G. John Geldhof

Developmental Trajectories of Intentional Self Regulation in Adolescence: The Role of Parenting and Implications for Positive and Problematic Outcomes among Diverse Youth.

This study assessed 1574 Grades 5 to 11 youth (63.6% female) from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), a longitudinal study involving U.S. adolescents, to assess if patterns of intentional self regulation (ISR) existed; whether these trajectories differed in relation to several Grade 5 parenting characteristics; and whether ISR trajectories were linked to positive and negative developmental outcomes at Grade 11. Growth mixture modeling identified a four-group solution of ISR trajectories: Steady Decline, Elevated, Late Onset, and Pronounced Decline. Most adolescents reported an incremental decrease in ISR from Grades 5 to 11 (Steady Decline). Lower levels of parental warmth, monitoring, and school involvement at Grade 5 predicted Late-Onset ISR development while Pronounced Decline adolescents reported lower levels of PYD and Contribution at Grade 11. We discuss the finding that youth at initially similar levels of ISR diverged over adolescence, while youth at initially disparate levels converged.

Preschoolers' social dominance, moral cognition, and moral behavior: An evolutionary perspective

Various aspects of moral functioning, aggression, and positive peer regard were assessed in 153 preschool children. Our hypotheses were inspired by an evolutionary approach to morality that construes moral norms as tools of the social elite. Accordingly, children were also rated for social dominance and strategies for its attainment. We predicted that aspects of moral functioning would be only loosely related to each other and that moral cognitions about rules (unlike emotion attributions and moral internalization) would demonstrate patterns suggestive of instrumentality. Results showed that cognitions about moral rules and internalized conscience were unrelated and that sociomoral behavior was more strongly related to the latter than to the former. In addition, promoting group norms (Selective Moral Engagement) positively predicted social dominance, whereas internalized conscience negatively predicted social dominance. Children who controlled resources via both prosocial and coercive means (i.e., bistrategic) showed enhanced moral cognitions about rules (despite high levels of aggression) but had deficits in emotional aspects of moral functioning in the eyes of teachers. Patterns of Selective Moral Engagement invite comparisons to tattling and impression management. The findings are contrasted with alternative hypotheses that are advanced from traditional yet prevailing approaches.

Special Issue Introduction: Thriving Across the Adolescent Years: A View of the Issues

Framed within a relational developmental systems model, the 4-H Study of positive youth development (PYD) explored the bases and implications of thriving across much of the second decade of life. This special issue pertains to information derived from the recently completed eight waves of the 4-H Study of PYD, and presents findings about the relations between individual and contextual variables that are involved in the thriving process. This introduction briefly reviews the historical background and the theoretical frame for the 4-H Study and describes its general methodology. We provide an overview of the articles in this special issue and discuss the ways in which the articles elucidate different facets of the thriving process. In addition, we discuss the implications of this research for future scholarship and for applications aimed at improving the life chances of diverse adolescents.

Examining the relations between executive function, math, and literacy during the transition to kindergarten: A multi-analytic approach.

The present study explored the bidirectional and longitudinal associations between executive function (EF) and early academic skills (math and literacy) across 4 waves of measurement during the transition from preschool to kindergarten using 2 complementary analytical approaches: cross-lagged panel modeling and latent growth curve modeling (LCGM). Participants included 424 children (49% female). On average, children were approximately 4.5 years old at the beginning of the study (M = 4.69, SD = .30) and 55% were enrolled in Head Start. Cross-lagged panel models indicated bidirectional relations between EF and math over preschool, which became directional in kindergarten with only EF predicting math. Moreover, there was a bidirectional relation between math and literacy that emerged in kindergarten. Similarly, LGCM revealed correlated growth between EF and math as well as math and literacy, but not EF and literacy. Exploring the patterns of relations across the waves of the panel model in conjunction with the patterns of relations between intercepts and slopes in the LGCMs led to a more nuanced understanding of the relations between EF and academic skills across preschool and kindergarten. Implications for future research on instruction and intervention development are discussed.

Influences of children's and adolescents' action‐control processes on school achievement, peer relationships, and coping with challenging life events

Self-regulation represents a core aspect of human functioning that influences positive development across the life span. This chapter focuses on the action-control model, a key facet of self-regulation during childhood and early adolescence. The authors discuss the development of action-control beliefs, paying particular attention to their relationship to indices of positive development. They then discuss how linking the action-control model with other theories of self-regulation can inform our understanding of self-regulation across the life span.

Selection, optimization, and compensation: The structure, reliability, and validity of forced-choice versus Likert-type measures in a sample of late adolescents

Intentional self-regulation (ISR) undergoes significant development across the life span. However, our understanding of ISR’s development and function remains incomplete, in part because the field’s conceptualization and measurement of ISR vary greatly. A key sample case involves how Baltes and colleagues’ Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) model of ISR, which was developed with adult populations, may be applied to understand and measure adolescent self-regulation. The tripartite structure of SOC identified in older populations has not been replicated in adolescent samples. This difference may be due to measurement issues. In this article, we addressed whether using a Likert-type format instead of a forced-choice format of the SOC Questionnaire resulted in a tripartite factor structure when used with an adolescent population. Using data from 578 late adolescents who participated in the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (70.80% female), we showed that the two versions of the measure produced a similar factor structure and were similar in terms of reliability and validity, although the traditional forced-choice version provided data with slightly lower criterion validity. We therefore conclude that both types of the measure are acceptable, but the choice of measure may depend on the sample in question and the analytical approach planned for the findings. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research.

Self-regulation among youth in four Western cultures Is there an adolescence-specific structure of the Selection-Optimization-Compensation (SOC) model?

We address how to conceptualize and measure intentional self-regulation (ISR) among adolescents from four cultures by assessing whether ISR (conceptualized by the SOC model of Selection, Optimization, and Compensation) is represented by three factors (as with adult samples) or as one “adolescence-specific” factor. A total of 4,057 14- and 18-year-old youth in Canada, Germany, Iceland, and the US participated. Confirmatory factor analyses did not confirm a tripartite model of SOC in any sample, whereas a single (nine-item) composite fit in all samples. A partial weak factorial invariance model showed a roughly equivalent meaning of the nine-item composite among German, Icelandic, and US youth. We discuss the need for further examination of the relative importance of items among Canadian youth, and possible problems using reverse-coded items with adolescents. The similarities that were observed across age and cultural groups suggest that a single factor structure of SOC, as measured by nine items, may be robust for youth in Western cultural settings and that SOC processes are not fully developed until adulthood.

The GPS to Success Growth Grids: Measurement Properties of a Tool to Promote Intentional Self-Regulation in Mentoring Programs

Mentoring programs may be contexts for building important intentional self-regulatory skills in adolescents. In this study, we provide data about the factor structure of new measures that assess youth intentional self-regulation (ISR) within such programs: the “GPS growth grids.” Using data from 409 mentor/youth dyads from 24 programs around the United States, we assess whether the resulting factor structure can be invariantly measured across mentor and mentee raters and three times of measurement. Results indicated that a single-factor structure best fit older and younger mentee age groups’ data. Older mentee and mentor data displayed measurement invariance across time and rater, while younger mentee and mentor data displayed invariance across time. Results also indicated differences in the factor correlations, means, and variances across rater and age group. These findings support using these measures for future longitudinal work assessing the role of youth, mentor, and program characteristics in promoting youth ISR skills.

The Five Cs Model of Positive Youth Development

The growing consensus among developmental scientists argues that optimizing young people’s development requires much more than simply ensuring that they avoid negative outcomes (e.g., drug use, delinquency). We must also foster strengths that help youth thrive in their diverse ecologies. In this chapter we draw on data and research from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development to discuss the benefits of promoting such strength-based perspectives in youth development programs. Our discussion focuses primarily on the Five Cs of positive youth development and on how our understanding of this model can inform social policies and enhance the experience of both practitioners and the youth they serve.

A Bifactor Model of School Engagement Assessing General and Specific Aspects of Behavioral, Emotional and Cognitive Engagement among Adolescents

School engagement involves cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components that overlap conceptually. This conceptual ambiguity has led to measures that have either consisted of one general factor or separate correlated factors. However, neither approach can sufficiently account for both the uniqueness and the overlap of the subcomponents. The bifactor model has been recommended to determine the degree to which a measure is unidimensional versus multidimensional. In this study, we examined the validity of a multidimensional measure of school engagement in adolescence, the Behavioral-Emotional-Cognitive School Engagement Scale (BEC-SES; Li & Lerner, 2013), by comparing the model fit and predictive power of the widely-used one- and three-factor models with a bifactor model. Using data from 561 youth in Iceland (46% girls, Mage at Wave 1 = 14.3 years, SD = 0.3), only the multidimensional models (i.e., the three-factor and bifactor models) gave a good fit to the data. We then assessed the predictive power of the multidimensional models for academic achievement. The addition of academic achievement as an outcome variable to the bifactor model revealed that general school engagement, as well as specific behavioral engagement, predicted achievement. These findings are distinct from previous results using three-factor models, which indicated that behavioral engagement alone predicted later achievement. The results of the current study support the use of a bifactor model when using measures of school engagement.