Examines the relationship between adolescent egocentrism and postformal thinking in 163 college undergraduates. Uses the Imaginary Audience Scale and the Social Paradigm Belief Inventory to evaluate participants. Results indicate that females have higher levels of adolescent egocentrism than do males. (Author/GCP)

Compared three personality theories (ego development, moral development, and conceptual systems theory) in 102 college students who completed the Sentence Completion Test, This I Believe Test, and Defining Issues Test. Results indicated a significant relationship between all three pairs of theories. (JAC)

Provides an analysis of the main character of a novel to show how the current literature on adolescence can be taught through analysis of adolescent characters in novels. (SS)

Demonstrates how collaboration among student development educators and university instructors can use content of academic courses to facilitate personal development in adolescent college students. Describes application of Chickering's seven vectors of human development to accomplish this in course entitled Drinking and Driving: Legal and Social…

Analyzes treasured possessions and their meanings in adolescence, including their relation to those treasured during early life and their relation to self-identity. Subjects were 14- to 18-year-old high school students (n=249). Results showed that males' most treasured possessions embodied enjoyment and instrumental meanings, whereas females'…

Seventeen college undergraduates, possessing either basic or consolidated formal operations, received eight weeks of interpersonal skills training and pre- and posttraining assessments of social perspective taking and moral reasoning. Gains in moral reasoning were related to subjects' possessing prerequisite cognitive and perspective-taking…

Examined associations between early substitute care and White middle-class college students' psychosocial development and academic performance. No day care in infancy followed by full-time day care at ages two and four was best predictor of above-average high school academic achievement; part-time care throughout infancy and early childhood was…

Investigated the intercorrelations among personal concern variables of college-age adolescents (N=88) and ego identity statuses. The results assisted in distinguishing male and female identity statuses. The findings tended to indicate that coping with the identity crisis (e.g., identity status) involves concomitant personal concern components.…

Assessed whether capacity for self-reflection in late adolescent females was related to their level of identity development using female college students as subjects (N=85). Found significantly higher degree of self-reflection for the advanced identity status subjects in the 32 subjects who fit purely into 1 of 4 identity statuses. (Author/ABL)

Administered the Personal Orientation Inventory, Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, a group Rorschach, and a biographical questionnaire to 24 randomly selected freshmen from a small Northwest liberal arts college. Results indicated that the young adults responded differently from either children or mature adults. Findings support contention that…

Surveyed 485 undergraduate students to determine on which developmental tasks they believed they were currently working. Results indicated students were simultaneously engaged in developmental tasks associated with middle childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, although they identified themselves as being in early adulthood. Results supported…

Investigated different age groups' knowledge of developmental norms of children. Collected data from 280 midwestern university students through a questionnaire. Results showed that knowledge of normal development was both over- and underestimated regardless of age of student or year in school. (BH)

Examines the usefulness of two information-processing tools in solving personal problems--schematic maps and peer feedback--using 95 college students. Assessment consisted of analyzing and generating alternatives to a scenario involving a student with a drinking problem. Results indicate that alternative generation is susceptible to experimental…

Examined differential impact of premarital relationship dimensions on sexual expression among 54 monogamously dating adolescent couples. Couples retrospectively responded to measures of love, conflict, maintenance behaviors, ambivalence, relationship satisfaction, and sexual intimacy for four stages of dating. Found conflict played major role in…

Examined affiliation need and interpersonal closeness in college students (n=74). Need for social comparison declined with age for both sexes; females were more attached to their partners than were males. For females only, adolescents' need for stimulation peaked around age 18 or 19 and then declined, and need for emotional support declined in…