Effects of self-monitoring and perceived approval on delinquent behavior among Hong Kong adolescents

It has been established that perceived approval from relevant others is related to delinquent behavior. The aim of the present study was to investigate how this relationship was mediated by self- monitoring. Eight hundred twenty-eight students from Grade 7 to Grade 9 were asked to respond to a questionnaire that measured their self-monitoring, the frequency they committed delinquent acts, and the perceived approval of committing these acts from their parents, teachers, and friends. Regression analyses indicated that self- monitoring wax an interacting factor between perceived approval and delinquency. On further path analyses, it was found that self- monitoring acted as a mediating factor, and that the relationship between delinquent behavior and perceived approval was more apparent among high self- monitoring individuals. The present study was based on data collected in the delinquency project by S. Lau and Kwok Leung.Received M.Phil. from University of Hong Kong and M.A. in education from Chinese University of Hong Kong. Research interests include self-monitoring, problem solving, and learning environments.Received Ph.D. from Purdue University. Research interests include values, self-concept, family processes, and the psychology of adolescence.     

Peer vs. parental influence in substance use among hispanic and Anglo children and adolescents

The relative influence of peer and parental influence on youths' use of alcohol and other drugs is explored among 446 Anglo and Hispanic youths, ages 9–17. Current users and abstainers are similar in age and gender. Among both groups, parental influence is more profound than that of peers. However, substance users, compared to abstainers, are more influenced by peers. Level of marijuana use by youths' friends is the most reliable predictor of drug use. Youths having viable relationships with parents are less involved with drugs and less influenced by drug-oriented peers.Funded by a grant (A-003-2) from the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, R. H. Coombs, principal investigator.Research interests include comparative socialization patterns of adolescents and young adults in substance abuse vs. conventional careers.Research interests include domestic violence, child abuse, and substance abuse.Research interests include family interaction patterns, cross-cultural differences, and substance abuse prevention and treatment.     

the gender politics of political violence: women armed activists in ETA

This article aims to contribute to the developing area of feminist scholarship on women and political violence, through a study of women in one of Europe's oldest illegal armed movements, the radical Basque nationalist organization ETA. By tracing the changing patterns of women's participation in ETA over the past four decades, the article highlights the historical factors that help explain the choice of a small number of Basque women to participate directly in political violence, and shows how these factors have differed from those for men. While the gender politics of radical nationalism are intricately linked to cross-cultural associations of militarism with certain forms of masculinity, the article also stresses the importance of understanding women's activism in ETA in the context of the organization's characteristic as an ethnic nationalist movement, as well as the wider historical circumstances of the movement's development, including the modernization of Spanish and Basque society over the past four decades. Although comparisons with women in other armed movements are possible, such historical specificities undermine any attempt to construct a universal theory of women and ‘terrorism’, such as Robin Morgan's ‘couple terrorism’ thesis. Finally, the article examines the changing representations of female ETA activists in the Spanish and Basque media. Although women ETA activists are now regarded as ‘normal’, popular representations continue to link women's armed activism with deviant sexuality and the transgression of their natural destiny as mothers. The different treatment of women is evident as well in claims of sexual torture made by some detainees. The article concludes that although the participation of women in political violence poses disquieting questions for the largely anti-militarist women's movement, case studies of women in armed organizations, as well as their place in the wider practices of conflict, are an important contribution both to feminist debates about violence and to wider studies of political violence.     

Hallucinations in nonpsychotic children and adolescents

The case histories of ten nonpsychotic patients (nine female and one male) who had experienced hallucinations are summarized. Significant anxiety and depression were found in the majority of the patients, five of whom expressed suicidal ideas. Stress factors were primarily family and school. Eight children had combined auditory and visual hallucinations, which involved dead relatives in five cases. The aims or purposes of the hallucinations were multiple, but escape mechanisms were most common. A profile of the nonpsychotic patient most likely to experience hallucinations would be a socially immature teenage girl who is experiencing depression and anxiety due to stress within the family.     

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.     

Perception of epistemic authorities by children and adolescents

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

Heavy metal music and reckless behavior among adolescents

Adolescents who liked heavy metal music were compared to those who did not on a variety of outcome variables, particularly focusing on reckless behavior. Boys who liked heavy metal music reported a higher rate of a wide range of reckless behavior, including driving behavior, sexual behavior, and drug use. They were also less satisfied with their family relationships. Girls who liked heavy metal music were more reckless in the areas of shoplifting, vandalism, sexual behavior, and drug use, and reported lower self-esteem. Both boys and girls who liked heavy metal music were higher in sensation seeking and more self-assured with regard to sexuality and dating. In regression analyses, the relation between reckless behavior and liking heavy metal music was sustained for five out of twelve variables concerning reckless behavior, including three of four among girls, when sensation seeking and family relationships were entered into the equation before liking or not liking heavy metal music.Received Ph.D. from University of Virginia. Research interests include adolescent musical preferences, reckless behavior, and socialization.     

Differential patterns of achievement among Asian-American adolescents

Very little is known about the factors and processes that lead to differential patterns of achievement among Asian-American adolescents. Using grades and standardized test scores as criteria variables, a paper- and- pencil survey was conducted to determine the relative effects of sociocultural variables, personality factors, and student perceptions of school and social events in explaining differential patterns of academic performance within a sample (N=89) of Asian-American tenth graders. Generally, the results demonstrate that Asian-American students whose educational and social experiences convey a strong link between schooling, academic success, and social integration are more likely to demonstrate patterns of achievement, as reflected in higher grades and better performance on standardized tests. The study's findings are discussed in connection with the relative functionalism concept proposed by S. Sue and S. Okazaki (1990) and the effective schools literature.Received doctoral degree in 1988 from the University of California, Los Angeles, specializing in developmental psychology. Research interests include the educational attainment of Hispanic and minority group children, adolescent alcohol use, and social policy analysis and planning.This work was supported partially by an Affirmative Action Faculty Development Grant from California State University, Fullerton.     

Correlates of self-concept among black early adolescents

This study examines the self-concept of Black eighth-grade students from the Midwest in relation to Black acceptance, social intimacy, locus of control, and sex-role type. Twenty-eight students high in self-concept were compared with 31 students whose self-concept was low. As predicted, the high self-concept group scored higher than the low self-concept group in intimacy, internality, and acceptance of black identity. As also predicted, the high self-concept group had a significantly greater number of adolescents with masculine and androgynous sex roles than the low self-concept group; Black females with high self-concepts included a larger proportion of individuals with androgynous sex roles than low self-concept females. However, the prediction that high self-concept males would have a larger proportion of masculine sex roles than low self-concept males was not supported. The difficult situation of the low self-concept adolescents is discussed, along with the implications for intervention.On clinic internship at Smolian Psychiatric Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. Major interests are clinical psychology and Black identity.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Colorado. Major interests are the development of intimacy and identity in adolescence and young adulthood.     

Prevalence and patterns of substance use among early adolescents

Prevalence and patterns of substance use are described for a sample of 105 San Francisco East Bay adolescents (age 14). Data are compared with national statistics on substance use among high school seniors. While alcohol use appeared comparable to the national statistics, tobacco use was less prevalent among this younger western sample. Despite the differences in ages, use of marijuana, cocaine, and hallucinogens was similar to national high school prevalence; use of other harder drugs was more extensive among the older, national sample. Contrary to typical findings, males and females were not found to differ in frequency or extent of substance use; females appeared somewhat more involved in substance use at this early age. Initiation of substance use occurred at early grade levels, suggesting that intervention efforts should begin prior to junior high, perhaps as early as fourth or fifth grade.This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 16080 to Jack Block and Jeanne H. Block.Received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Main interest is cognitive development and development in adolescence.Received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Main interest is personality development.     

The growth of political ideas and their expression among young activists

Two studies were conducted. In the first, developmental information was gathered on young people's efforts to construct and elaborate on an ideal society. The subjects were 54 white middle-class boys, equally divided among 8–, 11–, and 16-year-olds. The interview protocols suggested a typology consisting of (1) a personalistic, nongovernmental construction of society, based on the child's own life space, with a concern for biological needs such as food and shelter; (2) a construction of specific but unrelated governmental institutions; (3) a better-organized conception of how institutions are interrelated; (4) a commitment to abstract principles. In the second investigation, the task and typology were applied to the study of high school left-wing activists and nonactivists –93 in all. The activists were not clearly more committed to abstract principles, although they were entertaining utopian possibilities of a society with few laws. But the surprising finding was the activists' resemblance to the youngest children (type I); they too constructed a personalistic society potentially within their own life space and were concerned with biological life-supportive issues.Study I in this paper — carried out by the second author was part of a doctoral dissertation, Conceptions of the Political Regime in the Years 8 to 16, submitted to the Department of Political Science, the University of Chicago, 1971. Study II was done by the first author. The coding manuals for Study I and Study II are available on request from the authors.Received Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Chicago and took a clinical internship at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Main interest is in developmental theory and political attitudes.Received Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Main interest is in political theory.     

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.     

Linking the old world with the new: recent studies of labor migration,race, and political protest in America and the British empire

Labor historians of the Anglophone world can enrich their field by extending the idea of ‘Atlantic community’ to include Britain's former colonies in Canada, Africa, and Australasia. Only in this way can they fully understand the world's first large-scale migration of labor, both voluntary and involuntary, and the cross-fertilization that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries between social movements such as labor republicanism, the Knights of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World, and women's labor struggles which may have originated in the UK or the US but which are misperceived if viewed solely in the context of the nation state.     

Psychosocial antecedents of unwed motherhood among indigent adolescents

Theoretically based hypotheses regarding psychosocial antecedents of unwed motherhood among indigent adolescents are tested. Data regarding psychosocial antecedents were obtained from a survey of a 50% sample of seventhgraders in a large urban school system. Hypotheses were tested by comparing three groups of subjects from among these respondents: (1) 82 female adolescents who received perinatal care at an adult development clinic for indigent adolescents (all gave birth out of wedlock at least one year following the baseline survey and prior to their eighteenth birthday); (2) 164 matched (by race, mother's education, and school) controls — two matches for each pre-unwed mother; and (3) 164 randomly selected controls — two controls for each preunwed mother. The results were consistent with the assertion that deviant behaviors related to and including unwed motherhood are alternative deviant responses to the subjectively recognized inability to defend against self-rejection in the course of membership group experiences in anticipation of self-enhancing consequences of the deviant behaviors. The positions in the social structure occupied by the pre-unwed mothers predispose the subjects to deviant responses by (1) increasing the probability of self-devaluing experiences and the subjective association of these experiences with the normative structure and (2) offering highly visible deviant alternatives that offer greater self-enhancing potential than the perceived low self-enhancing potential of the normative environment. The deviant patterns to which the subjects are predisposed are in fact adopted when prior social controls effictively exercised by parental and school authorities erode (as a result of the subject's identification of family and school as persistent sources of self-devaluing experiences). The specific modes of deviance adopted, including patterns associated with unwed motherhood outcomes, are apparently consistent with subculturally influenced values and adaptive/coping/defensive patterns. The total pattern of findings suggests that the same general theory of deviant behavior that has been applied to other modes of deviance is appropriate in understanding precursors of unwed motherhood among indigent adolescents.Received his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1958. Current research interests are social psychiatry and, more specifically, the reciprocal relationship between self-attitudes and the adoption of deviant response patterns.Received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from University of Texas at Austin. Main interest is adult development.Received his M. D. from University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Research interests are self-destructive behavior and alcoholism.     

Family processes and the competence of adolescents and primary school children

Associations were examined between 12 measures of family process and 6 measures of personal and social competence for 102 adolescents aged 15–16 and 99 children aged 8–9. Canonical correlations analysis revealed that general competence among primary school children was associated with high levels of support from parents, a high allocation of household responsibility, a high level of parental control, and a low level of parental punishment. Among adolescents, general competence was associated with a high level of support from parents, a low level of parental control, a high allocation of household responsibility, parental use of induction, a low level of parental punishment, high-quality sibling relationships, and high family cohesion. The findings suggest that as children enter adolescence, general competence becomes more closely bound up with the quality of sibling relations and the degree of parental control, and less closely bound up with support from parents.The data reported herein were collected as part of the Children in families Study, designed by Gay Ochiltree (fellow) and Don Edgar (director) of the Australian Institute of Family Studies. This article is based on a paper presented at the Second Australian Family Research Conference, November 1986, Melbourne, Australia.Paul R. Amato obtained his Ph.D. in psychology from James Cook University in Australia. His interests lie in social psychology, socialization, and family interaction.     

Emotional and temperamental correlates of Type A in children and adolescents

Emotional and behavioral correlates of Type A behavior in children and adolescents were examined in 184 fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-grade students, classified as high or low Type A, using self-report, teacher ratings (fifth grade only), and structured interview procedures. Measures included the Hunter-Wolf A-B Rating Scale, Behavioral Symptoms of Stress Inventory, Dimensions of Temperament Survey, Desire for Control Scale, Eysenck Personality Inventory, and the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist. High Type A children reported significantly more stressed-related behaviors, higher levels of depression, anger, anxiety, and cognitive disorganization, and greater reactivity than Low Type A. No differences were found on measures of temperament (activity level, attention span, adaptibility, and rhythmicity), desire for control, or introversion-extroversion. Females, in general, reported significantly more behavioral stress symptoms. However, no other gender differences were found. Possible reasons for reported differences between Type A children and adults are discussed, along with gender differences in behavioral symptoms. Need for multiple measures of Type A across situation is considered along with need for controlled longitudinal studies of Type A components and the influence of contexts.Received Ph.D. from Stanford. Research interests: Adolescent problems, stress.Received Ph.D. from Stanford. Research interests: Type A, anger/hostility; AIDS prevention.Received Ph.D. from Stanford. Research interests: child & family problems, stress disorders.Received Ph.D. from Stanford. Research interests: psychoneuroimmunology.Received Ph.D. from Stanford. Research interests: pain disorders, stress.Received Ph.D. from Stanford.Received Ph.D. from Stanford. Research interests: anxiety and phobic disorders.     

Perception and experience of types of social stress and self-image among adolescents

Eighty-four 16–18-year-old male and female volunteers were sampled to test the relationship of ratings and experience of four types of social stressors (developmental transitions, induced transitions, daily hassles, and circumscribed events). Also the relationship of self-image as measured by the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire to each type of stressor was studied. Contrary to previous research, we did not find correlations between ratings and experience, and observed minimal gender differences in ratings, experience levels, and psychopathology. Several differences in impact were found when stressor types were differentiated. Apparently, developmental transitions are least stressful for adolescents and daily hassles are most influential on their self-image. Gender differences were noted in the perceived change required by types of stressors and the manner in which stressors impacted on self-image. These results suggest that it is important to distinguish type of Stressors by type of adjustment process required, and that previously reported gender differences are less a matter of global differences or affects of specific Stressors than a matter of variations in perceived adjustment required and aspect of functioning impacted.Based on a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 26, 1986. This work was conducted in part while the senior author was a Clinical Research Training Fellow in Adolescence (funded by T32 MH 14668) at the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center in a program also sponsored by the Departments of Behavioral Science and Psychiatry, University of Chicago, and the Adolescent Programs of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute. Support was also provided by an award from the DePaul University Council.Received Ph.D. in Psychology from University of Tennessee. Current research interests are prevention of delinquency, family systems theory, and adolescent development.Current research interest is obesity in children.Current research interests are family functioning assessment and delinquency.