Beliefs in Government

This article conveys the general findings of the multi-national, multi-volume Beliefs in Government research project, perhaps the most exhaustive analysis of mass beliefs and attitudes conducted in the west. In spite of considerable socio–economic change in recent decades, the study provides evidence of political stability, continuity and adaptability in west European countries. This suggests that political scientists should pay more attention than hitherto to pressures for inertia and continuity in western democracies.     

Structure of racial attitudes in white middle adolescents

Middle adolescent White children (N=101, mean age 17.0 years) were subjects in a study assessing the comparability of racial attitudes as measured through the use of various response formats. Attitudes toward White and Black racial stimuli, respectively, were assessed through responses to (1) a traditional, forced-choice format; (2) a dimensionalized, bipolar item format requiring placement of ten Whites and ten Blacks, respectively, along each of ten 7-point dimensions; (3) a format identical to (2) except in the requirement of only one racial stimulus attribution per dimension; and (4) a format requiring the estimation of the percentage of time a White and a Black stimulus, respectively, manifested each item characteristic. Although mean responses derived from the latter three response-latitude methods were directionally consistent with corresponding forced-choice, frequency data, neither the multidimensional locations of these means nor their intradimensional separations were very disparate. Moreover, although correlational analyses indicated relatively low forced-choice /response-latitude method consistency, and even lower, and essentially nonsignificant, intramethod consistency when intra-item Black-White ratings from the response-latitude methods were considered, moderate and significant consistencies existed in the intermethod comparisons among the response-latitude methods. This finding was taken as evidence of convergent and discriminant validation. It was concluded that inferences drawn about the structure of racial attitudes based on data derived from forced-choice formats are not supported by data derived from response-latitude methods and that, alternatively, these latter methods provide evidence for the existence of other attitude structures.Received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York, New York, New York. Current research interests include the relation of organismic variables to personality/social development.Received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado. Current research interests include measurement theory and cognition.     

Heterogeneous Preferences and Collective Action

In recent years, scholarshave turned to alternative representationsof utility to capture motivationalheterogeneity across individuals. In theresearch reported here, we examine twomodels of heterogeneous utility –linear-altruism and inequity-aversion – inthe context of two-person, social dilemmagames. Empirical tests are conducteddrawing on data from experiments andsurveys. We find that the model ofinequity-aversion accounts for asubstantial proportion of the preferencetypes and behavior that are not explainedby the standard model of self-interestedpreferences. In contrast, the altruismmodel does not provide a significantincrease in explanatory power over theinequity-aversion model.     

Trajectories of Positive and Negative Behaviors from Early- to Middle-Adolescence

Although the positive youth development (PYD) model initially assumed inverse links between indicators of PYD and of risk/problem behaviors, empirical work in adolescence has suggested that more complex associations exist between trajectories of the two domains of functioning. To clarify the PYD model, this study assessed intraindividual change in positive and problematic indicators across Grades 5–10, and the links between these trajectories of development, among 2,516 participants from the 4-H Study of PYD (58.1% females; 64.9% European American, 7.0% African American, 12.3% Latino/a American, 2.6% Asian American or Pacific Islander, 1.8% Native American, 3.0% multiethnic-racial, and 8.4% with inconsistent race/ethnicity across waves). Results from person-centered analyses indicated that most youth clustered in the high trajectories of positive indicators and in the low trajectories of the negative ones. Consistent with past research, overlap between trajectories of positive and negative behaviors was found. These results suggest that theory and application need to accommodate to variation in the links between positive and problematic developmental trajectories.     

Why Missing Data Matter in the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Development: Using the 4-H Study to Understand the Uses of Different Missing Data Methods

The study of adolescent development rests on methodologically appropriate collection and interpretation of longitudinal data. While all longitudinal studies of adolescent development involve missing data, the methods to treat missingness that have been recommended most often focus on missing data from cross-sectional studies. The problems of missing data in longitudinal studies are not described well, there are not many statistical software programs developed for researchers to use, and there are no longitudinal empirical examples involving adolescent development that show the extent to which different missing data procedures can yield different results. Data from the first three waves of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development were used to provide such an illustration. The sample contains 2,265 participants (56.7% females) who were in Grade 5 at Wave 1, in Grade 6 at Wave 2, and in Grade 7 at Wave 3, and varied in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family structure, rural–urban location, and geographic region. The results showed that three missing data techniques, i.e., listwise deletion, direct maximum likelihood (DirML), and multiple imputation (MI), did not yield comparable results for research questions assessing different aspects of development (i.e., change over time or prediction effects). The results indicated also that listwise deletion should not be used. Instead, both DirML and MI methods should be used to determine if and how results change when these procedures are employed.     

Special Issue Introduction: The Meaning and Measurement of Thriving: A View of the Issues

We introduce this special issue on the foundations and functions of adolescent thriving by summarizing the developmental systems theory-based, positive youth development (PYD) perspective. The PYD perspective frames much of contemporary research about health and positive development across the adolescent period and, more specifically, frames the 4-H Study of PYD, the data set from which the empirical work in this special issue is drawn. We discuss the different ways in which the articles in this special issue elucidate different facets of the PYD perspective. In addition, we summarize the implications of this research for future scholarship and for applications aimed at improving the life chances of diverse adolescents.     

Academic Achievement in the High School Years: The Changing Role of School Engagement

School engagement is an important theoretical and practical cornerstone to the promotion of academic accomplishments. This article used a tripartite—behavioral, emotional, and cognitive—model of school engagement to assess the relationship between school engagement and academic success among high school students, and to determine whether a reciprocal relationship exists between these constructs. Data were derived from 710 youth (69 % female) who took part in Waves 6 through 8 (Grades 10 through 12) of the 4-H study of positive youth development. Longitudinal confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the invariance of the tripartite model of school engagement. Results of a structural equation model showed that the components of school engagement and academic achievement were mutually predictive and that these predictions varied from grade to grade. Future possibilities for evaluating the relationship between school engagement and academic achievement, as well as the implications for educational policy and practice, are discussed.     

Special Issue Introduction: Thriving Across the Adolescent Years: A View of the Issues

Framed within a relational developmental systems model, the 4-H Study of positive youth development (PYD) explored the bases and implications of thriving across much of the second decade of life. This special issue pertains to information derived from the recently completed eight waves of the 4-H Study of PYD, and presents findings about the relations between individual and contextual variables that are involved in the thriving process. This introduction briefly reviews the historical background and the theoretical frame for the 4-H Study and describes its general methodology. We provide an overview of the articles in this special issue and discuss the ways in which the articles elucidate different facets of the thriving process. In addition, we discuss the implications of this research for future scholarship and for applications aimed at improving the life chances of diverse adolescents.