Becoming more or less mature? The decline of self-control in middle childhood.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the developmental change in self-control and its association with daily stressful events during middle childhood, as well as the factors that contribute to individual differences in the trajectory of self-control. METHOD: A community sample of 302 Singaporean children (42% female, 69% Chinese) and their parents were recruited when the children were age 7. Follow-up assessments were made when the children were ages 8, 9, and 11. Developmental changes were examined using latent growth and autoregressive cross-lagged models. RESULTS: Self-control showed a normative decline over time, and this trajectory was associated with an increase in daily stressful events. There was partial evidence for a reciprocal relationship between self-control and daily stressful events over time. Moreover, the child temperament dimension of effortful control (assessed at age 7) mitigated the decline in self-control, whereas low socioeconomic status predicted lower initial levels of self-control. CONCLUSIONS: This study advances current understanding on the developmental change in self-control during middle childhood, as well as the factors that shape the direction and magnitude of this change.

Developmental Trajectories of Maladaptive Perfectionism in Middle Childhood.

The developmental trajectories of maladaptive perfectionism, along with their consequences and origins, were examined in middle childhood. A sample of Singaporean children and their parents (N = 302) were recruited for a longitudinal study when the children were 7 years old. Subsequent follow-up assessments were made at ages 8, 9, and 11. A multimethod approach was adopted where parent reports, child reports, and observational data on a dyadic interaction task were obtained. Using latent class growth modeling, four distinct classes were obtained for critical self-oriented perfectionism (SOP-C), whereas two classes emerged for socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP). Children with high and/or increasing SOP-C and SPP trajectories constituted 60% and 78% of the sample, respectively. For both SOP-C and SPP, trajectories with high initial status were associated with higher internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Parental intrusiveness and negative parenting predicted high and/or increasing SOP-C trajectories, whereas the child temperament dimension of surgency predicted high SPP trajectory. Both SOP-C and SPP trajectories tended to co-occur, suggesting a mutually reinforcing process. This study yields important findings that help advance current understanding of the emergence and developmental pathways of maladaptive perfectionism in children.

Do parents talk to their adolescent children about sex?--findings from a community survey in Singapore.

INTRODUCTION: Sexually transmitted infections have increased sharply among adolescents both locally and internationally in recent years. Parents play an important role in their children's sexual health development. An integral part of this includes effective parent-child sexuality communication. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A nationwide cross-sectional community-based household survey was conducted in Singapore between August 2008 and March 2009 to assess parents'/caregivers' attitudes and practices regarding caregiver-child sexuality communication. With an overall response rate of 81.4%, 1169 questionnaires from parents/caregivers of children aged 10 to 17 years were analysed. RESULTS: Almost all (94.2%) the caregivers were parents. A majority (>80%) of caregivers considered talking to their children about sexuality issues such as abstinence, consequences of premarital sex and condom use as important. However, a significantly lower percentage (about 60%) felt comfortable and confident doing so. Only 8.3% among them discussed sexual health issues with their children very often, 37.2% sometimes, 22.0% seldom/hardly ever (once or twice) and 32.5% never, in the past year. In the multivariate analysis, caregiver-child sexuality communication was significantly associated with caregivers' relationship to children, ethnicity, educational level, and their perceived levels of comfort and confidence in sexuality communication. CONCLUSION: Caregivers generally felt it was important but were significantly much less comfortable and confident talking about sexuality issues with their children, which leads to a lower frequency of caregiver-child sexuality communication. Educational programmes on adolescent sexual health targeting parents/caregivers are needed. They must be equipped with skills and provided with resources to enable them to talk to their adolescent children about sexuality.

Are you happy for me? How sharing positive events with others provides personal and interpersonal benefits.

Sharing good news with others is one way that people can savor those experiences while building personal and interpersonal resources. Although prior research has established the benefits of this process, called capitalization, there has been little research and no experiments to examine the underlying mechanisms. In this article, we report results from 4 experiments and 1 daily diary study conducted to examine 2 mechanisms relevant to capitalization: that sharing good news with others increases the perceived value of those events, especially when others respond enthusiastically, and that enthusiastic responses to shared good news promote the development of trust and a prosocial orientation toward the other. These studies found consistent support for these effects across both interactions with strangers and in everyday close relationships.

Costs of self-handicapping.

Four studies examined the relation of trait self-handicapping with health-related measures. Study 1 showed that, over time, self-handicapping and maladjustment reinforce each other. Study 2 showed that self-handicappers reported a loss in competence satisfaction which, in turn, mediated the relation of self-handicapping with negative mood. Study 3 found that, over time, self-handicappers report an increase in substance use. Study 4 showed that self-handicappers reported a loss in intrinsic motivation for their jobs. It was suggested that people with unstable (or contingent) self-esteem use self-handicapping to bolster a fragile self-concept.

Finding the person in personal relationships.

The search for dispositional factors that influence the course and conduct of close relationships has long and popular roots. No cogent theory of interpersonal processes would deny that dispositional factors matter, and, furthermore, both scholarly and lay analyses often emphasize them. Although existing research has made progress in understanding how dispositions affect behavior in ongoing relationships, when all is said and done, this progress has been modest. In this paper, we discuss several interlocking theoretical and methodological principles that may facilitate movement to the next (and more sophisticated) generation of theory and research. We draw particularly on interdependence theory to discuss the concepts of relationship and persons-in-relationship. Central to our analysis is the principle that interaction in relationships is an inherently dynamic, temporal, and thoroughly interdependent process that cannot be properly understood from examination of the static, global dispositions of one of its members. To provide grounding for our analysis, we also discuss several specific implications of these concepts for the conduct of research seeking to understand personality in relationships.