Margarita Azmitia

Are There Gendered Pathways to Intimacy in Early Adolescents’ and Emerging Adults’ Friendships?:

Two studies addressed age- and gender-related patterns in early adolescents’ and emerging adults’ conceptions of intimacy in friendships. Forty-one early adolescents and 96 emerging adults in Study 1 and 174 emerging adults in Study 2 described a time when they felt especially close to a friend. Narratives were coded for intimate behaviors and affective feelings. In Study 2, emerging adults also completed a survey assessing intimacy in their closest friendship. In Study 1, emerging adults’ narratives contained more self-disclosure and fewer shared activities than the early adolescents’ narratives. No gender differences in conceptions of intimacy were obtained. In Study 2, although emerging adult men and women reported equal amounts of self-disclosure, emerging adult women reported more emotional support and fewer shared activities. Survey results converged with interview data. Self-disclosure predicted emotional closeness for emerging adult women and men; shared activities also predicted emotional closeness for emerging adult men.

Stability and Change in Ethnic Identity among Latino Emerging Adults in Two Contexts

This longitudinal study investigated ethnic identity development among Latinos during the first year of college in two contexts. The contexts differed in both the density of ethnic minorities and the density of the target group studied. Participants were 128 first-year Latino college students from two public universities in California. Change in ethnic identity was analyzed in two ways: change in strength of ethnic identity using ANCOVA, and change in membership in ethnic identity statuses using cluster analysis. ANCOVAs yielded no significant overall changes in ethnic identity across time in either of the two contexts. Cluster analyses yielded three interpretable clusters: achieved, moratorium, and unexamined. Shifts in cluster membership across time were consistent with developmental models of ethnic identity change.

Multiple Selves, Multiple Worlds: Three Useful Strategies for Research with Ethnic Minority Youth on Identity, Relationships, and Opportunity Structures

Cooper, C. R., Jackson, J. F., Azmitia, M., & Lopez, E. M. (1998). Multiple selves, multiple worlds: Three useful strategies for research with ethnic minority youth on identity, relationships, and opportunity structures. In V. C. McLoyd and L. Steinberg (Eds.), Studying minority adolescents: Conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues. (pp. 111-125). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

On the Relation of Personal Experience to Early Adolescents’ Reasoning About Best Friendship Deterioration

The primary goal of this study was to investigate the association between early adolescents’ generalized beliefs about the causes of best friendship deterioration and dissolution and conflict experiences in their own best friendships. An additional goal was to assess whether early adolescents’ self-esteem moderated this association. Participants listed their beliefs about the causes of best friendship deterioration and dissolution, indicated whether conflicts described in a series of vignettes had occurred in one of their best friendships, and described two conflicts they had experienced in their best friendships. They also judged the seriousness of the vignette and personally experienced conflicts. As predicted, early adolescents included conflict issues they had experienced personally more frequently in their causal inventories than conflict issues that they had not experienced personally. However, contrary to predictions, the perceived seriousness of the conflicts did not influence their inclusion in participants’ causal inventories. While high and low self-esteem adolescents had similar beliefs about the causes of best friendship deterioration and dissolution, low self-esteem adolescents perceived their conflicts as more serious and their friendships as more fragile.

Does Class Matter? The Centrality and Meaning of Social Class Identity in Emerging Adulthood

Social class identity development remains poorly understood, especially given beliefs in meritocracy and the American Dream. The relative fluidity and invisibility of class make it a slippery problem for social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981), which assumes stable category membership. This mixed methods study explored the importance and meanings of social class in 104 college-going emerging adults. As predicted, awareness of social class occurred primarily during social comparison encounters with peers. Unexpectedly, participants rated social class as affecting their everyday experiences more than gender or ethnicity; upper-class students reported the highest importance ratings. The article highlights narratives of upper-class guilt and privilege and working-class anger and pride, and considers the implications of contradictory ratings and exempt positioning.

Unmasking Class How Upwardly Mobile Poor and Working-Class Emerging Adults Negotiate an “Invisible” Identity

This study examined class identity negotiation among upwardly mobile poor and working-class emerging adults. Twenty-one ethnically diverse emerging adults narrated class-related experiences during interviews about their transition to college. Narratives were coded for (1) the strategies emerging adults used to make sense of their class experiences and (2) the events that prompted their class identity negotiation. Participants used class identity management strategies that reflected dissociation or resistance. Cross-class interactions that involved recognition of financial and behavioral disparities between themselves and their professional class peers were more likely to trigger both dissociation and resistance strategies. In contrast, noncomparative class-related experiences (e.g., parent loss of job) and same-class interactions were more likely to elicit dissociation strategies. These findings highlight the struggle and feelings of ambivalence that upwardly mobile emerging adults face as they manage the stigma and discrimination associated with their class background and protect their self-esteem.

Patterns of Social Support and Mental Health Among Ethnically-Diverse Adolescents During School Transitions

This study investigated age and ethnicity variations in the association between patterns of perceived emotional support from family, friends, and teachers and depression in early and late adolescents during their transition to junior high school and college. Eighty-seven early and 106 late adolescents participated. Cluster analyses revealed four patterns: Youth who received emotional support only from friends and teachers were distinguishable from youth who received support from all three domains, only from their family, or only from teachers. Perceiving support from all three domains was associated with the lowest depressive symptoms. However, ethnic majority adolescents benefited more from this pattern than ethnic minority adolescents. To some degree, high emotional support in one domain cross-buffered low emotional support in another. Contrary to predictions, high family support protected ethnic minority adolescents only when other sources of support were not available.

Intersectionality of Race/Ethnicity and Gender Among Women of Color and White Women

ABSTRACT Theoretical writings on intersectionality have long emphasized the unique ways women of color experience race/ethnicity and gender, particularly compared to White women; however, little empirical evidence exists in support of this claim. This mixed-methods study adds to the empirical base by comparing and contrasting these experiences among women of color and White women. In a sample of 47 women of color and 18 White women, there were significant racial/ethnic differences in terms of (a) the perceived connection of race/ethnicity and gender, (b) the social contexts in which gender becomes salient, and (c) the meaningfulness of the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender. The findings lend empirical support for intersectionality as a useful psychological framework for understanding multiple social identities.

Tapping Into the App Updating the Experience Sampling Method for the 21st Century

Our understanding of emerging adults is largely based on retrospective self-reports that can be limited by poor recall, current mood, and social desirability. To address these shortcomings, Larson and Csikszentmihalyi pioneered the experience sampling method (ESM) with electronic pagers and paper–pencil surveys. The increasing ubiquity of smartphone ownership allows researchers to take ESM to the next level: developing smartphone applications programmed to alert participants, collect responses, and send data directly to a database for analysis. This article suggests types of research questions relevant to emerging adults that can be pursued using ESM. We also present a case study of the development of an Android app with 68 emerging adults, including the challenges and benefits of using this technology. Despite the challenges, we encourage researchers to consider ESM as an innovative and ecologically valid method for studying within- and between-participant variability on a variety of topics relevant to emerging adults.

“You Never Become Fully Independent”: Family Roles and Independence in First-Generation College Students:

First-generation (FG) college students often confront cultural mismatches between their interdependent backgrounds and university contexts that promote independent norms. Past work has documented this mismatch with various methodologies (e.g., self-report, lab experiments, longitudinal designs), but behavioral explorations have been minimal. Thus, the current study examined students’ interdependent familial roles and the ways in which they enact either soft (e.g., self-expression) or hard (e.g., self-reliance) forms of independence. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 34 low-income, Latinx and Asian American FG students (25 females, 8 males, 1 other; mean age = 19.89, SD = 1.35) were conducted. Grounded theory analysis revealed six family role themes. Students described providing parents with emotional support and advocacy, language brokering, financial support, physical care, life advice, and heavy sibling caretaking. FG students also shared enacting four types of soft independence—including gaining freedom, becoming self-expressive, pursuing their individual interests, and becoming mature—and five types of hard independence—including being resilient, being self-reliant, being tough, being mature, and breaking tradition. These findings provide novel understandings of the lived experiences of FG students and insights on behaviors universities should recognize as valuable strengths in FG students.