| 1. |
- Besic, Nejra, 1980-
(författare)
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At first blush : the impact of shyness on early adolescents' social worlds
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Shyness as a behavioral characteristic has been in focus of research in psychology for a number of decades. Adolescent shyness has, however, been relatively overlooked compared with studies conducted on children and adults. This dissertation concentrated on adolescent shyness, aiming to attain a better comprehension about how shyness during this developmental phase might affect, and be affected by social relationships. The first aim of this dissertation was to study in which way shyness influences and is influenced by significant people in adolescents’ lives: peers, friends, and parents. Study III showed that shy youths socialized each other over time into becoming even more shy. Study VI demonstrated that youths’ shyness affected parenting behaviors, more so than parent’s behaviors affected youth shyness. The second aim of this dissertation was to investigate what shyness means for adolescents’ choices of relationships with friends, whereas the third aim focused on whether adolescents’ ways of dealing with peers would have consequences for their internal and external adjustment. As Study I showed, youths might take on off-putting, startling appearances in order to cope with their shyness. This strategy seemed, nonetheless, not particularly successful for the shy youths in terms of emotional adjustment. Study III showed that adolescents who were shy tended to choose others similar to themselves in shyness as friends. Study II showed that shyness might indeed have some positive implications for adolescent development, as it was found to serve a protective role in the link between advanced maturity and various types of problem behaviors. Overall, the findings point to some gender differences regarding all of the abovementioned processes. In sum then, the studies in this dissertation show that even though youths’ shy, socially fearful characteristics affect their emotional adjustment and those around them, shy youths are part of a larger social arena where they are active agents in shaping their own development. Although adolescent shyness might be linked with several negative outcomes, however, it might be other people’s reactions to socially fearful behaviors that help create and/or maintain these outcomes over time.
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| 2. |
- Besic, Nejra, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Shyness as basis for friendship selection and socialization in a youth social network
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Shy children and adolescents have previously been found to have friends with similarly shy, withdrawn behavioral characteristics. How peers might socialize shyness over time has, however, not been thoroughly investigated before. Our network included 834 youths (339 girls, and 495 boys; M = 14.29), followed for three years. We used the social network analysis software, SIENA, to analyze the data. The results show that those youths who are shy are less popular and choose fewer friends in the network. They also tend to choose friends who are shy, and over time they will influence each other into becoming more shy – over and above other effects. Finally, girls’ shyness is more influenced than boys’ by their friends’ shyness levels. These results show the significance of looking at shy youths’ friendships over time, and embedded in social networks.
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| 3. |
- Persson, Stefan, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Adolescents' conceptions of family democracy : does their own behavior play a role?
- 2004
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Ingår i: European Journal of Developmental Psychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1740-5629 .- 1740-5610. ; 1:4, s. 317-330
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Much research on family democracy has started from the assumption that parents produce the democratic climate and adolescent behavior is an outcome of it. In this study, we asked whether and how adolescent behavior contributes to family democracy, using both parents’ and adolescents’ behaviors as predictors of family democracy. Participants were 1,057 15-to-16-year-olds in a city in central Sweden. The results showed that adolescents’ conceptions of family democracy involve both their own and their parents’ behavior. When controlling for parents’ behaviors, adolescents’ behaviors added significantly to the prediction of democracy. Parents’ warmth and the adolescents’ openness to communication seem to be two major aspects of the democratic workings in the family. Hence, the democratic workings of the family cannot be described fully if adolescents’ behavior is ignored.
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| 4. |
- Besic, Nejra, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Punks, Goths, and Other Eye-Catching Peer Crowds : Do They Fulfill a Function for Shy Youths?
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of research on adolescence. - Hillsdale, N.J. : Blackwell Publishing. - 1050-8392 .- 1532-7795. ; 19:1, s. 113-121
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Adolescent peer crowds such as Punks and Goths are mainly identified by their strikingly unusual or even shocking appearances. Although many studies find these crowds, few have tried to explain why some youths take on these startling or shocking appearances. We hypothesized that an off-putting appearance is a way to cope with behavioral inhibition by limiting social contacts. Using data from 1,200 7th - 11th graders, we compared peer crowds characterized by their startling appearance (“Radical” crowds) with three theoretically relevant comparison groups. Results showed that youths affiliating with Radical crowds were more inhibited than other youths, including those in crowds previously shown to be shy or socially anxious. Inhibited Radicals, however, had poorer emotional adjustment than inhibited youths in other crowds. If Radical styles are a way for inhibited youths to cope by limiting social contacts, the strategy does not seem to be beneficial for emotional adjustment.
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| 5. |
- Besic, Nejra, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Shy adolescents' perceptions of parental overcontrol and emotional coldness : examining bidirectional links
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Two kinds of parental behaviors—overcontrol and emotional coldness—have been linked with children’s shy behaviors. The questions we addressed are whether this applies to adolescent shyness, and whether shyness in itself might also affect parental behaviors. The participants were 916 7th-9th graders in a longitudinal project. We used a cross-lagged path model with three time points. Shyness predicted an increase in feeling overly controlled by parents at Time 2, which then predicted an increase in shyness at Time 3. Shyness also predicted an increase in perceived coldness-rejection by parents at Time 2. Finally, shyness predicted decreases in parental warmth at both timepoints. The effects did not differ for boys and girls. These results show that adolescent shyness predicts parental behaviors, though perhaps less strongly than in childhood. They also suggest some bidirectional effects in which parental responses to shy youths might serve to strengthen the shyness.
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| 6. |
- Besic, Nejra, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Shyness as protective factor in the link between advanced maturity and early adolescent problem behavior
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Advanced maturity in early adolescence has previously been linked with several problem behaviors. In this study, we examine whether shyness and gender might moderate this link. The participants were 787 early adolescents (Mage = 13.73; 401 girls and 386 boys), followed for one year. We conducted moderation analyses with shyness and gender as moderators of the links between advanced maturity and problem behaviors (drunkenness and intercourse) and between one problem behavior and another. Protective effects of shyness were found for both boys and girls. For high-risk behaviors (risky drinking behaviors and one-night stands) protective effects were found for boys. Controlling for romantic involvement did not alter the moderation effects, thus failing to support the idea that protection was due to shy youths not being drawn into advanced peer groups by romantic partners. Thus, shyness might serve as protective factor against problem behaviors in early adolescence.
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| 7. |
- Kerr, Margaret, et al.
(författare)
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A reinterpretation of parental monitoring in longitudinal perspective
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of research on adolescence. - Malden, uSA : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1050-8392 .- 1532-7795. ; 20:1, s. 39-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A commonly used measure of parental monitoring is parents’ knowledge of adolescents’ daily activities. This measure has been criticized on the grounds that parents get more knowledge about teenagers’ daily activities through willing youth disclosure than through their own active monitoring efforts, but this claim was based on cross-sectional data. In the present study, we re-examine this claim with longitudinal data over two years from 938 7th and 8th graders and their parents. Youth disclosure was a significant longitudinal predictor of parental knowledge in single-rater and cross-rater models. Neither measure of parents’ monitoring efforts—control or solicitation—was a significant predictor. In analyses involving delinquency, parental monitoring efforts did not predict changes in delinquency over time, but youth disclosure did. We conclude that because knowledge measures do not seem to represent parental monitoring efforts, the conclusions from studies using these measures should be reinterpreted.
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| 8. |
- Persson, Stefan, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Youth behaviors that undermine family democracy : do they change the family climate as a whole?
- 2009
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Family democracy is considered important for many reasons, but little is known about what determines or affects it. One cross-sectional study showed that youths’ perceptions of democracy in the family are determined by their own behaviors as well as their parents’ (Persson et al., 2004). However, only one youth per family was included in their analyses. This leaves open the possibility that youths’ behavior only had implications for their own relationships with parents. In the present study it is tested whether youths behaviors can change the democratic family as a whole. Using three waves of data from 146 same-sex sibling pairs aged ten to fifteen years at Time 1, we examined whether youths delinquency, defiance, and non-disclosure had consequences for the democratic family climate as a whole. Results showed that older siblings’ democracy-undermining behaviors (and changes in these) predicted subsequent changes in younger sibling’s perceptions of family democracy. The findings support a family systems interpretation of the democratic workings of the family as a whole in that the behavior of one youth in the family had consequences for a sibling’s perception of family democracy.
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| 9. |
- Stattin, Håkan, et al.
(författare)
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Adolescents' perceptions of the democratic functioning in their families
- 2010
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Ingår i: European Psychologist. - : Hogrefe & Huber Publishers. - 1016-9040 .- 1878-531X. ; 16:1, s. 32-42
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Democratic family functioning has traditionally been interpreted as effects of parenting, leaving little room for the child in shaping the democratic climate. Based on a bidirectional view of family relationships, we argued that families characterized by openness and fair treatment should be the families adolescents experience as democratic. It should be the same families where parents know much about their adolescents’ whereabouts outside home. We used a longitudinal study following a group of 13-15 year old adolescents (N = 527) over two years, and we combined variable- and person-oriented methods. The results using variable-oriented methods confirmed that both adolescent and parental behaviors were concurrently, prospectively, and bidirectionally linked to adolescents’ perceptions of the democratic family climate. Using person-oriented methods, we found that adolescents perceived a highly democratic family climate in families characterized by both parental and adolescent openness and parental fair treatment. Parental knowledge was also highest in these families. Over time, increases or decreases in family functioning corresponded to increases or decreases in adolescents’ perceptions of their influence in family matters and in parental knowledge. We conclude that conceptions of the democratic functioning of the family have to include the behaviors of both parents and adolescents and that mutual responsivity is a marker of the democratic family functioning.
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