This study assessed the importance of teacher preference of individual students, relative to peer rejection and student aggression, as an independent predictor of children's emotional adjustment and grades. First, a longitudinal, cross-lagged path analysis was conducted to determine the patterns of influence among teacher preference, peer…

Our study examined variations in adolescent adjustment as a function of maternal and paternal parenting styles. Participants included 272 students in grades 9 and 11 from a public high school in a metropolitan area of the Northeastern US. Participants completed measures of maternal and paternal parenting styles and indices of psychological…

Brief report of pilot study, indicating that relationships between forms of expression and social adjustment depend on criteria for adjustment. Results suggest continued explanation of relationship with more systematic criteria variation, and with larger subject samples. (Author)

This paper reports on three studies of shy behavior in Mainland Chinese children. In Study 1 (N = 107, M age = 10.05), a Chinese Shyness Scale (CSS) was developed based on Chinese teachers' open-ended descriptions of children's shy behavior. In Study 2 (N = 388, M age = 10.80) and Study 3 (N = 198, M age = 10.20), the construct validity of the two…

Drawing on cultural-ecological and person-environment fit perspectives, this study examined links among Mexican-American adolescents' time with peers and parents, parents' cultural orientations, and adolescents' psychosocial adjustment and cultural orientations. Participants were 492 Mexican-American adolescents (Ms=15.7 and 12.8 years for older…

This study investigated the interaction between religiosity (defined as church attendance) and spirituality (defined as personal beliefs in God or a higher power) on psychosocial adjustment. Four groups were created capturing 4 different religious/spiritual orientations. Differences were assessed between the groups on a wide range of psychosocial…

Sixty-two adults with mental retardation of heterogeneous etiology performed four facial emotion discrimination tasks and two facial nonemotion tasks. Staff members familiar with the participants completed measures of social adjustment (the Socialization and Communication domains of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales and the Social Performance…

This study examined the concurrent and longitudinal associations between stability in bullying and victimization, and social adjustment in childhood and adolescence. Participants were 189 girls and 328 boys who were studied in primary school and in secondary school. The mean age of the participants was 11.1 years in primary school and 14.1 years…

External correlates of a teacher-rated typology of child adjustment developed using the Behavior Assessment System for Children were examined. Participants included 377 elementary school children recruited from 26 classrooms in the southeastern United States. Multivariate analyses of variance and planned comparisons were used to determine whether…

Aggressive behavior in childhood has long been separated into that which is proactively motivated and that which is reactive. We report a meta-analytic review of the existing empirical literature that examines the associations of each type of aggression with six indices of psychosocial adjustment: internalizing problems, emotional dysregulation…

Communication between children and parents has been the subject of several studies, examining the effects of, for example, disclosure and secrecy on adolescents' social relationships and adjustment. Less attention has paid to adolescent deception. We developed and tested a new instrument on lying behavior in a sample of 671 parent-adolescent…

Developed two self-report measures of belongingness (social connectedness and social assurance) based on self psychology theory. Measures proved to be highly reliable and unidimensional. Social connectedness was related to one's opinion of self in relation to other people. Social assurance correlated with one's reliance on other people. (RJM)

Examined relation of maternal monitoring and play rules to sixth graders' friendship quality, social behavior, and depression. Found that monitoring was not related to supervision, peer, or restriction play rules. Girls with more monitoring had friendships with less conflict and higher positive qualities. Supervision rules related to boys'…

With passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990, autism was recognized as a distinct special education category. Subsequently, there has been a steady increase in the number of students qualified in the schools to receive special education services under this category. There are a number of questions as to the types of…