Werner Greve

Adaptive Resources of the Aging Self: Outlines of an Emergent Perspective:

The transition to old age has often been related to loss of control, depression, and lowered self-esteem. A different picture, however, begins to emerge from recent age-comparative studies. Cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from two larger studies in the age range from middle to late adulthood are presented which indicate that elderly people, while being perceptive of age-related developmental losses, are quite effective in maintaining a sense of control and a positive view of self and personal development. It is argued that the apparent resiliency of the aging self hinges on the interplay between two basic processes: (1) instrumental activities that aim at preventing or alleviating developmental losses in domains that are relevant to the individuals self-esteem and identity; (2) accommodative processes by which personal goals and frames of self-evaluation are adjusted to changes in action resources and functional capacities. Evidence is presented in support of the assumption that with advancing age, accommodative processes become increasingly important aspects of coping and life-management.

Resilience A Conceptual Bridge Between Coping and Development

Traditionally resilience is viewed as an important way of coping: Through resilience, an individual recovers from or avoids negative outcomes from burdensome conditions. In this paper, we argue that individual stability under significant adverse conditions (i. e., resilience) results, to a large degree, from coping processes (e. g., assimilation and accommodation) influenced by personal and situational conditions. Moreover, we propose that resilience, viewed as a stabilizing constellation, should be considered an important part of the conceptual bridge between coping and development. Resilience, however, requires a definition of successful development. Here, we argue that the potential and possibility for further development may be used as a common denominator of current proposals. The aim is to outline an integrative model of coping, resilience, and development as a theoretical access to successful aging. Some empirical results illustrate the developmental conditions for assimilative and accommodative processes.

Guilt and shame as predictors of recidivism: a longitudinal study with young prisoners

Shame and guilt are moral emotions that result from deviations from internalized standards. Both constructs differ with respect to their genesis, to the emotions accompanying them, and to their behavioral consequences. Shame is associated with a loss of self-respect, social withdrawal, anger, and aggression. Guilt, on the other hand, supports prosocial behavior and motivates compensation for the inflicted loss. Based on repeated interviews with 1,243 offenders from six prisons for young offenders, the study examined to what extent feelings of shame and guilt experienced during a prison term influenced recidivism after release. An event-history analysis indicated that feelings of guilt at the beginning of a prison term correlated with lower rates of recidivism, and feelings of shame correlated with higher rates. Results are discussed with regard to their implications for further research and the justice system.

Immunizing the Self: Self-Concept Stabilization Through Reality-Adaptive Self-Definitions

Processes of self-concept immunization are introduced as a way of reconciling self-concept protection against threatening information with the necessity of acknowledging own failure or losses. Self-immunization works by adaptively changing the subjective operationalization of personal traits, such that skills that individuals believe themselves to be good at are conceived as highly diagnostic, whereas skills that persons do not believe they possess are considered less diagnostic. Three studies are presented to investigate this stabilizing process. Correlational as well as experimental and longitudinal data support the assumption that self-immunization stabilizes central and abstract aspects of the self-concept without ignoring negative information on concrete skills.

Self-esteem maintenance among incarcerated young males: Stabilisation through accommodative processes

The change in self-esteem and the stabilising role of accommodative coping resources among incarcerated young male offenders is investigated using a longitudinal approach with three occasions of measurements (begining of prison term, 2 months later, end of prison term). Data from 211 participants with a complete set of measurements were analysed, employing multilevel modelling. Results show that self-esteem increases during imprisonment. Moreover, this increase in self-esteem depends on the individual competence of accommodative coping: The increase in self-esteem is earlier and faster for high accommodative individuals. These findings are discussed with respect to the development of the self during imprisonment as well as to their implications for the future social behaviour and integration of former prisoners after release.

Social and individual coping with threats: Outlines of an interdisciplinary approach

Referring to a general conception of coping as an adaptive reaction to a perceived is-ought discrepancy, the authors present an interdisciplinary perspective on coping processes. Based on systems theory, a psychological view is compared with a sociological perspective, focusing structural equivalencies between social and individual adaptational processes. Defensive, proactive, and accommodative reactions are discussed as 3 general modes of coping. It is argued that all of these coping reactions in both individuals and social systems have specific costs and benefits, which are particularly visible if the interaction and “interpenetration” between the coping strategies of individuals and social systems are observed.

The Stabilization of Self-Esteem among Incarcerated Adolescents: Accommodative and Immunizing Processes

The negative effect of a custodial sentence on juvenile self-esteem is discussed. It is argued that individual coping resources offer an explanation for the inconclusive findings of earlier studies in this field. Findings of a cross-sectional study of 299 prisoners (14 to 24 years) are presented. The results show that the stability of self-esteem during incarceration depends on both accommodative and immunizing coping reactions. Prisoners who do not possess at least one of these coping resources show particularly low self-esteem at the start of their term of imprisonment. This creates the misleading impression that for the average individual, selfesteem increases during a period of custody. The study also shows that in the latter period of a prison term, accommodative coping resources also tend to support an increase in immunizing reactions. Implications for longitudinal studies and for practical interventions in the juvenile custody system are discussed.

Self-Efficacy and Externality in Adolescence: Theoretical Conceptions and Measurement in New Zealand and German Secondary School Students

It is argued that the development of self-efficacy represents a central aspect of development in adolescence for 3 reasons. First, self-efficacy is an important predictor for actual efficacy and, thus, is a major component of the individuals ability to act suc-cessfully. Second, self-efficacy is a major action-guiding aspect of the self-concept. Third, both aspects can be combined in an action model of personality, which provides the framework for the development of a standardized questionnaire for self-efficacy and externality from a personality psychology point of view. To validate this questionnaire, a study was conducted with 215 New Zealand and 221 German secondary school students ages 16 to 17 years using a German and an English version of the inventory. Item parameters as well as scale parameters of the English and the German versions of the inventory, were satisfactory and comparable. First validity analyses reveal no significant scale differences for girls versus boys; no significant scale differences between New Zealand and German adolescents; and some rather weak, but significant, positive correlations of self-efficacy to academic performance and perceived classroom climate.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: CONDITIONS, CONSEQUENCES, AND COPING

This article gives a structured summary of current research on violence against women from a European perspective. First, some thought is given to the correct definition of violence against women. Then, different manifestations of violence are presented along with prevalence data. Next, the paper discusses risk markers for victimization and goes on to describe the consequences for the victims. Particular emphasis is placed on coping processes and their relevance for research in this field. Finally, conclusions are drawn from a prevention and intervention perspective.

Assessing the Structure of Self-concept: Evidence for Self-defensive Processes by Using a Sentence Priming Task

It was assumed that the definition of traits that are central to the individual self-concept is adapted to individual competencies (self-concept immunization), i.e., skills that individuals believe themselves to be good at are conceived as diagnostic whereas skills that individuals do not possess are considered as less diagnostic. The mental representation of traits was investigated by semantic priming. Targets were self-relevant traits whereas the primes described observable skills that were either semantically related to the target or not. Corresponding to the hypothesis, priming effects were observed for skills that participants believed themselves to possess and that were related to traits central to the self-concept. The pattern was reversed for participants with low self-esteem, thereby underscoring a coping-theoretical interpretation.