Past research shows that higher well-being is reported by adolescents who live in individualistic rather than collectivistic nations. Such cross-national differences may be due to the amount of autonomy support adolescents receive from authority figures. To examine this hypothesis, in the current study, 322 adolescents from Denmark, South Korea,…

First- and second-born adolescent siblings from 21 families completed a daily diary on each of 7 days. The frequency and content of siblings' conversations are described and the relationship between the content of siblings' discussion and their perceived academic, athletic, and peer competency is explored. Siblings most often talked about…

This study examined whether a comprehensive set of psychosocial factors was equally predictive of both adolescent vaginal intercourse and oral sex among 1,105 adolescents aged 12-16. Logistic regressions were used to examine the relationships between parental communication, religiosity, bonding to school, heavy drinking, sex expectancies,…

Approximately 3 million teens are diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) annually; STDs rates for American Indian young adults are among the highest of any racial/ethnic group. An important risk factor for STDs is early initiation of sex. In this study, we examined risk for early initiation with 474 American Indian youth ages 14-18,…

This research examined patterns of substance use and academic factors among a sample of 733 African-American and European-American adolescents from a metropolitan area. First, youth were classified into 11th grade high, moderate, or no substance use groups and classified as users, initiators, desistors, and nonusers based on eighth and 11th grade…

Examined the hypothesis that African-American adolescents' school achievement is detrimentally influenced by their perception of a discriminatory "job ceiling" affecting their employment opportunities. Found that the more aware of discrimination the African American adolescents were, the less important they perceived academic achievement…

The primary purpose of this study was to understand further the heterogeneity of popularity, by exploring contextual correlates of two dimensions of positive peer regard among seventh graders within two highly disparate sociodemographic groups: affluent suburban and low-income urban (N = 636). Three sets of attributes were examined, all…

Studied relationships between adolescents' perceptions of their middle school (school goal structures, autonomy provisions, positive teacher regard) and changes in academic motivation, achievement, and psychological adjustment. Found perceptions to be important predictors; for example, perception of positive teacher regard and an emphasis on…