ISSN : 1229-0718
The present study investigated the mediating effects of 650 adolescents' online self-disclosure on the association between personality traits, attachment, and changes to family and online peer relationships. Longitudinal data were collected, end-to-end, in three sessions over a 6-month (on average) period from December 2011 to February 2013. Latent growth curve modeling analyses conducted in AMOS 20.0 were used. As a result, for Group A (friends) of online self-disclosure, it examined not only the direct association between adolescents’ openness and changes to family intimacy, as well as an indirect effect on changes to online friendships. Attachment anxiety manifested positive changes to family and online peer relationships through continual online self-disclosure with close peers. However, attachment avoidance predicted a negative effect on changes to family intimacy and online friendships. For Group C (distant acquaintances) in terms of online self-disclosure, adolescents’ neuroticism positively predicted changes to family intimacy and online relationship quality if online self-disclosure was continuous. Furthermore, adolescents’ conscientiousness directly affected changes to online friendship quality. However, attachment avoidance negatively affected changes to family intimacy. These results counter previous studies claiming that a strong affinity for peers aggravates parent-child relationships during adolescence. Instead, the present findings indicate that adolescents’ online communication can positively affect family conflicts, suggesting that active online self-disclosure is beneficial to both family and online peer relationships.
The current study aimed to enhance our understanding regarding the characteristics of victims of bullying. We examined how relationships between shyness, self-regulation, and gender were associated with peer victimization among 305 adolescents. Peer victimization was divided into two facets: overt and relational victimization. Results revealed that a three-way interaction between shyness, self-regulation, and gender was significant on overt victimization. For boys, high levels of shyness and low levels of self-regulation significantly predicted high levels of victimization. For girls, low levels of shyness and self-regulation significantly predicted high levels of victimization. Results showed the main effects of shyness, self-regulation and gender on relational victimization. No three-way interaction between shyness, self-regulation, and gender on relational peer victimization was observed.
The present study examined the effects of spiritual well-being and self-esteem on high school students' adjustment to school life. Several studies have examined the relationship between self-esteem and school adjustment among children and adolescents, whereas little research has assessed how spiritual (religious and existential) well-being affects school life adjustment. Results of the present study were as follows: (1) high school students scoring high on a measure of existential well-being were able to adjust to school life better than those with lower scores while religious well-being either did not influence school adjustment or was associated with deteriorated adjustment; (2) while students with high self-esteem adjusted to school life better than those with low self-esteem, those with high self-esteem tended to obtain lower scores on a measure of following school regulations; and (3) several demographic variables (e.g., academic record, grade, gender, and father’s education level) significantly influenced students' school adjustment. These results suggest that it is important to include elements intended to enhance existential well-being, as well as self-esteem, when developing educational programs for improving adolescents' school adjustment. Implications for these findings are further discussed.
This study examined the relationship among the unrealistically optimistic beliefs, intelligence and delay of gratification at early childhood. Sixty-six children participated at the age 4. The level of optimistic belief was measured using the malleability of negative traits and stability of positive traits over time and children's intelligence by K-WPPSI and children's delay of gratification was measured by the marshmallow task(Mischel & Baker, 1975). Our results revealed that high optimistic belief at early childhood was significantly related to their longer delay of gratification. This study examined optimistic belief at early childhood not as a psychological deficit but as a positive strength and proved that this trait was related with self-regulation such as delay of gratification.
The present study investigated the effects of a cognitive enhancement program for older adults. The program was composed of meta-cognitive education, discussions regarding cognitive themes, and cognitive training. Forty older adults (M = 72.58, SD = 6.64) in an experimental group and 24 older adults (M = 74.49, SD = 4.87) in a control group were tested using the CERAD-K. Trained older adults demonstrated performance benefits in verbal memory, visual memory, processing speed, executive function, and utilized more memory strategies. These training benefits were also maintained at a 1-month follow-up. Furthermore, life satisfaction improved, and levels of depression and anxiety were reduced in comparison to the control group. Findings suggest that our training program may either help the maintenance or improvement of older adults’ cognitive abilities.
The current study developed and verified the effectiveness of an intervention program for improving child care attitudes among parents of young children (up to 3-years-old), who are addicted to media. Participants were parents (15 for the experimental group and 20 for the control group) of young children living in Seoul and Gyeonggi . Details of the program included the following: (1) understanding the effects of media on young child development; (2) examining problems and related negative effects of media overexposure; (3) understanding child attitudes toward using media and the extent of their media addiction; (4) recognizing the parental environment affecting media overexposure, examining parental stress and mental health status, and identifying parents’ media habits, including Internet use; (5) understanding general child developmental characteristics; (6) understanding the significance of human interactions and learning sensitive interaction skills; (7) improving parental interaction skills through an individual analysis of parent-child interactions; (8) evaluating and monitoring interaction skill development; and (9) teaching desirable media usage. The intervention program consisted of 12 small-group sessions with 3 to 5 participants each. Each session lasted 1.5 hours. In order to verify the program’s effectiveness, a survey assessing media use, evaluation of parent-child interactions, and parental stress measures were administered to children and parents before and after the program was executed. Results revealed that daily media viewing time among children in the experimental group was reduced. Mothers’ sensitive interaction skills also improved in the experimental group. However, parenting stress did not differ significantly (or even increased) post-intervention. These results imply that the intervention program was effective at improving parents’ interaction skills, which in turn diminished children’s media usage. We discuss further intervention suggestions based on the present findings.
The present paper examined the relationships between coparenting, father child-rearing involvement, and toddler emotion regulation for parents with 3, 4, or 5-year-old children. Results are summarized as follows. First, toddler emotion regulation was influenced by coparenting—higher levels of supportive coparenting were associated with a child’s enhanced emotional control ability—conversely, higher levels of undermining coparenting yielded diminished emotional control ability and greater lability/negativity. Second, father involvement in child rearing had a partially meaningful influence on toddler emotion regulation. Specifically, greater father caregiving/monitoring was associated with a child’s enhanced emotional control. Lastly, an analysis of coparenting consistency types and toddler emotion regulation revealed that substantial differences in toddler emotion regulation were observed in accordance with certain types of coparenting consistency. Subsequent verification analyses indicated that a child's emotional control ability was higher when coparenting was consistently supportive (or inconsistently supportive, so long as the father was being supportive) than for a consistently undermining coparenting style. Consistent support is also beneficial in comparison to inconsistent support if only the mother is being supportive. Moreover, lability/negativity was greater in the consistent undermining group than in the consistent supportive/inconsistent group when only the father is supportive.
The memories children have regarding past experiences of pain may have a considerable amount of influence on children’s responses to pain under clinical contexts or long-term treatment and interventions. The present study examined the trends in foreign studies on children’s memories of pain to inspect the values of such studies in terms of developmental and clinical contexts. More specifically, this study sought to examine the academic definition of pain memory, development of pain memories, individual differences in pain memories, cognitive and social developmental characteristics of pain memories, circumstantial or methodological factors of memory-based interviews, and prevention of negative memories of pain. Based on such review of literature, this study asserted the demand for psychological studies related to children’s pain memories in South Korea and further discussed the implications of pain memory studies. Moreover, the study also discussed the implications of the need for a qualitative improvement of pain-inducing environments in order to promote physical and mental wellbeing of children under developmental and clinical contexts.
The present study examined how family triangulation and negative approval-based self-appraisals mediate the relationship between parental psychological control and relational aggression among adolescents. Participants were 406 adolescents aged 12 to 15 (male: 222, female: 184) in Seoul, Korea. Self-report data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that psychological control enacted by same-sex parents directly increased adolescents’ relational aggression. In contrast, psychological control from opposite-sex parents indirectly affected adolescents’ relational aggression. In particular, the path between maternal psychological control and male adolescent relational aggression was mediated by family triangulation, which was the only significant mediation path in the present study. Based on these results, we discuss the importance of contextual intervention for modifying relational dysfunction within the family so as to reduce adolescent relational aggression.
The present study examined attachment style, personality characteristics, and mediator effects of marital satisfaction on the relationship between self-esteem and romantic loneliness in a sample of participants (132 male, 206 female). Results showed that romantic loneliness was significantly and negatively correlated with secure attachment, agreeableness, and self-esteem; loneliness was also significantly and positively correlated with preoccupied attachment, dismissive attachment, fearful attachment, and neuroticism. No relationships emerged with extraversion. Secure attachment, fearful attachment, agreeableness, and self-esteem influenced romantic loneliness and fully mediated the relationship with marital satisfaction. Preoccupied and dismissive attachment also influenced romantic loneliness but only partially mediated the relationship with marital satisfaction. Study limitations and future directions are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effects of teacher-child relationships on relationship between preschooler's effortful control and social competence. One hundred-seventy nine preschoolers (aged 4∼5) and their mothers and preschool teachers participated in this study. Preschooler’s effortful control was assessed by Children's Behaviors Questionnaire (CBQ), preschooler’s social competence was assessed using the Questionnaire of Children's Social Competence for Teachers, and teacher-child relationships was assessed using the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS). Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used for data analysis. Results indicated that teacher-child relationships mediated the effect of preschooler's effortful control on social competence. Neither age nor gender effects influenced the mediation results. Thus, our findings indicate the important role of teacher-child relationships on the development of social competence, especially in association with effortful control.
The purpose of the study was to examine how age affects associative memory performance for different types of learning and associative strengthening. In study 1, after the participants of young and old group studied a list of paired-associates in one of three study types (simple, repeat, and repeat-test), the recognition test was given for a total of 48 paired-associates immediately after the study. The results showed that young participants’ recognition memory was highest in the repeat-test condition, whereas the old counterparts performed best in the repeat condition. And in study 2, accuracy and false alarm rates were analyzed for recognition memory performance between the two age groups for paired items of varied associative strengthening levels. It was shown that item-strengthening increases false alarm rates, while associative-strengthening facilitates correct recognition in both age groups. The limitations and further implications of these findings were discussed.
Disfluencies (i.e., pauses, insertions, repetition and replacement of words, phrases, or sentences) are common in speech. Disfluencies provide several interpretations about a speaker depending on the context. The present study examined: 1) acoustic characteristics of disfluent phrases—especially those that mark hesitation—compared to those fluent phrases with the exact same words and 2) whether 3-year-olds are able to infer a speaker’s mental states using disfluencies. The disfluent “uh” that shows speakers’ hesitation was longer and lower-pitched than the fluent “uh” that indicates speakers’ positive responses. In a food/snack offering situation, experimenter asked two adults about their preferences for the item. One answered with hesitation “uh” while the other answered fluently without hesitation. Three-year-olds reliably selected the speakers who answered without hesitation as the recipient of the offered item. It indicates that 3-year-olds are sensitive to the subtle differences in speech and utilized the hesitation marker to infer speakers’ mental states.
Various factors influence development and individual differences in reading abilities, including phonological and morphological awareness, working memory, etc. Recent studies reported that in addition to these factors, individual differences in visual span, which is defined as the number of letters accurately recognized within very short period of time, without moving eyes, also contribute to differences in reading fluency. However, no studies thus far have attempted to measure visual span in Korean Hangul reading, a unique writing system that combines consonants and vowels into given spaces based on syllabary. The present study measured visual span of 2nd, 4th, 6th grade and adult Korean readers, using trigram paradigm, and examined whether individual differences in visual span relates to reading abilities. The results showed that indeed, visual span differences contribute to reading abilities, suggesting that this relationship holds in the development of reading Korean Hangul.
There has been an increasing interest in children’s abilities to report memories of, and resist misleading suggestions to, a potentially stressful event. Individual differences among children and their parents may provide important insights into principles that govern children’s eyewitness memory and suggestibility for such experiences. Using a potentially stressful event outside of a laboratory environment, the effects of certain individual difference factors (including stress level, effortful control, and parental attachment style) on memory accuracy for a potentially stressful event were analyzed. A total of 120 children between the ages of 4 and 12 years were interviewed regarding a minor dental procedure that they had experienced. Results indicated that children with an insecure parental attachment and low effortful control were more likely to produce inaccurate free-recall details and more false alarms compared to children with a secure parental attachment and high effortful control. Thus, parental attachment style and a child’s effortful control are likely significant predictors of a child’s memory ability. Theoretical implications concerning the effects of stress and individual differences on eyewitness memory and suggestibility are discussed. Furthermore, the importance of being aware of individual differences and the likely outcome of interviewers’ subsequent actions during investigative interviews is also discussed.