Ego Development and Adolescent Academic Achievement

This study investigated ego developmental differences in adolescent academic orientations and academic achievement. A sample of 142 male and female high school students completed the Washington University Sentence Completion Test and self‐report measures assessing academic locus of control, learning orientation (LO), and grade orientation (GO). With increasing ego development, adolescents demonstrated increased internal academic locus of control, stronger LOs, diminished GOs, and higher class rank. Regression analysis indicated that ego level was a significant predictor of academic achievement after controlling for the effects of verbal intelligence and gender. Implications for fostering academic success through theoretically relevant interventions are discussed.     

"RENDER UNTO CAESAR WHAT IS CAESAR'S":

Previous research on the relationship between religiosity and involvement in illegal behavior overlooks Hirschi and Stark's original concern with religion as a sanctioning system. While Hirschi and Stark proposed that religion affects compliance with the law by promising heaven and threatening damnation, this study suggests that its sanctions are self-imposed shame and socially-imposed embarrassment. Shame and embarrassment are compatible with a rational choice perspective on illegal behavior—they lower the expected utility of crime and, thus, its likelihood. These two threats stem from two conceptually distinct dimensions of religiosity. People strongly self-identified as religious are more likely to feel ashamed if they violate the law; those involved in a social network based on religion are more likely to be embarrassed. An adult sample's responses to a question concerning the likelihood of cheating on income taxes in the future tests these hypotheses. The threat of shame emanating from religious identity salience is a stronger deterrent than that of embarrassment.