Values for gender roles and relations among high school and non-high school adolescents in a Maya community in Chiapas, Mexico.

In the current study, I describe values for gender roles and cross-sex relations among adolescents growing up in a southern Mexican Maya community in which high school was introduced in 1999. A total of 80 adolescent girls and boys, half of whom were attending the new high school, provided their opinions on two ethnographically derived vignettes that depicted changes in gender roles and relations occurring in their community. Systematic coding revealed that adolescents not enrolled in high school tended to prioritise ascribed and complementary gender roles and emphasise the importance of family mediation in cross-sex relations. Adolescents who were enrolled in high school tended to prioritise equivalent and chosen gender roles, and emphasised personal responsibility and personal fulfillment in cross-sex relations. Perceptions of risks and opportunities differed by gender: girls favourably evaluated the expansion of adult female role options, but saw risks in personal negotiations of cross-sex relations; boys emphasised the loss of the female homemaker role, but favourably evaluated new opportunities for intimacy in cross-sex relations

Connecting Societal Change to Value Differences Across Generations: Adolescents, Mothers, and Grandmothers in a Maya Community in Southern Mexico

This study tests the hypothesis that societal change from subsistence agriculture to a market economy with higher levels of formal schooling leads to an increase in individualistic values that guide human development. Values relating to adolescent development and the transition to adulthood were compared across three generations of women in 18 families in the Maya community of Zinacantán in southern Mexico. Grandmothers grew up in Zinacantán when it was a farming community; mothers grew up during the introduction of commerce in the late 1970s and 1980s; daughters are now experiencing adolescence with an opportunity to attend high school in their community. Comparisons were also conducted between 40 female and male adolescents in high school and a matched sample of 40 adolescents who discontinued school after elementary. Values were measured using eight ethnographically derived social dilemmas about adolescent relationships with parents and peers, work and family gender roles, and sexuality and partnering. One character in the dilemmas advocates for interdependent values; a second character advocates for independent values. High school adolescents were more likely to endorse characters articulating independent values than non–high school adolescents, mothers, and grandmothers. Involvement in a market economy was also associated with higher levels of independent value endorsement in the mother and grandmother generations. Results suggest that the introduction of commerce drove value changes between grandmother and mother generations, and now schooling drives change. Qualitative examples of participants’ responses also illustrate how families negotiate shifting values

Emerging Adults' Views on Masspersonal Self-Disclosure and their Bridging Social Capital on Facebook

Masspersonal self-disclosure on social network sites entails new risks and benefits for bridging social capital, defined as social resources such as a connection to and investment in large and heterogeneous collectives, which are important to develop during the transition to adulthood in democratic societies. To better understand motivations and social capital consequences of masspersonal self-disclosure among emerging adults, this mixed-method study examined how U.S. college students view various topics of masspersonal self-disclosure and whether values embedded in their views contributed to their perceived bridging social capital, after accounting for their Facebook use and the diversity of their networks. A total of 208 (110 women, 95 men, 3 non-binary, Mage = 20.28) students completed online questionnaires while referring to their Facebook profiles. Qualitative analyses showed how valuing self-expression, alongside other-focused values, informed participants’ decision-making about masspersonal self-disclosure. Quantitative results showed that valuing self-expression more frequently across topics of self-disclosure predicted bridging social capital; however, the use of Facebook privacy controls and indicators of ethnic and political diversity in students’ networks did not. We discuss the importance of values in understanding emerging adults’ behaviors on social network sites, their generation of bridging social capital, and civic identity development

Private message me s'il vous plait : Preferences for personal and masspersonal communications on Facebook among American and French students

Facebook, a social networking tool used worldwide, provides affordances for public/masspersonal and private/personal communication. Based on previous cross-cultural research demonstrating that masspersonal communication is adaptive in individualistic cultural contexts, we hypothesized that using Facebook to broadcast messages to one's entire network would be relatively more common and appealing to people in countries with greater individualistic values. To test this hypothesis, data were collected in two Western countries differing in levels of individualism, France (204 women, 47 men) and the U.S. (75 women, 89 men), through questionnaires measuring their Facebook use. Results indicated that American college students had larger Facebook networks and used both more masspersonal and personal communication with acquaintances compared to French college students. Masspersonal communication was mediated by network size. French students used more personal communication with friends than American students, but this association was not mediated by network size. These findings suggest that the appeal of masspersonal communication increases as a function of social network size, however, level of engagement in personal communication on Facebook is a function of other cultural differences between the U.S. and France, such as differences in individualistic values

Tempted to Text: College Students’ Mobile Phone Use During a Face-to-Face Interaction With a Close Friend

We examined whether emerging adults would engage in mobile phone use (MPU) when given the opportunity to socialize face-to-face with a close friend in a laboratory setting. Sixty-three U.S. college student friendship dyads rated their friendship quality in an online survey before coming into the laboratory together. When they arrived for their appointment, they were asked to wait together in a room for 5 min. A hidden camera recorded each dyad. Friends then separately rated the quality of the interaction. We coded time spent using mobile phone in seconds. A hierarchical regression conducted at the level of the dyad controlling for friendship quality and gender showed that more MPU was associated with lower quality interactions. We discuss findings in terms of the potential for MPU to interfere with the development of friendship intimacy

Adolescents’ daily face-to-face and computer-mediated communication: Associations with autonomy and closeness to parents and friends

The amount of time adolescents spend communicating via digital technologies such as smartphones has led to concerns that computer-mediated communication (CMC) is displacing face-to-face (FtF) interactions and disrupting social development. Although many studies have examined CMC in adolescents' relationships with friends, few studies have examined the role of CMC in adolescents' renegotiation of closeness and autonomy with parents. To examine this issue, we administered an online daily diary with 169 U.S. adolescents to estimate the time they spend in CMC and FtF interactions and the number of texts they exchange with friends and parents. On the last day of the survey, we asked adolescents about their emotional closeness to friends and parents and their balance of closeness and volition with parents. Overall, we found more evidence for social stimulation than displacement effects of CMC. Texts and CMC time with friends predicted friend closeness after accounting for FtF time with friends; texts with parents predicted parent closeness after accounting for FtF time with parents. We also found support for our hypothesis that CMC would be associated with greater adolescent volition. CMC time with parents predicted greater volitional dependence (volition plus closeness) whereas texts with friends predicted greater independent decision-making (volition plus distance). We discuss how communication technologies are integrated into U.S. adolescents' relationships with friends and parents and how CMC can facilitate, rather than stifle, adolescents' adjustment of autonomy-relatedness with parents and their construction of emotional closeness with friends