Browsing by Subject "emerging adulthood"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Adoption and Emerging Adult-Mother Relationship Quality: Is There an Association?
    (2015-07) Walkner-Spaan, Amy
    Emerging adulthood is a developmental period in which family relationships are important, yet research provides evidence that adoptive families have lower relationship quality compared to their nonadoptive counterparts. Despite some support for a relationship between adoption and adoptee-adoptive mother relationships during emerging adulthood, no systematic investigation has occurred. Utilizing self-report and observational data from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study, two studies employed hierarchical regression analyses to extend knowledge of the relationship between adoption and adoptee-adoptive mother relationships during emerging adulthood. Study 1 investigated the association between adoptee-reported adoption-related variables and the self-reported and observed relationships adoptees have with their adoptive mothers during emerging adulthood. Emerging adult adoptees who felt more positively about adoption had higher closeness and relationship quality and lower conflict with adoptive mothers. Additionally, transracial emerging adult adoptees were found to have lower conflict and higher relationship quality with adoptive mothers compared to inracial adoptees. Study 2 investigated the association between adoptive mother-reported adoption-related variables and the self-reported and observed relationships adoptive mothers have with their adopted children during emerging adulthood. Findings suggest that adoptive mothers' attitudes about adoption and adoption type (inracial vs. transracial) had little association with the relationships they had with their emerging adult adoptees.
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    Applicability of Emerging Adulthood Theory to Ethnically and Educationally Diverse Young Adults
    (2015-05) Mitchell, Lauren
    Emerging adulthood (EA) theory proposes that youth are increasingly postponing adult role transitions such as marriage, parenthood, and committing to long-term careers, and instead experiencing age 18-30 as a time of instability, open possibilities, and identity exploration (Arnett, 2004). However, critics suggest that EA theory applies only to White, college-educated youth (e.g., Hendry & Kloep, 2007; Arnett et al., 2011). The present study addresses this critique by comparing White, college-educated young adults to youth from other racial/ethnic and educational groups. Using data from the Add Health national sample, we compare these groups on outcomes relevant to EA theory: employment, career acquisition, marriage, desire for marriage, and parenthood. Findings suggest that White college graduates youth generally fit Arnett's (2004) description of emerging adulthood, but White youth with only some college experience do not fit the EA pattern well. Furthermore, youth with no college experience frequently diverged from the EA pattern as well. Many groups seemed like emerging adults in some domains but not others. Implications for EA theory and the study of non-students are discussed.
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    Correlates of Measures of Adaptive and Pathological Narcissism
    (2018-07) Paulsen, Jacob
    Social scientists have exhibited increased interest in narcissism in recent years and lively debates and discussion abound about potential narcissism cohort effects and their implications. The most widely used measure of narcissism has been the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), which has a history of being considered a measure of adaptive, subclinical trait narcissism. However, increasing evidence suggests that the NPI captures elements of both adaptive and maladaptive narcissism. In an attempt to better define the nomological network of narcissism and the boundaries between adaptive and maladaptive narcissism, the current studies included multiple self-report measures of many relevant constructs and also included experimental manipulation and behavioral measures. Analyses conducted on data gathered from two university undergraduate samples (Sample 1, N = 227; Sample 2, N = 148) provided increasing evidence that the NPI does indeed measure some maladaptive or pathological aspects of narcissism. Narcissistic Entitlement, Exploitativeness, and Exhibitionism, as captured by the NPI, were associated with a multitude of negative, maladaptive outcomes (e.g., elements of psychopathy and pathological narcissism, Machiavellianism, and various forms of aggression). Thus, these studies have provided increased clarity regarding narcissism’s nomological network, with special emphasis on maladaptive and pathological elements and associations. The scientific community continues to debate and present competing evidence of possible narcissism cohort effects in recent decades. The current studies have provided increased clarity with respect to one aspect of such debates; if NPI scores have indeed been increasing across recent decades, this is a cause for significant societal concern.
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    Hurtful Messages and Self-Concept: Parental Pessimistic Messages and Emerging Adults’ Possible Selves
    (2022-11) Cho, Min Kyong
    The present study experimentally investigated college students’ perceived message hurtfulness (PMH) associated with a parent’s pessimistic message about their future. The originality of this study is its 2 x 4 x 3 factorial design, which included 24 different combinations of self-perception and parental pessimistic messages as the independent variables and PMH as the dependent variable. Four hundred eighty-four participants completed the online, cross-sectional survey. They were randomly assigned to a writing exercise for priming the self (best vs. worst possible self) and its domain (subjective well-being, personal relationship, career, and general). After the priming exercises, participants were randomly assigned to read one of three hypothetical situations involving a child’s receiving a father’s pessimistic comment on the future (a child’s future on their subjective well-being, relationship, and career). After reading, participants assessed the degree of PMH. ANOVA and multiple regression were used for data analysis. Neither analysis elicited statistically significant results at the .05 level for the influences of self-priming factors on PMH (H1) or domain homogeneity of PMH (H2). Although the manipulation did not work, this study found that biological sex was the most significant factor of PMH at the .05 level. More research is needed to further explore biological sex to better understand the differences between children’s sex and PMH in a parent-child relationship.
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    Psychophysiological Responses Among White Liberals to Discussing Race and Privilege
    (2022-08) Leneman, Keira
    Discussing race, racism, and privilege appears to be uncomfortable for many White individuals, as evidenced by a range of defensive emotional and behavioral responses. Understanding what leads to these reactions will be critical for interrupting and reshaping them. In this dissertation, I propose that physiological stress responses (e.g., fight-flight-freeze) may be a key uninvestigated component of defensive White reactions to critical race conversations. For this study, I employed an experimental design to test whether being randomly assigned to discuss race in a social evaluative context elicited more pronounced physiological and affective discomfort responses than in an active control condition. Physiological output measures indexing activity of both the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and autonomic nervous system were collected across the experimental session and compared across treatment and control groups. Forty-two White, liberal emerging adults (33 female) participated in this study from March 2021 through April 2022. Overall, results suggested that discussing race and privilege in a socially evaluative context does elicit race-specific social evaluation concerns (i.e., concern of looking like a bad person and looking racist). However, neither physiological stress reactivity nor affective discomfort was significantly elevated in the group discussing race and privilege. In fact, physiological responses were minimal across the full sample. However, a significant interaction was found between treatment group and affective discomfort when looking at RSA reactivity to the speech. Participants that gave a speech about race and reported moderately low affective discomfort also displayed greater parasympathetic nervous system activation during the speech. Future analyses will explore hypotheses using qualitative analyses of video-recordings and transcripts from the session. More work is needed with a more diverse sample of White individuals (e.g., across age, socioeconomic status, ideology) as well as under more ecologically valid scenarios.