Developmental Trajectories of Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury in Adolescence and Intrapersonal/Interpersonal Risk Factors

This 3‐wave study investigated the developmental trajectories of nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) and intrapersonal/interpersonal risk factors among 3,381 Chinese adolescents (56.2% females) aged from 13 to 17 years during a 1‐year period. Using an accelerated longitudinal design and latent class growth analysis, we identified four subgroups of NSSI trajectories: negligible (74.6%), experimental (12.8%), moderate decreasing (10.8%), and high fluctuating (1.9%). Adolescents reporting both intrapersonal (i.e., impulsive behaviors and depression) and interpersonal (i.e., unstable relationships and parental criticism) risk factors were significantly more likely to follow the latter three trajectories. The findings of this study suggest there is heterogeneity in NSSI development among adolescents and highlight the contributions of both intrapersonal and interpersonal risk factors in the engagement in NSSI.     

Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Sexual Behaviors of Chinese University Students: Gender Differences in Prevalence and Correlates

The main aim of the present study was to investigate gender differences among university students in contemporary China regarding (1) the prevalence of various types of intrapersonal and interpersonal sexual behaviors and (2) their sociodemographic and psychosocial predictors. A total of 1,397 university students (M_age = 20.3 years) completed related questionnaires. Intrapersonal behaviors (i.e., sexual fantasizing, solitary masturbation, and viewing pornography) were generally reported more frequently than interpersonal behaviors (i.e., petting, oral sex, and intercourse). Gender differences were most evident for intrapersonal sexual behaviors, all of which were reported more frequently by men. Men reported significantly more heterosexual intercourse than women but not petting or oral sex. Several correlates (i.e., age, educational aspiration, family income, urbanity, relationship experience, and Internet use) were significant predictors of various intrapersonal and interpersonal sexual behaviors. Gender significantly moderated these correlations in three cases: Family income was a stronger negative predictor of intercourse for women, romantic relationship history was a stronger positive predictor of intercourse for men, and Internet use was a stronger positive predictor of sexual fantasizing for men. We discuss the implications of these findings for sexuality education and sexual health policies and practices in contemporary China.     

I Want to Be Your Friend: The Effects of Organizations’ Interpersonal Approaches on Social Networking Sites

Publics tend to use social networking sites mainly for interpersonal communication purposes. Corporate communication focusing on promotional activities, thus, might create negative sentiments toward the organization within those platforms. This experimental study examined the effect of organizations’ interpersonal approaches to communication (e.g., nonpromotional messages, high interactivity) in social networking sites using real and fictitious companies. Our results suggest that publics consider corporate activities in social networking sites more negatively when they perceive those platforms as a personal space. However, publics evaluate an organization more positively when it is highly interactive with its publics on these platforms. Finally, publics who perceive the platform as a personal space have a more positive attitude toward the organization when the organization is both highly interactive and employs nonpromotional messages.     

The Perceptive Proletarian: Subjective Social Class Predicts Interpersonal Accuracy

Interpersonal accuracy correlates modestly across different domains. Although some research has explored factors that predict accuracy within specific domains of interpersonal judgment (e.g., social attributes), whether any variables might predict interpersonal accuracy generally across different domains remains in question. Subjective socioeconomic status (SES) has recently emerged as an important moderator of various social cognitions, such as contextual focus and empathic accuracy. Moreover, people lower in SES tend to show greater interpersonal engagement and attention; thus, we wondered whether individuals with lower subjective SES might exhibit superior interpersonal accuracy in multiple domains. Indeed, across four studies, we found that subjective SES inversely correlated with accuracy in three different domains of interpersonal accuracy: social attributes, situational affect, and emotion. These findings therefore demonstrate that subjective SES may predict broad interpersonal accuracy abilities and suggest that, despite modest relationships between different types of first impression accuracy, the correlates of such accuracy can still operate across domains.     

Age Similarities in Interpersonal Perception and Conversation Ability

Older adults tend to perform worse on emotion perception tasks compared to younger adults. How this age difference relates to other interpersonal perception tasks and conversation ability remains an open question. In the present study, we assessed 32 younger and 30 older adults’ accuracy when perceiving (1) static facial expressions, (2) emotions, attitudes, and intentions from videos, (3) and interpersonal constructs (e.g., kinship). Participants’ conversation ability was rated by coders from a videotaped, dyadic problem-solving task. Younger adults were more accurate than older adults perceiving some but not all emotions. No age differences in accuracy were found on any perception task or in conversation ability. Some but not all of the interpersonal perception tasks were related. None of the perception tasks predicted conversation ability. Thus, although the literature suggests a robust age difference in emotion perception accuracy, this difference does not seem to transfer to other interpersonal perception tasks or interpersonal outcomes.     

The effects of power on prosocial outcomes: A self-validation analysis

The present research distinguishes between primary (cognitive) and secondary (metacognitive) processes in the domain of power. Power is a central construct in economic decision making, influencing people’s thoughts and behavior in organizational, political, consumer, and interpersonal contexts. Whereas most research has discussed ways that power can influence primary cognition (e.g., increased self-focused thoughts, heuristic processing), we examine how power can influence secondary cognition (i.e., thinking about thinking). We argue that high (relative to low) power can increase reliance on one’s current thoughts, magnifying their influence on judgment. If thoughts are antisocial (prosocial), increased power will produce more antisocial (prosocial) judgments and behavior. We activated prosocial or antisocial concepts through priming before activating powerfulness or powerlessness. As predicted, primes impacted people’s self-perceptions of cooperation (Experiment 1) and the extent to which they were willing to help others (Experiment 2) when induced to feel powerful, but not when led to feel powerless.     

The Interpersonal Relationships and Social Perceptions of Adolescent Perfectionists

This study investigated the relationship between multidimensional perfectionism, self‐reported interpersonal relationships, and peer‐reported prosocial, disruptive, and academic behaviors among a general sample of 984 9th‐grade adolescents. Cut‐scores from the Almost Perfect Scale‐Revised (APS‐R; Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001 ) classified adolescents as adaptive perfectionists, maladaptive perfectionists, and nonperfectionist. Adaptive perfectionists reported significantly higher levels of positive interpersonal relationships than maladaptive perfectionists or nonperfectionists. Further, peers rated both perfectionism groups as more prosocial and less disruptive than nonperfectionists. Adaptive perfectionists were more liked than maladaptive perfectionists. Implications of these findings, particularly as they pertain to the nomothetic understanding of multidimensional perfectionism among older, school‐aged adolescents conclude the paper.     

A systems theory approach to career decision making

Many career development studies have linked career indecision, an inability to make a decision about the vocation one wishes to pursue, to interpersonal and intrapersonal processes. Systems theory can help to explain the processes behind these concepts in a way that other theories have not been able to explain. Systems Theory Framework, (STF, Patton and McMahon, 1997), incorporates both the contextual system, e.g., parents and peers, and the individual system (i.e., STF's content component). Process, the second component, identifies the presence of recursive interaction processes within the individual and the context, as well as, between the individual and the context. STF brings back the value of interdependence. Specific systemic constructs are useful in career decision-making and can add a practical dimension on to the counseling process.     

Individualism Behind Collectivism: A Reflection from Saudi Volunteers

Volunteering is growing rapidly worldwide and has been recognized as a significant social force, contributing to social development. Motives for volunteering vary widely, ranging from collectivistic factors to individualistic ones. Collectivism is often identified as a main factor that contributes to volunteering, especially in collectivist societies. Our analysis shows that in Saudi Arabia—typically classified as a collectivist society—individualistic considerations such as learning skills, meeting friends, and releasing guilt mediate the effect that collectivistic motivations (e.g., prosocial personality and community identity) have on the decision of continuous volunteering. This finding is applicable to both males and females, to people in different forms of employment, across ages, and regardless of family members’ volunteering behavior, according to moderation analyses.     

Interpersonal leader responses to secondary trauma in nonprofit human service organizations

Secondary trauma is concerned with the intrapersonal affective responses an individual can experience during or subsequent to an interaction(s) with another person who recounts his or her personal stories of abuse, trauma, or disempowerment. Secondary trauma can engender a host of detrimental intrapersonal effects on nonprofit staff who express empathy toward clients experiencing primary trauma. I explore the interpersonal‐level responses to secondary trauma‐affected staff available to the leaders of nonprofit human service organizations. These secondary trauma‐sensitive leader behaviors, I theorize, will reduce the prevalence of secondary trauma in nonprofit organizations and generate follower engagement.     

The Effects of Channel-Consistent and Channel-Inconsistent Interpersonal Feedback on the Formation of Metaperceptions

A metaperception is an individual's perception of another's perception of him or her. Symbolic interactionists posit that metaperceptions are based on social feedback, while social cognitivists posit that metaperceptions are formed via an inward turn to self-perception. We hypothesized that a situational factor, clarity of feedback, moderates whether individuals will tune into the message itself versus to self-perception: unambiguous feedback may elicit metaperceptions based on the feedback, while ambiguous feedback may elicit metaperceptions based on self-perception. To test this, 157 undergraduates selected as low or high in self-esteem were randomly assigned to receive either clear, channel-consistent (e.g., positive verbal/positive nonverbal) feedback or unclear, channel-inconsistent (e.g., positive verbal/negative nonverbal) feedback from a confederate. Results indicated independent effects of both self-esteem and verbal feedback. In addition, counter to prediction, metaperceptions formed in response to channel-consistent feedback were more in line with the self; metaperceptions formed in response to channel-inconsistent feedback were more in line with the verbal element of the message. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.     

Children's Understanding of Emotion Communication in Families

SUMMARY

There is a paucity of research on children's awareness of how emotion communication varies within relationships. Indeed, we operate on the assumption that a very significant function of emotion is to regulate interpersonal interaction. In this essay we discuss how children come to understand such phenomena as: (a) emotional-expressive behavior can have powerful interpersonal consequences; (b) relationship dimensions such as degree of power and closeness interact with intensity of emotion in how emotion is communicated; and (c) maintenance of relationship quality (e.g., equilibrium, attenuation, or deepening) requires different strategies of emotion communication. Among the constructs that we address are several that are useful for understanding the dynamics of interpersonal communication; they have also proven their utility over a considerable period of time. However, these constructs derive from social psychology and family systems; they have not been systematically investigated from a developmental perspective     

Late Adolescents’ Coping Styles in Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Conflicts using the Narrative Disclosure Task

The present study examined differences in coping styles of female late adolescents who were writing repeated narratives about either interpersonal or intrapersonal conflicts. Following the paradigm of Pennebaker’s (Hints on writing a running experiment. Unpublished manual, 1994) narrative disclosure task, 30 female adolescents wrote about the most upsetting event in their lives for 20 min on three consecutive days. These narratives were coded for the presence of interpersonal family conflict, peer conflict, and intrapersonal conflict (e.g., academic failure, medical problem), as well as 30 specific coping processes, including processes such as resignation, blaming others, and taking active steps. These 30 processes were later grouped into five broad coping styles: approach, cognitive, avoidant, internally-focused, and externally-focused coping. The results indicated that coping styles differed significantly depending on the type of conflict. External coping strategies (e.g., blaming others, acting out) were used more often in conflicts with parents, while conciliatory coping strategies (e.g., taking active steps to solve the problem), were used more often with peer conflict. Coping strategies tended to become more adaptive by the end of the third writing session (i.e., restructuring and acceptance increased, while withdrawal, distraction, and acting out decreased). The study is aimed to enhance our understanding of adaptation to psychosocial stressors of adolescence. Clinical implications of the results are discussed and are especially relevant to practitioners working with adolescent females and their families.

Examining the Diversity of Prosocial Behavior: Helping,Sharing, and Comforting in Infancy

Prosocial behaviors are a diverse group of actions that are integral to human social life. In this study, we examined the ability of 18‐ and 24‐month‐old infants to engage in three types of other‐oriented behaviors, specifically helping, sharing, and comforting. Infants in both age groups engaged in more prosocial behavior on trials in which an unfamiliar adult experimenter required aid (experimental conditions) than on those in which she did not (control conditions) across two of the three prosocial tasks (i.e., helping and sharing). The infants engaged in these behaviors with similar frequency; however, there was no correlation between the tasks. The implications for the construct of prosocial behavior and the presence of a prosocial disposition are discussed.     

Interpersonal comparisons of utility and the policy paralysis problem

Several “Paretian” welfare rules are equivalent when policymakers know agents' characteristics, e.g., a policy is optimal if (a) any other policy making someone better off harms some agent, or (b) it is the maximum of some social welfare function. This paper extends these and other rules to environments where policymakers have a probability distribution over a state space of possible models. Under weak conditions, rule (a), which postulates ex ante preferences for agents, recommends some change from almost every status quo policy. Unfortunately, (a) requires a demanding form of interpersonal welfare comparability. Rule (b) labels all policies optimal if the state space obeys a weak diversity condition. Since the probabilities of states are irrelevant for this result, only a small perturbation of a model with no uncertainty generates policy paralysis. Received: 26 March 1997/Accepted: 16 November 1998     

A Postmodern Critique of Societal Discourses of Male Violence in Interpersonal Family Relationships: A Balancing Act for Social Work

In recent years, treatments of family violence have tended to be built around conventional discourses suggesting that men are major initiators in instances of interpersonal violence. Utilizing a postmodernist analysis, we assess societal discourses that continue to give life to this narrow conceptualization of interpersonal violence. We also examine literature suggesting that both men and women resort to violence to resolve relationship difficulties and suggest that a more holistic and inclusive approach to understanding interpersonal violence is critical for social workers committed to social justice and a balanced understanding of the contextual nature of human problems.     

A multi-systemic approach to AIDS and adolescents

The AIDS epidemic poses a significant challenge for mental health professionals, educators and for society at large. Recent studies (Kennedy, 1988) have shown that AIDS has entered the adolescent population. Other studies (Hirschorn, 1987a, 1987b; Simpkins and Kushna, 1986; Weinstein, Atwood, and Rosen, in press) have shown that while college students are educated about AIDS, they inconsistently use safer sex practices. Most of the behavior change attempts have focused on the developmental psychodynamics of the adolescent stage. This paper discusses the notion that behavior change in the adolescent is not only based on the psychodynamics of the intrapersonal approaches; but, rether, that what is additionally needed is an examination of the interpersonal and social processes which support the psychodynamics of the adolescent. A multi-systemic approach to AIDS and adolescents is then presented utilizing intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social processes. This approach incorporates the school-family-community systems.     

Intention to pay taxes or to avoid them: The impact of social value orientation

Economic factors such as audit rates and fines have shown inconsistent effects on tax payments, suggesting that they are not sufficient to explain tax compliance. Moreover, the tax compliance rate is surprisingly higher than what the standard economic model would predict. In the last fifteen years, literature aimed at solving this so called “puzzle of compliance” has increased and pointed out several factors that could possibly explain tax compliance processes, e.g., knowledge of the tax laws, trust toward the political system, as well as personal or social norms. The studies presented here examined the impact of social value orientation on tax morale and intention to avoid/evade taxes. Social value orientation was examined both as a chronic personal orientation (Studies 1 and 2) and as a contextual factor made salient by experimental manipulations (Study 3). The results are supportive of a relationship between social value orientation and measures of tax compliance. Furthermore, results of Study 3 provided evidence for a causal effect of social value orientation on intended tax non-compliance. The effect of social value orientation on intended tax non-compliance was mediated by tax morale (Studies 2 and 3). Results are discussed with reference to their potential practical applications.     

Continuity and Change in the Family System Across the Transition from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood

As adolescents move into emerging adulthood, their social networks shift toward a focus on peers and romantic partners, yet parents and siblings remain important sources of support. The present review takes a family systems approach to integrate the growing body of literature examining longitudinal continuity and change in both positive (e.g., intimacy, support) and negative (e.g., conflict, rivalry) qualities of parent–child and sibling relationships as adolescents transition to emerging adulthood. In general, contact with family members decreases, yet the quality of family relationships appears to improve or, at the very least, stabilize across this transition. These pathways are interpreted within the lens of several prominent theories, and a discussion of the limitations of the current literature and ideas for future research are presented.