Journal of Adolescence最新文献

Introduction: The school-to-work transition presents a crucial period in young adults' identity development, during which the formation of a job identity becomes a key developmental task. However, job identity development during this transition and the individual traits that predict it remain unexplored. This study aimed to examine job identity development among Japanese youth during their first year of employment and investigate whether the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction during university predicted job identity after entering the workforce.

Methods: Participants included 397 young Japanese adults (M_age = 22.19, SD_age = 0.97; 79.3% women). The first survey was conducted in January 2022 (when all participants were university students), with follow-up surveys conducted in August to September 2022 and March 2023 (when all participants were employed). The Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction were measured at Time 1, and job identity was assessed at Times 2 and 3.

Results: A latent change score model revealed a significant decrease in the mean level of in-depth exploration of job identity over time. Changes related to commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment displayed significant variance. Extraversion positively predicted commitment level, agreeableness negatively predicted changes in in-depth exploration, and neuroticism positively predicted reconsideration of commitment. Life satisfaction positively predicted both commitment and in-depth exploration levels, and negatively predicted change in commitment.

Conclusion: These findings provide insights into the individual differences that predict job identity development during the school-to-work transition and deepen the understanding of job identity formation during young adulthood.

Introduction: Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10% or more school days annually, negatively impacts academic achievement and correlates with long-term risks like poverty, poor health, and criminal behavior. While prior research has focused on full-day absences, partial-day absences, missing portions of the school day, are more prevalent and may have detrimental effects on academic outcomes. Despite this significance, PDAs are underexplored, leaving gaps in understanding their prevalence, causes, and impact. This study seeks to address these gaps and provide insights to guide comprehensive absenteeism interventions.

Methods: In this study we used the Kids and Teens at School framework and causal discovery analysis to model the factors causally associated with partial-day absences using secondary school student-level data (n = 125,375) from the 2019 Minnesota Student Survey. The discovered model indicate specified factors as causes of PDAs and broader absenteeism patterns.

Results and conclusions: The findings highlighted a pattern of partial-day absences directly affecting full-day absences. Additional factors influencing school absences were discovered including (a) a positive association of sleep deprivation with mental health difficulties, and (b) a negative association between school engagement and partial-day absences. These findings emphasize the need for targeted policies addressing the behavioral and structural factors influencing absenteeism. Implications for practice include strategies to enhance engagement and mitigate the impact of sleep deprivation on attendance.

Introduction: Sexting has become a common practice among adolescents and young adults. Certain psychological variables influence behavioral patterns, in turn increasing, in some cases, negative consequences. In other sexual behaviors, variables such as impulsivity, self-esteem or romantic love myths have been associated with behavioral patterns and consequences by gender, but the evidence regarding sexting is still unclear. For this reason, the present study analyzes sexting behaviors (sending, responding and posting), motives and attitudes, as well as the role of significant psychological variables (motives and attitudes towards sexting, myths of romantic love, perceived emotional distress, self-esteem, impulsivity, secure attachment, and perception of social relationships) in the engagement in sexting in Spanish adolescents and emerging adults.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, between 2022 and 2023, 1686 Spanish people (61.1% women and 38.9% men), aged between 12 and 25 years (M = 16.23; SD = 3.25) completed an online questionnaire to evaluate sexting behaviors and related psychological variables.

Results: Our findings supported the consolidation of sexting from early adolescence, as a common practice, more present among emerging adults and, in general, revealed few gender differences. Furthermore, beyond the importance of positive attitudes for engaging in sexting for adolescents and emerging adults, other variables played a different role depending on the age group. For example, higher impulsivity was associated with engaging in sexting for early and middle adolescents, but not for emerging adults.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary to adjust preventive interventions to different age groups, as well as consider the weight of different psychological variables by age.

Introduction: This three-wave longitudinal study examined the reciprocal relationships among perceived parental support, career exploration, and career aspiration trajectories in adolescents, with a focus on collectivist cultural context. The research aimed to clarify how these variables dynamically influence one another during high school and whether gender differences exist in their developmental patterns.

Methods: Participants included 3233 Chinese high school students (50% male, 50% female; M_age = 15.11 years) from Shandong and Henan provinces. Data were collected across three waves (2018-2020) using validated scales: the Career-Related Parental Support Scale, Vocational Exploration Questionnaire, and Career Aspiration Questionnaire. Latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) was employed to analyze developmental trajectories and bidirectional effects, while gender differences were tested via structural equation modeling.

Results: Results revealed significant upward trends in parental support and career exploration, while career aspirations remained relatively stable across the three waves. Higher initial parental support predicted elevated initial levels (β = 0.529-0.964, p < 0.01) and accelerated growth in career exploration and aspirations. Reciprocally, adolescents' career exploration positively predicted subsequent parental support development (β = 0.430-1.204, p < 0.05). Gender differences were nonsignificant except for a minor disparity in initial career exploration favoring males (β = -0.049, p < 0.01).

Conclusions: The findings underscore bidirectional dynamics between parental support and adolescents' career development, emphasizing early parental engagement as pivotal for fostering career preparedness. Despite cultural expectations, gender differences were minimal, suggesting evolving egalitarian norms. Limitations include geographically restricted sampling and reliance on self-reports. This study advocates for family-based interventions to strengthen career guidance and highlights the importance of open parent-adolescent communication in educational systems.

Introduction: Positive racial and ethnic identity formation is associated with psychological well-being, especially for Black adolescents. Parental socialization and school-related factors are key influences that have been studied, but less is known about other factors in an adolescent's social ecology, such as out-of-school activities. The goal of the present study was to better understand the relation between out-of-school activity (i.e., after-school hours and summer months) participation and racial and ethnic identity among Black adolescents.

Methods: Participants included Black identifying adolescents, ages 14-19 (N = 181; M age = 16.30, SD = 1.38; 69% female) recruited from the Chicagoland area of the United States. Participants completed questionnaires about out-of-school activity participation and racial and ethnic identity formation at a single timepoint. Latent class analysis was used to identify groups based on reported activity participation. Then, reported racial and ethnic identity was examined by latent class.

Results: More out-of-school participation overall (i.e., total, types, and intensity) and school-based activity participation were significantly associated with higher reported racial and ethnic identity formation. Latent class analysis of out-of-school participation revealed that classes characterized by a higher breadth of activities reported high racial and ethnic identity, while the class characterized by low participation reported significantly lower racial and ethnic identity.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that out-of-school activity participation is associated with racial and ethnic identity formation among Black adolescents and the mechanisms that support this dynamic exchange warrant further investigation. As racial and ethnic identity formation is associated with well-being, these findings have strengths-based clinical, programmatic, and community implications.

Introduction: As adolescents navigate the complex transition of puberty, understanding factors that can buffer against psychopathology becomes increasingly important. This study introduces pubertal self-efficacy, defined as adolescents' confidence in their ability to manage the challenges associated with puberty, as a novel protective factor for youth. We hypothesized that higher levels of pubertal self-efficacy would mitigate associations of both general and puberty-specific stress with depressive and anxiety symptoms.

Methods: Participants comprised N = 124 students enrolled in a public middle school (M_age = 13.4, SD = 0.7; 52.4% boys; 65.3% White) in the Southeastern United States. Participants completed measures of pubertal self-efficacy, perceived pubertal stress, general perceived stress, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and pubertal development status. Advanced multivariate regression techniques with bootstrapped standard errors and marginal effects were used for hypothesis testing.

Results and conclusion: Consistent with previous literature, youth who reported higher levels of general and puberty-specific stress also reported more symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, we found pubertal self-efficacy significantly attenuated the relationships of both general and puberty-specific stress on symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Importantly, pubertal self-efficacy was unrelated to youths' level of pubertal maturation, suggesting that pubertal self-efficacy is a distinct psychological resource independent of pubertal status. These findings offer initial promise in guiding consideration of pubertal self-efficacy in adolescent mental health, particularly as a malleable target for interventions aimed at reducing psychopathology during this sensitive developmental period.

Introduction: Despite evidence linking parenting with adolescent technology use, research has seldom examined their bidirectional longitudinal associations and the specific role of emotion-related communication-a key aspect of family communication central to adolescent adjustment-in adolescents' technology use remains under-examined. To address these gaps, this study explored the relationships between adolescents' problematic social media use and internet gaming and parent-adolescent communication patterns regarding adolescents' negative emotions.

Methods: Adolescents were recruited from an urban city in China (n = 564, 37.65% boys, M_age = 15.78 years, SD = 0.60), who provided reports at three time points, each spaced approximately 8 months apart. Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model was conducted to examine the reciprocal relationships between communication patterns, problematic social media use, and internet gaming.

Results: At the between-person level, both active and reactive emotion sharing (i.e., adolescents' spontaneous or reactive disclosure of their negative emotions to parents) were negatively associated with problematic social media use and internet gaming, while lack of parental solicitation (i.e., parental limited attempts to inquire about or engage with adolescents' emotions) and lack of adolescent response (i.e., adolescents' reluctance to respond to parental inquiries of emotions) were positively associated with these behaviors. At the within-person level, lack of adolescent response predicted increased problematic social media use, and there were reciprocal effects between lack of adolescent response and problematic internet gaming. No gender differences were observed.

Conclusion: This study enriches the theoretical understanding of adolescent addiction from a family emotion communication perspective and offers practical guidance for preventing and intervening in digital addiction among adolescents.

Introduction: Adolescence is a sensitive period typified by marked cognitive and neural development, during which modifiable lifestyle factors may be particularly relevant. However, longitudinal associations of modifiable lifestyle factors-including sleep, screen time, and extracurricular activities-with cognitive development over time remain to be investigated, leaving the directionality of these relationships unclear.

Methods: We used baseline and 2-year follow-up data (n = 7043) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Linear mixed-effect models were employed to assess the association of modifiable lifestyle factors with the development of different cognitive functions over time. We additionally examined the moderating role of sex in these associations.

Result: Longer sleep duration, greater time spent on nonphysical activities, and shorter duration of physical activity and screen usage-across passive watching, social media, and social engagement-were significantly associated with greater increases in cognitive scores. Sex moderated the association between passive screen watching and the duration of physical extracurricular activities with inhibitory control and attention. The negative association between passive watching and inhibitory control and attention development was stronger in females.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that modifiable lifestyle factors are associated with adolescent cognitive development and point to the potential of lifestyle-based interventions to support optimal development during this formative period.

Introduction: Given the crucial role peer relationships play for the well-being of adolescents, it is important to understand the factors that support adolescents' ability to form positive relationships with peers. Within early childhood, both children's mentalizing and parents' ability to reason about their children's mental states relate to positive social outcomes; however, markedly less is known about such associations during adolescence. Addressing this gap, the present work examines parental reflective functioning in relation to adolescents' peer relationships, while also exploring whether adolescents' own mentalizing skills may account for such associations.

Method: Through data collection within Canada, pairs of parents/caregivers and adolescents (ages 12-15, N = 87, 44 girls) separately completed a measure of youths' peer relationships (prosocial behaviour and peer problems). Adolescents completed task-based and self-report measures of mentalizing, while parents completed measures of their general mentalizing ability and parental reflective functioning.

Results: Youth with better mentalizing skills (task and/or self-report) reported more positive and fewer negative peer relationships. Parent reflective functioning, but not general mentalizing, was associated with more prosocial behaviours. Parent-youth agreement on peer relationships was highest when both parents and youth reported higher mentalizing skills.

Conclusions: From a theoretical standpoint, findings suggest the important role of parental reflective functioning and youth mentalizing for models of social development. In terms of methodological implications, task and self-report of youth mentalizing were related but differentially predicted peer problems. Practically speaking, findings suggest that bolstering parents reflective functioning may support the development of adolescents' mentalizing skills and positive peer relationships.