Life‐styles in personality development

The concept of life‐style was introduced as an integrative concept for the individual's personality characteristics, life attitudes, and everyday activities. Antisocial (AL) and socially adaptable (SAL) life‐styles were analysed based on the Jyväskylä Longitudinal data. The original sample consisted of 196 boys and 173 girls aged 8 years; 87 percent of them were followed up to the age of 26. Male life‐styles defined at age 26 by illicit behaviour and career orientation were compared and their developmental prerequisites at ages 8 and 14 were examined. The results showed that (1) dispositional, cognitive, and behavioural approaches to personality could be linked for the analysis of individual life‐styles; (2) individuals with AL compared with SAL were higher in neuroticism, more pessimistic, and more often problem drinkers and consumers of popular culture; (3) adult life‐styles were predictable on the basis of coping behaviour in childhood; (4) upbringing was related to adult life‐styles; and (5) adult life‐styles were rooted in distinctive patterns of adjustment in childhood and adolescence.

Infant Predictors of Inhibited and Uninhibited Profiles

Previous research on subjects showing the two temperamental profiles called inhibited and uninhibited to unfamiliar events suggests that the two groups differ in threshold of reactivity to novelty. Hence, variation among infants in behavioral reactivity to unfamiliar events might predict later display of the two profiles. In a longitudinal study of 94 four-month-old infants, those who displayed the combination of high motor activity and frequent crying to stimulation were more fearful to unfamiliar events at nine and 14 months than infants who displayed both low motor activity and infrequent crying. This result implies that the processes that mediate early reactivity to stimulation may also influence a later preparedness to avoid or to approach unfamiliarity.

Social Emotional Adjustment and Interpersonal Problems: A Circumplex Analysis of the Weinberger Adjustment Typology

Weinberger's typological model of social-emotional adjustment was described. The model's six adjustment types were evaluated within the context of the interpersonal problems circumplex in a sample of 306 young adult college students. Diagnostic features of precise circumplex measurement were used to distinguish adjustment types. Substantive features of the interpersonal problems circumplex were used to describe differential characteristics of interpersonal dysfunction across adjustment types. Differential endorsementrates of psychological symptoms across adjustment types were also examined. The validityof the social-emotional adjustment typology was supported. Based on previous research on interpersonal problems, psychotherapy response, and attachment styles, implications for the typology regarding the development of psychopathology and psychotherapeutic interventions are discussed. We conclude that the Weinberger types represent a useful, person-centered typological model in which to integrate developmental, personality, and clinical perspectives on social-emotional adjustment.

Patterns of Boys' Social Adjustment in Two Cultures and at Different Ages: A Longitudinal Perspective

In the comparison of two longitudinal studies, patterns of boys' social adjustment were identified by using aggression, hyperactivity, inattentiveness, anxiety, and lack of prosocial behaviour as clustering variables. Eight comparable clusters were obtained across two cultures, French Canada and Finland; three age groups, 6, 8, and 10 years; and two decades, the 1960s and 1980s. The clusters confirmed three frequently used categories of behaviour: (1) normal (for no adjustment problems); (2) anxious; and (3) inattentive; two infrequently used categories: (1) passive; and (2) nervous; and the importance of subcategorising aggressive-hyperactive boys into three categories: (1) bully; (2) uncontrolled; and (3) multiproblem. The stability of the behaviour patterns for individuals from one age to another (6 to 10 years of age) was significant. It was not high for a specific cluster, but the subjects tended to remain in either one of the aggressive or nonaggressive clusters. The predictive value of the behaviour patterns for later outcomes was analysed using data collected at the age of 10 to 11 (in Montreal) and at the ages of 14, 20, and 26 (in Jyvaskyla). The clusters were meaningful from a developmental perspective. The outcomes were most negative for the multiproblem boys: high disruptive and antisocial behaviour, low school success, and unstable working career, and most positive for the normals.

A Prosocial Scale for the Preschool Behaviour Questionnaire: Concurrent and Predictive Correlates

The Preschool Behaviour Questionnaire has been used widely to assess children's aggressive, anxious, and hyperactive behaviour. Items from the Prosocial Behaviour Questionnaire were added to create a prosocial scale. The resulting questionnaire was administered to teachers of three large samples of kindergarten children and shown to have three stable, orthogonal components disruptive (13 items): anxious (6 items); and prosocial (10 items). Mother and peer assessments of children were used to investigate concurrent and predictive validity. Concurrent data showed that the disruptive component was highly correlated with peer assessments and moderately correlated with mother assessments; the prosocial component was moderately correlated with peer assessments but marginally correlated with mother assessments, whereas the anxious component was marginally correlated with peer assessments and moderately correlated with mother assessments. From a predictive perspective it was shown that highly disruptive boys in kindergarten who were prosocial, were assessed by mothers and teachers at age 9 to be better adjusted than highly disruptive boys in kindergarten who were non-prosocial.

Teacher, Mother, and Peer Support in the Elementary School as Protective Factors against Juvenile Delinquency

This longitudinal research was designed to study protective factors in a group of boys at risk with extreme scores of aggressiveness-hyperactivity-distractibility in kindergarten. We attempted to identify schoolrelated protective factors in the elementary school against the occurrence of delinquent acts at age 12. Previous studies had shown that teacher's and mother's teaching style, pupils' involvement in the classroom activities, and popularity in the peer group were factors with good protective potential, but the concurrent contribution to protection of all four factors in the same study has never been verified. Fifty-three boys were observed at age 8-9 and at age 10-11 during regular classroom activities. In addition, observations were carried out, subject by subject, on three pupils from the same class for control purposes and on the class teacher. Each boy was also observed during problem-solving tasks in the laboratory with his mother. Peer assessments of the boys' popularity in the peer group were available at age 8-9 and age 10-11 for 48 of the boys. Self-reported delinquency at age 12 was used as the outcome variable. A unique contribution to the protection against juvenile delinquency was found only for the teachers' interaction style. Improvement in the protective ability was a function of the cumulative effect of two years of expos re to a well-balanced interaction style. Evaluation of the combined effect of multiple protective factors showed that boys with at least three protective factors engaged less in delinquent acts than those with one or less protective factor.

Using Mixture Models in Temperament Research

Temperamental characteristics can be conceptualised as continuous dimensions or qualitative categories. The continuous versus categorical question concerns the underlying temperamental characteristics and not the measured variables, which can be recorded in either continuous or categorical forms. This paper argues for a categorical conceptualisation of temperamental characteristics and applies a finite mixture model appropriate to this view to two sets of longitudinal observations of infants and young children. This statistical approach provides a good description of the observed predictive relation between behavioural profiles of children at 4 months and the degree of behavioural signs of fear at 14 months. An advantage of the mixture model approach to this data, relative to more standard approaches to developmental data, is that because it takes into account an a-priori theory, it can be used to address improvements and refinements to theories and experimental designs in a straightforward manner.

The impact of friends' deviant behavior on early onset of delinquency: Longitudinal data from 6 to 13 years of age

Sociological theories suggest that association with deviant friends is a necessary step on the path to early onset of delinquent behavior, while personality theories imply that deviant behavior will be stable from childhood to adulthood. These two rival hypotheses were tested with boys (N = 758) recruited from 53 schools in low socioeconomic areas of Montreal. Disruptive behavior in kindergarten was assessed by teachers; aggression and likability at ages 10, 11, and 12 years were rated by classroom peers; delinquent behaviors at ages 11, 12, and 13 years were reported by subjects. Best friend dyads were created by having boys independently identify each other as one of four best friends. Three independent samples were created to replicate findings at different ages (10–11 years, 11–12 years, and 12–13 years). Results of LISREL analyses from the three samples indicated that the main path toward early onset of both overt and covert delinquency was from kindergarten disruptive behavior to aggression between ages 10 to 12 years, and to delinquency from ages 11 to 13 years. Best friends' behavioral characteristics were associated with the subjects' own behavioral characteristics between ages of 10 and 12 years, but did not explain the level of self-reported delinquency the following year, when the subjects' own behavioral characteristics had been taken into account. Because friends tend to share the same behavioral characteristics, they are more likely to foster continuity in behavior than change. We suggest that the influence of significant peers other than best friends be investigated and that a categorical approach be used to try to identify subgroups of boys who may be highly responsive to peers' influence.

Autonomy and relatedness in adolescent-family interactions as predictors of young adults' states of mind regarding attachment

This study examined the extent to which the diverging pathways taken by adolescents and their parents in establishing autonomy and relatedness in their interactions at age 14 served as stage-specific markers of underlying attachment processes that could help predict states of mind regarding attachment of the adolescents 11 years later as young adults. Adolescents in two-parent families (N=73) and their parents, originally selected from either a high school sample or a psychiatrically hospitalized sample, participated in a revealed differences family interaction task when adolescents were 14 years of age. At age 25, subjects were reinterviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview, which yielded ratings of specific states of mind and overall organization of models of attachment relationships. After accounting for the prior psychiatric history of the sample (which was highly related to attachment insecurity) and global indices of functioning in both adolescence and young adulthood, coherence/ security in adults' states of mind regarding attachment was predicted from maternal behaviors promoting adolescent autonomy and relatedness 11 years earlier. One indicator of adult preoccupation with attachment relationships, passivity of thought processes, was predicted from adolescents' autonomy-inhibiting behaviors, specifically from the presence of enmeshing behaviors and the absence of distancing behaviors. Results are interpreted as suggesting that establishing autonomy and relatedness with parents may be an attachment-related, developmental task for both normal and at-risk adolescents, and that serious psychopathology and difficulties establishing autonomy and relatedness in adolescence may represent two independent pathways to insecure attachment models in young adulthood.

Trajectories of marijuana use from adolescence to young adulthood: predictors and outcomes

Semiparametric group-based mixture modeling was used with data from an adolescent school sample (N = 1205) for three purposes. First, five trajectory groups were identified to characterize different patterns of change in the frequency of marijuana use across four waves of assessment during adolescence. These trajectory groups were labeled Abstainers, Experimental Users, Decreasers, Increasers, and High Chronics. Second, trajectory group comparisons were made across eight adolescent risk factors to determine distinctive predictors of the trajectory groups. Findings indicated, for example, that the High Chronic group, relative to the other trajectory groups, had higher levels of delinquency, lower academic performance, more drug using friends, and more stressful life events. Third, adolescent trajectory group comparisons were made across 10 risk behaviors in young adulthood (average subject age = 23.5 years) and the occurrence of psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. Findings indicated some consistency across adolescence to young adulthood with regard to risk factors, and specificity with regard to the prediction of disorders. Adolescent trajectory group membership was significantly associated in young adulthood with cannabis and alcohol disorders but not with major depressive disorders or anxiety disorders.

Parenting styles and adolescents' achievement strategies

The aim of the study was to investigate the extent to which adolescents' achievement strategies are associated with the parenting styles they experience in their families. Three hundred and fifty-four 14-year-old adolescents completed a Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire and a family parenting style inventory. Analogous questionnaires were also completed by the adolescents' parents. Based on adolescents' report of the parenting styles, four types of families were identified: those with Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive, and Neglectful parenting styles. The results further showed that adolescents from authoritative families applied most adaptive achievement strategies characterized by low levels of failure expectations, task-irrelevant behaviour and passivity, and the use of self-enhancing attributions. Adolescents from neglectful families, in turn, applied maladaptive strategies characterized by high levels of task-irrelevant behaviour, passivity and a lack of self-enhancing attributions. The results provide a basis for understanding some of the processes by which parenting styles may influence adolescents' academic achievement and performance.

The self-concept of young people with spina bifida: a population-based study

Seventy-nine young people with spina bifida were given a psychological, medical, carer and occupational therapy assessment. 79 matched able-bodied young people received the psychosocial interview. The disabled group felt themselves to be less competent in academic, athletic and social aspects of self-concept, less supported by classmates, equally supported by parents and friends and more supported by teachers than the able-bodied group. Disabled subjects did not discount the importance of any area of personal-social functioning, and experienced greater discrepancies between competence and importance in most academic, athletic, social and physical appearance aspects of self-concept. Disabled girls assigned very high importance to physical appearance. Physical appearance was more strongly associated with general self-esteem than any other area of self-concept.

Distress and restraint as superordinate dimensions of self-reported adjustment: a typological perspective

Individual differences in distress and restraint have recently been validated as two superordinate dimensions of social-emotional adjustment (Weinberger, 1989). In two samples (N1 = 139; N2 = 136) of university students, scores on these dimensions were jointly used to define six higher order personality styles: reactive, sensitized, oversocialized, undersocialized, self-assured, and repressive. To evaluate this typology, group differences were investigated on 28 measures within seven domains related to adjustment: self-expression, emotional control, proneness to personality disorders, physical illness, self-concept, neurotic symptoms, and impulse gratification. One-way multivariate analyses of variance revealed significant group differences within each domain. Univariate analyses revealed significant differences on 26 of the 28 measures and marginally significant differences on the remaining 2. A large number of nonadditive patterns consistent with a priori group descriptions corroborated the utility of a person-centered, typological approach. The data also provided an empirically derived, prototypic description of each adjustment style.