Lea Pulkkinen
Biographic Data
| ID | 91025 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lea Pulkkinen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lea |
| FAMILY NAME | Pulkkinen |
| SIGNATURE | PULKKINEN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Jyväskylä |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4290-6690 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 59 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 267 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 59 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The role of ISSBD in developmental science
The International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD) emphasizes multidisciplinarity and contextuality in studying human development across the lifespan. This article reports the oral histories of seven Past-Presidents about their accomplishments in leading ISSBD to promote these aspects using a developmental science framework. The narratives include information about motivations for activities and insights that shaped their p…
Stability in health behavior patterns in middle adulthood
Objective: This study investigated subgroups of adults with particular health behavior patterns, their stability over 19 years, and the role of sociodemographic and personality characteristics in these.Methods and Measures: Data on smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity were collected at ages 42, 50, and 61 in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (n = 205–302). Latent class, latent transition, and lo…
Pathways from childhood socioemotional characteristics and cognitive skills to midlife health behaviours
Objective This longitudinal study investigated the pathways from childhood socioemotional characteristics and cognitive skills to health behaviours in midlife. Methods: Participants in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS) were followed from age 8 (n = 369) to age 50 (n = 271). Outcomes included physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and body mass index (BMI) assessed at ages 36, 42 and 50. Predict…
Child socioemotional behavior and adult temperament as predictors of physical activity and sedentary behavior in late adulthood
Although few weak associations of socioemotional behavior and temperament with physical activity and sedentary behavior were detected in women, they were observed over several decades, and thus, deserve attention in future studies. In addition to other factors contributing to physical activity and sedentary behavior, health professionals may be sensitive to individual characteristics, such as a tendency to experience more negative emotions, when …
Higher aggression is related to poorer academic performance in compulsory education
BACKGROUND: To conduct a comprehensive assessment of the association between aggression and academic performance in compulsory education. METHOD: We studied aggression and academic performance in over 27,000 individuals from four European twin cohorts participating in the ACTION consortium (Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies). Individual level data on aggression at ages 7-…
Harmonizing behavioral outcomes across studies, raters, and countries
BACKGROUND: Aggression in children has genetic and environmental causes. Studies of aggression can pool existing datasets to include more complex models of social effects. Such analyses require large datasets with harmonized outcome measures. Here, we made use of a reference panel for phenotype data to harmonize multiple aggression measures in school-aged children to jointly analyze data from five large twin cohorts. METHODS: Individual level agg…
Associations of temperament and personality traits with frequency of physical activity in adulthood
Temperament and physical activity (PA) have been examined in children and adolescents, but little is known about these associations in adulthood. Personality traits, however, are known to contribute to PA in adults. This study, which examined both temperament and personality characteristics at age 42 in relation to frequency of PA at age 50 (JYLS, n = 214–261), also found associations with temperament traits. Positive associations were found betw…
Identity Status Change Within Personal Style Clusters
Differences in identity stability and change from age 36 through 42 to 50 were examined between three male and female personal style clusters extracted at age 27. We expected, first, the identity statuses to consistently differ between the clusters and, second, those with the least mature identity to move closer to others during midlife. Differences between the personal style clusters were discovered on all identity statuses across ages. Although…
Antisocial and human capital pathways to socioeconomic exclusion
Nordic welfare states have been very successful at reducing poverty and inequality among their citizens. However, the presence of a strong social safety net in these countries has not solved the problem of socioeconomic exclusion, manifesting in such outcomes as chronic unemployment and welfare dependency. In an effort to understand this phenomenon, the current study builds on the assumption that psychological risk factors emerge as important det…
Identity Formation in Adulthood
Longitudinal patterns of identity formation were analyzed in a representative cohort group of Finnish men and women born in 1959 across ages 27, 36, 42, and 50. The data were drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality. Identity status (diffused, moratorium, foreclosed, achieved) from all four ages was available for 172 participants (54% females). Marcia’s Identity Status Interview used in this research included five domains: relig…
Parental Identity and Its Relation to Parenting and Psychological Functioning in Middle Age
Objective. This article focuses on identity as a parent in relation to parenting and psychological functioning in middle age. Design. Drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, 162 participants (53% females) with children (age 36), represented the Finnish age-cohort born in 1959. Parental identity was assessed at ages 36, 42, and 50. Results. In both women and men, parental identity achievement increased fr…
Country, sex, and parent occupational status
Using data from two American and one Finnish long-term longitudinal studies, we examined continuity of general aggression from age 8 to physical aggression in early adulthood (age 21-30) and whether continuity of aggression differed by country, sex, and parent occupational status. In all samples, childhood aggression was assessed via peer nominations and early adulthood aggression via self-reports. Multi-group structural equation models revealed …
Associations between personality traits and psychological well-being across time in middle adulthood
Personal goals and personality traits among young adults
Paths from socioemotional behavior in middle childhood to personality in middle adulthood
Continuity in individual differences from socioemotional behavior in middle childhood to personality characteristics in middle adulthood was examined on the assumption that they share certain temperament-related elements. Socioemotional characteristics were measured using teacher ratings at ages 8 (N = 369; 53% males) and 14 (95% of the initial sample). Personality was assessed at age 42 (63% of the initial sample; 50% males) using a shortened ve…
Intensity of Aggression in Childhood as a Predictor of Different Forms of Adult Aggression
This study examined the prediction of different forms of adult aggression in two countries from child and adolescent aggression. It was based on two longitudinal projects: the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS; N = 196 boys and 173 girls) conducted in Finland and the Columbia County Longitudinal Study (CCLS; N = 436 males and 420 females) conducted in the USA. The same peer-nominated items for aggression wer…
Life success of males on nonoffender, adolescence‐limited, persistent, and adult‐onset antisocial pathways
A random sample of 196 males, drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, was divided into four groups of offenders using information from government registers of convictions between ages 21 and 47, from local police registers searched at age 21, from a Self‐Report Delinquency Scale administered at age 36, from a Life History Calendar for ages 15–42, and from personal interviews at ages 27, 36, and 42. The g…
Introduction
Genetic and environmental influences on pubertal timing assessed by height growth
Secular trends towards earlier puberty, possibly caused by new environmental triggers, provide a basis for periodic evaluation of the influence and interaction of genetic and environmental effects on pubertal timing. In such studies, a practical marker that reflects timing of puberty in both genders needs to be used. We investigated genetic and environmental influences on pubertal timing by using change in the relative height between early and la…
Chernobyl exposure as stressor during pregnancy and hormone levels in adolescent offspring
BACKGROUND: Animal research suggests a programming effect of prenatal stress in the fetal period, resulting in disruptions in behavioural and neuromotor development. Physiological changes that mediate these effects include alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and in testosterone levels. This human study focuses on changes related to these physiological systems after prenatal stress exposure. METHODS: We examined the potential ef…
Self-esteem
Trajectories Based on Postcomprehensive and Higher Education
The aim of this study was to investigate different trajectories of education, based on annual attendance in postcomprehensive and higher education between ages 15 and 42, and their correlates and antecedents. A special focus was on education that occurred after spending several years in the labor market (i.e., off‐time education). Analyses were based on the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development in which the sa…
Are computer and cell phone use associated with body mass index and overweight? A population study among twin adolescents
Time spent using a home computer was associated with an increased risk of overweight. Cell phone use correlated weakly with BMI. Increasing use of information and communication technology may be related to the obesity epidemic among adolescents
Implications of Timing of Entering Adulthood for Identity Achievement
Five external markers of adulthood, self-perceived adulthood at age 27, and identity achievement at ages 27, 36, and 42 were explored for 95 women and 94 men in a cohort of Finns born in 1959. Earlier transition to adulthood in family life (moving from the parental home, entering marriage or cohabitation, having a child) anticipated higher identity achievement in adulthood. However, later transition to adulthood in working life, composed of the f…
Types of work‐family interface
The aim of the present study was to test the structure of the work-family interface measure, which was intended to take into account both the positive and negative spillover between work and family demands in both directions. In addition, the links among the types of work-family spillover and the subjects' general and domain-specific well-being were examined. The sample (n = 202) consisted of Finnish employees, aged 42, who had a spouse/partner. …
Aggression in childhood and long-term unemployment in adulthood
The present study was designed to shed light on specific risk mechanisms and protective factors in the relation between aggression in childhood and long-term unemployment in adulthood. Participants were drawn from the ongoing Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development; data gathered at the ages of 8 (N = 369), 14, 27, and 36 years (n = 311) were used in the present study. Teacher-rated aggression at age 8 was related to su…
Personal control over development, identity formation, and future orientation as components of life orientation
Two components of life orientation emerged in a study of 145 men and 142 women at age 26: (a) Positive Orientation (PO), which included self-percepts of personal control over development, positive evaluation of the future, and identity achievement; and (b) Motivated Questioning (MQ), which consisted of identity exploration, motivated future orientation, and dissatisfaction with present achievements. Methods used were an identity status interview,…
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Pubertal Development
To study sources of individual differences in pubertal development, the authors fit a sex-limitation common factor model to data reported, at ages 11 and 14 years, by 1,891 twin pairs on items that comprise the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS; A. C. Petersen, L. Crockett, M. Richards, & A. Boxer, 1988). The model divides variation into a general pubertal factor and item-specific variation and, in addition, decomposes it into constituent sources. …
Linking Economic Stress to Marital Quality Among Finnish Marital Couples
Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediators of economic circumstances on marital quality using a sample of married or cohabiting 36-year-old Finnish men ( n = 133) and women ( n = 117). The model tested was an adapted version of the model presented by Conger, Ge, and Lorenz. For the men, the results were consistent with the proposed model: Poor employment status caused economic strain and affected the lives of the men to the exten…
Parental Identity and Its Relation to Parenting and Psychological Functioning in Middle Age
Objective. This article focuses on identity as a parent in relation to parenting and psychological functioning in middle age. Design. Drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, 162 participants (53% females) with children (age 36), represented the Finnish age-cohort born in 1959. Parental identity was assessed at ages 36, 42, and 50. Results. In both women and men, parental identity achievement increased fr…
Life success of males on nonoffender, adolescence‐limited, persistent, and adult‐onset antisocial pathways
A random sample of 196 males, drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, was divided into four groups of offenders using information from government registers of convictions between ages 21 and 47, from local police registers searched at age 21, from a Self‐Report Delinquency Scale administered at age 36, from a Life History Calendar for ages 15–42, and from personal interviews at ages 27, 36, and 42. The g…
Identity Development in Adulthood
The antecedents and correlates of agreeableness in adulthood
Measuring Puberty and Understanding Its Impact
Implications of Timing of Entering Adulthood for Identity Achievement
Five external markers of adulthood, self-perceived adulthood at age 27, and identity achievement at ages 27, 36, and 42 were explored for 95 women and 94 men in a cohort of Finns born in 1959. Earlier transition to adulthood in family life (moving from the parental home, entering marriage or cohabitation, having a child) anticipated higher identity achievement in adulthood. However, later transition to adulthood in working life, composed of the f…
Middle childhood and adolescent contextual and personal predictors of adult educational and occupational outcomes
The authors examined the prediction of occupational attainment by age 40 from contextual and personal variables assessed during childhood and adolescence in 2 participant samples: (a) the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, a study of 856 third graders in a semirural county in New York State that began in 1960, and (b) the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, a study of 369 eight-year-olds in Jyväskylä, Finland, tha…
Accumulation of problems in social functioning in young adulthood
Using longitudinal data from a sample of 369 Finnish adolescents, the authors examined whether problems in social functioning in young adulthood were interrelated and accumulated, and analyzed processes that may lead to cumulative problems. The log-linear modeling showed that an unstable career line of men at age 26 was related to poor social relations, a poor financial standing, drinking problems, and criminal arrests; for both sexes, drinking p…
Female and male personality styles
The personality styles of 137 women and 138 men aged 27 years were examined in an ongoing Finnish longitudinal study in which the participants were first assessed at age 8. Data were collected by means of a mailed questionnaire, personality inventories, and a semistructured interview. Variables covered personality characteristics, life orientation, and behavioral activities. Both women and men fell into two major clusters, the adjusted (3/4) and …
Trajectories Based on Postcomprehensive and Higher Education
The aim of this study was to investigate different trajectories of education, based on annual attendance in postcomprehensive and higher education between ages 15 and 42, and their correlates and antecedents. A special focus was on education that occurred after spending several years in the labor market (i.e., off‐time education). Analyses were based on the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development in which the sa…
Youthful smoking and drinking in a longitudinal perspective
Intensity of Aggression in Childhood as a Predictor of Different Forms of Adult Aggression
This study examined the prediction of different forms of adult aggression in two countries from child and adolescent aggression. It was based on two longitudinal projects: the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS; N = 196 boys and 173 girls) conducted in Finland and the Columbia County Longitudinal Study (CCLS; N = 436 males and 420 females) conducted in the USA. The same peer-nominated items for aggression wer…
Stability of aggressive behavior from childhood to middle age in women and men
The aim of this study was to investigate the stability of aggression from childhood to middle age in women and men. The participants were drawn from the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, where aggression in 145 women and 154 men was assessed at ages 8, 14, 36, and 42. Data were collected at ages 8 and 14 by teacher ratings and peer nominations, and at ages 36 and 42 by self-ratings on aggression. The stab…
Sex differences in genetic and environmental effects on aggression
The aim of the present study was to investigate the genetic and environmental factors influencing teacher and parental rated aggression in boys and girls, asking whether the magnitude of these effects is similar across rater and sex. The study is part of an ongoing nationwide twin‐family study of behavioral development and health habits carried out in Finland. The sample consisted of 1651 twin pairs (264 monozygotic male, 300 monozygotic female, …
Paths from socioemotional behavior in middle childhood to personality in middle adulthood
Continuity in individual differences from socioemotional behavior in middle childhood to personality characteristics in middle adulthood was examined on the assumption that they share certain temperament-related elements. Socioemotional characteristics were measured using teacher ratings at ages 8 (N = 369; 53% males) and 14 (95% of the initial sample). Personality was assessed at age 42 (63% of the initial sample; 50% males) using a shortened ve…
Chernobyl exposure as stressor during pregnancy and hormone levels in adolescent offspring
BACKGROUND: Animal research suggests a programming effect of prenatal stress in the fetal period, resulting in disruptions in behavioural and neuromotor development. Physiological changes that mediate these effects include alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and in testosterone levels. This human study focuses on changes related to these physiological systems after prenatal stress exposure. METHODS: We examined the potential ef…
Adaptive Behavior in Childhood as an Antecedent of Psychological Functioning in Early Middle Age
Hostility, unemployment and health status
Associations between personality traits and psychological well-being across time in middle adulthood
Work Involvement and Timing of Motherhood in the Accumulation of Problems in Social Functioning in Young Women
The study was part of an ongoing longitudinal study of 155 women from age 8 through age 27. A cumulative index for risk factors included anxiety and aggressiveness at age 8; problems in adjustment to school, poor school success, and low school motivation at age 14; and low parental socioeconomic status and high parental drinking. Correspondingly, a cumulative index for social functioning problems was formed at age 27, including low number of frie…
Introduction
Concurrent and predictive validity of self-reported aggressiveness
The subjects (60 boys) were drawn from the sample of a longitudinal study of social development and represented extremely aggressive, anxious, constructive, and submissive behaviour at the age of 8. They were presented with three question series concerning (1) their responses to aggressive attacks; (2) reactions in frustration situations presented in short stories; and (3) their aggressive initiatives. In each series the type of aggressive behavi…
Youthful smoking and drinking in a longitudinal perspective
The inhibition and control of aggression
Attitudes concerning nuclear war in finland and in the united states
Four hundred seventy residents of Ridgewood, New Jersey, and 493 residents of Jyväskylä, Finland, were randomly selected and interviewed about their attitudes concerning nuclear war. In both areas, a high proportion of the samples believed that some kind of nuclear incident is likely in the next decade. The vast majority stated that a nuclear war could not be won and that they expected to die in the event of war. About three fourths in both commu…
The Path to Adulthood for Aggressively Inclined Girls
Continuities in aggressive behavior from childhood to adulthood
The study was part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study on Social Development. The subjects (originally 173 females, 196 males) were studied at age 8, 14, 20, and 26. Stability of aggression from the age of 8 to 14 was as high for girls as for boys when peer nomination was employed, but lower for girls in teacher rating. For males, both peer nominations and teacher ratings on aggression at age 8 and 14 predicted criminality, arrests for alcohol ab…
Aggression in television programs in Finland
A detailed coding system was constructed to study the frequency and salience of aggression in TV programs broadcast on Finnish television. Salience of aggression was measured by the brutality index which consisted of ratings concerning the (1) program context, (2) seriousness, (3) justification, and (4) dramatization of aggressive acts. When compared to previous studies of TV-violence, the rate of aggression in Finnish TV was moderate with 3.5 ag…
Personal control over development, identity formation, and future orientation as components of life orientation
Two components of life orientation emerged in a study of 145 men and 142 women at age 26: (a) Positive Orientation (PO), which included self-percepts of personal control over development, positive evaluation of the future, and identity achievement; and (b) Motivated Questioning (MQ), which consisted of identity exploration, motivated future orientation, and dissatisfaction with present achievements. Methods used were an identity status interview,…
Accumulation of problems in social functioning in young adulthood
Using longitudinal data from a sample of 369 Finnish adolescents, the authors examined whether problems in social functioning in young adulthood were interrelated and accumulated, and analyzed processes that may lead to cumulative problems. The log-linear modeling showed that an unstable career line of men at age 26 was related to poor social relations, a poor financial standing, drinking problems, and criminal arrests; for both sexes, drinking p…
Children and violence; a developmental perspective
A trend of increasing victimization of women and children in situations of war and community violence has emerged in the 20th century. Children are also exposed to violence in their own families, as witnesses of parental violence, targets of physical abuse, and recipients of TV violence. As regards the direct physical effects of violence, children's injuries are no different from those of adults, while indirect effects comprise increases in, for …
Proactive and reactive aggression in early adolescence as precursors to anti- and prosocial behavior in young adults
Three groups of adolescents who were 14 years old in 1974 were formed on the basis of peer nominations and teacher ratings in an ongoing longitudinal study: 1) reactively aggressive (REA) individuals who displayed reactive, that is, self-defensive aggression but not proactive aggression (43 boys, 35 girls); 2) proactively aggressive (PROA) individuals who attacked another person without a reason (56 boys, 35 girls); and 3) nonaggressive (NONA) in…
Female and male personality styles
The personality styles of 137 women and 138 men aged 27 years were examined in an ongoing Finnish longitudinal study in which the participants were first assessed at age 8. Data were collected by means of a mailed questionnaire, personality inventories, and a semistructured interview. Variables covered personality characteristics, life orientation, and behavioral activities. Both women and men fell into two major clusters, the adjusted (3/4) and …
Work Involvement and Timing of Motherhood in the Accumulation of Problems in Social Functioning in Young Women
The study was part of an ongoing longitudinal study of 155 women from age 8 through age 27. A cumulative index for risk factors included anxiety and aggressiveness at age 8; problems in adjustment to school, poor school success, and low school motivation at age 14; and low parental socioeconomic status and high parental drinking. Correspondingly, a cumulative index for social functioning problems was formed at age 27, including low number of frie…
Linking Economic Stress to Marital Quality Among Finnish Marital Couples
Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediators of economic circumstances on marital quality using a sample of married or cohabiting 36-year-old Finnish men ( n = 133) and women ( n = 117). The model tested was an adapted version of the model presented by Conger, Ge, and Lorenz. For the men, the results were consistent with the proposed model: Poor employment status caused economic strain and affected the lives of the men to the exten…
Identity Development in Adulthood
Aggression in childhood and long-term unemployment in adulthood
The present study was designed to shed light on specific risk mechanisms and protective factors in the relation between aggression in childhood and long-term unemployment in adulthood. Participants were drawn from the ongoing Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development; data gathered at the ages of 8 (N = 369), 14, 27, and 36 years (n = 311) were used in the present study. Teacher-rated aggression at age 8 was related to su…
Models of Self-regulated Learning
Questions connected with the regulation of one's own cognitive processes attract increasing numbers of researchers in psychology, as evidenced by the several different models of self-regulation that have been developed over the past two decades. The aim of this article was to present and compare the latest models of self-regulated learning (SRL), including those by Boekaerts, Borkowski, Pintrich, Winne and Zimmerman. The models were compared on f…
An aggression machine v. determinants in reactive aggression revisited
The relations between reactive aggression, situational cues, and emotion regulation were examined by means of the Pulkkinen Aggression Machine (PAM) task. In the PAM, provocation and response were systematically varied under two conditions: the impulsive aggression condition and the controlled aggression condition. In the impulsive condition, no information about the attacker was provided, while in the controlled condition the attackers were spec…
An aggression machine v. determinants in reactive aggression revisited
The relations between reactive aggression, situational cues, and emotion regulation were examined by means of the Pulkkinen Aggression Machine (PAM) task. In the PAM, provocation and response were systematically varied under two conditions: the impulsive aggression condition and the controlled aggression condition. In the impulsive condition, no information about the attacker was provided, while in the controlled condition the attackers were spec…
Measuring Puberty and Understanding Its Impact
The antecedents and correlates of agreeableness in adulthood
Dimensions of executive functioning
This study investigated dimensions of executive functioning in 8‐ to 13‐year‐old children. Three tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), two tasks from the NEPSY battery and some additional executive function (EF) tests were administered to 108 children. In line with earlier work, modest correlations among EF measures were obtained ( r et al . (2000) and which were—with some reservations—labelled Working Memor…
Sex differences in genetic and environmental effects on aggression
The aim of the present study was to investigate the genetic and environmental factors influencing teacher and parental rated aggression in boys and girls, asking whether the magnitude of these effects is similar across rater and sex. The study is part of an ongoing nationwide twin‐family study of behavioral development and health habits carried out in Finland. The sample consisted of 1651 twin pairs (264 monozygotic male, 300 monozygotic female, …
Paths to Successful Development
Hostility, unemployment and health status
Psychology (56 works) · Developmental psychology (48 works) · Medicine (31 works) · Social Psychology (31 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (24 works) · Personality (20 works) · Longitudinal study (18 works) · Aggression (17 works) · Demography (17 works) · Clinical Psychology (16 works)