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This study examined the effect of community service program-quality on changes in adolescents' intentions to volunteer. Based on the literature, volunteering intentions were expected to increase by programs with high quality community service activities (e.g., instructive activities) and educational activities including reflection. Adolescents (N= 361; M age = 15.67; SD = 0.74) divided in three groups were compared: community service students who were randomly assigned to a reflection intervention (N= 172) or no intervention (N= 142), and students who did not perform community service (N= 47). Data were collected before and after community service, and a half year after finishing community service. Results showed that adolescents' volunteering intentions increased when performing high quality service activities. When performing low quality service activities, volunteering intentions declined, unless adolescents received the reflection intervention. Thus, high quality activities and reflection are key community service characteristics for stimulating adolescents' volunteering intentions.

The aim of this study was to explain adolescents' volunteering in terms of their morality and identity and to examine the moderation effect of gender and age in this process. Data were collected among 698 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 20 (M = 15.19; SD = 1.43). Adolescents' moral reasoning was positively associated with understanding moral issues and thinking about public responsibility towards these issues. In turn, moral understanding, along with being personally committed to act upon moral issues, were positively associated with identity. Extending the number of identity contexts tended to be related to being more likely to volunteer and to more volunteering involvement. Adolescents' identity integration was not related to how likely they were to volunteer, and was negatively related to their volunteering involvement. Clearer effects were found when differentiating between adolescent gender and age groups. Future research could examine this process over time, along with additional factors that may further explain adolescents' volunteering, and examine their age and gender specific effects. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This study investigated a multi-mediation model of the relationship between bullying behavior, peer victimization, personal identity, and family characteristics to adolescent depressive symptoms in 194 high school students, 12-18 years of age. In the first model, peer victimization mediated the relation between bullying behavior and depressive symptoms. In the second model, personal identity mediated the relation between peer victimization and depressive symptoms. In the final model, the two mediation models were combined. The relative influence of family characteristics on all variables in the two mediation models was studied using structural equation modeling. The results supported both mediation models and confirmed the influence of family characteristics on all variables in the mediation models. This study indicates that victimization by one's peers has consequences for adolescents' psychological health when their personal identity is affected. In addition, the study was able to model several processes in which family characteristics were related to adolescent depressive symptoms. Moreover, the final combined model (in which the two mediation models and the influence of family characteristics on all variables were confirmed) explained half of the variance in adolescent depressive symptoms.

This article presents a longitudinal-sequential analysis of the developmental and reciprocal relationships between self-reported delinquency and moral reasoning (as measured with the Dutch version of the short form of the Defining Issues Test). Between 1991 and 1997 a large sample of 846 Dutch adolescents and young adults (15-23 years in 1991) was measured three times with an interval period of 3 years. Moral reasoning scores increased with age both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, while delinquency scores dropped sharply, "resulting in modest negative correlations between delinquency and moral reasoning". Structural equation modelling of the data delivered a satisfactory fit, "suggesting statistical reciprocal effects between delinquency and moral reasoning for the total sample". A multigroup analysis for three different age cohorts revealed a consistent negative effect of previous delinquency on moral reasoning between the ages of 21 to 23 years. Between the ages of 24 to 26 years, however, delinquency scores were, in turn, negatively affected by previous moral reasoning. Although substantial gender differences in delinquency were reported, no such differences were obtained for either moral reasoning or its relationship with delinquency. The results are discussed in view of the need for a multidimensional process approach of the relation between moral judgment and delinquency. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

The relations between moral reasoning and political attitudes were examined in a representative sample of 2520 Dutch adolescents and young adults. This study was repeated for a second, select sample, 210 Dutch university students. In the latter study both moral reasoning and political attitudes were related to the evaluation of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Moral reasoning was measured using the N2 index of the Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979a). Political attitudes were measured using 10 Likert-type multiitem scales, representing both the cultural and the economic dimension of general political ideology. Participants' general moral thought was identified through their evaluation of the 30 articles of the UDHR. The intraindividual consistency of the evaluation of the 30 UDHR articles was used as a measure of the structure of moral thought. Factor analyses revealed that moral reasoning represented something different from political ideology. Regression analyses demonstrated that only a minor part of the variance in moral reasoning scores could be predicted by the combined effect of political attitudes. Moral reasoning scores were not related to the consistency of the evaluation of the 30 UDHR articles. Using SEM analyses, several models were tested describing the relations of moral reasoning, political ideology and consistency with the evaluation of human rights. It appeared that these variables all uniquely contributed to the explanation of moral thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most people are unaware of the gestures they make while talking. It has been claimed that speech and gesture derive from a common source, and the information about thought processes that gestures convey complements or reinforces the simultaneous information provided by speech. For instance, if we compare French "il traverse le fleuve en nageant" with English "he is swimming across the river", gestures indicating the swimmer's path tend to fall on the verb in French and other Romance languages (plus Japanese), while they fall on the adverbial in English and other non-Romance Indo-European languages (plus Chinese). What then happens when people subsequently learn a language unlike their own in this respect? Non-native gestures assume considerable importance in investigating this question, since they act as windows onto the speaker's 'thinking for speaking' in their L2. To investigate this question ourselves, we examined the use of 'path' gestures in descriptions of motion events. Native speakers of English, Dutch and Spanish participated in the study, with the latter two groups also performing in English. The results show that there are language-specific gestural patterns, and that they are often transferred to L2. These 'manual accents' suggest that the importance of gesture in the study of second language acquisition should not be underestimated, because gestures may reveal L1-based thinking patterns not detectable in otherwise fluent and correct L2 speech. Consequently, we should reflect carefully on what it means to 'become bilingual'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the responses gathered from an opinion poll. This study demonstrates that Midpoint Responses (MPRs) can be a reaction to earlier Don't Know Responses (DKRs). This is a clear indication that MPRs have two possible meanings not only a true neutral meaning, occupying the middle position between two opposed substantive meanings, but also a meaning in the sense of undecided by which the respondent indicates that he/she is not yet able to express a definite opinion, but would still like to give a genuine response. The possibility of a double meaning of the MPR even when a separate DKR category is offered-is not an argument for simply withdrawing these response categories. On the contrary, it is advisable for scales to include both a separate response category DKR and MPR. Both responses can be regarded as an indication of knowledge or involvement. Certainly in the case of measuring political opinions this information is essential, because-for example-it is associated with the respondents willingness to express whether or not they hold political party preferences.