Positive and negative self-related goals and subjective well-being: A prospective study

To examine whether having self-related personal goals, or rather whether positive or negative appraisal of them, is associated with subjective well-being, 311 students were asked to complete the Personal Project Analysis (PPA) and revised Beck Depression Inventory, first at the beginning of their studies, and then 2 years later. After 3 years they were asked about the use of mental health services. Two groups of students were identified: (1) those with positive self-projects and (2) those with negative self-projects. The results showed that both positive and negative self-related projects showed stability across a 2-year period, but only negative ones were prospectively predicted by earlier depressive symptomatology. Although neither positive nor negative projects predicted depressive symptomatology, both predicted the use of mental health services.     

The role of parents' self-esteem, mastery-orientation and social background in their parenting styles

In order to examine the extent to which parents' levels of education, financial resources, self-esteem, and their mastery-orientation versus task-avoidance are associated with their parenting styles and parental stress, data from two studies were analyzed. In Study I, parents of 105 6 to 7-year old children were asked to fill in scales measuring their parenting styles and parental stress, mastery-orientation, financial resources, and their level of education. In Study II, 235 parents were asked to fill in the same scales. An identical pattern of results was found in the two studies. Parents' self-esteem and their use of mastery-oriented strategy were found to be associated with authoritative parenting and low parental stress, whereas parents' low level of education was related to an authoritarian parenting style. The results further showed that the impact of parents' self-esteem on authoritative parenting and parental stress was partly mediated by their use of a mastery-oriented strategy.     

Expressions and Projections of Evil in Mass Violence

This article examines two recent school shooting cases in Finland, and the use of the concept of evil as a tool to discern the violence and cruelty of the incidents. The analysis is based on qualitative, focused interviews with local residents. Participants used the notion of evil to describe and understand school shootings and their perpetrators. Evil was mostly associated with the act of violence and with the perpetrators. Processing the experience of evil included the projection and externalization of evil. This process was associated with the fear of being labeled and reluctance to work through the traumatic experiences.     

Identity processing style and cognitive attributional strategies: similarities and difference across different contexts

Identity processing style refers to the manner in which individuals approach or manage to avoid identity relevant problems and decisions. Two studies were designed to investigate the relationship between identity style and the specific cognitive and attributional strategies youth deploy in achievement and affiliative contexts. In Study 1, 198 American late adolescents filled in the revised Identity Style Inventory and a Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire. In Study 2, 109 Finnish late adolescents filled in the same measures. Study 1 revealed that diffuse/avoidant‐oriented American youth relied on maladaptive strategies in both contexts. Information‐oriented youth engaged in more strategic planning than did their normative and diffuse/avoidant counterparts. Study 2 indicated an identical pattern of associations among the identity processing styles and cognitive and attributional strategies for Finnish youth in achievement but not in interpersonal settings. The results are discussed in the context of a social–cognitive theory of identity development. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding emerging adulthood from a goal-setting perspective

The chapter first introduces the concept of emerging adulthood as a period of life that is characterized by instabilities and fluctuations. Then, the role of goal setting and aspirations in individual development during this stage of life is discussed. Following this, seven chapters of the present special issue are introduced, and the ways in which goal processes affect individual trajectories and outcomes are discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future perspectives in the field, such as the need to investigate the relationships between goals and goal adjustment, the need to carry out cross-cultural comparisons, as well as the need to develop intervention based on goal and aspiration framework.     

Dynamics of goal pursuit and personality make-up among emerging adults: typology, change over time, and adaptation

In recent years young people's lives have been characterized by postponement of developmental timetables, inconsistencies of transitions, and loss of direction in life. Data from a longitudinal study of Israeli young adults show that the capacity for setting realistic work and love goals reflects inner strengths and is associated with adaptive outcomes. Less-articulated love and work goals are associated with underlying personality difficulties and are predictive of less stable and less adaptive outcomes. The interplay of goal constellations and personality constructs, and its association with adaptive and less adaptive outcomes is presented and discussed.     

Achievement strategies during university studies predict early career burnout and engagement

To examine whether individuals’ achievement strategies measured during university studies would have an impact on work burnout and work engagement measured 10, 14 and 17 years later, 292 university students completed the SAQ strategy questionnaire three times while at university, and the work burnout inventory three times and work engagement inventory twice during their early career. The results showed that optimism increased during university, while task-avoidance did not change. Moreover, high and increasing optimism during university predicted a high level of work engagement and low level of burnout 10, 14 and 17 years later. By contrast, a high level of task-avoidance during university predicted a low level of work engagement and high level of burnout during the early career.     

On Usnadze's volume illusion

Summary Contrary to what was expected, subjects overestimated the volume in heavier objects, when making estimations with no visual cues available (a positive volume illusion). This finding contradicts the result of Usnadze. He found, that the heavier of two spheres, equal in volume, was perceived as the smaller by most subjects, with their eyes closed.The stimuli used were spheres and cylinders of different weights and volumes. In four experiments, the subjects reported their volume ratings with the help of two direct scaling methods, magnitude estimation or ratio estimation. Lifting stimuli with one sphere in each hand gave, as a result, a difference between hands. This difference was interpreted to imply, that the subjects did not just follow a strategy to give higher volume estimates to heavier objects.The positive volume illusion phenomenon, that appeared in all four experiments, was affected by such sources of variation as time (trial number), and size-weight interaction, defined as a stimulus context variable. Neither a strategy which assumes that the subjects judge density instead of volume, nor any other sizeweight interaction model is effective in explaining the volume illusion. The search for such a model was suggested as a line for future research, though.

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Zusammenfassung Gegensatz zur Erwartung scheinen schwerere Versuchskörper größeres Volumen zu haben als die leichteren, wenn Vpn die Volumina vergleichen, ohne sie anzusehen (eine positive Volumtäuschung). Dieses Resultat stimmt nicht mit den Ergebnissen von Usnadze. Er fand, daß wenn man zwei verschieden schwere, im übrigen aber ganz gleichartige Körper mit geschlossenen Augen, bloß tastend, auf ihre Größe vergleicht, so erscheint der Schwere kleiner, der Leichtere größer.Die Versuchskörper waren Kugeln und Zylinder verschiedenen Gewichtes und Volumens. In vier Versuchen schätzen die Vpn das Volumen mit Hilfe von zwei direkten Schätzmethoden, Magnitudenschätzung (magnitude estimation) und Verhältnisschätzung (ratio estimation), jedoch ohne die Versuchskörper sehen zu dürfen. Das Heben der Versuchskörper mit einer Kugel in jeder Hand gab als Resultat einen Unterschied zwischen den Händen. Dieser Unterschied schien zu bedeuten, daß die Vpn nicht automatisch schweren Körpern ein größeres Volumen gaben.Die positive Volumtäuschung, die in allen vier Versuchen erschien, war durch solche Faktoren wie Zeit (Nummer der Vergleichsfälle), und Größe-Gewichtwechselwirkung, definiert in der Verschiedenheit der vorhandenen Versuchskörper, beeinflußt. Die Versuchsdaten stützen nicht die Hypothese, daß die Vpn versuchten die Dichte der Versuchskörper zu schätzen. Auch wurde kein brauchbares Modell für die Wechselwirkung gefunden um die Volumtäuschung zu illustrieren. Ein solches Modell wurde doch für zukünftige Forschung vorgeschlagen.

     

DEVELOPMENT OF ORIENTATION TO THE FUTURE DURING EARLY ADOLESCENCE: A FOUR-YEAR LONGITUDINAL STUDY AND TWO CROSS-SECTIONAL COMPARISONS

In 1982, fifty-seven 11-year-old and forty-eight 15-year-old adolescents were interviewed about their hopes and fears for the future. Similarly, in 1987, fifty-seven 11-year-old and fifty-six 15-year-old adolescents were interviewed. The content and extension of each hope and fear as well as the levels of planning, realization, internality, probability estimation and overall emotional evaluation were estimated from the answers. As expected, adolescents' hopes concerned major developmental tasks, i.e. occupation, education, family and property related topics. Both 11- and 15-year-olds extended their thinking to the same stage of their future life, about the age of twenty. A comparison of extension according to hope content showed that adolescents' orientation to the future reflected the ‘cultural prototype’ of expected life-span development. Levels of planning, realization and knowledge concerning hopes increased with age as did internality and optimism concerning the future, especially among boys.     

Maternal affection moderates the impact of psychological control on a child's mathematical performance

This study investigated the extent to which mothers' psychological control predicts their children's mathematical performance during the children's transition from preschool to primary school over and above the impact of maternal affection and behavioral control. Also investigated was the extent to which maternal affection and behavioral control moderate the impact of mothers' psychological control. Children 5-6 years old at baseline (N=196) were followed up 6 times to measure their performance in mathematics over a 3-year period from preschool to 2nd grade. Mothers were asked to fill in a questionnaire measuring their parenting styles once every year over the 3-year period. A high level of psychological control exercised by mothers predicted their children's slow progress in mathematics. However, this impact was particularly evident among those children whose mothers reported a high level of affection. No evidence was found that children's mathematical performance had any effect on their mothers' parenting styles.