The self-concept construct has been used to explain behaviors across a diverse array of situations, and the attainment of a positive self-concept has been posited as a desirable goal in developmental psychology. The purposes of this study were to examine age and sex effects in multiple dimensions of self-concept during the preadolescence to…

This study focuses on the adjustment of siblings of male children with pervasive developmental disability, diabetes, or no known chronic illness. Findings indicate that siblings of ill children are not uniformly at greater risk for psychosocial impairment. Domains were identified in which siblings and parents were more susceptible to adjustment…

Adolescence is a critical time for the development of self-identity; a time which often changes enthusiastic and assertive 8- and 9-year-old girls into 11- and 12-year-old girls with poor self-images and little faith in their abilities. To better understand this process, this study investigated the relationship between hope and general…

Preadolescents, college students, middle-aged adults, and older adults described a problem and a goal for solving that problem. Interpersonal elements of problem descriptions and goals were coded. Interpersonal elements of problems were most salient for females and middle-aged adults. Subjects reported interpersonal goals when other people were…

Youths (N=334) evaluated their families on Personal Attribute Inventory for Children. Results revealed no significant main effects for birth order or gender. Males from divorced remarried families and females from divorced nonremarried families evaluated their respective families significantly more negatively than did counterparts from other…

Findings from 1,027 subjects followed longitudinally from age 10 through age 26 revealed strong connection between aggressiveness ratings at early ages and adult delinquency for boys. Aggressiveness was not predictive of later crime for girls until they reached age 13. For both genders, relation between aggressiveness and crime was largely…

Forty-two families with children in transition to early and mid-adolescence were interviewed in a follow-up study of parent-child agreement in beliefs concerning the child, and of children's awareness of parental beliefs. Results indicate increases in accuracy of prediction of parental beliefs by children between the ages of 10 and 13. (RJC)

Fifth and sixth graders completed a sex role orientation measure, viewed a film portraying a child playing gender-appropriate games with members of the same sex or gender-inappropriate games with members of the opposite sex, and made judgments about the child. Subjects' judgments were influenced by the child's gender-related behaviors but not by…

A study of inhalant use among 87 American Indian boarding school students aged 10-18 found that inhalant use was negatively related to participation in traditional tribal activities for both males and females and was also related to measures of cognitive ability and cognitive egocentrism for males. (Contains 43 references.) (SV)

A field experiment tested effects of "Channel One" commercials on impulsive preadolescent students' purchasing preferences, such as product liking and likelihood of buying regularly advertised products. A total of 67 sixth-grade middle school students participated in the field experiment. Students who viewed "Channel One' daily were…

This study examined the gender differences in moral orientation among 162 children, ages 11 through 13. Subjects were enrolled in the Minnesota Mother-Child Interaction Project, a longitudinal study of high-risk children and their families. Semi-structured interviews were used to determine each child's ability to understand and use moral…

Basic research and programs in substance abuse dealing directly with rural and small town populations lag far behind those aimed at urban groups, in both quality and quantity. A study was conducted to identify factors related to substance use by a preadolescent and early adolescent rural and small town population. Data were collected from 496…

The purposes of the present investigation are to compare the structure and level of multidimensional self-concepts for boys and girls from England and Australia, and to demonstrate the use of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in making such comparisons. Subjects were random samples of 303 English preadolescents and 303 Australians that were…

Explored impact of peers on retained students. Second- and fifth-grade retained and nonretained children provided measures of peer reward allocations, preferences for social and task partners, attitudes about school environment, report card expectancy, and self-esteem. Peer discrimination was moderated by the rater's age, gender, physical size and…

Charts were reviewed to identify the characteristics of 511 prepubertal children brought to a Montreal, Quebec (Canada) pediatric hospital for evaluation regarding alleged sexual abuse. Specific characteristics were found to distinguish victims on the basis of their age, sex, and type of sexual abuse (intra- versus extra-familial). (Author/JDD)