Background: Language has been shown to play a critical role in social cognitive reasoning in preschool and school-aged children, but little research has been conducted with adolescents. During adolescence, the ability to understand figurative language becomes increasingly important for social relationships and may affect social adjustment. This…

Background: Delinquent youth with callous-unemotional (CU) traits may have a unique social-cognitive processing pattern that perpetuates their violent behavior. The current study examined the association between CU traits and the endorsement of deviant social goals during peer conflicts as well as expectancies and values regarding victim suffering…

This longitudinal study examined whether nonviolent aspects of interparental conflict, in addition to interparental violence, predicted dating violence perpetration and victimization among 150 Mexican American and European American male and female adolescents, ages 16 to 20. When parents had more frequent conflict, were more verbally aggressive…

Subjects who previously participated in a study of stage transition in moral judgment were reinterviewed after a period of 1 1/2 to 2 years. The hypothesis that the conflicts and contradictions evident on the first testing would be resolved through structural reorganization was confirmed. (Author/JMB)

Although over 5,000 children and adolescents commit suicide annually, little is known about suicidal thinking of normal children. Due to ethical considerations, researchers must be sensitive to the possibility that they could introduce suicide as an option to a child. A methodology was developed to examine suicidal thinking through projected…

Four specific schemas of cognitive structures that adolescents may hold concerning interpersonal disagreements with their parents were identified, each reflecting an authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or a neglecting parenting style. To examine the occurrence of such schemas across high and low levels of psychosocial adjustment, 120 Swedish…

Cognitive, socialization, and situational dimensions are embodied in both the concept of decision making and the concept of locus of control. Examines these dimensions as they relate to six important sexual questions. Results investigating the relationship between adolescent sexual decision making and internal-external locus of control are…

Teaching children and adolescents to recognize how they feel when they are angry and what pushes their buttons enables them to make better choices about how they express their anger. They learn that staying cool gives them the power to create more positive outcomes for potentially negative encounters. Through self-assessment and role-plays, they…

This study examined the cognitive representations of culture contact situations for second-generation immigrant and non-immigrant youth to identify differences between socially and individually oriented cultures. Subjects were 8 immigrant and 8 non-immigrant female secondary students with an average age of 17.44 years selected from 156 students of…

Self esteem has been a buzzword in the 1990s but what exactly is self esteem? How is it formed? Can self esteem be raised? How? This book addresses these questions and includes specialized chapters on children, gender, transitions, parents' self esteem, and measurement of self esteem. Many people want to change how they feel about themselves but…

The most popular activities from APA's successful "Activities Handbooks for the Teaching of Psychology" are gathered together and updated in this book of teachers' favorites. The lesson plans, which encourage active learning and involve the whole class, have stood the test of time and proven themselves to be entertaining, effective, and easy to…