Latent variables are common in psychological research. Research questions involving the interaction of two variables are likewise quite common. Methods for estimating and interpreting interactions between latent variables within a structural equation modeling framework have recently become available. The latent moderated structural equations (LMS)…

Adolescence is characterized by increasing incidence of health risk behaviors, including experimentation with drugs and alcohol. To fill the gap in our understanding of the associations between risky decision-making and health risk behaviors, we investigated associations between laboratory-based risky decision-making using the Stoplight task and…

Although research suggests an interplay between identity development and self-esteem, most studies focused on the role of identity commitment and measured only level of self-esteem. This study examined longitudinal associations between Berzonsky's (2011) styles of identity exploration and two distinct features of self-esteem: level of self-esteem…

I-states-as-objects-analysis (ISOA) is a person-oriented methodology for studying short-term developmental stability and change in patterns of variable values. ISOA is based on longitudinal data with the same set of variables measured at all measurement occasions. A key concept is the "i-state," defined as a person's pattern of variable…

Chinese and American mothers' beliefs about children's learning and parents' role in it were examined using notions salient in Chinese culture. Mothers from Hong Kong ("n" = 66) and the United States ("n" = 69) indicated their endorsement of the ideas that children's learning reflects children's morality, and parents' support…