Two prospective studies examined a theoretical model wherein exposure to victimization, resulting from early behavioral risk, heightens children's social alienation and subsequent deviant peer affiliation (DPA). Across Study 1 (298 girls, 287 boys; K-7th grade; 5-12 years) and Study 2 (338 girls, 298 boys; 2nd-6th grade; 8-12 years),…

The study examined the role of motivation in students' performance and engagement in elementary and middle school physical education. Cross-lagged relationships between performance and engagement were investigated across Grades 6-9. A total of 763 (365 girls, 398 boys) Finnish school students (11- to 12-year old) were followed across three years.…

This study investigated the relationship among critical motivational variables and mathematics achievement as middle grades students engaged in a reform-oriented curriculum, "Mathematics in Context." We tested 327 students in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade before and after two years of implementation. We performed a path analysis with…

This research examined two pathways through which depressive symptoms contribute to low social status (i.e., neglect and rejection) within the peer group over time: (a) depressive symptoms promote socially helpless behavior and consequent neglect by peers; and (b) depressive symptoms promote aggressive behavior and consequent rejection by peers.…

The relations between adolescents' habitual usage of media violence and their tendency to engage in aggressive and prosocial behavior in a school setting were examined in a cross-sectional study with 1688 7th and 8th graders in Germany who completed measures of violent media exposure and normative acceptance of aggression. For each participant,…

Background: Motivational interference is defined as the amount of impairment in a target activity due to the incentives of a non-chosen attractive alternative. The amount to which pupils experience motivational interference while studying or while performing a leisure activity in a school-leisure conflict situation is seen as depending on the…

This study examined whether a transactional interpersonal life stress model helps to explain the continuity in depression over time in girls. Youth (86 girls, 81 boys; M age = 12.41, SD = 1.19) and their caregivers participated in a three-wave longitudinal study. Depression and episodic life stress were assessed with semistructured interviews.…