The current study tested the developmental significance of both early adolescent sleep quantity and quality for academic competence and internalizing and externalizing problems over the course of 2 ...years. As part of an accelerated longitudinal study, data were collected from N = 586 Czech adolescents (Mage = 12.34 years, SD = .89, 58.4% female). Data analyses included a series of logistic regressions that controlled for adolescent sex, age, family structure, and socioeconomic status. Findings showed that sleep quality at Wave 1 predicted developmental changes 1 year later (Wave 3) in depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem (ORrange = 1.7-1.8) and 2 years later (Wave 5) in externalizing behaviors (OR = 2.6). Importantly, despite the associations observed with Wave 3 anxiety and deviance, Wave 1 sleep quantity was unrelated to subsequent developmental changes in adjustment measures, both 1 and 2 years later. No sleep effects at all were observed on a variety of measures of academic competence. Study findings underscore the developmental significance of sleep and indicate greater salience of sleep quality vis-à-vis sleep quantity. They also replicate some of the observed relationships found in previous longitudinal work on the sleep-mood link but extend the sleep-adolescent adjustment literature in a number of important ways.
Related to some inconsistent evidence in the literature, the current study tested the links between three parenting styles and four measures of substance use in samples of adolescents and young ...adults from ten, socio-economically diverse countries in Southeastern Europe (N = 10,909, 50.3% males, M
age
= 21.70, SD = 4.5); it also tested whether these links were moderated by a measure of social progress. Results indicated that only authoritative parenting style was negatively associated with substance use; both authoritarian and permissive parenting styles were positively associated with substance use. The country-level effect on substance use was modest, yet significant; it explained between 1% and 4% of the total variance. Findings also provided some evidence of a moderation effects by social progress. Exploratory follow-up HLM analyses also provided evidence of significant country level social progress effects on alcohol use, soft drug use, and hard drug use; however, no significant cross-level interactions effects were found. Key study implications include positive effects by both authoritarian and permissive parenting on young adult substance use, but importantly, negative ones by authoritative parenting. Findings have important implications for potential intervention and prevention efforts, in addition to addressing potential country-level differences.
The current investigation tested two tenets from self-control theory regarding its cross-national validity and applicability, namely the extent to which (1) parenting behaviors (closeness and ...monitoring) were associated with low self-control, and (2) the extent to which opportunities (two competing operationalizations: routine activities or peer deviance) and low self-control independently (and synergistically) predicted deviant behaviors.
Data were collected as part of the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-2) from 28 cultures, from seventh, eighth, and ninth grade adolescents (N = 66,859), and analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Country level variables included years in school, size of the prison population, unemployment rate, and life expectancy.
(1) Low self-control significantly varied at both the individual- and country-levels; both closeness and monitoring negatively predicted low self-control. At the country level, more years in school and a greater prison population were positively associated with low self-control, while life expectancy was negatively associated. (2) Deviance significantly varied at the individual and country levels. Low self-control and opportunities (peer deviance and routine activities) uniquely explained variance in deviance.
Findings provide support for the cross-cultural application of self-control theory.
•Parental closeness and monitoring negatively predicted low self-control (LSC)•Low self-control and greater opportunities each predicted deviance•Country-level years schooling and life expectancy predicted LSC and deviance•Immigrant status was unrelated to variability in low self-control
Introduction
School burnout remains a prevalent problem among adolescents; it is associated with low academic achievement and school dropout risk, in turn linked to a whole host of deleterious ...developmental outcomes. The current longitudinal study sought to better understand the developmental course of school burnout by testing whether poor sleep and problematic internet use each uniquely and additively explained the variance in school burnout over time.
Method
Data were collected four times over 18 months, 6 months apart from N = 405 adolescents, grades 9 to 11.
Results
Sleep quality, but not quantity, was significantly associated with the school burnout intercept (β = −0.29); no effects were found for the slope. Problematic internet use was also significantly associated with the intercept (β = .44), but not the slope. In a combined model, both sleep quality and problematic internet use significantly predicted the school burnout intercept. The slope was only predicted by age (β = −0.21).
Conclusions
The study found partial support for the hypotheses that both poor sleep quality and problematic internet use predicted school burnout, intercept only, not the rate of change. The evidence suggests that school burnout increased across high school; however, the rate of increase slowed with age. In contrast to some previous work, study findings highlight the importance of separately considering both poor sleep and problematic internet use in understanding the development of school burnout during adolescence.
N = 229
The present study tested the links between perceived maternal and paternal parenting and internalizing and externalizing problems across ten cultures (China, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, ...Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States). Self-report data were collected from
N
= 12,757 adolescents (M
age
= 17.13 years, 48.4% female). Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models tested whether: (1) the six parenting processes (closeness, support, monitoring, communication, peer approval, and conflict; Adolescent Family Process, Short Form (AFP-SF, 18 items) varied across cultures, and (2) the links between parenting processes and measures of internalizing and externalizing problems varied across cultures. Study findings indicated measurement invariance (configural and metric) of both maternal and paternal parenting processes and that the parenting—internalizing/externalizing problems links did not vary across cultures. Findings underscore the ubiquitous importance of parenting processes for internalizing and externalizing problems across diverse Asian, European, Eurasian, and North American cultures.
The current study tested the links between routine activities and deviance across twenty-eight countries, thus, the potential generalizability of the routine activities framework.
Data were collected ...as part of the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-2) from 28 cultures, from seventh, eighth, and ninth grade adolescents (N = 66,859). Routine activities were operationalized as family, peer, solitary, and community activities. Country-level predictors included unemployment rate, prison population, life expectancy, and educational attainment.
Three-level, hierarchical linear modeling (individual, school, and country) was used to test both individual and country-level effects on deviance. Findings supported predictions by the routine activities framework, where routine activities explained 3.1% unique variance in deviance, above and beyond effects by background variables as well as low self-control. Models showed that the effects of family activities, solitary activities, and peer activities were stronger in countries with higher life expectancies. In addition, mean educational attainment increased the effect of solitary activities on deviance, while the effect of family activities on deviance was lower in countries with higher levels of unemployment.
The routine activities framework generalized across these 28 countries in how it explains deviance; some unique country-level effects were found that conditioned person-context links.
•Routine activities: family, peer, solitary, and community activities•Youth in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades (N = 66,859), across 28 cultures (3 levels)•Tested effects of unemployment, prison population, life expectancy, and education•Routine activities explained unique variance in deviance, above low self-control•Years of education, life expectancy significant predictors of adolescent deviance
The present empirical work aims to discern the underlying mechanisms of purported developmental links among several key human characteristics including language skills, self-control, empathy, and ...psychopathic traits. Accordingly, three interrelated studies are carried out testing the longitudinal associations of various kinds (e.g., direct, indirect, bidirectional) among these constructs. All three studies are conceptually framed in consideration of the extant research and relevant theories. They employ the data set provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of Early Child Care and Youth Development Study of N = 1,364 children followed from infancy through middle adolescence.
Study 1 tested the longitudinal bidirectional associations between language development, measured by the Letter-Word Identification and Picture Vocabulary tests of the WJ-R (McGrew, 1993), and self-control, measured by the Self-Control of SRSS (Gresham & Elliot, 1990) parent- report, from age 4.5 to 10.5 years. The data were analyzed using an autoregressive cross-lagged panel model with latent variables. Findings provided limited empirical support for the proposed bidirectional effects, indicating that once initial correlation between the two constructs, as well as their temporal stability is accounted for, most directional paths become non-significant, in particular, from self-control to language. However, the paths from language development to self- control, ages 4.5 to 6.5 and 6.5 to 8.5 were statistically significant and positive, suggesting more salient directional association from language to self-control.
The goal of the Study 2 was twofold. It tested 1) whether there is a common factorial structure underlying empathy, psychopathy, and self-control, and 2) it tested the three main predictors, including positive parenting, easy temperament, and general intelligence, whether these all contribute uniquely to the development of empathy, psychopathic traits and self-control. Structural equation modeling and factor analysis techniques were used the test the research hypotheses. The findings revealed that despite considerable overlap at a construct level, there was a significant unique variance that remained unaccounted. They also demonstrated that all three variables shared one common developmental antecedent, namely positive parenting during infancy and early childhood. In addition, intelligence uniquely predicted empathy and psychopathic traits but not self-control, whereas temperament did not significantly predict any of the three dependent variables examined.
Study 3 examined the salience test the salience of the Eisenberg’s (2005) model of empathy development, according to which the ability for empathy stems from two main individual characteristics, temperamental regulation and emotionality. It also investigated the impact of early socialization experiences not only on adolescent empathy but also on its proposed predictors. Infancy socialization indicators included: maternal sensitivity, quality of home environment and secure attachment, assessed at 6-36 months by mother-reports and/or observational accounts. Effortful control indicators included: attentional focusing and inhibitory control; whereas negative emotionality included anger and sadness, all assessed at the age of 4.5 years. Empathy was assessed at the age of 15 by adolescent self-report measure. Findings indicated that childhood temperamental traits did not significantly predict adolescent empathy, nor their interactive effects were supported by the data. In contrast, the role of early socialization influences was evidenced by significant positive association, uniquely accounting for a considerable amount of variance explained in adolescent empathy.
We hypothesized that mutations in several genes disrupt oxidative metabolism, increasing the risk of developing tumors and their malignancy in patients with a family predisposition to cancer. The ...purpose of our study was to assess the characteristics of oxidative metabolism in patients with malignant and benign tumor with and without a family history of cancer and identify the marker predicting the likelihood of malignancy.
We conducted a study on patients with thyroid pathology (thyrotoxicosis, benign tumor pathology of the thyroid gland, and thyroid cancer) who underwent treatment at LLC "Oncology Scientific Research Center" in Tbilisi, Georgia between 2020-2021. In patients' blood the thyroid hormones content, the oxidative metabolism parameters (activity of nonenzymatic antioxidant system (TAA), malondialdehyde (MDA) content), geometrical and rheological (deformability index (EDI), membrane proteins content) characteristics of erythrocytes were determined.
in the patient's blood serum with benign tumor (47 patients) MDA exceeded (p<0.005) and TAA decreased (p<0.005) in comparison to the control level; in patients with thyroid cancer (35 patients), MDA also exceeded (p<0.005), while TAA increased (p<0.005) up to the control level. In patients with benign and malignant tumors, the size of erythrocytes increased compared to the control indicators (p<0.005); in patients with thyroid cancer and benign tumors with a family history of cancer (29 patients) EDI increased (p<0.005), content of GLUT1 in erythrocyte membranes decreased (p<0.005) compared to the control level.
Alterations in redox metabolism play a crucial role in tumor formation; an imbalance between anti-/pro-oxidant systems may contribute to tumor formation and support its progression into a more malignant state. Thyroid cancer is characterized by a reduction in erythrocyte deformability, related to TSH levels. These alterations are less detectable in patients with benign thyroid tumors with a family history of cancer.
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