Adolescents’ social strategies: Patterns and correlates

Abstract

An unselected sample of adolescents (n= 504) was given a test measuring their social strategies in affiliative context, and emotional and behavioral problems. Four groups of adolescents were identified according to the certain patterns of the social strategies they deployed: Active optimistic group (n= 107), Defensive functional group (n= 159), Avoiders group (n= 89), and Learned helplessness group (n= 140). The degree of stability of a cluster solution was studied when the method for cluster analysis was changed, showing that the four-cluster solution captures the essential relationships between the variables. The membership of the strategy groups was associated in theoretically meaningful ways to the anxiety/depression, withdrawal, and social problems.

Social Behavior and Skills in Children

“…Moreover, a threat-related attentional bias may exacerbate avoidance and the perception of situations as potentially anxiety provoking (Puliafico & Kendall, 2006). Anxiety in children has been associated with myriad risks including social withdrawal, social skills deficits, peer rejection and neglect, dysfunctional parent-child interactions, the use of maladaptive social strategies, and cognitive distortions (e.g., Elizabeth et al, 2006;Ollendick & Hirshfeld-Becker, 2002;Rapee & Spence, 2004;Sondaite & Zukauskiene, 2005;Spence et al, 1999;Strauss, Lease, Kazdin, Dulcan, & Last, 1989). As a result, anxious children have been somewhat consistently described as being socially maladjusted by parents, teachers, peers, and even the children themselves (e.g., Strauss et al, 1989;Verduin & Kendall, 2008).…”

“…Children experiencing loneliness, a lack of friends or stability in friendships, and peer exclusion have been found to be on a trajectory of increasing social withdrawal across the preadolescent to early adolescent years (Oh et al, 2008). Moreover, in significant percentages of adolescents, avoidant and helpless social strategies have been observed which may serve to maintain social problems and anxiety (Sondaite & Zukauskiene, 2005). Even so, the principles of developmental psychopathology should not be dismissed and trajectories should not be viewed as absolute.…”

Identifying patterns of appraising tests in first-year college students: Implications for anxiety and emotion regulation during test taking.

“…This research has contributed to the understanding of emotion and emotional regulation during test taking and to the development of a context-specific, valid, and reliable measure of emotional regulation during test taking (Schutz, Benson, & DeCuir, in press; Schutz, DiStefano, Benson, & Davis, 2004). However, to date, there have been few studies (Davis, DiStefano, DeCuir, & Schutz, 2000; see also Brdar, Rijavec, & Loncaric, 2006; DeCuir, Aultman, & Schutz, in press; Rice & Slaney, 2002; Sondaite & Zukauskiene, 2005; Tanaka, 2007) that have attempted to systematically identify whether there are group differences in the ways students approach academic tasks—specifically tests—and in the strategies they deploy to attempt to manage their emotions.…”

The History of Lithuanian Psychology

“…The scientists of Vytautas Magnus University are engaged in the study of risky decision-making and psychological factors influencing this type of human decisions, based upon the descriptive decision theory (Endriulaitienė, 1998; Endriulaitienė & Martišius, 2003, 2007) and longitudinal study (since 1972) of smoking and negative effects of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs on the health of people and society, as well as the efficacy of preventive measures (Goštautas, 2004). A variety of issues are investigated at other universities: Social competences of personality (Lekavičienė, 2001) in Kaunas Technological University; procedural justice in the Lithuanian criminal justice (Justickis & Valickas, 2006; Valickas & Justickis, 2006) at Vilnius University and Mykolas Romeris University; longitudinal studies (since 1996) of adjustment difficulties of children and adolescents (Malinauskienė & Žukauskienė, 2004; Sondaitė & Žukauskienė, 2005; Žukauskienė, 2004) at Mykolas Romeris University; the phenomenon of left-handedness, relations between handedness and individual differences of children (Gudonis & Brazdeikienė, 2005) at Klaipėda University and Šiauliai University; standardization of Achenbach’s CBCL, TRF, YSR questionnaires (Žukauskienė, Ignatavičienė, & Daukantaitė, 2003; Žukauskienė & Kajokienė, 2006) at Mykolas Romeris University; standardization of the Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices (Gintilienė & Butkienė, 2005) and Goodman’s Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Gintilienė et al, 2004) at Vilnius University, and so forth.…”