Sexual attitudes and their influence on sexual behavior among high school students (N=1,587) and parents (N=1,372) were investigated. Multiple regression analyses yielded models for attitudes about premarital sexual intercourse with separate models for adolescent females and males. When family factors were integrated, the model had more…

Tested a structural model of the network of sociocognitive influences shaping children's career aspirations and trajectories among 272 early adolescents. Found that subjects' perceived efficacy rather than their actual academic achievement was the key determinant of their perceived occupational self-efficacy and preferred choice of worklife.…

Focal theory is a framework for looking at psychosocial and leisure transitions in middle and later adolescence. Using cross-sectional survey data, found few gender differences in age-related relational transitions, but gender differences were apparent in shifting focuses of leisure involvement with age. Findings suggest a linkage between…

Argues that the higher incidence of depression among adolescent females is due to the interaction of two factors: (1) girls enter early adolescence with a style of responding to frustration and distress that is less efficacious and action oriented than boys; and (2) girls begin to face certain uncontrollable stressors in early adolescence to a…

Examined impact of peer experience on seventh graders' strategies for coping with peer hassles. Found that more aggressive adolescents perceived more control over hassles. More aggressive, unpopular adolescents used more negative strategies; more popular aggressive females used more problem-focused strategies. Withdrawn adolescents perceived less…

Examined the relationship between adolescents' detection of self-discrepancies and internalizing and externalizing problems. Found that self-discrepancy, independent of actual-self positivity, predicted internalizing and externalizing problems. For girls, discrepancy with parental standards predicted functioning, and discrepancy with independent…

This study examined associations between mothers' interaction styles and disciplinary strategies, and children's relational and overt forms of aggression; considered sex differences in these associations; evaluated the contributions and interplay of mothers' interaction styles and disciplinary strategies, and children's aggression; and examined…

Examined influence of perceived self-efficacy for affect regulation with older adolescents. Found that self-efficacy to regulate affect related to high efficacy to manage academic development, resist social pressures for antisocial activities, and engage with empathy in others' emotional experiences. Perceived self-efficacy for affect regulation…

This chapter discusses the development of achievement motivation during adolescence from the perspective of expectancy-value theory, and explains how adolescents' expectancies for success and achievement values change during adolescence, particularly during educational transitions such as that from elementary to middle school and from middle to…

Guided by a conceptual model linking discrepancies between parent and adolescent developmental expectations and adolescent adjustment and the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship, this study examined adolescent and parent beliefs about the age at which specific competencies should appear. Developmental timetables were grouped into…

This study explored the facilitating function of religion in the lives of adolescents, postulating that religiously involved students would endorse prosocial--rather than egoistical--values, and that their prosocial values would foster a sense of belongingness to their church, family, and school. Participating were 369 boys and 372 girls attending…