S Mark Pancer
Biographic Data
| ID | 5689149 |
|---|---|
| NAME | S Mark Pancer |
| GIVEN NAMES | S Mark |
| FAMILY NAME | Pancer |
| SIGNATURE | PANCER S M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wilfrid Laurier University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 378 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Trajectories of Youth's Helping From Adolescence into Adulthood: The Importance of Social Relations and Values
Helping behaviors (e.g., helping a sick friend, volunteering) are important forms of community involvement and likely change with age and life context. Yet, trajectories of community helping from adolescence through early adulthood have rarely been examined. It is also unclear how the roles of family, friends, and social attitudes might foster the development of helping behaviors across these years. We report on a study of community helping in a …
Curriculum requirements and subsequent civic engagement: Is There a Difference Between 'Forced' and 'Free' Community Service
Despite figures showing the growth of mandatory community service programmes, there is mixed empirical evidence of their effectiveness. This paper addresses the relationship of mandated community service to one of its purported aims: subsequent volunteerism. It compares current volunteerism among four university student cohorts: those doing no service in secondary school, those volunteering with no requirement, those volunteering both before and …
Community Involvement and Narrative Identity in Emerging and Young Adulthood: A Longitudinal Analysis
This study examines community engagement in youth and emerging adulthood from a narrative identity perspective, based on analyses of a longitudinal data set of 72 participants from ages 17 to 32. At ages 26 and 32, participants told narratives about a key community experience from their personal lives, which was rated for six dimensions. In addition, questionnaire measures of community involvement and general identity status development were admi…
Youth Narratives on Community Experiences and Sense of Community and Their Relation to Participation in an Early Childhood Development Program
This comparative study examined how participation in an early childhood development (ECD) program, Better Beginnings, Better Futures, for children (ages 4-8) relates to sense of community (SOC) in later adolescence (ages 18-19). Youths' stories ( N = 96) about community experiences, collected by semistructured, open-ended interviews, were quantitatively coded for several narrative dimensions (specificity, positivity, prosocial content, and meanin…
Better Beginnings, Better Futures: Theory, research, and knowledge transfer of a community-based initiative for children and families
Better Beginnings, Better Futures is an early childhood initiative focused on promoting healthy development of children and families in economically disadvantaged communities. The Better Beginnings approach is ecological and holistic, community-driven, integrated with existing community services and supports, and universally available to children aged 4-8 within communities in which it is offered. The Better Beginnings initiative effectively illu…
Creating Effective Civic Engagement Policy for Adolescents: Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluations of Compulsory Community Service
For high school community service programs to have a positive impact on subsequent civic engagement, students must volunteer in a sustained manner and must evaluate their volunteering experiences positively. Using a survey with 1,293 respondents and 100 semistructured interviews with past participants of the mandatory community service program implemented by the Ontario provincial government in 1999, the authors identify how and why students gene…
The four undergraduate years. Changes in weight, eating attitudes, and depression
Political and Social Dimensions of Civic Engagement: The Impact of Compulsory Community Service
In 1999, the Canadian province of Ontario joined a number of other jurisdictions in requiring its high school students to complete volunteer service before graduating. The primary objective of this program, and others like it around the world, was to address declining civic engagement within society. Using a quasi‐experimental design, we explore the impact of mandatory volunteering on its stated aims. Our findings suggest that volunteering in hig…
The Better Beginnings, Better Futures Project: Long‐term Parent, Family, and Community Outcomes of a Universal, Comprehensive, Community‐Based Prevention Approach for Primary School Children and their…
Better Beginnings, Better Futures is a large‐scale, multi‐year, longitudinal research‐demonstration project designed to reduce children's problems, promote healthy child development, and enhance family and community environments in three economically disadvantaged communities in the province of Ontario, Canada. The initial intervention was implemented from 1993 to 1997 and focused on families with children from 4 to 8 years of age in their first …
Exploring Outcomes through Narrative: The Long‐term Impacts of Better Beginnings, Better Futures on the Turning Point Stories of Youth at Ages 18–19
This study examined the long‐term effects of the Better Beginnings, Better Futures project, a community‐based early childhood development program, on 18–19 year‐old youths’ narratives about turning points in their lives. The sample consisted of youth who participated in Better Beginnings from ages 4–8 ( n = 62) and youth from a comparison community who did not participate in Better Beginnings ( n = 34). Controlling for covariates, significant dif…
Parental Divorce and First-Year Students' Transition to University: The Need to Include Baseline Data and Gender
This research examines parental divorce and first-year students' transition to university. Incoming students (N = 2,724) to six diverse universities completed questionnaires in August, before university, and again in November and March. Initial baseline measures indicated that females of divorced parents reported more depressive symptoms than females of intact families, whereas males of divorced parents reported lower levels of perceived stress t…
A Longitudinal Study of Breadth and Intensity of Activity Involvement and the Transition to University: Study of Breadth and Intensity of Activity Involvement
We examined prospective relations between activity involvement and successful transitioning to university. A sample of 656 students from 6 Canadian universities completed questionnaires before beginning university and at the end of their first year. Breadth (number of different activity domains) and intensity (mean frequency) of activity involvement as well as changes in breadth and intensity, were examined jointly. Consistent with developmental …
Evaluating community participation as prevention: Life narratives of youth
Community‐based prevention programs strive to foster the composition of positive life stories, in part, by promoting active participation in community settings. This article used life narratives of youth to explore the experience of community participation and showed how such participation influenced their lives. Youth aged 18–19 years who participated in Better Beginning, Better Futures ( n =62), a community‐based prevention program, when they w…
The Transition to University: The Student-University Match (SUM) Questionnaire
Freshmen students at six Canadian universities completed questionnaires that assessed the quality of match between their individual needs and their university environment. The Student-University Match Questionnaire (SUM), a theoretically derived scale, was developed and demonstrated excellent psychometric properties (Cronbach's alpha = .87). Furthermore, interviews were conducted with students who had deregistered from their universities and a ma…
The Importance of Friends: Friendship and Adjustment Among 1st-Year University Students
In a study of new friendships and adjustment among 1st-year university students, students at six Canadian universities completed questionnaires that assessed the quality of new friendships and adjustment during their first academic year. In-depth, face-to-face interviews about students' new friendships were conducted with a subsample of these students. Results indicated a significant positive relation between quality of new friendships and adjust…
The Hard Count: The Political and Social Challenges of Census Mobilization – By D. Sunshine Hillygus, Norman H. Nie, Kenneth Prewitt, and Heili Pals
Community and political involvement in adolescence: What distinguishes the activists from the uninvolved
What distinguishes adolescents who are active in community and political life from those who are not? In an attempt to answer this question, students in their last years of secondary school completed a measure of community and political activities, along with measures of parent and peer interactions, identity development, and adjustment. Cluster analysis of activities reported in the questionnaire identified 4 distinct groupings of adolescents: A…
Mandated Community Service in High School and Subsequent Civic Engagement: The Case of the “Double Cohort” in Ontario, Canada
Optimism as a Mediator of the Relation Between Perceived Parental Authoritativeness and Adjustment Among Adolescents: Finding the Sunny Side of the Street
Authoritative parenting has been associated with positive outcomes for children and adolescents, but less is known about the mechanisms responsible for such effects. Two longitudinal studies examined the hypothesis that the relation between authoritative parenting and adolescents’ adjustment is mediated by adolescents’ level of dispositional optimism. In Study 1, university students’ perceptions that their parents were authoritative predicted hig…
Adolescent Generativity: A Longitudinal Study of Two Possible Contexts for Learning Concern for Future Generations
The purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental pathways to Erikson's (1959) construct of generativity, defined as care and concern for the next generation and traditionally viewed as important for midlife adults, in a late adolescent sample. A sample of 198 adolescents was followed three times over a 6‐year period, from ages 17 to 23. Questionnaire measures of generative concern, parenting style, community involvement, and pers…
Partnerships and Participation of Community Residents in Health Promotion and Prevention: Experiences of the Highfield Community Enrichment Project (Better Beginnings, Better Futures)
We provide a description and analysis of the role of partnerships between community residents and service-providers in planning and implementing a health promotion/prevention programme for children and families. The context for this study is the Highfield Community Enrichment Project, a multi-component, community-based promotion/prevention project operating in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The nature and amount of resident participation in this proje…
A Longitudinal Analysis of Personal Values Socialization: Correlates of a Moral Self‐ Ideal in Late Adolescence
There has been considerable study of the development of moral reasoning in adolescence within the cognitive–developmental paradigm, but less empirical attention to the development of moral valuing and motivation. In a two‐year longitudinal study, we examined the correlates of high‐school students’ endorsement of explicitly moral values as ideals for the self. Those who reported being involved in community helping activities at age 17 were subsequ…
A Longitudinal Study of Religious Doubts in High School and Beyond: Relationships, Stability, and Searching for Answers
This questionnaire study of 939 senior high school students, and a follow-up of 336 of these people two years later, investigated a variety of issues related to religious doubts and their implications for adolescents' lives. Although average doubt levels were 'mild' as measured by the Religious Doubts scale, the greatest doubts were expressed based on religion's failure to make people 'better,' the claimed infallibility of scriptures, and pressur…
Religious Versus Nonreligious Socialization: Does Religious Background Have Implications for Adjustment
Two studies were carried out to assess possible links between religious and nonreligious socialization and adjustment. In Study 1, three questionnaires were administered to 216 students, before and during their first year at a small Canadian university. Comparisons were made among those raised in (a) "no religion," (b) mainline Protestant, (c) conservative Protestant, and (d) Catholic families. Our 11 measures of mental health and adjustment exhi…
Adolescent Identity Formation: Religious Exploration and Commitment
Two studies investigated links between adolescents' attempts to deal with religious issues, in particular, religious doubt and identity development. Identity status was measured by the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989; Adams, Shea, & Fitch, 1979), which is based on crisis-exploration and commitment. Study 1 involved 132 university students, and Study 2 included 937 senior high school students. Identity achieve…
The Importance of Friends: Friendship and Adjustment Among 1st-Year University Students
In a study of new friendships and adjustment among 1st-year university students, students at six Canadian universities completed questionnaires that assessed the quality of new friendships and adjustment during their first academic year. In-depth, face-to-face interviews about students' new friendships were conducted with a subsample of these students. Results indicated a significant positive relation between quality of new friendships and adjust…
Community and political involvement in adolescence: What distinguishes the activists from the uninvolved
What distinguishes adolescents who are active in community and political life from those who are not? In an attempt to answer this question, students in their last years of secondary school completed a measure of community and political activities, along with measures of parent and peer interactions, identity development, and adjustment. Cluster analysis of activities reported in the questionnaire identified 4 distinct groupings of adolescents: A…
Forming Impressions of Political Leaders: A Cross‐National Comparison
This study was designed to determine the key dimensions along which individuals judge the personalities of political and nonpolitical public figures in three countries—the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Samples of student respondents from each country used a 40‐item trait battery to indicate their impressions of three national and two or three international political figures, as well as three nonpolitical public figures. The resul…
Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Doubts: Content, Connections, and Complexity of Thinking
Sixty-eight university students were interviewed about their own and others' per- ceived religious doubts. These young adults included 33 high and 35 low religious fundamentalists, drawn from a larger survey study of 348 students. Content analyses of self-reported religious doubts suggested that low fundamentalists were more likely to question the underpinnings of religion, while high fundamentalists' doubts seemed to focus on concerns that other…
Social Support: Relations to Coping and Adjustment During the Transition to University in the People’s Republic of China
Life transitions, such as university attendance, entail the reconstruction of relations between the individual and the environment. This study aimed to explore how perceptions of social support changed across time during the first semester of university, and how social support, coping strategies, and adjustment were interrelated among 390 first-year students in Beijing, China. Results indicated that overall levels of social support among students…
Adolescent Generativity: A Longitudinal Study of Two Possible Contexts for Learning Concern for Future Generations
The purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental pathways to Erikson's (1959) construct of generativity, defined as care and concern for the next generation and traditionally viewed as important for midlife adults, in a late adolescent sample. A sample of 198 adolescents was followed three times over a 6‐year period, from ages 17 to 23. Questionnaire measures of generative concern, parenting style, community involvement, and pers…
Character Attacks and Their Effects on Perceptions of Male and Female Political Candidates
The study examined the perceptions of political candidates (male and female) who make negative statements about the personality and integrity of their political opponents. Male and female participants (Sex of Participant factor) indicated their impressions of a male or female political candidate (Sex of Candidate factor) who either attacked or did not attack the character of his/her opponent (Attack factor) in a political leadership debate. Parti…
A Longitudinal Analysis of Personal Values Socialization: Correlates of a Moral Self‐ Ideal in Late Adolescence
There has been considerable study of the development of moral reasoning in adolescence within the cognitive–developmental paradigm, but less empirical attention to the development of moral valuing and motivation. In a two‐year longitudinal study, we examined the correlates of high‐school students’ endorsement of explicitly moral values as ideals for the self. Those who reported being involved in community helping activities at age 17 were subsequ…
Adolescent Identity Formation: Religious Exploration and Commitment
Two studies investigated links between adolescents' attempts to deal with religious issues, in particular, religious doubt and identity development. Identity status was measured by the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989; Adams, Shea, & Fitch, 1979), which is based on crisis-exploration and commitment. Study 1 involved 132 university students, and Study 2 included 937 senior high school students. Identity achieve…
Cognitive Complexity of Expectations and Adjustment to University in the First Year
Expectations about university and subsequent adjustment in the first year were examined in a longitudinal study of the transition to university. Two hundred and twenty-six students (158 females and 68 males) completed a preuniversity questionnaire in the summer prior to beginning university, and another questionnaire in February of their first year. The preuniversity questionnaire contained measures that assessed perceived stress and the amount a…
Creating Effective Civic Engagement Policy for Adolescents: Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluations of Compulsory Community Service
For high school community service programs to have a positive impact on subsequent civic engagement, students must volunteer in a sustained manner and must evaluate their volunteering experiences positively. Using a survey with 1,293 respondents and 100 semistructured interviews with past participants of the mandatory community service program implemented by the Ontario provincial government in 1999, the authors identify how and why students gene…
Mandated Community Service in High School and Subsequent Civic Engagement: The Case of the “Double Cohort” in Ontario, Canada
A Longitudinal Study of Religious Doubts in High School and Beyond: Relationships, Stability, and Searching for Answers
This questionnaire study of 939 senior high school students, and a follow-up of 336 of these people two years later, investigated a variety of issues related to religious doubts and their implications for adolescents' lives. Although average doubt levels were 'mild' as measured by the Religious Doubts scale, the greatest doubts were expressed based on religion's failure to make people 'better,' the claimed infallibility of scriptures, and pressur…
Political Roles and the Complexity of Political Rhetoric
This research examined the complexity of political rhetoric of politicians in a policy-making and opposition role. Speeches by members of the government and opposition parties in the Canadian House of Commons from 1948 to 1988 were scored in terms of their integrative complexity, following the methods of Suedfeld and Tetlock (see Baker-Brown et al., 1986). Integratively complex communications are characterized by a recognition that more than one …
Conflict and avoidance in the helping situation
A Longitudinal Study of Breadth and Intensity of Activity Involvement and the Transition to University: Study of Breadth and Intensity of Activity Involvement
We examined prospective relations between activity involvement and successful transitioning to university. A sample of 656 students from 6 Canadian universities completed questionnaires before beginning university and at the end of their first year. Breadth (number of different activity domains) and intensity (mean frequency) of activity involvement as well as changes in breadth and intensity, were examined jointly. Consistent with developmental …
Political and Social Dimensions of Civic Engagement: The Impact of Compulsory Community Service
In 1999, the Canadian province of Ontario joined a number of other jurisdictions in requiring its high school students to complete volunteer service before graduating. The primary objective of this program, and others like it around the world, was to address declining civic engagement within society. Using a quasi‐experimental design, we explore the impact of mandatory volunteering on its stated aims. Our findings suggest that volunteering in hig…
Exploring Outcomes through Narrative: The Long‐term Impacts of Better Beginnings, Better Futures on the Turning Point Stories of Youth at Ages 18–19
This study examined the long‐term effects of the Better Beginnings, Better Futures project, a community‐based early childhood development program, on 18–19 year‐old youths’ narratives about turning points in their lives. The sample consisted of youth who participated in Better Beginnings from ages 4–8 ( n = 62) and youth from a comparison community who did not participate in Better Beginnings ( n = 34). Controlling for covariates, significant dif…
Partnerships and Participation of Community Residents in Health Promotion and Prevention: Experiences of the Highfield Community Enrichment Project (Better Beginnings, Better Futures)
We provide a description and analysis of the role of partnerships between community residents and service-providers in planning and implementing a health promotion/prevention programme for children and families. The context for this study is the Highfield Community Enrichment Project, a multi-component, community-based promotion/prevention project operating in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The nature and amount of resident participation in this proje…
Religious Versus Nonreligious Socialization: Does Religious Background Have Implications for Adjustment
Two studies were carried out to assess possible links between religious and nonreligious socialization and adjustment. In Study 1, three questionnaires were administered to 216 students, before and during their first year at a small Canadian university. Comparisons were made among those raised in (a) "no religion," (b) mainline Protestant, (c) conservative Protestant, and (d) Catholic families. Our 11 measures of mental health and adjustment exhi…
The four undergraduate years. Changes in weight, eating attitudes, and depression
Reflections on Religion: Aging, Belief Orthodoxy, and Interpersonal Conflict in the Complexity of Adult Thinking about Religious Issues
Michael W. Pratt, Bruce Hunsberger, S. Mark Pancer, Don Roth, Reflections on Religion: Aging, Belief Orthodoxy, and Interpersonal Conflict in the Complexity of Adult Thinking about Religious Issues, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 514-522
Evaluating community participation as prevention: Life narratives of youth
Community‐based prevention programs strive to foster the composition of positive life stories, in part, by promoting active participation in community settings. This article used life narratives of youth to explore the experience of community participation and showed how such participation influenced their lives. Youth aged 18–19 years who participated in Better Beginning, Better Futures ( n =62), a community‐based prevention program, when they w…
Religious Fundamentalism and Integrative Complexity of Thought: A Relationship for Existential Content Only
Bruce Hunsberger, Michael Pratt, S. Mark Pancer, Religious Fundamentalism and Integrative Complexity of Thought: A Relationship for Existential Content Only?, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 335-346
Attitudinal effects of the use of evaluatively biased language
In an experiment to study the effects on attitudes of requiring subjects to use evaluatively biased language, 84 schoolchildren aged 13–14 years completed a questionnaire to measure their attitudes on the issue of adult authority over teenagers, before and after writing an essay on this issue in which they were either required to incorporate words from a list all of which implied a positive evaluation of a pro‐authority position or a negative eva…
The Effect of Situational Demands on Judgments of Freedom and Responsibility
The present study was designed to determine the effects of situational constraints and personality information in inferring freedom and responsibility. Subjects received information about a target individual's personality (the target was described as either competitive or neutral), and his competitive behavior in a situation was either facilitated, inhibited, or was neutral with respect to competition. Least freedom was attributed to an actor in …
Attitudinal effects of the use of evaluatively biased language
In an experiment to study the effects on attitudes of requiring subjects to use evaluatively biased language, 84 schoolchildren aged 13–14 years completed a questionnaire to measure their attitudes on the issue of adult authority over teenagers, before and after writing an essay on this issue in which they were either required to incorporate words from a list all of which implied a positive evaluation of a pro‐authority position or a negative eva…
Conflict and avoidance in the helping situation
The Catalogue of Goals for Residential Treatment: An Individualized Outcome Measure for Residential Children's Programs
This article outlines the development of the Catalogue of Goals for Residential Treatment (CGRT), and how it was used in the evaluation of a residential summer camp program for children with learning disabilities and behaviour problems. The CGRT consists of 34 goals, grouped into seven major categories. Each goal is accompanied by four statements that describe a range of functioning within that goal area, from poor to good. In using the CGRT, sta…
The Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse: Part I?History and program description
The Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse: Part II?Program evaluation
Making Life Complicated: Prompting the Use of Integratively Complex Thinking
Two studies are reported which assess the proclivity of individuals to increase the integrative complexity of social, moral, or religious thinking when prompted to do so. We also examined the influence on complexity of topic area and respondents' religiosity. In both studies significant increases in complexity were obtained when participants were prompted to differentiate and integrate material, suggesting that an important distinction needs to b…
Political Roles and the Complexity of Political Rhetoric
This research examined the complexity of political rhetoric of politicians in a policy-making and opposition role. Speeches by members of the government and opposition parties in the Canadian House of Commons from 1948 to 1988 were scored in terms of their integrative complexity, following the methods of Suedfeld and Tetlock (see Baker-Brown et al., 1986). Integratively complex communications are characterized by a recognition that more than one …
Reflections on Religion: Aging, Belief Orthodoxy, and Interpersonal Conflict in the Complexity of Adult Thinking about Religious Issues
Michael W. Pratt, Bruce Hunsberger, S. Mark Pancer, Don Roth, Reflections on Religion: Aging, Belief Orthodoxy, and Interpersonal Conflict in the Complexity of Adult Thinking about Religious Issues, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 514-522
Thinking about parenting: Reasoning about developmental issues across the life span
This research examined reasoning about developmental problems over the life span and related it to cognitive style and parenting behaviors. In Study 1, we investigated 35 children's and adults' concepts of development (COD) stages (A. Sameroff & L. Feil, 1985). As hypothesized, stage scores were positively related to age and to 2 other developmental indexes. In Study 2, we observed 24 parents and their 5th-grade children. COD stage scores were po…
Religious Fundamentalism and Integrative Complexity of Thought: A Relationship for Existential Content Only
Bruce Hunsberger, Michael Pratt, S. Mark Pancer, Religious Fundamentalism and Integrative Complexity of Thought: A Relationship for Existential Content Only?, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 335-346
Religious Orthodoxy and the Complexity of Thought about Religious and Nonreligious Issues
Two studies examined the relationship between religious orthodoxy and the complexity of thinking about religious and nonreligious issues. In both studies, participants who were high or low in religious orthodoxy wrote a paragraph outlining their thoughts about a religious issue (life after death in Study 1; existence of God in Study 2) and/or a nonreligious issue (capital punishment in Study 1; free trade between Canada and the U.S. in Study 2). …
Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Doubts: Content, Connections, and Complexity of Thinking
Sixty-eight university students were interviewed about their own and others' per- ceived religious doubts. These young adults included 33 high and 35 low religious fundamentalists, drawn from a larger survey study of 348 students. Content analyses of self-reported religious doubts suggested that low fundamentalists were more likely to question the underpinnings of religion, while high fundamentalists' doubts seemed to focus on concerns that other…
Character Attacks and Their Effects on Perceptions of Male and Female Political Candidates
The study examined the perceptions of political candidates (male and female) who make negative statements about the personality and integrity of their political opponents. Male and female participants (Sex of Participant factor) indicated their impressions of a male or female political candidate (Sex of Candidate factor) who either attacked or did not attack the character of his/her opponent (Attack factor) in a political leadership debate. Parti…
Forming Impressions of Political Leaders: A Cross‐National Comparison
This study was designed to determine the key dimensions along which individuals judge the personalities of political and nonpolitical public figures in three countries—the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Samples of student respondents from each country used a 40‐item trait battery to indicate their impressions of three national and two or three international political figures, as well as three nonpolitical public figures. The resul…
Thinking Ahead: Complexity of Expectations and the Transition to Parenthood
This study examined the integrative complexity of thinking in individuals making the transition to parenthood, and the relationship between complexity and adjustment during this period. Sixty‐nine couples were interviewed 3 months before their babies were born, and 6 months after the birth. The prenatal interview focused on individuals' expectations about what it would be like being a parent; the postnatal interview focused on individuals' actual…
Cognitive Complexity of Expectations and Adjustment to University in the First Year
Expectations about university and subsequent adjustment in the first year were examined in a longitudinal study of the transition to university. Two hundred and twenty-six students (158 females and 68 males) completed a preuniversity questionnaire in the summer prior to beginning university, and another questionnaire in February of their first year. The preuniversity questionnaire contained measures that assessed perceived stress and the amount a…
Social Support: Relations to Coping and Adjustment During the Transition to University in the People’s Republic of China
Life transitions, such as university attendance, entail the reconstruction of relations between the individual and the environment. This study aimed to explore how perceptions of social support changed across time during the first semester of university, and how social support, coping strategies, and adjustment were interrelated among 390 first-year students in Beijing, China. Results indicated that overall levels of social support among students…
Religious Versus Nonreligious Socialization: Does Religious Background Have Implications for Adjustment
Two studies were carried out to assess possible links between religious and nonreligious socialization and adjustment. In Study 1, three questionnaires were administered to 216 students, before and during their first year at a small Canadian university. Comparisons were made among those raised in (a) "no religion," (b) mainline Protestant, (c) conservative Protestant, and (d) Catholic families. Our 11 measures of mental health and adjustment exhi…
Adolescent Identity Formation: Religious Exploration and Commitment
Two studies investigated links between adolescents' attempts to deal with religious issues, in particular, religious doubt and identity development. Identity status was measured by the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989; Adams, Shea, & Fitch, 1979), which is based on crisis-exploration and commitment. Study 1 involved 132 university students, and Study 2 included 937 senior high school students. Identity achieve…
A Longitudinal Study of Religious Doubts in High School and Beyond: Relationships, Stability, and Searching for Answers
This questionnaire study of 939 senior high school students, and a follow-up of 336 of these people two years later, investigated a variety of issues related to religious doubts and their implications for adolescents' lives. Although average doubt levels were 'mild' as measured by the Religious Doubts scale, the greatest doubts were expressed based on religion's failure to make people 'better,' the claimed infallibility of scriptures, and pressur…
A Longitudinal Analysis of Personal Values Socialization: Correlates of a Moral Self‐ Ideal in Late Adolescence
There has been considerable study of the development of moral reasoning in adolescence within the cognitive–developmental paradigm, but less empirical attention to the development of moral valuing and motivation. In a two‐year longitudinal study, we examined the correlates of high‐school students’ endorsement of explicitly moral values as ideals for the self. Those who reported being involved in community helping activities at age 17 were subsequ…
Partnerships and Participation of Community Residents in Health Promotion and Prevention: Experiences of the Highfield Community Enrichment Project (Better Beginnings, Better Futures)
We provide a description and analysis of the role of partnerships between community residents and service-providers in planning and implementing a health promotion/prevention programme for children and families. The context for this study is the Highfield Community Enrichment Project, a multi-component, community-based promotion/prevention project operating in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The nature and amount of resident participation in this proje…
Optimism as a Mediator of the Relation Between Perceived Parental Authoritativeness and Adjustment Among Adolescents: Finding the Sunny Side of the Street
Authoritative parenting has been associated with positive outcomes for children and adolescents, but less is known about the mechanisms responsible for such effects. Two longitudinal studies examined the hypothesis that the relation between authoritative parenting and adolescents’ adjustment is mediated by adolescents’ level of dispositional optimism. In Study 1, university students’ perceptions that their parents were authoritative predicted hig…
Adolescent Generativity: A Longitudinal Study of Two Possible Contexts for Learning Concern for Future Generations
The purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental pathways to Erikson's (1959) construct of generativity, defined as care and concern for the next generation and traditionally viewed as important for midlife adults, in a late adolescent sample. A sample of 198 adolescents was followed three times over a 6‐year period, from ages 17 to 23. Questionnaire measures of generative concern, parenting style, community involvement, and pers…
Psychology (39 works) · Social Psychology (23 works) · Developmental psychology (20 works) · Political science (20 works) · Medicine (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (8 works)