Guided by Self‐Determination and associated theories, we examined whether adolescent (, M , 52% female) competence (academic engagement and achievement) were supported by relationships at school and school fit. Aspects of relationships and school fit that were measured included adolescents’ perceptions of each context as promoting autonomy, relatedness and competence. Within a latent‐variable structural equation model, direct and indirect path estimates, standard errors and confidence intervals were produced using maximum likelihood and bootstrapping. Results supported the hypothesized model. As predicted, school fit partially mediated the association between teacher–student relationships and engagement, but fully mediated the association between peer relationships and engagement. Engagement fully mediated the path from school fit to achievement. The use of SEM and bootstrapping are encouraged as the combination of these techniques can increase power to detect direct and indirect effects, and can be a better choice for data that do not conform to normal theory assumptions. Overall, these techniques allowed for more firm conclusions about the importance of a hierarchy of multidimensional contextual experiences for adolescent competence.

No abstract

Emotion regulation deficits are implicated in many forms of psychosocial distress. The aim of the present research was to investigate whether emotion regulation was the process underlying the well-established association between low dispositional mindfulness and greater psychosocial distress. Two studies are presented that examined whether non-acceptance of emotion and limited access to emotion regulation strategies were the processes underlying the association between low mindfulness and depression, anxiety, stress, general psychological symptoms, interpersonal distress, and social role difficulties in a student sample (Study 1) and a clinical sample (Study 2). In Study 1, there were indirect effects of mindfulness and symptom distress, depression, anxiety, stress, and social role difficulties through non-acceptance of emotions. There were indirect associations between mindfulness and symptom distress, interpersonal distress, social role difficulties, depression, anxiety, and stress through lack of access to emotion regulation strategies. In Study 2, there were indirect associations between mindfulness and psychological symptom distress, interpersonal distress, depression, anxiety, and stress through lack of access to emotion regulation strategies. In brief, emotion regulation difficulties are, at least in part, the process underlying the association of low dispositional mindfulness and psychosocial distress.

Multiple forms of adolescent autonomy (emotional autonomy, voice, and cognitive autonomy) were examined as correlates of parental and partner relationships. Measures included parental warmth and psychological control, and romantic support and negative interactions. Participants were 206 students (age 17 to 20, M age ¼ 18) who had romantic partners. Those who reported more emotional autonomy from parents (e.g., individuation and nondependence) reported less voice with parents and less cognitive autonomy. Adolescents reported less independence from their parents, more voice with parents and more confidence in their own choices when they reported more parental warmth. Adolescents reported less independence from their parents and less voice when their parents were more controlling. Participants reported more independence from parents and more voice when they reported more romantic partner support. The results show how necessary it is to consider multiple aspects of autonomy and relationships to understand how the intrapersonal and interpersonal are connected.