Ella Daniel

Value Differentiation in Adolescence: The Role of Age and Cultural Complexity.

Living in complex social worlds, individuals encounter discordant values across life contexts, potentially resulting in different importance of values across contexts. Value differentiation is defined here as the degree to which values receive different importance depending on the context in which they are considered. Early and mid-adolescents (N = 3,497; M = 11.45 years, SD = 0.87 and M = 16.10 years, SD = 0.84, respectively) from 4 cultural groups (majority and former Soviet Union immigrants in Israel and Germany) rated their values in 3 contexts (family, school, and country). Value differentiation varied across individuals. Early adolescents showed lower value differentiation than mid-adolescents. Immigrant (especially first generation) adolescents, showed higher value differentiation than majority adolescents, reflecting the complex social reality they face while negotiating cultures.

Paternal and maternal warmth and the development of prosociality among preschoolers.

Although the influence of maternal behavior on child outcomes has been extensively studied, there has not been the same attention to the role of paternal behavior in development. This gap in research stands in contrast to the observable shift in parental roles and responsibilities in contemporary society. The goal of this study was to examine the roles of fathers, mothers, and children in the development of childrens prosocial behavior. In the current study we examined the development of reciprocal relations between paternal and maternal behavior and child prosociality over 36 months. Three hundred eighty-one families were assessed when children were 18, 36, and 54 months of age. Fathers and mothers reported on their own warmth and negativity using standardized questionnaires. Child prosociality was measured using averaged parental reports. Actor-partner interdependence models revealed that paternal and maternal warmth predicted subsequent increases in child prosocial behavior, but child prosocial behavior did not predict subsequent parenting. Father and mother parenting practices were reciprocally interrelated. The results point to the important roles paternal and maternal warmth play in the development of childrens prosocial behavior.

Brief report: Early adolescents' value development at war time

Values are considered relatively stable individual characteristics, and there is little research to date on the conditions that underlie value-priorities change. This small-scale short-term longitudinal study tested whether a major life event of war changes the priority that early adolescents assign to values. Thirty-nine Israeli adolescents completed the Schwartz Values Survey on four occasions-at the beginning, middle, and end of the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war during which their hometown was bombed. As hypothesized, anxiety-based values of tradition, power, and security increased in importance, while conformity values decreased in importance. Anxiety-free values of benevolence, universalism, self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism decreased in importance. Achievement values decreased and then increased in importance. Despite methodological limitations, the findings demonstrate that value development, at least during early adolescence, can take place rather quickly under circumstances of major traumatic events such as war.

Developmental relations between sympathy, moral emotion attributions, moral reasoning, and social justice values from childhood to early adolescence

This study examined the development of sympathy, moral emotion attributions (MEA), moral reasoning, and social justice values in a representative sample of Swiss children (N = 1273) at 6 years of age (Time 1), 9 years of age (Time 2), and 12 years of age (Time 3). Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that sympathy predicted subsequent increases in MEA and moral reasoning, but not vice versa. In addition, sympathy and moral reasoning at 6 and 9 years of age were associated with social justice values at 12 years of age. The results point to increased integration of affect and cognition in childrens morality from middle childhood to early adolescence, as well as to the role of moral development in the emergence of social justice values.

Parent-child value similarity and subjective well-being in the context of migration: An exploration

Intergenerational value similarity has a different meaning for migrants and minorities compared to the majority society. Whereas high parent-child value similarity among majority families more likely indicates successful internalization of societal values, high intergenerational similarity among migrants may indicate a lack of social integration into the host society. The present paper links parent-adolescent value similarity among migrant/minority and majority families to subjective well-being in two societies, Germany and Israel (Total N = 977 families). Analyses assess intergenerational similarity on all values from the Schwartz value circumplex. Among majority groups intergenerational value similarity is a predictor of life satisfaction. In minority groups it is more so a low distance of a familys value preferences to the modal values of the majority group that predicts life satisfaction – but only in Israel.

One and Not the Same The Consistency of Values Across Contexts Among Majority and Minority Members in Israel and Germany

Values are trans-situational, but little is known about their differential consistency across situations. We studied the cross-context correlations of value importance in six adolescent groups across Israel (Jewish majority, former Soviet-Union [FSU] immigrants, and Arab minority) and Germany (majority, FSU, and Turkish immigrants).Values were elicited for several contexts: family, school, and country of residence. Self-direction, achievement, conformity, and benevolence values in the family, the school, and the country of residence contexts revealed a moderately positive correlation among majority members (Study 1). A similar pattern was found for minority members (Study 2), suggesting that values are consistent in their rank order, but vary in importance based on circumstances. Study 2 also investigated minority members’ values in the ethnic context. In Israel, these values correlated positively with values in other contexts. In Germany, self-direction and conformity values in the ethnic context correlated negatively with the same values in other contexts (e.g., self-direction values in the student context and the ethnic context correlated negatively). The cultural environment is therefore relevant to value-system coherence.

School Values Across Three Cultures

A new typology of school-level values is reported in three cultural contexts. School values were assessed by aggregating the scores of 862 students, (ages 15-19) in 32 Jewish and Arab Israeli schools (Study 1), and 1,541 students (ages 11-21) from 8 European schools and 163 teachers from 6 of these schools (Study 2), using Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire. Six school values emerged in both studies: achievement, autonomy, egalitarianism, harmony, compliance, and dominance. The importance of studying school-level values was demonstrated by relating the values of compliance and dominance to violence, and harmony values to student support measures (Study 1). Strong (minimal r = .64) school-level correlations between students of different ages and teachers supported the validity of the findings (Study 2).

The role of personal values in children’s costly sharing and non-costly giving

This study examined whether childrens values, global and abstract motivations serving as guiding principles, are organized similarly to those of adults, whether values can predict individual differences in childrens sharing behaviors, and whether the normative nature of the situation influences the expression of these individual differences. Children (N=243, ages 5-12years) participated in a values ranking task as part of a visit to a science museum. The majority of children (n=150) also participated in a task examining costly sharing (i.e., sharing that results in giving up part of ones own resources) and non-costly giving (i.e., giving that does not influence ones own share). Starting from 5years of age, children showed a structure of values similar to that of adolescents and adults, specifically contrasting preferences for opposing values (i.e., self-transcendence with self-enhancement and openness to change with conservation). Importance given to self-transcendence values related positively to costly sharing but not to non-costly giving, indicating that in situations where it is more normative to share, individual differences in values are less expressed in childrens actual sharing. In addition, childrens sex and age moderated the relation between values and behavior. Childrens values are an important aspect of their developing personalities. Taking them into consideration can greatly promote the research of prosocial and normative development as well as our understanding of individual differences in childrens behavior.

Cumulative Risk Disparities in Children's Neurocognitive Functioning: A Developmental Cascade Model.

The current longitudinal study examined the role of cumulative social risk on childrens theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) across early development. Further, we also tested a cascade model of development in which childrens social cognition at 18 months was hypothesized to predict ToM and EF at age 4.5 through intermediary language skills at age 3. We then examined whether this developmental mechanism varied as a function of social risk status. Participants were 501 children recruited when they were newborns, at which point eight psychosocial risk factors were assessed and combined into a metric of cumulative social disadvantage. Families were followed up at 18 months, at which point four social-cognitive skills were assessed using developmentally sensitive tasks: joint attention, empathy, cooperation, and self-recognition. Language was measured at age 3 using a standardized measure of receptive vocabulary. At age 3 and 4.5, EF and ToM were measured using previously validated tasks. Results showed that there were notable cumulative risk disparities in overall neurocognitive skill development, and these effects became more differentiated over time. Support was also found for a developmental mechanism wherein the effect of social cognition at 18 months on ToM and EF in the preschool period operated specifically through childrens receptive language ability at age 3. This pathway functioned similarly for children with both low- and high-risk backgrounds. These results extend previous findings by documenting the role of cumulative social disadvantage on childrens neurocognition and the pathways that link key neurocognitive abilities across early development.

Value-differentiation and self-esteem among majority and immigrant youth

Abstract As they inhabit complex social worlds, adolescents often learn competing values, resulting in value-differentiation, within-individual variability in value importance across contexts. But what are the implications of value-differentiation across age groups and cultures? A study of 4007 adolescents aged 11 to 18 (M = 14.41, SD = 2.16), of three Israeli groups (majority, former Soviet Union immigrants, Arabs) discovered negative relations between value-differentiation and self-esteem, suggesting that confusion may result from value incoherence. The relations were stronger among younger adolescents than older ones and were especially strong among younger first-generation immigrant adolescents, pointing to the need to address the value-differentiation of immigrant adolescents.