Social Mobility, Adolescents\u27 Psycho-Social Dispositions, and Parenting

Psycho-social dispositions and parental influence are central in early status attainment models. We apply the Social Structure and Personality framework to investigate the contributions of adolescents’ psycho-social dispositions to social mobility, and then the contributions of parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and parenting to adolescents’ psycho-social dispositions. The Kaplan Longitudinal and Multigenerational Study includes data on two generations of respondents: the first-generation of respondents was observed from seventh grade in 1971 until midlife, and the second-generation, their children, was observed from adolescence to young adulthood. We find that upward social mobility is inhibited by poor psycho-social dispositions, particularly by negative self-feelings. SES, in turn, also affects psycho-social dispositions. Family income is more relevant (i.e., variance explained) than parental education for adolescents’ locus of control, while parental education is more relevant for adolescents’ negative self-feelings. Finally, our findings indicate that parenting can disrupt the cycle of social reproduction, with lower SES adolescents exhibiting lower levels of negative self-feelings if their parents are more attached or less authoritarian

Son Preference In China: Why Is It Stronger In Rural Areas?

The imbalanced sex ratio of the population in China has become a serious problem for the society. In recent decades considerably more male babies than female babies have been born in China due to people\u27s preference for having male children. This trend is more prominent in rural areas than in urban areas. In this paper, we try to understand why rural areas have stronger son preference than urban areas. We hypothesize that the relationship between residential location and son preference is mediated by education, son\u27s economic and cultural utilities, gender role beliefs, and patriarchal beliefs. To test these mediation effects we use the data from Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2006. The results indicate that the stronger son preference in rural areas is explained by lower educational level and the perception of son\u27s economic and cultural utilities. It is not explained by gender role beliefs or patriarchal beliefs. In concluding remarks we offer suggestions for policy makers. © 2011 Population Review Publications

Residential Energy Conservation: The Effects Of Education And Perceived Behavioral Control

This study examines the effects of values, norms, perceived behavioral control, and education on intentions to save energy and actual energy-saving behaviors among residential energy customers (N = 329). A linear regression with ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates showed that environmental values, energy-saving norms, and perceived behavioral control did not have uniform effects on energy behaviors and the intention to conserve was not significantly correlated with energy-using behaviors. However, there is a link between perceived behavioral control and energy-saving behaviors. Respondents with higher educational attainment had greater intentions to conserve energy and an increased likelihood of engaging in energy-conscious behavior like turning off the television more frequently. Further exploration revealed that a considerable portion of the effect of education was due to the mediating effect of perceived behavioral control and not due to increased pro-environmental values or norms

Long-Term Effects Of Adolescent Negative Self-Feelings On Adult Deviance: Moderated By Neighborhood Disadvantage, Mediated By Expectations

This paper tests two competing hypotheses, derived from general strain and middle class measuring rod theories, regarding the moderating effects of neighborhood disadvantage on the long-term relationship between adolescent negative self-feelings and adult deviance. The results from longitudinal data support the middle class measuring rod theory: adolescent negative self-feelings increase adult deviance only in middle status neighborhoods and not in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Furthermore, this effect in middle status neighborhoods is mediated by low expectations of the future in while still in adolescence. Our findings show the importance of studying the combination of both the social psychological and the contextual influences on deviance. © 2012 Southern Criminal Justice Association

Cumulative And Relative Disadvantage As Long-Term Determinants Of Negative Self-Feelings

We analyze the long-term effects of neighborhood poverty and crime on negative self-feelings of young adults. Cumulative and relative disadvantage explanations are tested with the interactive effect of (1) neighborhood and individual-level economic disadvantage and (2) neighborhood crime and economic disadvantage. Results from a longitudinal study following adolescents to young adulthood show that the development of negative self-feelings (a combination of depression, anxiety, and self-derogation) is determined by relative, rather than cumulative disadvantage. The poor in affluent neighborhoods have the highest negative self-feelings, while the relatively wealthy in poor neighborhoods have the lowest negative self-feelings. Similarly, we find the highest increase in negative self-feelings is found in an affluent neighborhood with crime and not in a poor neighborhood with crime. © 2012 Alpha Kappa Delta

Adolescent Noncompliance And Occupational Attainment In Transitional Societies

The rapid accumulation of biological network data is creating an urgent need for computational methods capable of integrative network analysis. This paper discusses a suite of algorithms that we have developed to discover biologically significant patterns that appear frequently in multiple biological networks: coherent dense subgraphs, frequent dense vertex-sets, generic frequent subgraphs, differential subgraphs, and recurrent heavy subgraphs. We demonstrate these methods on gene co-expression networks, using the identified patterns to systematically annotate gene functions, map genome to phenome, and perform high-order cooperativity analysis. © 2011 The Author(s)

Motives and Contexts of Identity Change: A Case for Network Effects.” Social Psychology Quarterly 68(4

We attempt here to interrelate various theories of identity 1 and to describe how various social contexts and cognitive motives influence the process of identity change. Although many strands of literature describe identity dynamics, two are considered primary: identity theory We develop a novel way to operationalize category and network contexts in order to link contexts to motives, and we argue that they jointly influence processes of identity change. We establish these links by analyzing unique data on thousands of students in a natural setting, namely the high school. These students report nearly complete information on their social networks, identity perceptions, and crowd affiliations over time Social Psychology Quarterly #2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland Delivered by Ingenta to : unknown Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:11:47 290 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY Our analyses reveal a surprising finding: network relations play a major role in adolescent identity development, but identity dynamics play only a minor role in adolescent network change. Thus, in most instances, social relations change and various perceptions of identity imbalance follow; this process in turn motivates youths to change their identity over time. The reverse does not hold, however: characteristics of categories and identity motives do not lead adolescents to change their networks over time. Therefore the contexts of immediate social networks are found to be primary in identity formation during adolescence. MOTIVES AND CONTEXTS OF IDENTITY CHANGE Identity change has been discussed widely in the framework of identity theory (IT) In contrast, IT describes immediate social networks as contexts and contends that relational configurations influence actors' social motives for identity change. According to IT, the self consists of a collection of "role identities." Persons switch role identities depending on the salience of those identities to the context. According to In our analysis we focus on the links between these contexts and motives, and develop an empirical test in which both are considered. We argue that internal motives are key factors in identity development and that contexts determine the rise of such motives. Below, we elaborate the specific motives and contexts involved in identity formation, and we hypothesize their expected patterns of interrelation. Motives for Identity Consistency Although we recognize a variety of motivational factors influencing identity formation, we focus on a key motivation whereby actors seek to form consistent or balanced identities. 2 The drive to establish identity consistency occurs when an actor believes that his or her identity fails to live up to some standard. Theories of identity differ as to the standard they apply In comparison, derivatives of IT, such as self-verification theory, maintain that the standard is less internal and personal than external and social Category and Network Contexts The perception of imbalance or identity inconsistency is shaped partly by actors' experiences in various social contexts. SIT and IT focus on different aspects of social contexts to characterize these experiences. SIT contends that category traits and their comparison in intergroup relations act as contexts of motives for identity change (Stets and Burke 2000:226). In contrast, IT contends that network configurations or intragroup relations act as contexts of motives for identity change (Deaux and Martin 2003:106-107). Neither theory, however, has operationalized these contextual features consistently in empirical tests. The context that SIT considers is defined by category traits. Categories are more than labels; they act as constitutive rules or representational systems of meaning that are recognized by wide segments of a society Category labels can reflect notions of status, permanence, size, and other meanings that influence the actor's motive to improve his or her situation. For example, the comparison of categories entails an evaluative dimension whereby notions of better or worse are established and a hierarchy of cat-#2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland Specifically, we hypothesize that the increased size and status of a category makes perceived identity imbalance and identity change less likely (Hypotheses Hc1 and Hc2; see IT proposes a theory that competes with SIT's category effects, and describes personal, day-to-day relationships as an immediate context defining the salience of particular roles. According to IT, personal relations affect the hierarchy of salience, and in turn influence identity dynamics. Recent work in IT alludes vaguely to particular social network concepts, and argues that various network contexts can guide actors' perceptions of identity salience The most straightforward concept is that of density. Identity theorists argue that dense reinforcing ties are more likely to make a given identity salient to actors involved in those ties (Stryker and Burke 2000:289). By contrast, the concept of homogeneity is only implied by expressions such as "the depth of the ties to others through an identity" (Stets and Burke 2000:230; Another network concept considered in IT makes a vague reference to competing memberships and how they may lead to problems or confusion about identity salience (Stryker and Burke 2000:290). The notion of competing memberships implies that actors encounter competing group demands. Therefore, these individuals occupy a particular social position of brokerage or bridging Finally, prominent network positions also influence identity formation. As individuals become more central and more popular, they exert greater influence and control over their peers EMPIRICAL STUDY Method The data we employ include information on both friendship networks and identity selections in high schools. It is a relatively straightforward task to measure network positions and relations 3 using friendship data. Identities, however, are more difficult to operationalize because almost any category or referent can be an identity. We use the literature on adolescent crowds In contrast to the crowd literature, we focus on how actors select these affiliations as reflecting their self, and therefore use crowd labels in ways that enable us to Crowds as actor-selected identities are consistent with SIT's discussion of categories and IT's discussion of roles. Therefore, they are suitable for analyzing the effects of contexts and motivational processes on identity development. We draw information from a study of nearly 6,000 students in six California high schools in the San Francisco-San Jose metropolitan area. 4 These students participated in schoolwide surveys administered during the Because this is an almost fully enumerated sample of students in six schools, 5 we can use it to acquire reliable network measures on students' interpersonal relations. The combination of usable network and identity (crowd selection) data is not found in any other large-scale studies of adolescents or adults; therefore it represents a unique and valuable data set for studying the interrelation of social contexts with identity. Crowds carry a variety of labels, such as Brains, Nerds, Normals, Jocks, Populars, Partyers, Burnouts, Mexicans, and Asians. All are category designations recognized within each school, and often are recognized across schools. Crowd labels were acquired from these six schools using a series of informant interviews that developed a list of labels which respondents would recognize at each site (for discussion of methods, see Respondents were presented with a list of these crowd labels and then were asked to identify their crowd affiliation from various perspectives: (1) Ideal: "If you could belong to any crowd, which one would you most want to be part of?" (If none, write "none") (2) Actual: "Which crowd would you personally say that you belong to?" (If you don't think you belong to any of the crowds on the list, write "none") (3) Public: "Write the name of the one crowd that your classmates would say you belong to." We focus on two forms of perceived identity imbalance. On the one hand, actors may believe that their actual membership is not their ideal one. The inconsistency between ideal and actual crowd affiliations captures the actor's perception of an internal identity imbalance or self-discrepancy. 6 On the other hand, actors may believe that they are in a crowd in which others do not see them; this suggests that the actor perceives an external identity inconsistency or lack of selfverification. We construct these measures as simple dummy variables for mismatch in crowd selections: 7 Internal identity imbalance: Both internal and external inconsistencies of membership affiliation are interesting dependent variables because they are proxies for personal nonfulfillment and social #2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland 4 The original study was conducted in nine schools. We use the six for which social network and social identity data are available. One of the six is in San Jose; the rest are located on the San Francisco peninsula. 5 Every student in the six schools who was present in school on a particular day was asked to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaires were administered during one long class period, usually in their English (or social studies) class. The proportion of completed questionnaires was greater than 85 percent of the total registration of the six schools. 6 We omitted students who left identity items blank, selected "Don't Know," or remarked that they were uncertain. We performed Heckman's sample selection test to determine whether omission of these respondents biased our models of the dependent variables. No significant effect (p < .05) was found for the Mills ratio 7 See Appendix anomie. Moreover, they reveal the depth at which contexts can influence actors' perceptions of themselves and their crowd position. Primarily, however, we focus on the process of identity change. We hypothesize that contexts, and especially network conditions, exert strong indirect effects on identity change via perceptions of internal and external identity imbalance. To test these hypotheses, we construct a measure for social identity change as the mismatch in crowd affiliations over time (Actual crowd t 1 ≠ Actual crowd t 2 ). Thus, if a respondent said that his or her actual identity was "Popular" at time 1 and "Druggie" at time 2, it was recorded as a change in social identity. 8 At the end of our analyses, we perform additional tests to see whether social network change is influenced by the same mechanisms as identity change. The variable for social network change is constructed by first identifying the number of friendships from wave 1 surveys that are not reported again in wave 2 surveys. We then divide the number of dropped ties by the total number of ties listed in wave 1. 9 We hypothesize that the mechanisms associated with identity change will be the same for network change. Independent Variables We cluster the independent variables into three sets: control variables (background characteristics and school memberships), category or crowd traits, and network conditions (our hypothesized effects). Control variables. We use various control variables to account for the effects of student's background (see We measure racial salience as the percentage of students in the school who are of the same race as the respondent. 10 We argue that race influences perceptions of identity inconsistency and identity change when the individual students belong to a numerical racial minority in their school Student's age is included because identity inconsistency and change are associated with adolescent development #2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland 8 A good deal of attrition occurred in wave 2 because of graduations, students moving, and nonresponses. We performed a Heckman sample selection test to determine whether the respondents in the longitudinal sample differed significantly from the fuller sample studied in wave 1 To capture the effects of multiple group affiliations (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990), we use track level and number of extracurricular involvements as control variables. Track involvement conveys certain status characteristics upon an individual (Oakes, Gamoran, and Page 1992), so we expect this variable to be associated with identity stability and consistency. Track level is measured on a four-point scale from low to high ability (e.g., special education, remedial-vocational, general-business, and college preparatory). For involvement in extracurricular activities we expect a different effect: as students enter more such activities, they find themselves involved in a larger array of memberships that may lead them to feel as if they are members of multiple groups and different from any particular set of friends Category traits. We hypothesize that crowd size, status, and visibility affect the likelihood of perceived identity imbalance and identity change. All crowd characteristics are measured at the school level to approximate each school's social context. Crowd size is measured as a continuous variable, the number of respondents in the school claiming a certain crowd label. To test the hypothesis about category popularity, we created a dummy variable for "Populars," "Nice Populars," and "Jocks" because the literature on adolescents consistently claims that these crowds have the highest status Our last three identity characteristics refer to categorical affiliations that are distinct from the others listed (see In addition, we control for two types of alternative category memberships. The first concerns students who claim they are not part of any crowd: "Loners," a "noncategory" category. These individuals may be some of the more autonomous individuals, who are internally balanced but externally inconsistent (e.g., different from their friends as Loners; see Brown 1990:184). The second type consists of students who adopt the abstract categorical affiliation "Average" or "Normal." This affiliation is somewhat different from the others in that it represents a residual category. These students may not yet belong to their ideal crowd, may have friends who are different from them, and may be most prone to identity change should such an opportunity arise. Network conditions. A central claim of this paper is that network conditions influence perceptions of identity inconsistency; this, in turn, strongly influences social identity change. All network variables are developed from reports in which students named their five closest friends. Our measure of friendship cohesion is calculated as the percentage of an ego's friendships that are reciprocated. As an individual's friendships become more mutual, we expect that person to experience greater closure, reinforcement, and social control (Coleman 1991), and In contrast to network relations, egocentric positions are defined by all relations in the school, not only those selected by an ego Actors also can broker or bridge different cohesive regions of social networks. We use the measure of betweenness to capture the degree to which an actor bridges different groups #2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland In addition to cohesion, prominence, bridging, and peer group homogeneity (our main hypotheses), we develop a measure of "friend location" to determine whether the institutional location of friendships matters for students' sense of identity consistency and identity change. We measure friend location as the proportion of a respondent's friends who are not in the school. This variable is introduced to account for biases in network measures that exist because students sometimes select friends who did not complete a survey and for the effect of having friends outside school, revealing a student's lesser commitment to persons in the school. We expect the increased presence of out-of-school friends to induce identity inconsistency because students may view their actual crowd affiliation in the school as distinct from their ideal and that of their friends. We also expect this increase to raise the incidence of identity change because of this sense of inconsistency. Model. In this paper we adopt a multilevel framework to model the occurrence of perceived identity imbalance and identity change because students are clustered in categories, or reputational crowds (1) We employ the same model for longitudinal analyses, but use a different dependent variable (identity change) and employ lagged independent variables from wave 1 responses. RESULTS Six tables of results are presented below. Frequencies presented in The last rows in Factors Associated with Identity Inconsistency What causes actors to perceive their identities as internally or externally inconsistent? In Nevertheless, we find certain significant effects for background, category, and network contexts. Most notably, students in racial groups that are numerical minorities tend to report a sense of internal identity imbalance more than those in majority racial groups. Model 6 shows that when a youth belongs to a minority group that is one standard deviation smaller than the average (See #2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland Delivered by Ingenta to : unknown Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:11:47 300 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY age to report internal imbalance; those in even smaller racial groups constituting only 2 percent of the school populations, are 18 percent more likely than average to do so. Minority youths do not always belong to their ideal crowd because they may have limited access to racial crowds of their choosing. In fact, the number of students reporting themselves to belong to each type of minority crowd Younger students also are more likely to report that they are not in their ideal crowd. According to Model 6, 14-year-olds are 9 percent more likely than 15-year-olds to sense imbalance. In contrast, 17-year-olds are 9 percent less likely than 15-year-olds to do so (mean age = 15.59, sd = 1.26). Two factors can explain this relationship to age. First, younger students may be more prone to identity crises due to their developmental stage when they search for improved memberships (Erikson 1968). Second, because younger adolescents often occupy lower-status positions in high school, they may see more desirable memberships elsewhere, such as those occupied by older students who are established in the adolescent society. Characteristics of crowds also are related significantly to internal perceptions of identity imbalance. Loners are more likely to report that they are in their ideal category, while Normals are more likely to report that they are not.The former case is as we expect: Loners are more autonomous than other youths and more satisfied with their nonmembership in reputational crowds. In the case of the Normals, the result suggests that persons report membership in a residual group which is not their ideal membership but merely an acceptable categorical designation. Thus the selection of an illdefined crowd or category may reflect the actor's lack of self-definition, and therefore his or her desire to change identities over time. None of our hypothesized expectations about #2586-Social Psychology Quarterly-VOL. 68 NO. 4-68401-McFarland Net of all other variables, network conditions show a significant relationship with perceptions of internal identity imbalance (Model 6). As expected, prominent individuals are less likely to report identity imbalance (Hypothesis Hn4a). Students selected by more than four friends are 8 percent more likely to report that they are in their ideal crowd than those selected by only two or three friends (prominence mean = 2.63, sd = 2.01). Those selected by one friend or none are 8 percent more likely to report that they are not in their ideal crowd. A similar result is found for peer group homogeneity (Hypothesis Hn2a): shift of one standard deviation in peer homogeneity (from 23% of friends in the same crowd to 50%) results in a 16 percent increase in the likelihood of actually belonging to one's ideal crowd. Friends with consistent crowd affiliations tend to reinforce the actors' internal perception of their own crowd affiliation.As shown by this result, social reinforcement and peer group homogeneity therefore generate greater internal identity balance. It is somewhat surprising that some network conditions (prominence and peer homogeneity) are related significantly to internal identity imbalance. As we have constructed it, internal inconsistency arises when an actor reports not being a member of a crowd that he or she idealizes. Therefore, it is a psychological construct that reflects a personal preference or decision more strongly than a social pressure. The fact that network conditions influence internal perceptions of identity balance suggests that network contexts penetrate deeper into psychological processes than suggested by prior literature The results displayed in Students who are involved in extracurricular activities also are likely to perceive external identity inconsistency because they cross social circles and categorical groups Category traits of crowds have a strong, significant relation to perceptions of self-verification Net of these two large categorical affiliati

The Contributions of Parental, Academic, School, and Peer Factors to Differences by Socioeconomic Status in Adolescents’ Locus of Control

An internal locus of control may be particularly valuable for youth with low socioeconomic status (SES), yet the mechanisms that externalize their control remain unclear. This study uses data on 16,450 US 8th graders surveyed for the National Education Longitudinal Study in 1988 and 1990. Results indicate family income is more closely associated with adolescents’ locus of control than parents’ occupations and educational attainment, and that race does not independently affect adolescents’ locus of control net of these other components of SES. Findings also indicate higher SES adolescents feel more internal locus of control in largest part because their parents discuss school more often with them, their homes have more books and other cognitive resources, they receive higher grades in middle school science and social studies, they are more likely to attend a private rather than public school, their friends are more academically oriented, and they feel more safe at school