevention. It is argued that the notion of prevention is taken for granted in professional thinking about adolescent pregnancy and that a fuller understanding of this idea in the context of adolescent cognitive development could have clear consequences for research action.The ideas in this paper were developed while the author was designing an adolescent pregnancy research project financed by a planning grant from the Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Minnesota.This article is an expanded version of a paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the National Alliance Concerned with School-Age Parents, Dallas, Texas, November 1976.Received his Ph.D. from University of Pittsburgh. Current research interests include adolescent health, prostitution, and car accidents.This idea was presented in an outline in Baizerman (1976a).     

Gender role socialization and adolescents' reports of depression: Why some girls and not others?

Previous research has noted a greater rate of depression among adolescent girls than boys (A. C. Petersen et al. [1993]; Depression in Adolescence, American Psychologist, Vol. 48, pp. 155–168; S. Nolen-Hoeksema [1987] Sex Differences in Unipolar Depression, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 101, pp. 259–282). Explanations for this gender differential in adolescent reports of depressive symptomatology have been the focus of past scholarly attention (Petersen et al, 1993; D. B. Kandel and M. Davies [1982] Epidemiology of Depressive Mood in Adolescents, Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 39, pp. 1205–1232). Littk is known, however, about factors that underlie individual differences in adolescent girls' reports of depression. In this study, we explored individual differences in depressive symptoms as a function of young adolescent girls' gender role orientations (i.e., level of masculinity) and the degree of sex typing in their parents' marital roles. Participants were 89 seventh-and eighth-grade girls from white, rural, maritally intact families. Results revealed that girls who rated themselves as more masculine and their parents' marriage as more egalitarian were significantly lower in depression than other girls. Results of this study suggested that the potential positive effects of person characteristics associated with mental well-being (i.e., high masculinity) were moderated by family context (i.e., traditional families).The research reported in this paper was supported by funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. We gratefully acknowledge the comments and help provided by Dr. Ann Crouler, Kimberly Updegraff, Alison Baker, and Sharon McGroder. We also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their help on this work.Received Ph.D. from Penn State University. Her research interests include adolescent development and psychopathology in relation to various contexts.Received Ph.D. from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Her research interests include children and adolescents' family relationships.Received Ph.D. from Universitaet Muenster and Technische Universitaet, Berlin. His research focuses on personality development in adolescence and young adulthood, utilizing cross-cultural perspectives.     

Female adolescents of alcohol misusers 1: Sexual behaviors

Studies show that children of alcoholics constitute an at-risk population. This study attempted to understand the impact of parental alcohol misuse on sexual behaviors of female adolescents, based on a sample of 1134 teenagers from alcohol misusing parents in Minnesota. Index adolescents were more likely to report having sexual intercourse as well as greater frequency of intercourse, history of pregnancy and greater overall pregnancy risk based on current patterns of sexual behavior and contraceptive utilization. Bivariate analysis revealed that gender of the drinking parent was also associated with the above variables. However, in multivariate assessment of protective and risk factors for adolescent pregnancy in the at-risk sample, maternal vs. paternal vs. both parents drinking was no longer salient. Pregnancy avoidance was associated in the index group with two-parent family structure and higher maternal education, while pregnancy history was associated with a history of physical abuse and perception of high levels of vandalism in the school setting.The study reported in this article did not utilize clinically diagnostic indicators of alcoholism. Hence the authors have deliberately avoided using the word alcoholics when referring to parents of study participants. The terms alcohol misusers and alcohol abusers have been substituted and are used interchangeably.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Research interests include identifying resilience factors in populations that are considered at risk and the usefulness of these factors in planning social welfare programs.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Research interests include children with chronic illness and disabilities, adolescent sexual decision making and international adolescent health care issues.Received Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. Research focuses on adolescent high-risk behaviors and resiliency, and interested in the translation of social research into social action, programs, and policy.     

“Taking care”: Maintaining the self and the home in early adolescence

This paper explores young adolescents' experience of basic daily tasks: personal maintenance (e.g., grooming and eating) and household maintenance (e.g., chores and errands). Quantity of time, companionship, and subjective states in these activities were examined during one week in the lives of 401 5th–9th graders with the Experience Sampling Method (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987). Our findings show that these tasks are particularly subject to sex typing. Girls engaged in grooming more often than boys, and this time increased in the higher grades, while boys showed no age effects. Boys did more outside chores while girls did more indoor chores. Girls were also more likely to carry out household tasks with family while boys did more chores alone. An examination of subjective states during household maintenance revealed that older girls reported a greater sense of motivation and choice than younger girls, but boys' experience did not differ. Experience of maintenance as socialization for adult activities is discussed.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson.Current research interests are the effects of maternal employment on children and adolescents, and the study of day care.Current research interests are family relationships in early adolescence, interpersonal conflict and the study of daily psychological experience.Current research interests are pubertal development, precursors of eating disorders, and the effects of maternal employment on young adolescents.