Maya Benish-Weisman

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.

Temperament and peer problems from early to middle childhood: Gene-environment correlations with negative emotionality and sociability.

Based in a transactional framework in which childrens own characteristics and the social environment influence each other to produce individual differences in social adjustment, we investigated relationships between childrens peer problems and their temperamental characteristics, using a longitudinal and genetically informed study of 939 pairs of Israeli twins followed from early to middle childhood (ages 3, 5, and 6.5). Peer problems were moderately stable within children over time, such that children who appeared to have more peer problems at age 3 tended to have also more peer problems at age 6.5. Childrens temperament accounted for 10%-22% of the variance in their peer problems measured at the same age and for 2%-7% of the variance longitudinally. It is important that genetic factors accounted for the association between temperament and peer problems and were in line with a gene-environment correlation process, providing support for the proposal that biologically predisposed characteristics, particularly negative emotionality and sociability, have an influence on childrens early experiences of peer problems. The results highlight the need for early and continuous interventions that are specifically tailored to address the interpersonal difficulties of children with particular temperamental profiles.

Brief report: Ethnic identity and aggression in adolescence: A longitudinal perspective

Ethnic identity has been found to relate to many positive psychological outcomes, such as self-esteem and well-being, but little has been said about negative social outcomes such as aggression, nor have these relations been tested across time. The current study examined the concurrent and longitudinal relations between ethnic identity and peer nominated aggression at two time points with a two-year interval (8th and 10th grades) in a sample of 125 Israeli adolescents with an immigration background (56.8% girls). As hypothesized, ethnic identity related negatively to aggression at both T1 and T2. In addition, ethnic identity predicted a relative decrease in future aggression. Given these findings, the article suggests the importance of strengthening ethnic identity through interventions and educational programs.

The Relations Between Values and Aggression: A Developmental Perspective

This chapter provides a theoretical and empirical framework for understanding value development and the relations between values and aggression among adolescents. First, we review studies and theories focusing on value development during adolescence. Second, we address the relations between values and behavior in this period and discuss how these relations might change with age. Then, we turn to examine the relations between values and aggression among youth. We propose mechanisms that explain these relations, including social–cognitive theories such as the social information process theory. Finally, we discuss the clinical and practical implications in social and educational contexts and suggestions for future research.

The moderating role of genetics: The effect of length of hospitalization on children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors.

The study considered individual differences in children’s ability to adjust to hospitalization and found the length of hospitalization to be related to adaptive psychological functioning for some children. Applying the theoretical framework of three competing models of gene-X-environment interactions (diathesis–stress, differential susceptibility, and vantage sensitivity), the study examined the moderating effect of genetics (DRD4) on the relationship between the length of hospitalization and internalizing and externalizing problems. Mothers reported on children’s hospitalization background and conduct problems (externalizing) and emotional symptoms (internalizing), using subscales of the 25-item Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (1). Data on both hospitalization and genetics were available for 65 children, 57% of whom were females, with an average age of 61.4 months (SD = 2.3). The study found length of hospitalization did not predict emotional and behavior problems per se, but the interaction with genetics was significant; the length of hospitalization was related to diminished levels of internalizing and externalizing problems only for children with the 7R allele (the sensitive variant). The vantage sensitivity model best accounted for how the length of hospitalization and genetics related to children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.

Identifying and Distinguishing Value Profiles in American and Israeli Adolescents

Although research has examined how values are correlated with behavior, little has examined how the system of values predicts behavior. In a cross-cultural sample of American (109 European American; 216 African American) and Israeli (318 Arab Israeli; 216 Jewish Israeli) adolescents, the present study used latent profile analysis to identify groups which reflected the theoretical structure of values across both cultures. Four profiles were found: self-focused, anxiety-free, other-focused, and undifferentiated. Results indicated that Self-Focused adolescents were the most aggressive and viewed as leaders by their peers compared to the other groups. Self-Focused and anxiety-free youth reported more delinquency than their peers. Few differences between cultural groups emerged, suggesting that this approach is a promising avenue for understanding heterogeneity in behavior.