Susceptibility to Peer Influence,Self‐Control,and Delinquency

The significance of peers during adolescence is well established in the social science literature. However, relatively few studies have devoted attention to susceptibility to peer influence with regard to both its causes and consequences. The current study aims to add to this literature in two ways. First, it investigates the role of self‐control in the etiology of susceptibility to peer influence. Second, it examines the independent and interactive effects of these two constructs on self‐reported delinquency. Results indicate that individuals who are higher in self‐control are less likely to be susceptible to peer influence, that susceptibility is a stronger predictor of delinquency than self‐control, and that the influence of susceptibility on delinquency is moderated by one's level of self‐control. In particular, the effect of susceptibility to peer influence on delinquency is stronger for individuals with higher levels of self‐control. The implications of the findings for theory and future research are discussed.     

Attachment and Self‐Efficacy in Career Search Activities: A Structural Model

The author integrated attachment theory with social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to examine how attachment styles influence the career search self‐efficacy activities of interviewing, networking, job searching, and personal exploration. Using an undergraduate sample (N = 275, 81% women), the author tested a structural model. Results indicated that anxious attachment style was negatively related to interviewing self‐efficacy, whereas avoidant attachment style was negatively related to networking, job searching, and personal exploration self‐efficacy. Theoretical implications based on these findings provide support for an integrative model of attachment theory with SCCT. Career counselors are encouraged to consider clients’ attachment styles when working with individuals who are searching for employment. To help address the limitations of the study, future researchers could test the applicability of the current model with a more diverse sample.     

Self‐Mutilation and Homeless Youth: The Role of Family Abuse,Street Experiences,and Mental Disorders

Self‐mutilation, which is the act of deliberately harming oneself, has been overlooked in studies of homeless and runaway youth. Given their high rates of abuse and mental health disorders, which are associated with self‐mutilation, homeless and runaway youth provide an ideal sample in which to investigate factors associated with self‐mutilation among a nonclinical population. Based on interviews with 428 homeless and runaway youth aged 16 to 19 years in 4 Midwestern states, the current study revealed widespread prevalence of self‐mutilation among these young people. Multivariate analyses indicated that sexual abuse, ever having stayed on the street, deviant subsistence strategies, and meeting diagnostic criteria for depression were positively associated with self‐mutilation. The findings are interpreted using stress theory and affect‐regulation models.     

Urgent engagement in 9/11 pregnant widows and their infants: Transmission of trauma

The potential effects of maternal trauma on mother–infant interaction remain insufficiently studied empirically. This study examined the effects of the September 11, 2001, trauma on mother–infant interaction in mothers who were pregnant and widowed on 9/11, and their infants aged 4–6 months. Split‐screen videotaped interaction was coded on a one‐second basis for infant gaze, facial affect, and vocal affect; and mother gaze, facial affect, and touch. We examined the temporal dynamics of communication: self‐contingency and interactive contingency of behavior by time‐series methods. We documented heightened maternal and infant efforts at engagement in the 9/11 (vs. control) dyads. Both partners had difficulty tolerating moments of looking away as well as moments of negative behavior patterns. Heightened efforts to maintain a positive visual engagement may be adaptive and a potential source of resilience, but these patterns may also carry risk: working too hard to make it work. A vigilant, hyper‐contingent, high‐arousal engagement was the central mode of the interpersonal transmission of the trauma to these infants, with implications for intervention.     

Transformational leadership and follower proactivity in a volunteer workforce

This study explored how transformational leaders can enhance volunteers’ proactive behavior in an all‐volunteer nonprofit organization. Based on Parker, Bindl, and Strauss’s model of motivation, it was hypothesized that role breadth self‐efficacy, work values (self‐direction/stimulation and universalism/benevolence), and positive affect would mediate the transformational leadership—proactive behavior relationship. Data came from 141 volunteers in Brazilian chapters of an international not‐for‐profit organization. The model was tested using structural equation modeling, with mediation hypotheses tested by estimating the indirect effects using bias‐corrected intervals. Comparative fit index (.97) and standardized root mean square residual (.05) fit statistics indicate the model is plausible. These findings contribute to the understanding of the role that leaders play in increasing followers’ proactive behavior in volunteer organizations.     

Risk Taking in Late Adolescence: Relations Between Sociomoral Reasoning,Risk Stance,and Behavior

This study explored relations among late adolescents' sociomoral reasoning about risk taking, risk stance, and behavior. One‐hundred and thirty‐two participants (18–20‐year‐olds) were surveyed about their own risk stance (Avoidant, Opportunistic, Curious, Risk Seeking) and behavior in three realms (Alcohol Use, Drug Use, Reckless Driving), and sociomoral reasoning about hypothetical risk taking in a baseline scenario with no social domain information and a final scenario that highlighted the moral (i.e., harmful consequences for others), conventional (i.e., sociolegal consequences), personal (i.e., personal prerogative), and prudential (i.e., harmful consequences for self) domains bearing on risk taking. The complex relations among sociomoral reasoning about risk taking, risk stance, and behavior are discussed in terms of social domain theory and dual‐process theories of risk taking.     

Integrative Symptom-Focused Dynamic Psychotherapy

The advent of the relational perspective in psychoanalytic theory has opened up exciting new prospects for integrative psychotherapy. My own integrative model draws on self psychology and attachment theory for ideas about development and treatment, but also posits the need for active techniques at times to help with troubling symptoms. In addition to using interventions from behavioral and cognitive behavioral traditions, my treatment approach has been evolving to include a variety of mindfulness based strategies. In this article I focus on interventions I use most often to help patients with two major domains: self regulation (which includes affect management and perspective on the self), and self-initiated behavior change. Case examples illustrating the interplay of symptom-focused work and more dynamic exploration are provided.     

“I Try Not to Depend on Anyone but Me”: Welfare‐Reliant Women's Perspectives on Self‐Sufficiency,Work, and Marriage*

Welfare reformers sought to reduce “dependency,” or reliance on state‐supported cash benefits and deployed a discourse of “self‐sufficiency” to promote the legitimacy of efforts to remove welfare recipients from publicly funded cash assistance through either wage labor or marriage. We use longitudinal, qualitative interview data collected from 38 initially welfare‐reliant women to examine what self‐sufficiency means to them and their perspectives on how work and marriage affect their ability to be self‐sufficient. Grounded theory analysis revealed that for these women, self‐sufficiency means formal independence from both the state (i.e., Temporary Assistance to Needy Families [TANF]) and men (i.e., marriage). Although they value marriage as an institution and would ideally marry, they do not consider marriage to be a likely route to self‐sufficiency given the pool of men available to them. Rather, they embrace their own market‐based wage labor as the means by which they can attain some measure of independence. Taking our lead from the women in this study, we challenge the emphasis on marriage in current welfare policy. We argue that employment training that results in better jobs for women and men and work supports that make low‐wage work pay are clearly the appropriate direction for policy aimed at the welfare‐reliant and working poor.     

Effects of Career Counseling on French Adults: An Experimental Study

This research project is focused on theoretical and empirical works analyzing the effects of career counseling. This experimental and longitudinal study has been carried out in France; it compares a sample of individuals having undertaken competence assessment with a control group and deals with self‐esteem, self‐analysis, self‐concept, and the participants' situations. The results correspond to the authors' main hypotheses: The effect size calculated for all the variables (+0.62) is similar to the one observed in the meta‐analyses concerning the same topic. The stability of effects has also been demonstrated for 2 out of 3 categories of variables (effect size +0.44) in spite of a slight decrease in the production of self‐concept. Finally, treatment intensity seems to have a lesser effect than the one expected, but it strengthens its role in the development of self‐analysis. The discussion focuses on the prospects for counseling practice assessment, as well as theoretical directions meriting future development.     

Widowhood and Well‐being in Europe: The Role of National and Regional Context

Researchers have documented that widows have lower levels of subjective well‐being than married individuals, but we still know little about how the regional and national contexts affect the impact of widowhood on well‐being. Building on social capital theory and using data from 5 rounds of the European Social Survey (N= 119,292 people, 206 regions, 23 countries), the authors tested how marital status composition at the national and regional levels affects the well‐being of widows. Widows fare worse in countries with high proportions of married people and in regions and countries with high proportions of widowed persons. The proportion of married individuals at the regional level does not affect their well‐being. These results are in line with the greedy marriage hypothesis, but varying effects at regional and national levels suggest that the standard explanation for this phenomenon, lack of individual social support, is not valid. This study demonstrates the importance of multiple contextual embeddedness.     

Parental Anger and Trajectories of Emotional Well‐Being from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

This study assesses the relationship of parental anger on children’s anger and self‐derogation from adolescence to young adulthood. We examine a life‐course perspective and incorporate theories of emotion regulation and self‐referent behavior. Using structural equation models and hierarchical growth curve models with the Kaplan Longitudinal and Multigenerational data, the results indicate that parental anger leads to anger in adolescence, supporting theories of learning through modeling in adolescence. In young adulthood, as predicted by self‐referent behavior theory, parental anger contributes to increases in self‐derogation. Interestingly, maternal anger, but not paternal anger, is correlated with child’s anger and self‐derogation.     

Affect in Daily Career Decision Self‐Efficacy and Career Choice Anxiety

The authors investigated the impact of emotional intelligence on 2 career decision variables: daily career decision self‐efficacy and daily career choice anxiety. They also examined the mediating effects of daily positive affect on these variables. At baseline, 103 Korean undergraduate and graduate students completed questionnaires about emotional intelligence. Using a daily diary method, the authors also collected data on participants’ daily positive affect, daily career decision self‐efficacy, and daily career choice anxiety for 21 consecutive days. Hierarchical linear model analyses indicated that emotional intelligence predicted daily career decision self‐efficacy and daily career choice anxiety. These findings suggest that fostering emotional intelligence and daily positive affect could help students determine their future career. For individuals experiencing difficulty in the career decision process, counselors may foster career decision self‐efficacy and reduced career choice anxiety via enhancing clients’ emotional intelligence and daily positive affect.     

Are You Truly a Recovering Dope Fiend? Local Interpretive Practices at a Therapeutic Community Drug Treatment Program

Previous qualitative research on treatment programs for drug addiction/alcoholism has primarily focused on those processes whereby participants are expected to construct a new sense of self according to institutional parameters. The present article builds on that research and explores how contemporary programs attempt to resolve the problem that it is almost impossible to tell if someone has engaged in this self‐construction process. Informed by five months of ethnographic fieldwork at an adult residential drug treatment facility, the article asks: under what circumstances do program members call into doubt a client's efforts to create an institutional self, and how do they express this skepticism? The article reveals that staff and clients employ a set of local interpretive practices about community and emotions to assess whether clients are constructing the institutional self of a “recovering dope fiend.” It specifically considers how they interpret a client's emotional displays to represent that client's current self under construction. That is, a client's ability to control anger appropriately or to handle anxiety demonstrates s/he is effectively “doing the program” of self‐construction.     

Self‐actualization and sexual permissiveness,satisfaction, prudishness,and drive among female undergraduates

The relationship between self‐actualization and aspects of female sexuality was examined. Ninety‐five white, single female undergraduates from a regional southeastern state university volunteered as subjects. Three questionnaires were administered: the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), Eysenck's Inventory of Attitudes to Sex, and a two‐item religiosity measure. The data were analyzed via correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analysis which employed religiosity, age, major, grade, residence (on/off campus), and the order of test presentation as covariates. The results indicated that, when the effects of the covariates were controlled, there was a significant relationship between self‐actualization and sexual permissiveness, sexual satisfaction and prudishness. Although self‐actualization and sexual libido were significantly correlated, self‐actualization did not account for a significant portion of the variance in sexual libido after the effects of the covariates were controlled. Implications for future research include using different populations to investigate the relationship between self‐actualization and sexual attitudes and behaviors, using different measures of self‐actualization to investigate its relationship to sexual attitudes and behaviors, and examining the relationship between self‐actualization and other aspects of sexuality.     

World Culture,Uncoupling, Institutional Logics,and Recoupling: Practices and Self‐Identification as Institutional Microfoundations of Political Violence

This study proposes a micro‐institutional theory of political violence, according to which citizens' participation in political violence is partially an outcome of tight coupling of persons' practices and self‐identifications with institutional logics opposed to dominant logics associated with world culture, such as the nation‐state and gender equality. The study focuses on two types of institutional carriers through which persons adopt institutional logics: routine practices and self‐identifications associated with three institutional logics: the familial, the ethnic, and the religious logics. Using a 15‐country survey data from early twenty‐first‐century sub‐Saharan Africa, the study finds evidence in support of the theory. Reported participation in political violence is associated with practices and self‐identifications uncoupled from dominant world‐culture logics but tightly coupled with the patriarchal familial logic, with an oppositional ethnic logic, and with a politicized oppositional religious logic.     

Empathy and Self‐Regulation as Mediators Between Parenting and Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior Toward Strangers,Friends, and Family

The current study examined the role of empathy and self‐regulation as mediators between positive parenting (mothering and fathering) and early adolescents' prosocial behavior toward 3 targets (strangers, friends, and family). Data were taken from Time 1 and Time 2 of the Flourishing Families Project, and included reports from 500 families with an early adolescent child (mean age of child at Time 1=11.29). Analyses suggested that predictors of prosocial behavior toward the 3 targets differed, with empathy (as reported by mothers only) and self‐regulation mediating the relation between positive parenting and prosocial behavior toward strangers and friends, but not toward family. Positive mothering was the only variable that was significantly related to prosocial behavior toward family. The discussion focuses on the need for continued research examining a relational approach to prosocial development.     

Childrearing,Self‐Control,and Crime: Additional Evidence*

Gottfredson and Hirschi's model of caregiving to produce high self‐control is examined using survey data from a city population of adults. The data permit assessment of the predictive ability of all three elements of the regimen, separately and in com‐bination. While a combination of the elements of the specified model and some of the individual components prove to be statistically significant predictors of self‐control, the coefficients are only modest ones. In addition, the sequential model of crime production set forth by the theorists proves to be questionable. These findings add to an emerging body of research suggesting that self‐control may be dependent on things other than the childhood caregiving regimen identified in self‐control theory.     

Patterns of Sensitivity to Parenting and Peer Environments: Early Temperament and Adolescent Externalizing Behavior

Although parenting behavior and friendship quality predict adolescent externalizing behaviors (EBs), individual differences in temperament may differentially affect susceptibility to these factors over time. In a multi‐method and multi‐informant study of 141 children followed prospectively from toddlerhood to adolescence, we tested the independent and interactive associations of age 3 reactive temperament (e.g., negative emotionality) and age 13 observed parenting (i.e., positive and negative behavior) and friendship (i.e., conflict and warmth), with multi‐informant ratings of age 15 aggression and rule‐breaking behavior. Negative parenting predicted growth in parent‐rated EB, but only for adolescents with early reactive temperament. Temperament did not affect sensitivity to positive parenting or friendship. Results are discussed in the context of differential susceptibility theory and intervention implications for adolescents.     

Differentiation and Healthy Family Functioning of Koreans in South Korea,South Koreans in the United States,and White Americans

Inconsistent results have been found in prior research on the Bowen Family Systems Theory concept of differentiation of self and its application to individuals, couples, and families of different cultural backgrounds. In this regard, this study examined the impact of differentiation of self on healthy family functioning, family communication, and family satisfaction with 277 participants including South Koreans living in South Korea, South Korean‐born citizens living in the United States, and White Americans living in the United States. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis identified the measurement invariance of a differentiation scale (DSI‐R) used for the three study groups. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) found significant differences between White Americans and South Koreans with regard to the level of differentiation. Results of multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses found a significant association between differentiation of self and healthy family functioning across the three groups with the American group having significantly higher differentiation than the two South Korean groups.” Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.