The present study investigated the unique and interactive role of parents' and peers' humanity virtue (i.e. kindness, love, and social intelligence) in association with children's humanity. The participants were 761 fourth-to-ninth-graders (M[subscript age] = 12.62; 45.2% boys) and their biological parents. The humanity subscale of the Values in…

Adolescents with positive attitudes towards the legal authorities are unlikely to adopt delinquent behaviours. To examine the role school can play in shaping such attitudes, we questioned 465 middle school students to assess how their emotional relationships with teachers (teachers' compassionate love, teachers' esteem) relate to their attitudes…

Friendships can provide a critical buffer against stress for youth, but the extent to which they serve this role depends on whether they provide resources that youth value most. These valued provisions may differ for girls and boys and across stages of development. This study examined whether gender differences in friendship values intensify…

The potential importance of depending on others during adolescence to establish independence in young adulthood was examined across adolescence to emerging adulthood. Participants included 184 teens (46% male; 42% non-White), their mothers, best friends, and romantic partners, assessed at ages 13-14, 18, 21-22, and 25. Path analyses showed that…

The present study assesses the factor structure, psychometric adequacy, and invariance across sex and age of the Relational Provisions Loneliness Questionnaire (RPLQ). Discriminant validity with an external criterion was also tested. In a sample of Portuguese adolescents, from 7th to 9th grade (N = 817), Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were…

There is some evidence that adolescent romantic involvement is associated with delinquent behaviour. One aim of this longitudinal study was to determine whether this holds for romantic relationships deemed important by the participants. A second aim was to test whether this association was stronger for adolescents with pre-existing delinquent…

Interpersonal touch has been little studied empirically as an indicator of parent- and peer-child intimacy. Undergraduate students (n = 390) were studied using a questionnaire survey regarding the frequencies of interpersonal touch by father, mother, same-sex peers, and opposite-sex peers during preschool ages, grades 1-3, grades 4-6, and grades…

This prospective study examined romantic partner selection and socialization among a sample of 78 young adolescents (6th-8th graders). Independent assessments of adolescent and romantic partner adjustment were collected before and after relationships initiated via peer nomination and self-report. Prior to their relationship, adolescents and…

This study examined how relocation to a new community affects intimacy and companionship in close friendships by comparing experiences of early adolescents who began their 7th or 8th grade school year in a new community (111 boys, 96 girls) with those of residentially stable agemates (30 boys, 38 girls). Drawing from a developmental contextual,…

Recent theory on social dominance suggests that aggressive individuals should be socially successful if they also display prosocial behavior. The combination of coercive and prosocial strategies of resource control (i.e., bistrategic control) is thought to facilitate hierarchy ascension. Adolescents (N = 929, grades 7-10) were queried about the…

Assimilation theorists have long viewed inter-group romantic partnerships as indicators of racial equality. Although the past half-century has witnessed the erosion of anti-miscegenation laws and subsequent increases in the frequency of interracial marriages, these unions remain relatively infrequent. Low intermarriage rates may be partially…

Two studies addressed age- and gender-related patterns in early adolescents' and emerging adults' conceptions of intimacy in friendships. Forty-one early adolescents and 96 emerging adults in Study 1 and 174 emerging adults in Study 2 described a time when they felt especially close to a friend. Narratives were coded for intimate behaviors and…

Although success in managing evolving peer relationships is linked to critical adolescent outcomes, little is known about the specific factors that lead to success or failure in peer relationship development across adolescence. This longitudinal study examines the role of adolescents' level of ego development as a predictor of the future course of…