Many cardiovascular psychophysiological studies have found evidence of lower arousal states in aggressive individuals and hyper-arousal states in individuals exposed to chronic stress. However, most of these studies have relied on clinical diagnoses or self-reports to identify aggressive and victimized individuals. The present study used peer nominations to identify aggressive, victimized, and non-aggressive or victimized adolescents (mean age = 12.09 yrs.) to examine if any psychophysiological differences exist during resting and startle conditions. ANOVAs revealed that high aggressive/low victimized adolescents had a lower resting heart period/rate compared to high victimized/low aggressive adolescents. Further analyses revealed a statistical trend of lower resting heart period variability in high victimized/low aggressive individuals compared to non-aggressive non-victimized controls. Due to evidence suggesting that individuals with high self-reported empathy display less aggression, empathy as a moderator for aggression was investigated. Although gender differences w3ere found across measures, empathy ws not found to moderate aggression. / by Christopher Aults. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Sociology

As children enter adolescence, social status within the peer hierarchy gains importance. Variable-oriented research has linked adolescent popularity with both positive and negative adjustment outcomes. Popularity may be better understood with reference to types or subgroups of similar individuals, identified through person-oriented approaches. Resource Control Theory (RCT: Hawley, 1999) posits three distinct types of popular adolescents: coercive, prosocial, and bistrategic. The existence and adjustment correlates of the prosocial and coercive groups have been well-established, but little evidence supports the existence of a bistrategic popular group of adolescents, and even less is known about their adjustment correlates. The present study aims to confirm the existence of the popularity groups hypothesized by RCT and to identify group differences in social adjustment and problem behaviors. A sample of 568 adolescents (n = 288 girls, 280 boys; M age = 12.50) completed peer nomination procedures and self-report questionnaires in the Fall and Spring of the 7th and 8th grades. Longitudinal latent profile analyses classified adolescents into profile groups on the basis of initial physical aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial behavior, and four time points of popularity spanning the 7th and 8th grades. Repeated measures ANOVAs examined profile group differences in social adjustment (peer acceptance, peer rejection, physical victimization, relational victimization, and preference for solitude) and problem behaviors (disruptiveness and delinquency) across the 7th and 8th grades. Results indicate that adolescents fall into one of four distinct groups: aggressive popular, prosocial popular, bistrategic popular, and average. Bistrategic popular adolescents evinced positive social adjustment, exhibiting the highest levels of popularity and peer acceptance and the lowest levels of peer rejection, victimization, and preference for solitude. Despite their social skill advantages, bistrategic popular adolescents were also at risk for problem behaviors. Bistrategic popular adolescents scored above average on problem behaviors, including physical and relational aggression, disruptiveness, and delinquency. Bistrategic popular adolescents successfully navigate the social world in a manner that both offers hope for positive long-term adjustment and concern for the same. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Friends have been implicated in the acquisition of adolescent substance use, but little attention has been given to how the origins of substance use similarity vary across groups. The first aim of this study is to examine whether friend selection, de-selection, and socialization differ as a function of friendship group's substance use. The second aim of this study is to extend Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analyses (SIENA) by demonstrating how group-level interactions can be included in the mode, and to demonstrate a new method to follow-up statistically significant group-level interactions in SIENA. Participants include 1419 Finnish students (729 females, 690 males) from upper secondary schools in Finland. Two waves of data were collected, starting when most participants were between 15 and 17 years of age. Waves of data collection were separated by one year. Results indicate that friends are selected, deselected, and socialized for substance use. Follow-up illustrations indicate that the magnitude of these processes vary as a function of substance use in the friendship group. / by Dawn DeLay. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Close friends have been shown to influence adolescent problem behaviors, especially alcohol abuse (Urberg, Degirmencioglu, and Pilgrim, 1997). The degree of influence, however varies as a function of individual characteristics such as peer acceptance (Laursen, Hafen, Kerr, and Stattin, 2012) and age (Popp et al., 2008). The present study examines whether differences in influence extend to perceptions of friendship quality. Using a sample of 764 Swedish adolescents involved in stable samesex reciprocal best friend relationships that lasted at least one year, analyses used distinguishable dyad actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) analyses (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006) to track influence over two years of the friendship. More satisfied friends were more influential than less satisfied friends on intoxication frequency and truancy. The findings of this study indicate that influence accompanies perceptions of quality. Those with higher perceptions of quality exhibit more influence on friends who perceive relatively lower quality. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

Adolescent friendships are critical for adjustment but are extremely unstable. Dyadic characteristics may put friendships at risk for dissolution, whereas individual characteristics may put individuals at risk for participating in unstable friendships. The present study examines whether dyadic or individual school-related characteristics predict rates of adolescent friendship dissolution. A sample of 410 adolescents (n=201 males, 209 females; M age=13.20 years) participated in 573 reciprocated friendships originating in the 7th grade which were followed from 8th-12th grade. Discrete-time survival analyses evaluated grade 7 dyadic and individual characteristics (sex, age, ethnicity, number of friends, peer acceptance, peer rejection, leadership, and school competence) as predictors of the occurrence and timing of friendship dissolution. Dissimilarity in sex, peer acceptance, and school competence and similarity in leadership predicted higher rates of friendship dissolution; individual characteristics were not significant predictors. Adolescents seeking friendships with more skilled individuals risk suffering the downside of dissimilarity, namely dissolution. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Adolescence is a time filled with opportunities for making choices that have not been encountered before. How do adolescents learn to make these decisions? Maturation of learning processes coupled with dynamic changes in brain systems for learning must be studied in order to determine the mechanisms that underlie adolescent decision making. Research in adults has found contributions from multiple learning systems for decision making. One such system learns incrementally from feedback and reinforcement, and depends in part on the striatum. Another system, in the hippocampus, encodes episodes and allows for flexible use of learned information when required by novel contexts. Recent research in adults explores how these systems can cooperate and compete to facilitate decision making. Ongoing research into learning and decision making processes over the course of adolescence has also implicated the striatum in learning and decision making, but how the hippocampus and striatum interact for decision making remains unknown. In this dissertation I investigate contributions of multiple learning systems for learning and decision making in adolescence. I leverage what is known about underlying brain systems for learning and decision making in adults, and consider how changes in these same systems over adolescence might contribute to behavioral shifts in adolescence. Specifically, in the studies included here, I show how developmental trajectories for learning can enhance performance in adolescents for some types of learning and not others. In the first study I ask how do the striatal and hippocampal systems contribute to feedback based learning in adolescence? I show that in adolescents, both the hippocampus and the striatum contribute to probabilistic feedback learning, and that this type of learning is better in adolescents than in adults. This response to feedback in the hippocampus was found to relate to memory accuracy for features of feedback events only in adolescents. Pushing the finding of hippocampal activation in adolescents, in the second study I ask how does learned value influence flexible decision making in adolescence? Adolescents did not show reliable transfer of value, but there were individual differences in this tendency. Thus, in the third study, I ask which brain regions account for individual differences in learning and value transfer? I show that variability in connectivity at rest between the hippocampus and the vmPFC related to the tendency to transfer value in adults. Taken together, these results contribute to a growing body of research in adolescent decision making, and extend upon our understanding of the mechanisms for learning and decision making systems, and how they change over development.

No description available.

Thesis (MA(Counselling Psychology))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-96)