Involvement in Internet Aggression During Early Adolescence

The current study examined concurrent and longitudinal predictors of early adolescents’ involvement in Internet aggression. Cross-sectional results (N = 330; 57% female) showed that the likelihood of reporting Internet aggression was higher among youth who spent more time using Internet-based technologies to communicate with friends and who were themselves targets of Internet aggression. Offline relational aggression and beliefs supportive of relational and physical aggression also predicted concurrent involvement in Internet aggression. We used longitudinal data (N = 150; 51% female) to distinguish between youth who were aggressive in traditional contexts only (i.e., school) from those who were aggressive both online and offline. These results indicated that youth who were aggressive both online and offline were older at the initial assessment, were targets of Internet aggression, and held beliefs more supportive of relational aggression than youth who were aggressive offline only. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Revisiting Parental Monitoring: Evidence that Parental Solicitation Can be Effective When Needed Most

Studies using valid measures of monitoring activities have not found the anticipated main effects linking greater monitoring activity with fewer behavioral problems. This study focused on two contexts in which monitoring activities may be particularly influential. Early adolescents (n = 218, M age = 11.5 years, 51% female, 49% European American, 47% African American) reported their unsupervised time, beliefs about the legitimacy of their parents’ authority, and their own involvement in antisocial behavior. Mothers and adolescents reported their perceptions of adolescent disclosure and parental solicitation and control. Adolescents’ perceptions of greater parental solicitation at age 11 were associated with less antisocial behavior at age 12 (when controlling for age 11 antisocial behavior) among adolescents reporting large amounts of unsupervised time and weak legitimacy beliefs. Perceived parental solicitation may be an effective deterrent of antisocial behavior when adolescents spend a lot of time unsupervised and for adolescents who are likely to challenge the legitimacy of their parents’ authority.     

Headlong into the Polanyian Dilemma: The Impact of Middle-Class Moral Panic on the British Government's Response to the Sub-prime Crisis

This article focuses on the discursive construction in Britain of a middle-class moral panic occasioned by the distress caused to self-styled 'responsible mortgage borrowers' by falling house prices. In the context of the move towards asset-based welfare the sub-prime crisis manifested itself most obviously in the popular consciousness as a threat to housing market wealth. The Labour government used the political space opened up by the narrative of middle-class moral panic in order to protect banks' balance sheets from the consequences of their own failed investments in mortgage-backed securities. The ensuing arrangements immunised banks from the implications of market self-regulation in the first-phase response to the sub-prime crisis while simultaneously allowing them to continue to impose the experience of market self-regulation on their customers. An increasingly asymmetric approach to banking regulation has arisen analogous to that which Karl Polanyi associated with the contradictory co-existence of market and non-market forms.     

Developmental Associations Between Adolescent Change in Depressive Symptoms and Menstrual-Cycle-Phase-Specific Negative Affect During Early Adulthood

The causal factors associated with increases in depressive symptoms among adolescent girls remain an area of theoretical debate, and the limited research considering a hormonal influence has provided mixed results. The goal of the present study was to test a set of longitudinal associations, that, if found, would provide support for a hormonal contribution to these changes. Specifically, this study tested the hypotheses that changes in depressive symptoms among adolescent girls would be associated with phase-specific symptoms of the menstrual cycle during early adulthood; that these associations would differ across three phases of the menstrual cycle; and that the pattern of associations would differ for changes in depressive symptoms during early- and late-adolescence. The sample consisted of 47 women with longitudinal data from 12 to 21 years old (approximately 91% European Canadian, 4% Middle Eastern Canadian, 2% Haitian Canadian, and 2% Asian Canadian). Consistent with expectations, results showed that early-adolescent increases in depressive symptoms were negatively associated with menstrual-phase negative affect, and positively associated with mid-cycle negative affect, but not associated with premenstrual negative affect; whereas late-adolescent change in depressive symptoms was only associated with depressive symptoms at 20-21 years. Thus, early-adolescent changes in depressive symptoms are longitudinally associated with later mood change across the menstrual cycle, suggesting a common underlying cause, which is hypothesized to be hormonal. Moreover, results suggest that, with respect to variables that are involved in affective development, important differences exist between early- and late-adolescence. The discussion considers menstrual-cycle-related symptoms (e.g., dysmenorrhea) during adolescence, and the need to study their effects on development. It is suggested that focused intervention and prevention efforts may be indicated to interrupt negative developmental outcomes.     

Economics,security, and individual-level preferences for trade agreements

Empirical research on the determinants of individual-level support for trade liberalization has focused almost entirely on the economic effects of trade. Yet, international relations scholarship has long recognized that commerce also has a variety of security implications. This paper explores if and when security considerations influence individual attitudes toward trade. In this study, we ask two questions: First, to what extent do expectations about the security implications of trade affect individual-level attitudes toward trade agreements? Second, does the introduction of security concerns into the discussion of trade agreements influence how heavily individuals weigh their economic costs and benefits? We employ an original experiment embedded in a conjoint survey to investigate the relative impact of a variety of economic and security considerations on respondents’ support for trade. Our findings suggest that security information matters and undermines the appeal of some, though not all, economic arguments for trade liberalization among our respondents.     

Remoteness as a gendered construct

This article explores the potential of using children’s perceptions of distance to reflect a gendered understanding of remoteness. Data collected from 1,549 children in Tanzania concerning their perceptions of remoteness in relation to accessibility of school, health care, and water resources were analysed in reference to their impact on school attendance and performance. Gendered variability in perceived distances to services by children may indicate that remoteness is as much of a social issue as it is a geographic phenomenon, in that girls perceive distance and time between home and destination to be further than boys who travel approximately the same distance.     

A Cross-National Study Examining the Role of Executive Function and Emotion Regulation in the Relationship between Children’s Television Exposure and Consumer Behavior

Across industrialized nations, children and teens are a highly prized target for the advertising industry because young people have a tremendous influence on family purchases; however, media scholars have long suggested that young people are a fundamentally vulnerable audience because they lack the necessary developmental competencies to adequately process and protect themselves from advertising communications. Yet, the precise developmental mechanisms have not been clearly articulated nor is there a clear understanding of how these competencies extend across childhood contexts (e.g., developmental phase, cultures). The current study seeks to lend clarity to this matter by looking at the potential influence that children’s executive function and emotion regulation have on the relationship between television exposure (as a proxy of exposure to advertising messages and other consumption-oriented media content) and consumer behavior across a broad range of ages from two wealthy industrialized countries. Mothers of young elementary school children (5–8 years) and early adolescents (9–12 years) in the Netherlands (N?=?333, 51.7% female child) and the United States of America (N?=?810, 49.6% female child) took part in an online survey to report on their child’s cognitive/affective development, media use, and consumer behavior (i.e., purchase requests, purchase related conflict). The results showed that across ages, executive function via attentional shifting moderated the link between purchase requests and purchase conflict, whereas positively valenced emotion regulation moderated the same relationship but only for older children. Lastly, the findings revealed that while there are differences in reported behavior among children in these two countries, the developmental processes tend to work in the same manner. The discussion focuses on what these findings mean for children’s consumer development as they approach adolescence and how researchers and child advocates should take these developmental factors into account when considering children’s potential vulnerability as consumers.

     

Early Adolescent Gender Development: The Differential Effects of Felt Pressure from Parents,Peers, and the Self

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Most empirical research examining youth’s gender development measures felt pressure to conform to gender norms using a composite value of felt pressure from...