Adolescents' Commitment to Developing Talent: The Role of Peers in Continuing Motivation for Sports and the Arts

The role of peer relationships in supporting or hindering adolescents' talent development has received little research attention, despite the importance of peers in adolescents' lives. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 41 adolescents talented in sports or the arts, and their parents, to investigate (a) the role of peer relationships in adolescents' continued involvement in their talent activities, (b) possible differences in this role by activity domain, and (c) possible gender differences. Thematic analysis indicated that peers typically played a positive function in supporting the continued involvement of talented adolescents in their talent activities. There were differences in opportunities for peer relationships and social satisfaction between in-school and out-of school activities, but not between activity domains. Both males and females mentioned equally social benefits of such involvement. However, females mentioned receiving negative peer attention more frequently than males, and more often cited social dissatisfaction as a significant contributor to decreased involvement or quitting.     

Antecedents of adolescent initiation into stages of drug use: A developmental analysis

The social psychological antecedents of entry into three sequential stages of adolescent drug use, hard liquor, marihuana, and other illicit drugs, are examined in a cohort of high school students in which the population at risk for initiation into each stage could be clearly specified. The analyses are based on a two-wave panel sample of New York State public secondary students and subsamples of matched adolescent-parent and adolescent-best schoolfriend dyads. Each of four clusters of predictor variables, parental influences, peer influences, adolescent involvement in various behaviors, and adolescent beliefs and values, and single predictors within each cluster assume differential importance for each stage of drug behavior. Prior involvement in a variety of activities, such as minor delinquency and use of cigarettes, beer, and wine are most important for hard liquor use. Adolescents' beliefs and values favorable to the use of marihuana and association with marihuana-using peers are the strongest predictors of initiation into marihuana. Poor relations with parents, feelings of depression, and exposure to drug-using peers are most important for initiation into illicit drugs other than marihuana.This research is supported by Grant DA-00064 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and by the Center for Socio-Cultural Research on Drug Use of Columbia University.Revised version of a paper presented at the Conference on Strategies of Longitudinal Research on Drug Use, San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 1976. Authors' names are listed alphabetically.Received Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1960. Current research interests are adolescent socialization, longitudinal approaches to the study of human behavior and psychopathology, and processes of interpersonal influence.Received Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1975. Major interest is quantitative sociology.Received Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1975. Current research interests include adolescent socialization and deviant behavior.     

Genetic variation and relationships at five STR loci in five distinct ethnic groups in China

Five short tandem repeat (STR) systems of TH01, vWA, LPL, F13B and FES/FPS were investigated in five ethnic groups living in China (Tujia, Miao, Bai, Chaoxian and Han). All five loci did not deviate from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P>0.05). At the five loci of each ethnic group, the observed heterozygosity, the mean exclusion chance (MEC), and the power of discrimination (PD) ranged from 0.42 to 0.86, from 0.20 to 0.66 and from 0.61 to 0.95, respectively. For the five ethnic groups, the combined MEC and combined PD were >0. 9360 and >0.9998, respectively, suggesting that combinations of these five systems are feasible for DNA typing in forensic investigations such as personal identification or paternity testing. Furthermore, the allelic frequencies at the five loci suggested that these five ethnic groups were distinctly different communities. Judging from the phylogenetic tree constructed based on the genetic distance among the five ethnic groups, Han, Chaoxian and Tujia were involved in an identical cluster, and Miao and Bai in another. These findings indicate that each of the five groups examined is not only a distinct community, but also has a relationship with each of the others.     

European Union enlargement: Power distribution implications of the new institutional arrangements

Abstract. It is argued that enlargement challenges institutional balances and in particular relative powers of national actors within the European Union (EU). This article concentrates on the impact of future enlargement (with the current negotiating 12 candidates) on power distribution in the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the European Parliament based on the decisions taken at the Nice Summit in December 1800. It uses the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices to evaluate past and emerging power distributions in both the Council and in the Parliament. A brief section on Turkey (the thirteenth, non-negotiating, official candidate) is included to evaluate its possible impact in the case of admission to the Union.