The dynamics of personality and identity in adolescence

The present paper summarizes some of the key findings on the dynamics of personality and identity in adolescence by the author's research group. With regard to personality, we found evidence for a maturation process in which girls were ahead of boys. Being ahead or lagging behind with regard to this maturation process was found to be associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, respectively. We further identified which specific traits were associated with problem behaviour, and showed that these associations are bidirectional. With regard to identity, we showed that short-term fluctuations affect subsequent levels of identity dimensions. In addition, we uncovered a commitment–reconsideration dynamic that operates on a day-to-day level.     

Speed reductions and judgments of travel time loss: Biases and debiasing

Priority decisions concerning maintenance or reconstruction of roads are made with the aim of road improvements with as little traffic disturbance and time loss as possible. However, it cannot be avoided that speed will be reduced and travel time increased during the time of construction. The present study shows how intuitive judgments of travel time losses are biased in a way similar to the times saving bias (Svenson, 2008), but not perfectly corresponding to that bias. This means that when speed is decreased from a slow speed <50 km/h, the time loss is underestimated and when speed is decreased from a high speed >80 km/h it is overestimated. Also, drivers, politicians and policy makers who do not make exact calculations are likely victims of the time loss bias. The time loss bias was weakened but not eliminated by a debiasing instruction including mathematical computations of travel times. When driving speed restrictions are implemented, in particular on fast motorways, it is necessary to consider and counteract the time loss bias and inform the public. This can be done, for example, in communications about travel time facts, by information in driver training and by mounting temporary road signs informing about the average travel time prolongation due to a road work.     

Further Life Experiences Informing the Death and Adjustment Hypotheses

The meaning of life is never straight to us humans. At different turns of life, we perceive different meanings that are offered to us by our own lives. Near one’s death, professional disaster, enmity, family suffering, and fears for life all have their own dimensions. Nevertheless, when summing up, they seem to revolve around the same central themes again and again. In this article, we tried to offer the insights that we found from some very significant and traumatic events of our own lives through the spectacles of our theory—“Death and Adjustment Hypotheses.” Our life is always important; so is our peace and safety. But when we lose our values, we lose everything. It is often that we try to live through our offspring; however, it is our morality and humane values that can ultimately save them from the traumas of life and see them meaningfully through life and death as transcendental beings.     

Family structure and family processes in Mexican-American families

Despite increases in single-parent families among Mexican Americans, few studies have examined the association of family structure and family adjustment. Utilizing a diverse sample of 738 Mexican-American families (21.7% single parent), the current study examined differences across family structure on early adolescent outcomes, family functioning, and parent-child relationship variables. Results revealed that early adolescents in single-parent families reported greater school misconduct, conduct disorder/oppositional deviant disorder, and major depressive disorder symptoms, and greater parent-child conflict than their counterparts in 2-parent families. Single-parent mothers reported greater economic hardship, depression, and family stress. Family stress and parent-child conflict emerged as significant mediators of the association between family structure and early adolescent outcomes, suggesting important processes linking Mexican-American single-parent families and adolescent adjustment.     

Parents' Differential Treatment of Adolescent Siblings in African American Families

Research on European and European American families suggests that parents' differential treatment of siblings has negative implications for youths' adjustment, but few studies have explored these dynamics in minority samples. This study examined parents' differential acceptance and conflict in a sample of mothers, fathers, and two adolescent siblings in 179 African American families who were interviewed on three annual occasions. In an effort to replicate findings from European and European American samples, we assessed the longitudinal associations between differential treatment and adolescent adjustment and tested three sibling characteristics (birth order, gender, and dyad gender composition) as potential moderators of these linkages. To illuminate the sociocultural context of differential treatment and its implications, we also explored parents' cultural socialization practices and experiences of financial stress as potential moderators of these links. Multilevel models revealed that, controlling for average parent–child relationship qualities, decreases in parental acceptance and increases in parent–youth conflict over time—relative to the sibling—were associated with increases in youths' risky behavior and depressive symptoms. Links between differential treatment and adjustment were not evident, however, when mothers engaged in high levels of cultural socialization and in families under high financial stress. The discussion highlights the significance of sociocultural factors in family dynamics.     

生命意义感对大学新生日常烦心事和心理适应的影响

为验证日常烦心事对个体心理适应的作用过程,并探讨生命意义感是否在烦心事知觉与心理适应之间起调节作用。研究采用纵向追踪方式对153名大学新生进行新近生活经历问卷、压力知觉量表、生命意义感量表和心理适应的测量。结果显示压力知觉在日常烦心事与心理适应之间起完全中介作用;拥有意义在烦心事知觉与心理适应之间起调节作用,但追求意义的调节作用不显著。这说明日常烦心事会通过压力知觉影响个体心理适应,拥有意义对个体心理适应具有调节作用。     

Speed behaviour as a choice between observing and exceeding the speed limit

Despite speed behaviour being defined as a choice between several possible speeds, studies using theory of reasoned action or theory of planned behaviour to predict and understand speed behaviour have focused on exceeding and not on observing the speed limit. This study examines whether the evaluation of exceeding but also of observing the speed limit contributes to improving predictions of self-reported speed behaviour and determining intentions to produce each of these two behavioural options. For a specific driving situation (straight road with 90 km/h speed limit), 238 young male drivers reported the speed at which they would drive at and where asked to assess the theory of planned behaviour key constructs with respect to observing and exceeding the speed limit by at least 20 km/h. Results showed that the amount of explained variance of self-reported speed behaviour, as well as intentions to observe and to exceed the speed limit by at least 20 km/h, increased significantly when the evaluations of the two options were introduced in the same stepwise regression analysis. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

A cross-cultural study of trait self-enhancement, explanatory variables, and adjustment

We investigated trait self-enhancement, explanatory variables, and adjustment in European American (n = 141), Asian American (n = 72), Mexican (n = 141), and Filipino (n = 174) college students. Consistent with trait perspectives, students in all cultural groups rated their traits with moderate to high accuracy, using peer ratings as a criterion. European Americans did not exhibit self-enhancement relative to peers, but both self and peer ratings were higher (i.e., more positive) for European Americans than for the other three groups. Support was found for some, but not all, cultural psychology explanations of self-enhancement. In all cultural groups, self-enhancement was more associated with personal (intrapsychic) adjustment than interpersonal adjustment, as judged by peers. The results provided support for an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives.     

Task specificity and the timing of discrete aiming movements

In discrete aiming movements the task criteria of time-minimization to a spatial target (e.g., Fitts, 1954) and time-matching to a spatial-temporal goal (e.g., Schmidt et al., 1979) tend to produce different functions of the speed-accuracy trade-off. Here we examined whether the task-related movement speed-accuracy characteristics were due to differential space-time trade-offs in time-matching, velocity-matching and time-minimizing task goals. Twenty participants performed 100 aiming trials for each of 15 combinations of task-type (3) and space-time condition (5). The prevalence of the primary types of sub-movement (none, pre-peak, post-peak, undershooting and overshooting) was determined from the kinematics of the movement trajectory. There were comparable distributions of trajectory sub-movement profiles and space-time movement outcomes across the three tasks at the short movement duration that became increasingly dissimilar over decreasing movement velocity and increasing movement time conditions. Movement time was the most influential variable in mediating sub-movement characteristics and the spatial/temporal outcome accuracy and variability of discrete aiming tasks – a role that was magnified in the explicit task demands of time-matching. The time-matching and time-minimization task goals in discrete aiming induce qualitatively different control processes that progressively contribute beyond the minimal time conditions to task-specific space-time accuracy and variability characteristics of the respective movement speed-accuracy functions.     

Distinguishing Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Chinese Children

This study examined proactive and reactive aggression and their relation to psychosocial adjustment in three samples (N = 767, 368 girls, M age = 10.03) of Chinese school age children. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a two-factor model which distinguished both proactive and reactive aggression fit the data reasonably well, and also fit the data better than a single-factor model in all three samples. The distinction between proactive and reactive aggression was found for both boys and girls. Reactive aggression was more strongly related to reciprocated friendship (negatively), peer victimization, emotion dysregulation, hostile attributions of others' behavior in ambiguous social situations, and self-reported loneliness and social anxiety (positively) than was proactive aggression. Proactive aggression was related to positive outcome expectancies and efficacy beliefs of aggression for boys but not for girls, but the significant gender difference was only found for positive outcome expectancies. The findings suggest that proactive and reactive aggression represent two distinct forms of aggression which are associated with specific adjustment outcomes in Chinese children.