Although many studies have described adolescents' sexual behavior and attitudes, there are little data available on the nature of the questions that occur to adolescents as they move toward maturity. A study was conducted to determine whether the questions children and adolescents ask reflect developmental differences in cognitive abilities and…

Research has consistently shown parents' nurturance, acceptance, affection, support, and attention to be positively related to their children's self-esteem. Absent in these investigations of the relationship between parental nurturance and self-esteem, however, has been a consideration of whether the nurturance bases upon which these…

Questioned adolescents (N=210) regarding reasons they date, and importance of personality variables and prestige factors in selecting a dating partner. Suggests that with maturity and increased dating experience, adolescents become more realistic and independent in their perceptions of dating and dating partners. (Author/ABB)

Examined the long-term effects of early parental divorce on sex role development in 219 college students. No significant differences were found between subjects from intact and divorced parents. However, children's age at the time of divorce, siblings, and post-divorce parental conflict were mediating factors. (JAC)

This inquiry had two aims: to assess children's ability to interpret maps in geography; to relate the assessed ability to maturity of thought as proposed by Peel, general intelligence, and age. It was found that performance on four tests depended more on intelligence than on maturity of thought or age. (Author/SJL)

Guttman Scales were used to measure changes in four aspects of pre-adolescent and adolescent self-concept: stability of self-image, self-consciousness, self-esteem, and depressive affect. (Author/DB)

This study examined implicit theories of immaturity among 345 Canadian sixth- and ninth-graders. Qualitative analysis of adolescents' descriptions of an immature peer revealed six foci to implicit theories of immaturity. The majority of adolescents' descriptions focused on childlike behaviors, silly/goofy behaviors, or on mean/hurtful behaviors.…

Assessed causal attributions for losing perceived by high school students (N=150). Subjects responded to questionnaire comprising three categories of activities (sports, academic, social) in which they had not won or achieved desired outcome. Found that adolescent girls indicated significantly more internal attributions and boys more external…

Assessed college undergraduates' (n=399) views concerning conventional war and compared views with those gathered from early adolescents in a previous study. Overall, late adolescents' views were less positive and less extreme than those of younger adolescents. Attitudes toward war appeared to be related to sex, socioeconomic status, and political…

Examined ethnicity, gender, and grade as potential mediating factors of early adolescent identity development. Administered Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status to 367 seventh- and eighth-graders. Results showed instrument appropriate for use with early adolescents. Females and older students were more developmentally sophisticated…

A series of meta-analyses identified changes in parent-child conflict during adolescence and moderating factors. Results of age meta-analyses indicated that conflict rate and total conflict declined from early to mid adolescence and from mid to late adolescence; conflict affect increased from early to mid-adolescence. Puberty meta-analyses…

The authors report on a telephone poll with a nationally representative sample of 1,425 U.S. adults in which they investigated how parental status and age of child might affect patterns of adult engagement with children and youth outside their own families. Compared to nonparents, parents considered 12 of 20 ways of being involved with young…

There is a well-developed literature examining the immediate consequences of experiencing maltreatment during childhood. However, because of the problems of conducting longitudinal studies which follow subjects over many years, less is known about the long-term consequences of maltreatment. Using the Rochester Youth Development study, a…

It has been suggested (Youniss and Smollar, 1985) that the re-negotiation of the parent-adolescent relationship involves processes of separation and connectedness, with separation characterized, among other indicators, as the withdrawing of information by adolescents in order to establish territories that are unsupervised by the parents. This…

The self-concept construct has been used to explain behaviors across a diverse array of situations, and the attainment of a positive self-concept has been posited as a desirable goal in developmental psychology. The purposes of this study were to examine age and sex effects in multiple dimensions of self-concept during the preadolescence to…