Julien Morizot

Adolescent Behavioral, Affective, and Cognitive Engagement in School: Relationship to Dropout

BACKGROUND High school dropout represents an important public health issue. This study assessed the 3 distinct dimensions of student engagement in high school and examined the relationships between the nature and course of such experiences and later dropout. METHODS We administered questionnaires to 13,330 students (44.7% boys) from 69 high schools in the province of Quebec (Canada). During 3 consecutive high school years, students reported their behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement to school. Information on later dropout status was obtained through official records. RESULTS Although many adolescents remained highly engaged in high school, one third reported changes, especially decreases in rule compliance, interest in school, and willingness to learn. Students reporting low engagement or important decrements in behavioral investment from the beginning of high school presented higher risks of later dropout. CONCLUSION School-based interventions should address the multiple facets of high school experiences to help adolescents successfully complete their basic schooling. Creating a positive social-emotional learning environment promises better adolescent achievement and, in turn, will contribute to a healthier lifestyle.

A Multifoci Person-Centered Perspective on Workplace Affective Commitment: A Latent Profile/Factor Mixture Analysis

The current study aims to explore the usefulness of a person-centered perspective to the study of workplace affective commitment (WAC). Five distinct profiles of employees were hypothesized based on their levels of WAC directed toward seven foci (organization, workgroup, supervisor, customers, job, work, and career). This study applied latent profile analyses and factor mixture analyses to a sample of 404 Canadian workers. The construct validity of the extracted latent profiles was verified by their associations with multiple predictors (gender, age, tenure, social relationships at work, workplace satisfaction, and organizational justice perceptions) and outcomes (in-role performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and intent to quit). The analyses confirmed that a model with five latent profiles adequately represented the data: (a) highly committed toward all foci; (b) weakly committed toward all foci; (c) committed to their supervisor and moderately committed to the other foci; and (d) committed to their career and moderately uncommitted to the other foci; (e) committed mostly to their proximal work environment. These latent profiles present theoretically coherent patterns of associations with the predictors and outcomes, which suggests their adequate construct validity.

Continuity and Change in Personality Traits From Adolescence to Midlife: A 25-Year Longitudinal Study Comparing Representative and Adjudicated Men

In the first study, a hierarchical structure of personality traits was identified using data from a longitudinal study tracing two samples of men from adolescence to midlife (i.e., a representative sample of the general population and a sample of individuals adjudicated during their adolescence). The second study examined structural, rank-order, and mean-level continuity. Partial structural continuity was demonstrated through confirmatory factor analysis. Regarding rank-order continuity, the correlations were stronger as age increased, particularly for the adjudicated men. For mean-level continuity, the adjudicated men displayed higher scores from adolescence to midlife for nearly every personality trait related to Disinhibition and Negative Emotionality. Significant decreases were observed in these traits for both samples, supporting the hypothesis of a normative psychological maturation. Although both samples showed this maturation, the adjudicated men displayed a lower rate of change during adolescence and early adulthood. The two samples did not differ in Extraversion and this trait remained more stable, particularly for adjudicated men.

Behavioral, Self, and Social Control Predictors of Desistance From Crime A Test of Launch and Contemporaneous Effect Models

Although the literature has generated a large body of knowledge on the development of criminal activity, much remains unknown about the normative process of desistance. This study investigates desistance from self-reported criminal activity among a sample of French-Canadian men who were adjudicated during adolescence and interviewed on various occasions through midlife. Desistance is defined as the dynamic process characterized by a progressive decline in offending versatility. Latent trajectory modeling was used to test two models, the launch and contemporaneous effect models, accounting for the effects of deviant behavior and measures of self- and social control on desistance. The launch effect model suggests that very few self- or social control variables can predict trajectories of desistance from crime throughout a 25-year period. The contemporaneous effect model reveals that some measures of self- and social control accelerate (or restrain) the desistance process, but only at specific developmental periods.

Affective commitment and citizenship behaviors across multiple foci

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationships between affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) across four foci: organizations, supervisors, coworkers, and customers. Further, it aims to determine whether relationships among commitments and OCBs involve mediated linkages.Design/methodology/approach – This study relies on matched employee‐supervisor data (n=216). The relative fit of different models representing relationships among commitments and OCBs was examined using structural equations modeling.Findings – Results revealed that commitments to coworkers, customers and supervisors displayed positive relationships with OCBs directed at parallel foci. In addition, commitment to the global organization partially and negatively mediated the relationship of commitments to coworkers and customers to parallel OCBs dimensions. Results also revealed cross‐foci relationships between local commitments and OCBs. Finally, no commitment target was significantly associated with or...

Adolescent Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms: Codevelopment of Behavioral and Academic Problems

PURPOSE Increasing evidence suggests the existence of heterogeneity in the development of depressive symptoms during adolescence, but little remains known regarding the implications of this heterogeneity for the development of commonly co-occurring problems. In this study, we derived trajectories of depressive symptoms in adolescents and examined the codevelopment of multiple behavioral and academic problems in these trajectories. METHODS Participants were 6,910 students from secondary schools primarily located in disadvantaged areas of Quebec (Canada) who were assessed annually from the age 12 to 16 years. Trajectories were identified using growth mixture modeling. The course of behavioral (delinquency, substance use) and academic adjustment (school liking, academic achievement) in trajectories was examined by deriving latent growth curves for each covariate conditional on trajectory membership. RESULTS We identified five trajectories of stable-low (68.1%), increasing (12.1%), decreasing (8.7%), transient (8.7%), and stable-high (2.4%) depressive symptoms. Examination of conditional latent growth curves revealed that the course of behavioral and academic problems closely mirrored the course of depressive symptoms in each trajectory. CONCLUSIONS This pattern of results suggests that the course of depressive symptoms and other adjustment problems over time is likely to involve an important contribution of shared underlying developmental process(es).

Zuckerman's Revised Alternative Five-Factor Model: Validation of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire in Four French-Speaking Countries

The aim of this study was to analyze the replicability of Zuckermans revised Alternative Five-factor model in a French-speaking context by validating the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire (ZKA–PQ) simultaneously in 4 French-speaking countries. The total sample was made up of 1,497 subjects from Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland. The internal consistencies for all countries were generally similar to those found for the normative U.S. and Spanish samples. A factor analysis confirmed that the normative structure replicated well and was stable within this French-speaking context. Moreover, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses have shown that the ZKA–PQ reaches scalar invariance across these 4 countries. Mean scores were slightly different for women and men, with women scoring higher on Neuroticism but lower on Sensation Seeking. Globally, mean score differences across countries were small. Overall, the ZKA–PQ seems an interesting alternative to assess both lower and higher order personality traits for applied or research purposes.

Construct Validity of Adolescents’ Self-Reported Big Five Personality Traits Importance of Conceptual Breadth and Initial Validation of a Short Measure

While there are a number of short personality trait measures that have been validated for use with adults, few are specifically validated for use with adolescents. To trust such measures, it must be demonstrated that they have adequate construct validity. According to the view of construct validity as a unifying form of validity requiring the integration of different complementary sources of information, this article reports the evaluation of content, factor, convergent, and criterion validities as well as reliability of adolescents’ self-reported personality traits. Moreover, this study sought to address an inherent potential limitation of short personality trait measures, namely their limited conceptual breadth. In this study, starting with items from a known measure, after the language-level was adjusted for use with adolescents, items tapping fundamental primary traits were added to determine the impact of added conceptual breadth on the psychometric properties of the scales. The resulting new measure was named the Big Five Personality Trait Short Questionnaire (BFPTSQ). A group of expert judges considered the items to have adequate content validity. Using data from a community sample of early adolescents, the results confirmed the factor validity of the Big Five structure in adolescence as well as its measurement invariance across genders. More important, the added items did improve the convergent and criterion validities of the scales, but did not negatively affect their reliability. This study supports the construct validity of adolescents’ self-reported personality traits and points to the importance of conceptual breadth in short personality measures.

Cross-cultural Generalizability of the Alternative Five-factor Model Using the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire

Several personality models are known for being replicable across cultures, such as the Five–Factor Model (FFM) or Eysencks Psychoticism–Extraversion–Neuroticism (PEN) model, and are for this reason considered universal. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the cross–cultural replicability of the recently revised Alternative FFM (AFFM). A total of 15 048 participants from 23 cultures completed the Zuckerman–Kuhlman–Aluja Personality Questionnaire (ZKA–PQ) aimed at assessing personality according to this revised AFFM. Internal consistencies, gender differences and correlations with age were similar across cultures for all five factors and facet scales. The AFFM structure was very similar across samples and can be considered as highly replicable with total congruence coefficients ranging from .94 to .99. Measurement invariance across cultures was assessed using multi–group confirmatory factor analyses, and each higher–order personality factor did reach configural and metric invariance. Scalar invariance was never reached, which implies that culture–specific norms should be considered. The underlying structure of the ZKA–PQ replicates well across cultures, suggesting that this questionnaire can be used in a large diversity of cultures and that the AFFM might be as universal as the FFM or the PEN model. This suggests that more research is needed to identify and define an integrative framework underlying these personality models. Copyright

Group-Based Symptom Trajectories in Indicated Prevention of Adolescent Depression

Adolescent depression prevention research has focused on mean intervention outcomes, but has not considered heterogeneity in symptom course. Here, we empirically identify subgroups with distinct trajectories of depressive symptom change among adolescents enrolled in two indicated depression prevention trials and examine how cognitive‐behavioral (CB) interventions and baseline predictors relate to trajectory membership.