Role In Adolescent Development Research Articles

The Role of Adolescent Development in Social Networking Site Use: Theory and Evidence

Using survey data collected from 260 children, adolescents, and young adults between the ages of 9 and 26, this paper offers evidence for a relationship between social networking site use and Imaginary Audience, a developmental variable in which adolescents believe others are thinking about them at all times. Specifically, after controlling for a number of variables, results indicate a significant, positive relationship between social networking site use and Imaginary Audience ideation. Additionally, results indicate a positive relationship between Imaginary Audience ideation and Facebook customization practices. Together, these findings provide evidence, based on Vygotskian developmental theory, for a general consideration of the role that currently available tools, in this case social networking sites, can have on development. Thus, findings implicate both the role of development on social networking site use, as well as the role of social networking site use on development. Overall, these findings have important implications for the study of media and human development, which are discussed in detail.

Construction and Standardization of Risk Taking Ability Scale

Construction and Standardization of Risk Taking Ability Scale

The Experience of Sexual Risk Communication in African American Families Living With HIV

Mother-daughter communication plays an influential role in adolescent development. The impact of maternal HIV infection on family communication is not clear. This study explores how living with HIV impacts sexual risk communication between mothers and daughters and whether maternal HIV status influences adolescent choices about engagement in HIV risk behaviors. Data were collected from 12 African American women and 10 of their adolescent daughters through focus groups. Both mothers and daughters shared information about issues that promoted and inhibited communication and engagement in risk behaviors. Findings show that HIV status served as a mechanism for behavioral change related to communication and risk engagement behaviors. Therefore, HIV-infected mothers should be supported in communicating values and expectations to their daughters.

Self-representations in Early Adolescence: Variations in Sibling Similarity by Sex Composition and Sibling Relationship Qualities

Self-representations play an important role in adolescent development. This study compared self-representations for siblings and explored whether sibling relationship characteristics are associated with similarities or differences in sibling self-concepts. We examined self-representations of 438 adolescent sibling dyads (M age younger sibling = 11.6 years, M age older = 14.3 years), finding that siblings are, on average, similar in their self-representations. This similarity varied, however, depending on sex composition and sibling relationship qualities. Results indicated that sibling modeling, warmth, and conflict were especially influential in predicting sibling resemblance vs. dissimilarity. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Exploring Adolescents’ Relationships with Non-Parental Adults Using the Non-Parental Adult Inventory (N.P.A.I.)

Adolescents’ relationships with non-parental adults is one identified protective factor that has received comparable little attention. Previous work indicates that significant, non-parental adults play an important role in adolescent development. This exploratory study examines the frequency of adolescent contact with non-parental adults, and their enjoyment of that contact using the Non-Parental Adult Inventory (N.P.A.I.). Gender and age differences among adolescent reports, and differences between parent and adolescent reports are explored. Frequency and reported enjoyment of adolescent contact within select categories of non-parental adults differed by gender. Parent and adolescent reports significantly differed with parents both underestimating and overestimating the strength of adolescents’ relationships with select adult groups. Results provide preliminary data regarding the nature of adolescents’ relationships with a broad range of non-parental adults.

Role of Adolescent Development in the Transition Process

Adolescent development is the normal process of transition from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents with transplants make the transition from pediatric to adult care within the context of other transitions in cognition, emotional attachments, autonomy, self-identity, sexuality, physical changes, life philosophy, and education/vocation. Healthcare providers can reduce their frustrations with this age group and optimize their care by understanding the impact of adolescent development on the transition process. In a busy clinic, attention to developmental issues can take on a low priority, but this does not have to be time consuming and may involve more of a perspective change than anything else. Both the adult and pediatric teams should remember that development does not stop at the time of transfer of care.

Role of adolescent development in the transition process

Adolescent development is the normal process of transition from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents with transplants make the transition from pediatric to adult care within the context of other transitions in cognition, emotional attachments, autonomy, self-identity, sexuality, physical changes, life philosophy, and education/vocation. Healthcare providers can reduce their frustrations with this age group and optimize their care by understanding the impact of adolescent development on the transition process. In a busy clinic, attention to developmental issues can take on a low priority, but this does not have to be time consuming and may involve more of a perspective change than anything else. Both the adult and pediatric teams should remember that development does not stop at the time of transfer of care.

Adolescent mental health. Prevention and treatment programs.

Adolescent mental health represents a neglected area of research. Mental health objectives include the promotion of optimal functioning as well as the prevention and reduction of maladaptive functioning. This article examines behaviors and conditions that place adolescents at risk for adverse outcomes and the urgent need for prevention and treatment to promote adaptive functioning. The current status of prevention and treatment programs is discussed along with critical issues including the interrelation and contribution of both prevention and treatment; the interplay of basic and applied research; and the need to extend existing interventions as well as to devise new models to address underserved, understudied, and high-risk populations. Research on the role of adolescent development, paths toward adjustment and maladjustment, and special opportunities that adolescence presents for intervention are also discussed.

Recent Studies in Adolescent Psychiatry Introduction

This special section is intended as a contribution to the burgeoning literature on adolescence and, in particular, to a growing reassessment of traditional concepts and traditional approaches that has recently emerged in the context of systematic research in an area long dominated by impressionistic and anecdotal reports. A major stimulus to this process of reevaluation has been the longitudinal study of normative adolescent populations by Offer (1969, 1975) and by Rutter and his associates (1976), among others. These studies have put into serious question the long-accepted notion of normal adolescent turmoil. This latter point of view was first enunciated around the turn of the century by Stanley Hall, one of the pioneers in the serious psychological study of adolescence. It became codified in the early psychoanalytic literature on adolescence and was most firmly and influentially enunciated in Anna Freud's classic paper on adolescence (1958), in which she advanced the view that adolescent turmoil is not only normative but desirable. In her opinion, the clinician would be well advised to look with serious question at an adolescent who did not show a significant amount of turmoil during this period, since it was likely that he would prove to be maturationally or developmentally immature, emotionally constricted or poorly differentiated. In a subsequent communication, Miss Freud (1969) spoke of adolescence as a disturbance. Peter BIos (1979), one of the most influential students of adolescent development, has essentially continued in this line, emphasizing in his discussions a normal, inevitable, and indeed desirable role in adolescent development for instinctual and ego regression. To some degree this idea of the necessity and inevitability of adolescent turmoil has been fostered by the ideas of Erik Erikson (1956), whose concept of a normative developmental crisis in adolescence around the consolidation of identity has been perverted into the

Religious Conversion: Regression and Progression in an Adolescent Experience

The sudden and dramatic religious conversion experience of a male divinity student is presented and explored in terms of its role in adolescent development. Particular emphasis is placed on his perception of family relationships, and especially on how the conversion experience serves to alter a perception of the actual father as weak, ineffective, or absent by supplying instead an internal representation of a strong and principled substitute paternal figure with clear values and firm judgments. This representation of a positive and powerful paternal figure is seen as crucial in aiding the adolescent process of individuation and differentiation by countering strong longings to retain or reestablish a sense of undifferentiated union with the maternal figure.