Co-curricular activities provide prospects for better youth development and growth experiences. These activities are particularly good at providing opportunities for students to work in teams, to exercise leadership, and to take the initiative themselves. The active participation of the students is required to reap out maximum benefits out of such…

The results of an empirical investigation with 122 university students are discussed in terms of J. E. Marcia's identity status paradigm. E. H. Erikson's notions of institutionalized moratoria, value orientation stages, and the ego-superego struggle for dominance of the personality are related to the identity status categories to the degree that…

Conducted study as part of longitudinal research project designed to discover more about the relations between religious involvement and mental health. Collected data through semistructured interviews and a psychological test battery from 56 religious young adults in a 3-year followup. Revealed lack of evidence of link between orthodox religiosity…

From 1970-73 and in 1995, data on child-rearing practices were collected through interviews with Punjabi mothers living in Britain; topics included development of children's personality and independence. Findings revealed that enculturation has brought many changes in attitudes of the 1990s generation of Punjabi mothers; however, they still hold…

The world view of students was investigated, measuring covert causal assumptions about the relationship between the person and physical and social reality. The results indicate that people place themselves in particular intellectual arenas because of their preexisting ideology. Suggestions for further study are made. (PS)

Studied the relationship between identity status and academic achievement in female adolescents (N=20), based on the theories of Erikson and Marcia. Scoring of interviews suggested that experience and working through crises in beliefs were more closely associated with academic achievement and identity than specific commitments to career or…

Evidence suggests that community service programs can instill values and nurture development of positive personality and behavioral characteristics. This study sought to determine the effects of participation in community service activities on the personality development of high school students. Quantitative analysis yielded limited evidence of…

The use of knife and fork common in Western cultures has influenced Japanese people not only in terms of eating habits but also Japanese personality characteristics. This influence fosters the notion of segmentation - that all areas of life, including people, can be sectioned into parts and so analyzed. Mind and body are considered two discrete…

This paper addresses the pros and cons educators may encounter if they are involved in a character education program. Those supporting a character education program offer the following reasons: (1) decline of a traditional family structure; (2) erosion of the values system of key institutions; (3) the position of schools as the second most…

The concept of personality integration and effective personal functioning was investigated from a systems theory perspective by studying participants from divergent subcultural groups. Results indicate that process dimensions of complexity and openness do differentiate between highly integrated and control group participants across subcultures…

This study investigated the relationship between a reader's level of moral development and his preferred mode of response to literature. It was prompted by a common concern of high school English teachers: the difficulty experienced by many adolescent readers in responding to the secondary literature curriculum through an interpretive mode. The…

Psychological modernity implies the existence of a set of individual personality characteristics that exist across cultures and form empirically identifiable clusters of specified attitudes, values, and behaviors which define humanity. Formal, explicit school programs, as well as learning experiences provided by peculiar social organization…

Children in five second grade classrooms were exposed to an educational intervention designed to facilitate their moral development. Compared to a control group, they showed statistically significant growth in the following variables: role taking, intentionality, positive justice, punishment and donating behavior. Correlational analyses revealed…

This paper reports on a study to investigate measurement of moral reasoning with respect to age. Additional potential influencing factors, including ethnicity, gender, and influence of early environmental factors, also have been included for analysis in this study. Twenty-seven nontraditional students participating in a new student orientation…

An objective index of degree of parental agreement was generated by comparing the independent responses of 83 parental dyads to a set of Q-sort items referencing child-rearing values and orientations. This index was found to significantly predict subsequent continuation or termination of the marriage and to relate to independently-described…