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Introduction: Whether university graduates successfully make the transition from the university to work is critical for their career development. However, a comprehensive measurement of university-to-work success (UWS) that applies across different contexts remains lacking. Methods: To address this gap, we adapted and validated the first comprehensive UWS measurement, the university-to-work success scale (UWSS), among samples of Chinese university graduates with three studies. We also provided new construct validity evidence for the scale and examined its measurement invariance across gender. Results: The findings of the current study showed that the 24-item UWSSChinese version clearly showed four factors (career satisfaction, income and financial independence, confidence in career future, and adaptation to work) that were consistent with the original scale. Moreover, construct validity analysis revealed that UWSS was positively associated with proposed antecedents (i.e., career adaptability) and outcome (i.e., adult identity). It also showed incremental validity over general indicators of career success (i.e., career adaptability) in predicting adult identity establishment. Additionally, the measurement also showed measurement invariance across gender. Discussion: Overall, these findings implied that the UWSS-Chinese version had good psychometric properties to be used in future studies and practice in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the process by which children disclose adult wrongdoing, a topic of considerable debate and controversy. In the current study, we investigated children's evaluations of disclosing adult wrongdoing by focusing on children's preferences for particular disclosure recipients and perceptions of the consequences of disclosure in hypothetical vignettes. We tested whether children thought that disclosure recipients would believe a story child as a truth teller and what actions the recipients would take against the "instigator" who committed the transgression. Maltreated and non-maltreated 4- to 9-year-olds (N=235) responded to questions about vignettes that described a parent's or stranger's transgression. Older children preferred caregiver recipients over police officer recipients when disclosing a parent's transgression but not a stranger's transgression. Maltreated children's preference for caregiver recipients over police officer recipients developed more gradually than that of non-maltreated children. Older children expected disclosure recipients to be more skeptical of the story child's account, and older children and maltreated children expected disclosure recipients to intervene formally less often when a parent, rather than a stranger, was the instigator. Results contribute to understanding vulnerable children's development and highlight the developmental, experiential, and socio-contextual factors underlying children's disclosure patterns.

In the present study, we examined the relationships between adult identity, strength of identity commitments, and their potential determinants: number of adult social roles undertaken and psychosocial maturity. A total of 358 emerging adults aged 18 to 30 participated. Structural equation modelling analyses indicated that psychosocial maturity dimensions served as intervening variables between adult roles on the one hand and adult identity and identity commitments on the other. The results suggest that vocational and familial adult roles can be related to different aspects of psychosocial maturity. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Infertility is a major concern for people with cancer and their partners. There have been calls for further research on the gendered nature of psychosocial, emotional and identity concomitants of fertility post-cancer across women and men. Method The gendered construction and experience of infertility following cancer was examined through a survey of 693 women and 185 men, and in-depth one-to-one interviews with a subsample of survey respondents, 61 women and 17 men, purposively selected across cancer types and age groups. Thematic decomposition was used to examine the open ended survey responses and interviews. The chi square test for independence was used to test for group differences between women and men on closed survey items. Results In the thematic decomposition, infertility was identified as providing a ‘Threat of Biographical Disruption’ which impacted on life course and identity, for both women and men. Subthemes identified were: ‘Parenthood as central to adulthood’; ‘Infertility as a threat to gender identity’; ‘ Unknown fertility status and delayed parenthood’; ‘Feelings of loss and grief’; ‘Absence of understanding and support’; ‘Benefit finding and renegotiation of identity’. In the closed survey items, the majority of women and men agreed that they had always ‘wanted to be a parent’ and that ‘parenthood was a more important life goal than a satisfying career’. ‘It is hard to feel like a true adult until you have a child’ and impact upon ‘my feelings about myself as a man or a woman’ was reported by both women and men, with significantly more women reporting ‘I feel empty because of fertility issues’. Many participants agreed they ‘could visualise a happy life without a child’ and there is ‘freedom without children’. Significantly more men than women reported that they had not discussed fertility with a health care professional. Conclusion The fear of infertility following cancer, or knowledge of compromised fertility, can have negative effects on identity and psychological wellbeing for both women and men, serving to create biographical disruption. Support from family, partners and health care professionals can facilitate renegotiation of identity and coping.

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Introduction: Whether university graduates successfully make the transition from the university to work is critical for their career development. However, a comprehensive measurement of university-to-work success (UWS) that applies across different contexts remains lacking., Methods: To address this gap, we adapted and validated the first comprehensive UWS measurement, the university-to-work success scale (UWSS), among samples of Chinese university graduates with three studies. We also provided new construct validity evidence for the scale and examined its measurement invariance across gender., Results: The findings of the current study showed that the 24-item UWSS-Chinese version clearly showed four factors (career satisfaction, income and financial independence, confidence in career future, and adaptation to work) that were consistent with the original scale. Moreover, construct validity analysis revealed that UWSS was positively associated with proposed antecedents (i.e., career adaptability) and outcome (i.e., adult identity). It also showed incremental validity over general indicators of career success (i.e., career adaptability) in predicting adult identity establishment. Additionally, the measurement also showed measurement invariance across gender., Discussion: Overall, these findings implied that the UWSS-Chinese version had good psychometric properties to be used in future studies and practice in China., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Jin and Yu.)

Aim: Very little attention has been paid to the views and experiences of young people with mild intellectual disabilities on the broad topics of adulthood and adult identity. The following study was undertaken to explore how young adults with mild intellectual disabilities conceptualize, relate to, and experience the process of transition. Method: Eight young adults with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities participated in semi‐structured interviews. Results were analysed using interpretive thematic analysis. Results: Two umbrella themes were identified: "On a developmental pathway" and "Negotiations in the environment". Conclusions: The participants concerns were surprisingly similar to those commonly expressed by young adults without disabilities. Self‐perceived adult identity appeared to be affected by the participants' personal definitions of adulthood, as well as by social comparisons with both peers and adults. Finally, while concerns were expressed about their capacity to cope with responsibility, most felt optimistic about adopting full adult status in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Identity Capital Model proposes that forms of personal agency are associated with identity development as part of the transition to adulthood. This model was examined in two cultural contexts, taking into account age and gender, among college and university students aged 18 to 24 (N = 995). Confirmatory Factor Analyses verified cultural, age, and gender invariance of the two key operationalizations of the model. A Structural Equation Model path analysis confirmed that the model applies in both cultures with minor variations-types of personal agency are associated with the formation of adult- and societal-identities as part of the resolution of the identity stage. It was concluded that forms of personal agency providing the most effective ways of dealing with "individualization" (e.g., internal locus of control) are more important in the transition to adulthood among American students, whereas types of personal agency most effective in dealing with "individualistic collectivism" (e.g., ego strength) are more important among Japanese students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many men who entered adulthood in the 1970's through 2000 experienced sexual desire for other men in their adolescence, but did not integrate this experience into their identities. After forming heterosexual identities and entering heterosexual marriages, some experience a re-emergence of same-sex desire in midlife. We examine posts to three online groups for such men in "mixed-orientation marriages" to describe the ways in which the inadequacies of available cultural scripts for sexual orientation impede their ability to re-integrate their samesex desire into their adult identities. We also suggest that the men who can make use of advanced forms of adult cognition are better equipped to transcend the limitations of cultural scripts and form a more coherent and inclusive adult identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most queer men in mixed-orientation marriages initially expect to have a traditional, monogamous heterosexual marriage. When they later confront the conflict between their same-sex desires and their marriage, they reopen fundamental identity questions. These queer spouses share with other people who come out in adulthood the problems of renegotiating identity in adulthood and achieving a queer identity in a heteronormative culture. In addition, their attempt to reformulate adult identity is made problematic by the fact that they often cannot make sense of their experience in terms of dominant cultural scripts about love, desire, and commitment. Specifically, the essentialist script for understanding sexual desire and the monogamy script for understanding love and commitment put the queer man's straight marriage and his same-sex desires in contradiction: to have a coherent identity, one or the other must be denied. Queer spouses can overcome this contradiction by entering “unscripted territory” and constructing new ways of understanding their desires and relations. Therapists can be of help to queer spouses by providing an “unscripted space,” giving emotional support for the difficulty of “not knowing,” and questioning assumptions derived from dominant scripts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article asks why adults play dress-up and investigates the role of object play in the making of magical thinking and the reforming of adult identity. The author looks at a wide spectrum of narratives and their genres—the fairy tale "Cinderella," the film comedy Some Like it Hot, the epistolary novel Pamela, the film melodrama Now, Voyager, the psychoanalytical case study of "Miss K.," and the memoir My Judy Garland Life. She asserts that these narratives help define what constitutes "a woman's story" as a story of transformation by setting its representation in relation to objects or aesthetic worlds, into which the woman changes or immerses herself with the same intensity and single-mindedness as a child at play. The author draws on the works of psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas to explain the transformational object seeking and aesthetic moment of these narrative representations and argues they model a woman's longing for transformation and make it imaginable to the adult mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using a nationwide sample of 2656 eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds, the first part of the present study addressed the question of how non-traditional as compared to traditional living arrangements related to young people’s self-perception of being either adolescent or adult. Being in a romantic relationship increased the likelihood of feeling adult. Modern adult living arrangements (living alone in a single household or sharing an apartment with peers) increased the likelihood of feeling adolescent. Employing a longitudinal sample of 461 twenty- to twenty-seven-year-olds, changes in job status and sources of income were studied with regard to their connections to the emergence of subjective adulthood or the regression to subjective adolescence, respectively. No association between adult or adolescent self-perception and issues of work and material autonomy was found, but the emergence of subjective adulthood was related to romantic relationships and parenthood. Findings are discussed with reference to young people’s volatile living conditions and transient commitments implied by social change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Using mediating analyses with Latent Change Scores (N = 208), we examined (Aim 1) associations from financial behaviors of emerging adults and romantic partners to adult identity (i.e., feeling like an adult; being recognized by others as adult; obtaining adult status), and (Aim 2) the mediating roles of depressive symptoms and relationship satisfaction in these associations. We included initial levels and over-time changes in financial behaviors, depressive symptoms, and relationship satisfaction when examining these two aims. For Aim 1, financial behaviors of emerging adults (initial levels and over-time increases) predicted adult identity. For Aim 2, depressive symptoms (initial levels and over-time decreases) mediated associations from financial behaviors of emerging adults and romantic partners (initial levels and over-time increases) to adult identity. Relationship satisfaction (initial levels only) mediated associations from financial behaviors of romantic partners (initial levels and over-time increases) to adult identity. We discussed the implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]