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Background Severe irritability has become an important topic in child and adolescent mental health. Based on the available evidence and on public health considerations, WHO classified chronic irritability within oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in ICD-11, a solution markedly different from DSM-5's (i.e. the new childhood mood diagnosis, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder [DMDD]) and from ICD-10's (i.e. ODD as one of several conduct disorders without attention to irritability). In this study, we tested the accuracy with which a global, multilingual, multidisciplinary sample of clinicians were able to use the ICD-11 classification of chronic irritability and oppositionality as compared to the ICD-10 and DSM-5 approaches. Methods Clinicians (N = 196) from 48 countries participated in an Internet-based field study in English, Spanish, or Japanese and were randomized to review and use one of the three diagnostic systems. Through experimental manipulation of validated clinical vignettes, we evaluated how well clinicians in each condition could identify chronic irritability versus nonirritable oppositionality, episodic bipolar disorder, dysthymic depression, and normative irritability. Results Compared to ICD-10 and DSM-5, ICD-11 led to more accurate identification of severe irritability and better differentiation from boundary presentations. Participants using DSM-5 largely failed to apply the DMDD diagnosis when it was appropriate, and they more often applied psychopathological diagnoses to developmentally normative irritability. Conclusions The formulation of irritability and oppositionality put forth in ICD-11 shows evidence of clinical utility, supporting accurate diagnosis. Global mental health clinicians can readily identify ODD both with and without chronic irritability.

This article describes the goals, practices and underlying values of parents raising children in the violent context of Brazilian slums. The results show that mothers act within a multivocal moral framework, combining ‘street cultural logic’ with ‘middle-class’ perspectives. Survival and a strong sense of morality are taught through both adaptation to and dissociation from the neighbourhood context. The analyses challenge the idea of a homogeneous ‘street’ culture in these communities and show that various cultural repertoires and multiple interconnected perspectives on morality are cultivated in response to violence. The study provides ways to interpret parental strategies to organise a moral counteroffensive as a lever for change.

While most curricula addressing violence and peace are developed in privileged contexts, this paper reconsiders existing approaches to peace education from the perspective of communities affected by high levels of violence. In-depth analysis of the educational goals and practices of teachers in Brazilian slums demonstrates how they construct different levels of resistance to violence despite contextual restrictions. Teachers combined a restrictive approach with an ethic of care to create peaceful alternatives, while making use of their community position. The analyses underline the transformational potential of educational environments, while acknowledging the intricate dynamics of violence that narrow opportunities for change. Correspondingly, the paper considers how a critical understanding of the community context can inform peace educational programmes that aim for transformation.

Creativity is seen as an important competency in current and future society and promoting students’ creativity is high on the educational agenda. It is considered important that students do not only learn to reproduce knowledge and skills, but also learn to creatively apply these knowledge and skills to create and discover new possibilities and to solve problems. This doctoral research provides more insight into how students’ creativity can be promoted in education, and specifically in elementary mathematics education. The research shows that it is important to structurally foster creativity within multiple disciplines in elementary education. Furthermore, this dissertation accentuates the importance of crossing disciplinary boundaries in education to promote students’ creativity: interdisciplinary education may support students to break away from established mindsets in order to create novel ideas, solutions or (artistic) products. Moreover, the research shows that in order to nurture creativity in (interdisciplinary) mathematics education, it is important that open opportunities with less-specific learning goals are offered to students, and that the teacher encourages students’ creativity by an open atmosphere in the classroom, and by clearly emphasizing that creative responses are valued. The research also demonstrates that several factors may hinder the implementation of these strategies, such as the use of existing mathematical textbooks in elementary schools. Several implications for educational practice are generated.

Education is increasingly offered online, for instance in the form of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Students in MOOCs have the freedom to decide when and where they study, and at what pace. The autonomy that is offered to students requires learners to engage in self-regulated learning. This means that students must be actively involved in their learning process to be successful. It is however known that many students struggle with this. In this dissertation we therefore focused on how the self-regulated learning of students in open online education can be supported. First, an overview was made of ways to support self-regulated learning in higher education. With this review we have shown that interventions that are successful in improving students’ self-regulated learning do not necessarily positively affect students’ performance and the other way around. Next, we offered MOOC learners support in the form of short instruction videos on self-regulated learning. The results showed that the intervention improved students’ self-regulated learning as well as their course completion. Throughout the dissertation, we have also paid attention to the measurement of self-regulated learning. This is especially important as self-regulated learning mostly occurs inside learners’ heads. We have developed new methods to more accurately measure students’ self-regulated learning in open online education. Taken together, the results of this dissertation provide a valuable base for further research on students’ self-regulated learning in open online education, with adequate and adaptive support as its ultimate aim.

Chinese student teachers nowadays encounter diverse value systems in society and specifically in their teacher education programmes: Eastern and Western values coexist. In this thesis, we aim to understand in this context, Chinese student teachers’ values and value development during and through their internships in a secondary school. We also investigate the role their own personal values play in their thinking and acting as teachers. We adapted four categories from Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions as an analytical lens to map student teachers’ culture-related values. The findings showed the applicability of the four categories of culture-related values in mapping individual Chinese student teachers’ values. Student teachers’ culture-related values appeared to be associated with their evaluation of their teaching practices, especially their emotional incidents during teaching. We noticed that both Eastern (i.e., teacher-centeredness) and Western values (i.e., pupil-centeredness) were held by Chinese student teachers before their internship. Values on teacher-centeredness were mostly reinforced and confirmed during their teaching practices in their internship. After their internships, student teachers showed stronger teacher-centred values in their understanding of being a teacher. Insight in current Chinese student teachers’ values and value development can help raise teacher educators’ and policy makers’ awareness of the importance of student teachers’ values in a changing culture. Besides, our results might help student teachers to cope with the conflicting values they encounter when they teach in classrooms. The findings suggest that it is important for appropriate student teachers’ professional development that they reflect on their own teaching behaviour.

In higher education students have many interactions with their teacher in which teachers provide support for students’ learning. Feedback conversations in higher education are specific examples of student-teacher interactions and are the objects of this research project. Feedback conversations can help students to acquire the essential skills for the task they are working on. In five empirical studies, we aimed to unravel the complexity of face-to-face feedback conversations between teachers and students in higher education. We explored how these student-teacher interactions take place, why they interact the way they do, and we stimulated teachers to interact differently. Five studies were conducted, with which we not only wanted to contribute to the literature on student-teacher interactions, but also aimed to improve educational practice. In the study described in chapter 2 of this dissertation, we investigated the impact of verbal feedback and feedback request forms on students’ feedback perception, self-efficacy, and motivation. Supervisors’ diagnostic behaviour during feedback conversations was explored in the study presented in chapter 3. Students’ and supervisors’ co-regulation was investigated in the study discussed in chapter 4. In the study described in chapter 5, we developed a better understanding of supervisors’ diagnostic behaviour by exploring their in-the-moment decisions and perceptions of their students. Finally, the effects of a lesson study project on supervisors’ pedagogical content knowledge was investigated in the study described in chapter 6. In many of the feedback conversations we have observed, student-teacher interactions were characterized by a teacher-centred approach with a lot of teacher interventions and direct regulation towards students’ learning. From a scaffolding perspective, this seems to be an acceptable teaching strategy when students are starting with a new task. Several teachers did not decrease their regulation in a phase that students’ independent functioning was expected. Although it remained unclear in our studies if teachers were unable to decrease their support, our research did show that teachers can learn to apply effective scaffolding techniques to enhance the active role of the students during feedback conversations. Our lesson study approach has been shown to be an effective method to enrich teachers’ PCK of instructional strategies. We showed that teachers are able to apply indirect regulation strategies, such as asking questions and prompting, to stimulate students to think for themselves. The significance of this project lies in the empirical evidence it provides about how teachers can strengthen the role of students; how teachers can stimulate students to take on responsibility for their own learning process. We hope that the studies presented in this dissertation will inspire teachers, as well as researchers, to find the balance in student-teacher interactions, and conclude as we did: both students and teachers should be in control.

Social robots are increasingly being used in education to support or even replace teachers. However, it is not clear yet whether robots are effective tools for education. This dissertation has been carried out within the L2TOR project, which investigated the use of robots to support young children’s second-language learning. One review and several experiments are reported on the effectiveness of robots for word learning, the use of tablets in robot-assisted lessons, and on individual differences between children regarding the robot’s effectiveness for word learning. The main findings are that children did not learn more words when playing with a robot than without and that differences between children in the perception of the robot and their language and attention skills affect their interaction with the robot and their learning. This dissertation shows that robots have potential as a new digital technology in education, but that they cannot fulfill their potential yet as of this moment, amongst others due to their technical limitations in speech and object recognition. The implications of these findings for the future development of robots for education are discussed.

Learning by watching the good example of others is a very natural and effective way of learning. Nowadays, we can view examples of experts from over the whole world by means of video examples. This dissertation describes research about a new type of video examples, so-called eye movement modeling examples (EMME), in which learners not only see what a teacher is doing on the computer but also see where he or she looks at. This is done by recording the teacher’s eye movements and depicting them as a moving colored circle or dot. Showing where the teacher looks serves two purposes: It guides the learner’s attention towards the right place at the right time which makes the explanation of the teacher easier to understand, and it provides insight into which information the teacher uses to perform the task and which strategy he or she uses (something which usually remains invisible). Previous research showed that EMME (compared with regular video examples without the depiction of the teacher’s eye movements) improved the performance on visual search tasks and classification tasks. In his dissertation Tim van Marlen examined whether EMME can also improve learning to solve procedural problems, such as geometry problems. His research showed that EMME indeed help to guide the learner’s attention towards the right place at the right time. In addition, secondary education students performed better at solving geometry problems after studying EMME than students studying regular video examples.

Background:For elementary school-children with aggressive behaviour problems, there is a strong need for effective preventive interventions to interrupt the developmental trajectory towards more serious behaviour problems.Aim:The aim of this RCT-study was to evaluate a school-based individual tailor-made intervention (Stay Cool Kids), designed to reduce aggressive behaviour in selected children by enhancing cognitive behavioural skills.Method:The sample consisted of 48 schools, with 264 fourth-grade children selected by their teachers because of elevated levels of externalizing behaviour (TRF T-score > 60), randomly assigned to the intervention or no-intervention control condition.Results:The intervention was found to be effective in reducing reactive and proactive aggressive behaviour as reported by children, mothers, fathers or teachers, with effect sizes ranging from .11 to .32. Clinically relevant changes in teacher-rated externalizing behaviour were found: the intervention reduced behaviour problems to (sub) clinical or normative levels for significantly more children than the control condition. Some aspects of problems in social cognitive functioning were reduced and children showed more positive self-perception. Ethnic background and gender moderated intervention effects on child and teacher reported aggression and child response generation.Conclusions:The results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness on outcome behaviour and child cognitions of an individual tailor-made intervention across informants under real-world conditions.

Research among adults has consistently shown that people holding negative self-views prefer negative over positive feedback. The present study tested the hypothesis that this preference is less robust among pre-adolescents, such that it will be mitigated by a preceding positive event. Pre-adolescents (n = 75) holding positive or negative global self-esteem were randomized to a favorable or unfavorable peer evaluation outcome. Next, preferences for positive versus negative feedback were assessed using an unobtrusive behavioral viewing time measure. As expected, results showed that after being faced with the success outcome children holding negative self-views were as likely as their peers holding positive self-views to display a significant preference for positive feedback. In contrast, children holding negative self-views displayed a stronger preference for negative feedback after being faced with the unfavorable outcome that matched their pre-existing self-views.

This article examines how perceiving concealment in close relationships influences marital well-being. It suggests that the perception of concealment from a partner signals separateness from one's partner and contributes to feelings of perceived partner exclusion. These feelings of exclusion, in turn, should negatively affect relational quality. These predictions are tested in a prospective study among 199 newlywed couples. Results suggest that perceiving concealment reduced marital adjustment and trust and increased conflict over time. Importantly, change in perceived partner exclusion mediated these effects. This article demonstrates that the perception of concealment (a) has deleterious effects on relational well-being in the long run and (b) is harmful in part because it elicits feelings of exclusion. © 2009 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Background: This study investigates whether anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms of adolescents from the general community are best described by a model that assumes they are indicative of one general factor or by a model that assumes they are two distinct disorders with parallel growth processes. Additional analyses were conducted to explore the comorbidity of adolescent anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms and the effects that adolescent anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms have on each other’s symptom severity growth. Methods: Two cohorts of early (N = 923; Age range 10–15 years; Mean age = 12.4, SD = .59; Girls = 49%) and middle adolescent (N = 390; Age range 16– 20 years; Mean age = 16.7, SD = .80; Girls = 57%) boys and girls from the general community were prospectively studied annually for five years. These two adolescent cohorts were divided intofive groups: one group at-risk for developing a specific anxiety disorder and four additional groups of healthy adolescents that differed in age and sex. Self-reported anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms were analyzed with latent growth modeling. Results: Comparison of the fit statistics of the two models clearly demonstrates the superiority of the distinct disorders with parallel growth processes model above the one factor model. It was also demonstrated that the initial symptom severity of either anxiety or depression is predictive of the development of the other, though in different ways for the at-risk and healthy adolescent groups. Conclusions: The results of this study established that the development of anxiety and depressive disorder symptoms of adolescents from the general community occurs as two distinct disorders with parallel growth processes, each with their own unique growth characteristics. Keywords: Adolescents, anxiety, depression, development, latent growth modeling, parallel growth.

Following suggestions from prior research, this 2-wave longitudinal study examined whether parental solicitation and control influenced adolescents' later perceptions of privacy invasion. Data from 307 Dutch adolescents were tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). Differences in adolescents' invasion perceptions were examined in terms of gender and the quality of interactions with parents. Parental control influenced later invasion perceptions among adolescents reporting higher quality interactions with parents, particularly among males. Parental solicitation also predicted perceptions of invasion. Results are discussed in terms of Kerr and Stattin's (2000) reinterpretation of parental monitoring, gender differences, the dialectical tension between openness and closedness in family relationships, and implications for adolescent-parent privacy negotiations.

Contains fulltext : 54507.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) The aim of this study was to longitudinally examine the moderating role of friendship quality in the association between adolescent perception of interparental conflicts and maladjustment. Participants were 1294 adolescents enrolled in the Dutch CONAMORE 2001—2006 study (Mage = 13.6 years). AMOS multigroup analyses were utilized. Results show that low friendship quality is a risk factor for both boys and girls, aggravating the effect of interparental conflicts on anxiety, whereas for aggression this was only the case for boys. No convincing support was found for high friendship quality's protective function against the effect of perceived interparental conflict on maladjustment. These findings show the substantial importance of not being in a low quality friendship when adolescents perceive interparental conflicts. 10 p.

Although the co-occurrence between adolescent depression and delinquency has been well-studied, the nature of the longitudinal associations is not yet clear. To clarify this we examined whether personality type is a moderator in the longitudinal co-occurrence of depression and delinquency. A total of 338 young and middle adolescents completed questionnaires about depression, delinquency and personality in 3 yearly waves of the CONflict And Management Of RElationships (CONAMORE). We found that the stable overcontrollers showed the highest mean level on depression and that the stable undercontrollers showed the highest mean level on delinquency. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the longitudinal co-occurrence between depression and delinquency was best described by means of a stability model, in which personality type membership proved to be an important moderator. The three personality types differed significantly on the rank-order stability of both depression and delinquency. Copyright#2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: co-occurrence; depression; delinquency; person-centred approach; personality prototypes

In deze studie hebben we onderzocht of adolescenten conflictoplossingsstijlen in de relatie met ouders drie jaar later ook gaan hanteren bij vrienden en/of vice versa. Adolescenten uit twee leeftijdscohorten (cohort 1:n = 559; gemiddelde leeftijd 13.4 jaar en cohort 2:n = 327; gemiddelde leeftijd 17.7 jaar) vulden op twee meetmomenten vragen in over het gebruik van drie conflictoplossingsstijlen met hun vader, moeder en beste vriend. Padanalyses lieten zien dat in het jonge cohort de stijlen positief probleem oplossen en ruzie maken werden overgedragen van de adolescent-ouderrelatie naar de adolescent-vriendrelatie, maar niet andersom. In het oude cohort vonden we overdracht van deze stijlen in beide richtingen, dus zowel van ouders naar vrienden als van vrienden naar ouders. Voor de stijl terugtrekken vonden we dat de overdracht zowel in het jonge als in het oude cohort beide richtingen opging. Deze studie laat zien dat de relatie met zowel ouders als vrienden belangrijk is, als het gaat om het aanleren en oefenen van conflictoplossingsstijlen en dat beide relaties het toekomstig conflictgedrag van de adolescent beïnvloeden. Als ouders zich bewust zijn van hun mogelijke invloed op het gedrag van adolescenten, kan een negatieve spiraal van gedrag in zowel de ouder-adolescentrelatie als met vrienden voorkomen worden.

This study examined the longitudinal relations between competence (academic achievement and social preference) and problem behavior (loneliness and aggression) in 741 elementary school boys and girls in the Netherlands (Grades 1-5). Also, we examined the moderation effects of having no friends, aggressive friends, or nonaggressive friends on the associations between competence and problem behavior. Results revealed that competence was related to later problem behavior. Academic competence was related to lower levels of later loneliness, whereas social preference was related to both lower levels of loneliness and aggression over time. Vice versa, loneliness was not related to subsequent competence, whereas aggression was associated with later lower levels of social preference. Although group differences appeared on mean levels of competence and problem behavior, with children without friends being especially vulnerable to maladjustment, we found no moderation effects of friendship for associations between competence and problem behavior.

Het doel van dit onderzoek was om vast te stellen of er verschillen zijn in patronen van negativiteit in gezinsrelaties tussen gezinnen met en zonder een adolescent die externaliserend probleemgedrag vertoont. We hebben een Social Relations Model-analyse gebruikt om negativiteit te meten op drie niveaus van gezinsfunctioneren. De steekproef bestond uit 120 problematische en 153 niet-problematische gezinnen (twee ouders, twee kinderen), die negativiteit in de relatie met elk ander gezinslid beoordeelden. Op basis van verschiltoetsing van ruwe dyadische scores zouden we geneigd zijn om verschillen tussen gezinnen toe te schrijven aan de specifieke relatie tussen twee personen. Ons onderzoek laat echter zien dat deze verschillen in werkelijkheid gebaseerd zijn op verschillen in kenmerken van een problematisch kind.

The authors of this study tested a selection-influence-de-selection model of depression. This model explains friendship influence processes (i.e., friends' depressive symptoms increase adolescents' depressive symptoms) while controlling for two processes: friendship selection (i.e., selection of friends with similar levels of depressive symptoms) and friendship de-selection (i.e., de-selection of friends with dissimilar levels of depressive symptoms). Further, this study is unique in that these processes were studied both inside and outside the school context. The authors used a social network approach to examine 5 annual measurements of data in a large (N =847) community-based network of adolescents and their friends (M = 14.3 years old at first measurement). Results supported the proposed model: adolescents tend to select friends with similar levels of depression, and friends may increase each other's depressive symptoms as relationships endure. These two processes were most salient outside the school context. At the same time, friendships seemed to be ended more frequently if adolescents' level of depressive symptoms was dissimilar to that of their friends.

When analyzing repeated measurements data, researchers often have expectations about the relations between the measurement means. The expectations can often be formalized using equality and inequality constraints between (i) the measurement means over time, (ii) the measurement means between groups, (iii) the means adjusted for time-invariant covariates, and (iv) the means adjusted for time-varying covariates. The result is a set of informative hypotheses. In this paper, the Bayes factor is used to determine which hypothesis receives most support from the data. A pivotal element in the Bayesian framework is the specification of the prior. To avoid subjective prior specification, training data in combination with restrictions on the measurement means are used to obtain so-called constrained posterior priors. A simulation study and an empirical example from developmental psychology show that this prior results in Bayes factors with desirable properties.

The aim of this five-wave longitudinal study of 923 early to middle adolescents (50.7% boys; 49.3% girls) and 390 middle to late adolescents (43.3% boys and 56.7% girls) is to provide a comprehensive view on change and stability in identity formation from ages 12 to 20. Several types of change and stability (i.e., mean-level change, rank-order stability, and profile similarity) were assessed for three dimensions of identity formation (i.e., commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration), using adolescent self-report questionnaires. Results revealed changes in identity dimensions towards maturity, indicated by a decreasing tendency for reconsideration, increasingly more in-depth exploration, and increasingly more stable identity dimension profiles. Mean levels of commitment remained stable, and rank-order stability of commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration did not change with age. Overall, girls were more mature with regard to identity formation in early adolescence, but boys had caught up with them by late adolescence. Taken together, our findings indicate that adolescent identity formation is guided by progressive changes in the way adolescents deal with commitments, rather than by changes in the commitments themselves.

The present research assesses adolescent personality maturation by examining 3 measures of change and stability (i.e., mean-level change, rank-order stability, and profile similarity) of Big Five personality traits, employing data from a 5-annual-wave study with overlapping early to middle (n = 923) and middle to late (n = 390) adolescent cohorts. Results indicated that mean levels of Agreeableness and Emotional Stability increased during adolescence. There was mixed evidence for increases in Extraversion and Openness. Additionally, rank-order stability and profile similarity of adolescent personality traits clearly increased from early to late adolescence. For all change facets, the authors found evidence for gender differences in the timing of adolescent personality maturation, as girls were found to mature earlier than boys.

The current study examined the longitudinal associations of time spent on Internet activities for communication purposes (i.e., IM-ing) versus time spent on Internet activities for non-communication purposes (i.e., surfing) with depression and social anxiety, as well as the moderating role of perceived friendship quality in these associations. Questionnaire data were gathered from 307 Dutch middle adolescents (average age 15 years) on two waves with a one-year interval. For adolescents who perceive low friendship quality, Internet use for communication purposes predicted less depression, whereas Internet use for non-communication purposes predicted more depression and more social anxiety. These results support social compensation effects of IM-ing on depression and poor-get-poorer effects of surfing on depression and social anxiety, respectively.

We studied the psychological importance of best friend and intimate partner in the personal network of adolescents and early adults, and links between relationships and emotional problems as well as links between relationships themselves. A series of hypotheses derived from the “intimate partner (IP) general saliency perspective” and “the intimate partner (IP) early adult saliency perspective” was tested. The IP general saliency perspective predicts that the relationship with intimate partner is psychologically more meaningful than the relationship with best friend in adolescence and early adulthood. The IP early adult saliency perspective predicts that the relationship with intimate partner does not have superior psychological value in adolescence and acquires it in early adulthood. Data of Waves 1 and 3 of a six-year longitudinal study of 1041 adolescents and early adults, aged 12—23 at Wave 1, were used. Results showed that when early adults and adolescents make the shift from best friend to intimate partner, relational commitment becomes stronger and emotional problems become smaller, supporting the IP general saliency perspective. Results also showed that only in early adulthood was a stronger commitment to intimate partner related to less emotional problems, and more parental support was linked to stronger relational commitment to intimate partner. These findings clearly support the IP early adult saliency perspective. In sum, when adolescents and early adults make the transition to the intimate partnership they enter a psychologically more meaningful relationship. When individuals enter early adulthood the psychological value of the intimate partner relationship becomes more salient: the quality of the intimate relationship becomes more stable and linked to emotional adjustment.

This study longitudinally investigated transmission: Can the way adolescents resolve conflicts with their parents be explained by the way parents resolve conflicts with each other? Questionnaires about conflict resolution styles were completed by 282 young adolescents (mean age = 13.2) and their parents. Path analyses with cross-lagged effects indicated that transmission of conflict resolution styles from marital relationships to adolescent-parent relationships occurs: Conflict engagement and positive problem solving in marital relationships were significantly related to, respectively, conflict engagement and positive problem solving in adolescent-parent relationships 2 years later. No significant longitudinal effects emerged with regard to withdrawal. Thus, the study shows that the way marital conflicts are handled affects how adolescents deal with conflicts.

This study aimed to generalize and extend research on identity styles among early adolescents in the Netherlands. The study investigated associations between perceived parent-adolescent relations and identity-processing styles among 13-year-old adolescents and the role identity styles played in mediating relationships between parent-adolescent relations and the identity commitments early adolescents held and the levels of self-regulation they exercised. Associations between perceived parent-adolescent relations and a normative style were positive and those with a diffuse-avoidant style were negative. Parental information solicitation was related to information-style scores. All three styles were related to identity commitments and self-regulation. Linkages with the normative style were positive and those with the diffuse-avoidant style negative. An informational identity style was associated positively with commitment but negatively with self-regulation. The relationship between adolescents' perceptions of open parental communication and their levels of identity commitment was partially mediated by a normative style. The role parent-adolescent relations may play in developing identity processes and self-regulation during early adolescence is considered.

In dit onderzoek zijn bij 307 adolescenten (gemiddelde leeftijd 15 jaar) de longitudinale effecten van internetgebruik op internaliserend probleemgedrag onderzocht. Daarbij is onderscheid gemaakt tussen internetgebruik gericht op communicatie (‘chatten’) en internetgebruik niet gericht op communicatie (‘surfen’). Tevens is de modererende rol van de kwaliteit van de beste vriendschap in de effecten van internetgebruik op probleemgedrag onderzocht. De resultaten geven aan dat voor adolescenten met een lage kwaliteit van vriendschap langer chatten minder internaliserende problemen voorspelt, terwijl in die groep langer surfen juist meer internaliserende problemen voorspelt. De resultaten leveren ondersteuning voor de associatie tussen eerder internetgebruik en latere toenemende of afnemende internaliserende problemen, maar kunnen niet automatisch geïnterpreteerd worden in termen van causale verbanden tussen internetgebruik en latere internaliserende problemen.

This study examines whether teachers’ and parental attributions for children’s school performance differ depending on the ethnic background of the child. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, real-life attributions within 54 teacher - parent conversations (15 ethnic majority; 39 minority) were examined. The results indicated that, compared with majority children, teachers attributed school performance of minority children more often to effort (also after controlling for the child’s level of school performance). At the same time, the analyses showed that these differences in attributional behavior co-occur with differences in the teacher-parents interaction and should be understood through including the conversational setting in which these attributions were made. The results are discussed in light of what the particular mismatches and lack of congruence in explaining school success between parents and teachers mean for the school performance of minority children. Keywords: attribution, parents, teacher, ethnic background, school performance

The present study addressed empathy's role in conflict resolution within the context of adolescent same‐sex friendship relations. Self‐report questionnaires were used to assess dispositional affective empathy and conflict resolution styles (problem solving, conflict engagement, withdrawal and compliance). The data of 307 adolescents (149 boys, 158 girls) were included in a multigroup path analysis with sex as a moderator variable. In agreement with the hypothesis that higher levels of dispositional empathy are associated with more successful conflict management, dispositional affective empathy was found to be positively linked to problem solving and negatively linked to conflict engagement among adolescent boys and girls. Dispositional affective empathy was not related to the two more passive strategies (withdrawal and compliance). Sex differences were demonstrated in empathic tendencies, with girls being more empathic than boys. Sex differences were also established in conflict resolution strategies, with girls using problem solving, withdrawal and compliance more frequently than boys. Both sexes scored equally low on conflict engagement, however, and were found to prefer problem solving to all other conflict resolution strategies. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research on empathy and conflict resolution. Aggr. Behav. 33:48–55, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss; Inc.

The loss of a loved one is an event that affects the individual, but it is as much a family affair in the sense that bereavement affects families – as well as individuals – in complex and varied wa...

The aim of the study was to determine whether there are differences in patterns of negativity between families with and without an adolescent with externalizing problem behavior. We used a structured means Social Relations Model in order to examine negativity in multiple levels of the family system. The sample consisted of 120 problematic and 153 nonproblematic families (two parents, two children), who rated the level of negativity in the relationship with each family member. Although a simple mean differences test would lead us to believe that differences in negativity between groups of families can be ascribed to the interaction between parent and adolescent, the results of the present study indicate that these differences are actually related to the characteristics of a problematic child. © 2011 American Psychological Association.

This study examined the role of siblings on identity formation in adolescence and emerging adulthood, using a three-wave longitudinal design. Measures of identity formation were filled out by 498 sibling dyads. Sibling effects differed as a function of age and gender configuration within the dyads. Controlled for age, earlier-born siblings reported the most advanced levels of identity formation, and later-born siblings the lowest. Positive relations between siblings' identity and changes in identity of respondents provided support for modeling processes between siblings. The identity of earlier-born same-sex siblings, in particular, tends to be important in influencing identity formation. Contrary to the expectations, differentiation processes between siblings did not appear to influence identity formation. It is apparent from this study that both the gender and birth order of siblings affect whether their own identity formation processes influence those of adolescents and emerging adults.

The present study was aimed at examining one relatively neglected part of the identity formation process: the short-term dynamics of identity formation. The short-term dynamics were assessed by examining (a) the day-to-day course of 2 key dimensions of identity formation (i.e., commitment and reconsideration) and (b) the impact of fluctuations in commitment and reconsideration on subsequent levels of these 2 dimensions. Longitudinal data on 580 early adolescents (54.8% boys, 45.2% girls) were used to test these assertions. The authors found evidence for a commitment-reconsideration dynamic that operated on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, the findings confirmed E. H. Erikson's (1950) assertion that identity reflects a sense of sameness and continuity as a more stable identity (reflected by little day-to-day fluctuations) was predictive of higher levels of commitment and lower levels of reconsideration. Taken together, the present study underscores the importance of the short-term dynamics of identity formation. © 2010 American Psychological Association.

The current longitudinal study examined adolescent gender differences in the developmental changes and relational correlates of secrecy from parents. For 4 successive years, starting in the second year of junior high (mean age at Time 1 = 13.2 years, SD = 0.51), 149 male and 160 female Dutch adolescents reported on secrecy from their parents and the quality of the parent-child relationship. Latent growth curve modeling revealed a linear increase in secrecy, which was significantly faster for boys than for girls. Moreover, cross-lagged panel analyses showed clear concurrent and longitudinal linkages between secrecy from parents and poorer parent-child relationship quality in girls. In boys, much less strong linkages were found between poorer relationships and secrecy from parents.

Researchers often have expectations that can be expressed in the form of inequality constraints among the parameters of a structural equation model. It is currently not possible to test these so-called informative hypotheses in structural equation modeling software. We offer a solution to this problem using Mplus. The hypotheses are evaluated using plug-in p values with a calibrated alpha level. The method is introduced and its utility is illustrated by means of an example.

Perceived Criticism (PC) evolved in the context of Expressed Emotion (EE) research and, like EE, predicts the course of various psychiatric disorders. However, little is known about PC's validity. We examined (in Study 1) to what extent PC reflects the perceiver's current depressive and marital complaints, whether PC measures reciprocal criticism that characterizes dyads rather than individuals. and (in Study 2) whether PC reflects actual interactive behaviour. Both studies compared a single-item with a multi-item measure of PC. In Study 1. general community couples completed self-reports of PC. depressed mood, and marital dissatisfaction, and expressed their feelings in a brief EE interview (Five Minute Speech Samples). Multilevel analyses suggested that PC was associated with both partners' expressions of criticism, and the perceiver's depressive and marital complaints. In Study 2, general community couples completed self-reports of PC and participated in a videotaped problem solving interaction. Interactions were coded with the Kategorien system fur partnerschaftliche Interaktion (KPI). PC was related to the partner's verbal and nonverbal expression of criticism and the perceiver's expression of nonverbal negative behaviour. Overall, the pattern of findings fits in well with theoretical formulations regarding EE, and supports the usefulness of PC measures as practical alternatives for the assessment of EE. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.