Self-Regulation in Adolescence 9781107036000

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SELF-REGULATION IN ADOLESCENCE During the transition from childhood to adulthood, adolescents face a unique set of challenges that accompany increased independence and responsibility. This volume combines cutting-edge research in the field of adolescence and the field of motivation and self-regulation to shed new light on these challenges and the self-regulation tools that could most effectively address them. Leading scholars discuss general principles of the adolescent period across a wide variety of areas, including interpersonal relationships, health, and achievement. Their interdisciplinary approach covers perspectives from history, anthropology, and primatology, as well as numerous subdisciplines of psychology – developmental, educational, social, clinical, motivational, cognitive, and neuropsychological. Self-Regulation in Adolescence stresses practical applications, making it a valuable resource not only for scholars but also for adolescents and their family members, teachers, social workers, and health professionals who seek to support them. It presents useful strategies that adolescents can adopt themselves and raises important questions for future research. Gabriele Oettingen is a professor of psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg. She is the author of Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation (2014). Peter M. Gollwitzer is a professor of psychology at New York University and the University of Konstanz. He is the coeditor, with Gottfried Seebass and Michael Schmitz, of Acting Intentionally and Its Limits: Individuals, Groups, Institutions (2013).

THE JACOBS FOUNDATION SERIES ON ADOLESCENCE Series Editors: Marta Tienda, J¨urgen Baumert The Jacobs Foundation Series on Adolescence presents state-of-the art research about the many factors that contribute to the welfare, social productivity, and social inclusion of current and future generations of young people. Sponsored by the Swiss Jacobs Foundation, this Cambridge University Press series offers readers cutting-edge applied research about successful youth development, including circumstances that enhance their employability, their respect for and integration with nature and culture, and their future challenges triggered by global economic and technological changes. The contributing authors are internationally known scholars from a variety of disciplines, including developmental and social psychology, clinical psychology, education, economics, communication, sociology, and family studies. Ann S. Masten, Karmela Liebkind, and Donald J. Hernandez, eds., Realizing the Potential of Immigrant Youth Ingrid Schoon and Rainer K. Silbereisen, eds., Transitions from School to Work: Globalization, Individualization, and Patterns of Diversity Alison Clarke-Stewart and Judy Dunn, eds., Families Count: Effects on Child and Adolescent Development Michael Rutter and Marta Tienda, eds., Ethnicity and Causal Mechanisms P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Kathleen Kiernan, and Ruth J. Friedman, eds., Human Development across Lives and Generations: The Potential for Change Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont et al., eds., Joining Society: Social Interaction and Learning in Adolescence and Youth Marta Tienda and William Julius Wilson, eds., Youth in Cities: A Cross-National Perspective Roland Vandenberghe and A. Michael Huberman, eds., Understanding and Preventing Teacher Burnout: A Sourcebook of International Research and Practice Ruby Takanishi and David A. Hamburg, eds., Preparing Adolescents for the Twenty-First Century: Challenges Facing Europe and the United States Albert Bandura, ed., Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies Michael Rutter, ed., Psychosocial Disturbances in Young People: Challenges for Prevention Anne C. Petersen and Jeylan T. Mortimer, eds., Youth Unemployment and Society Gisela Trommsdorff and Xinyin Chen, eds., Values, Religion, and Culture in Adolescent Development Sabina M. Pauen, ed., Early Childhood Development and Later Outcome

SELF-REGULATION IN

ADOLESCENCE

Edited by

Gabriele Oettingen New York University and University of Hamburg

Peter M. Gollwitzer New York University and University of Konstanz

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013–2473, USA Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. http://www.cambridge.org Information on this title: http://www.cambridge.org/9781107036000  C Cambridge University Press 2015

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Self-regulation in adolescence / [edited by] Gabriele Oettingen, New York University, Peter M. Gollwitzer, New York University. pages cm. – (The Jacobs Foundation series on adolescence) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-03600-0 (hardback) 1. Self-control in adolescence. 2. Adolescent psychology. I. Oettingen, Gabriele. II. Gollwitzer, Peter M. BF723.S25S45 2015 155.5 1825–dc23 2015005355 ISBN 978-1-107-03600-0 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Preface Contributors

page ix xvii

Part I Concepts and Processes of Self-Regulation 1 Self-Regulation: Principles and Tools Gabriele Oettingen and Peter M. Gollwitzer 2 Expectancies, Values, Identities, and Self-Regulation Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Jennifer A. Fredricks, and Pieter Baay

3 30

3 Self-Regulation: Conceptual Issues and Relations to Developmental Outcomes in Childhood and Adolescence Nancy Eisenberg

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4 Effortful Control in Adolescence: Individual Differences within a Unique Developmental Window Koraly P´erez-Edgar

78

Part II Historical and Biological Influences 5 Historical Perspectives on Self-Regulation in Adolescence Joseph F. Kett 6 Adolescence: Biology, Epidemiology, and Process Considerations Michael Rutter 7 Emotion Regulation and Primate Sociality Frans B. M. de Waal

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123 147

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Contents

Part III Neural Mechanisms 8 The Neural Underpinnings of Adolescent Risk-Taking: The Roles of Reward-Seeking, Impulse Control, and Peers Laurence Steinberg 9 Development of the Social Brain in Adolescence Sarah-Jayne Blakemore 10 The Role of Reflection in Promoting Adolescent Self-Regulation Philip David Zelazo and Sabine Doebel

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Part IV Peer and Parent Relationships 11 Goals and Goal Pursuit in the Context of Adolescent-Parent Relationships Judith G. Smetana

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12 Self-Regulation and Adolescent Substance Use Laurie Chassin

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13 The Cultural Context of Adolescent Self-Regulation Alice Schlegel

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Part V Interventions 14 Rumination and Self-Regulation in Adolescence Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Kirsten Gilbert, and Lori M. Hilt 15 Promoting Youth Self-Regulation through Psychotherapy: Redesigning Treatments to Fit Complex Youth in Clinical Care John R. Weisz

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16 Parent-Based Interventions to Reduce Adolescent Problem Behaviors: New Directions for Self-Regulation Approaches James Jaccard and Nicole Levitz

357

Author Index

389

Subject Index

411

Preface

The life period of adolescence implies a critical transition: relinquishing the more guided structure of childhood to take on new responsibilities and independence. Mastering this transition should be easier and more effective for adolescents who have acquired and readily use self-regulation tools. Self-Regulation in Adolescence brings together prominent researchers of two fields: the field of adolescence and the field of motivation and selfregulation. Linking these two fields of research provides new insights into how adolescents can be supported in solving the complex and demanding transition from childhood to adulthood. Self-Regulation in Adolescence discusses which self-regulation challenges individuals face during adolescence and how they master these challenges through historical and cultural contexts, biological influences, and socialization constraints, as well as peer and educator relationships. Accordingly, the volume is not limited to discussing self-regulation in adolescence within a certain content area (e.g., achievement, interpersonal relationships, health), but deals with general principles of self-regulation and how they apply to adolescence across various life domains. Importantly, the book also presents self-regulation strategies that adolescents can acquire independently and that they can use to master challenges on their own. The scientists contributing to this volume are at home in different disciplines. Specifically, they discuss self-regulation in adolescence from the perspectives of history, anthropology, and primatology, as well as from the perspectives of the various subdisciplines within psychology – the developmental, educational, social, clinical, motivational, cognitive, and neuropsychological. We hope that this interdisciplinary approach to self-regulation

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in adolescence will raise new questions and stimulate creative research in both the field of self-regulation and the field of adolescence. Readers will learn about what is special about self-regulation challenges in adolescence, and about the most effective self-regulation strategies that can help adolescents actually meet these challenges. The volume should be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, as the theme of self-regulation has become central to most subfields of psychology. Moreover, with its interdisciplinary approach, it should be of interest not only to scientists in the fields of psychology but also to those in neuroscience, anthropology, medicine, sociology, behavioral economics, public policy, and law. Finally, with its emphasis on translating science into practice, Self-Regulation in Adolescence should be of help to the individuals studied (i.e., the adolescents themselves) and the people who intend to support adolescents in their development and growth (e.g., parents, siblings, teachers, counselors, social workers, and health care providers). As a foundation, in Part I, four chapters introduce the topic of selfregulation. In Chapter 1, Gabriele Oettingen and Peter M. Gollwitzer explicate how self-regulation has been conceptualized in the psychology of motivation. They argue that self-regulation is needed in the face of resistance or conflict, for example, to achieve a wished for or desired future in the face of obstacles. On the basis of extensive theoretical and empirical work on selfregulation, Oettingen and Gollwitzer have developed self-regulation tools that facilitate goal attainment: mental contrasting and forming implementation intentions as well as the combination of the two strategies (MCII). These self-regulation tools can be used to produce behavior change in a cost- and time-effective way. Adolescents can easily acquire these strategies with the help of interventionists, appropriate manuals, computer programs, and mobile applications (see http://www.woopmylife.org). In Chapter 2, Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Jennifer A. Fredricks, and Pieter Baay focus on interest and identity development from the perspective of Eccles’s expectancy-value model of activity choice. The authors present the results of a qualitative study on adolescents’ level of engagement in skillbased, time-consuming, and difficult activities and they demonstrate the importance of expectancy-value determinants for interest and long-term choice during the adolescent years. Their chapter also addresses questions of how adolescents might improve managing their many interests: how they can pursue different interests at once, select some interests over others, or switch between interests. The authors discuss why the life stage of adolescence makes these achievements so difficult, and what kind of personality characteristics (e.g., grit) may be beneficial.

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In Chapter 3, Nancy Eisenberg introduces a distinction between the effortful, voluntary aspects of self-regulation and the less voluntary, more reactive control processes. Effortful control is seen as the temperamental basis of self-regulation; it comprises the ability to willfully focus and shift attention and to willfully inhibit and activate behavior. Reactive control, on the other hand, refers to automatic, non-volitional processes that lead to over- or under-controlled cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. Eisenberg argues that it is the relation between these two types of self-regulation processes (i.e., the reflective vs. the impulsive processes) that affects adolescents’ (mal)adjustment, social competence, and academic functioning. Moreover, she highlights that it is successful self-regulation that mediates the relation of good parenting and developmental outcomes. In Chapter 4, Koraly P´erez-Edgar focuses on the role of effortful control in adolescence. In line with Rothbart and Rueda’s (2005) definition, she conceives of it as the ability to inhibit a dominant response in the service of performing a subdominant response. Rather than discussing its relation to reactive control, she describes the emergence of effortful control and its functions during adolescence (e.g., impulse control, achieving independence). She also highlights the neural and psychophysiological underpinnings of effortful control in achieving response inhibition, monitoring performance, and integrating affective and cognitive processes. Moreover, she discusses the impact of other personal attributes (e.g., being anxietyprone) on the effectiveness of effortful control, and raises questions about the stability of effortful control over the life span. While Part I focuses on theories of self-regulation from motivational and developmental perspectives, Part II discusses the historical and biological variables that influence how much and what type of self-regulation adolescents need. The starting chapter by Joseph F. Kett describes how the concept of youth has changed its meaning since the 17th century. He outlines what these changes mean for the lives of adolescents, including their options for personal development, the timing of certain accomplishments, the composition of peer groups, and the moral values of the society at large. Interestingly, Kett argues that the view parents and educators have of young people reflects the problems of the society in general and of the parent cohort in particular; the problems are not produced by the adolescents themselves. Kett concludes that modern times are characterized by a reduced importance of households and siblings as agents of socialization, while elevating the importance of parents, professionals, and the media. In the subsequent chapter, Michael Rutter offers the background for understanding the challenges that self-regulation poses during the

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adolescent years. He outlines which bodily changes individuals face during puberty and describes both the changes in the brain as well as changes in cognitive development during adolescence. Michael Rutter argues that during the major biological changes dimensional, multiphase causal pathways generally operate. Explicating the role of psychopathology in adolescents’ personality development, he shows how respective longitudinal data can be understood from a causal mechanism perspective by integrating recent findings from genetics. He raises the question of how adolescents suffering from a mental disorder can be nudged into engaging in self-regulation, given that many of these disorders (e.g., eating disorders, use of drugs and alcohol, schizophrenia) are associated with a reluctance to acknowledge the problem. Moreover, these disorders are typically characterized by deviant thinking patterns that need to be altered before self-regulation techniques can be effectively taught and fruitfully applied. Next, Frans B. M. de Waal’s contribution focuses on the emotional control skills of nonhuman primates. He reports that the ability to regulate emotion gives primates an astounding social sophistication that covers conflicts with others, reciprocity, the distress of others, and the division of rewards. As nonhuman primates face a social world that is structured rather hierarchically, it is important for them to suppress impulses and show forgiveness, fairness, empathy, and gratitude. De Waal suggests that the social lives of apes and monkeys are sufficiently complex that effective self-regulation strategies are needed. Moreover, he rejects the assumption that emotional states are a product of human culture, language, and education. Rather, they seem to be grounded in our biology and the need to build cooperative relationships, a need humans share with other primates. The foundations of self-regulation in adolescence are also illuminated by the emerging field of neuroscience. Therefore, in the opening chapter of Part III, Laurence Steinberg explicates a recently much discussed topic with important applied ramifications: the neural systems of reward-seeking. He looks at these systems in the context of risk-taking behavior and postulates two critical neural systems: the reward system and the cognitive-control system. He argues that middle adolescence (ages 14 to 17) is associated with higher reward-seeking behavior (reward system) in the context of relatively low impulse control (cognitive-control system). Thus the vulnerability to risk-taking during adolescence is seen as the product of these two factors (high reward-seeking and low impulse control). Steinberg supports this argument with neuropsychological findings and empirical field data on risktaking behavior in a large sample of youth. He also suggests that adolescents’ vulnerability to risky-decision making is exacerbated by the presence of

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peers because they heighten the adolescents’ already pronounced sensitivity to rewards even more. The focus of Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s chapter is on social cognition and the development of the social brain – that is, the network of brain regions involved in understanding other people’s minds. Blakemore sees two major changes in the brain during adolescence. First, there is a steady increase in white matter volumes in several brain regions during childhood and adolescence, which facilitates the communication between brain regions. Second, grey matter, which is at its greatest volume during childhood, decreases across adolescence; this decrease is commonly interpreted as reflecting a more efficient synaptic reorganization. These two changes in the adolescent brain facilitate cognitive and affective mentalizing (i.e., the understanding of others’ thoughts and intentions as well as their emotions), which in turn explains the substantial improvements in social competence during adolescence. Philip David Zelazo and Sabine Doebel provide a neuroscience perspective on self-regulation that explicates the nature and development of executive function – the top-down, conscious control of thought, action, and feelings. They describe a theoretical model, the Iterative Reprocessing Model, which addresses how improvements in self-reflection (based on the growth and refinement of neural networks involving anterior regions of the prefrontal cortex) enable the development of executive function. The authors offer suggestions for an integrative approach to enhancing selfregulation in adolescence that takes into account what is currently known about neural plasticity and the neurocognitive processes involved in executive function. They also suggest interventions promoting self-reflection as a promising approach to be incorporated with other strategies that maximize goal achievement. In Part IV, the focus is on self-regulation of interpersonal relationships. The three chapters consider adolescents’ relationships to their peers and parents as well as the adult world in general. Judith G. Smetana discusses age-related changes in adolescents’ and parents’ conceptions of the boundaries of legitimate authority. The adolescents’ desires for greater autonomy over personal issues (i.e., choice of leisure activities, friends, and appearance) result in conflicts with their parents. A further issue is what and how much adolescents tell their parents about their activities, especially regarding sensitive topics such as smoking or drinking alcohol. Smetana suggests that taking a goal-conflict perspective might help illuminate the adolescents’ developmental path toward successful adulthood: Adolescents strive for greater autonomy and at the same time want to maintain close

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connections with their parents while parents encourage developing autonomy and at the same time seek to keep adolescents safe and accepted by their society. Such inner goal conflicts as well as those between adolescents and parents threaten everyday family life and require parents and adolescents to renegotiate their legitimate authority and personal autonomy. Focusing on substance (ab)use in the subsequent chapter, Laurie Chassin outlines various models for understanding adolescents’ drug use. These can be classified into individual difference models that see vulnerabilities in adolescents’ self-regulatory dispositions (e.g., high reward sensitivity and sensation seeking, low harm avoidance, and lack of inhibitory control) versus within-person models that focus on the processes of self-regulation rather than trait-like dispositions. With respect to the latter type of models, dual process approaches have been particularly valuable: They propose that substance use results from an imbalance between automatically triggered positive associations to substance use cues and consciously controlled processes. Chassin points out that there still is a lack of research measuring these vulnerabilities and showing how the multiple underlying processes interact. She also highlights that there is a need for research studying how social contexts (e.g., parents’ and peers’ attitudes to drug use) affect the influence of stable personal attributes on drug use, as well as how social contexts interact (i.e., enhance or inhibit) with the underlying processes of enhanced drug use. Finally, from an anthropological perspective, Alice Schlegel reminds us that we should not forget the impact of role models when trying to understand self-regulation. Using observational data, Schlegel argues that antisocial behavior is to be expected when boys spend too much time with their peers rather than with the male models of the older generations. From these older models adolescents can be expected to learn how to selfregulate aggression, sex, risk-taking, and impulsive behavior. Schlegel therefore advocates that adolescents should be given access to adult-based groups that incorporate adolescents for at least some of their activities (e.g., when an adult choir incorporates adolescent voices). Also, when adolescents are in peer groups, they should be given responsibilities in the adult world so that they are no longer isolated. By segregating adolescents from adults and preventing peer groups from participating in the community, adolescents are denied long-standing ways of learning self-regulation. Part V focuses on intervention research geared toward helping adolescents master the challenges they face. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema∗ , Kirsten ∗

We fondly remember our friend and colleague Susan Nolen-Hoeksema (1959–2013).

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Gilbert, and Lori M. Hilt examine how to assist adolescents in regulating the emotions elicited by negative events. The authors point out that rumination is a futile strategy for regulating such emotions. It actually exacerbates negative affect through passive self-reflection and brooding. In the long run, it even creates vulnerabilities for depression, impedes problem solving, and promotes the onset of other forms of psychopathology such as anxiety disorders, binge drinking, binge eating, self-harm, and mania. Importantly, Nolen-Hoeksema and her colleagues discuss various types of self-regulation interventions that could replace rumination as an attempt to cope with negative events: the cognitive technique of reappraisal of the critical negative event, mindfulness techniques that help people step back from and feel less controlled by their ruminative thoughts, regulation techniques that focus on effective problem solving (such as mental contrasting), and cognitive behavioral therapy that unveils rumination as nothing but a form of avoidance. The authors end their contribution with a call for more research on the processes that mediate the long-term problems with rumination as a response to negative events. In his contribution on promoting self-regulation in youth through psychotherapy, John R. Weisz first summarizes the results of decades of psychotherapy research, concluding that the standard evidence-based treatments are less effective than commonly assumed as they often fail to adjust for the idiosyncrasies of the patients. As one way to counter these problems, Weisz suggests the use of modular treatment protocols. He introduces MATCH (a modular approach to therapy for children) and argues that it targets three forms of self-regulation: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. Moreover, he suggests that youth psychotherapy research should try to elucidate the mechanisms of behavior change to explain why the treatment works when it does. He proposes that the search for effective therapeutic methods could be informed and enriched by a focus on self-regulation. Taking a different approach to intervention research, James Jaccard and Nicole Levitz focus on preventive interventions that target the parents rather than the adolescents themselves. The type of intervention they propose is based on traditional theories of action, assuming that behavior change needs to be prepared by changing the determinants of underlying intentions (such as self-efficacy beliefs, the expected value of performing the critical behavior, and the respective social norms, self-concepts, and anticipated emotions). They then report a large-scale parent-based intervention that followed this approach and achieved major changes in adolescents’ problem behavior, including reduced tobacco use, binge drinking, and sexually risky behavior. Jaccard and Levitz point to a shortcoming of the traditional action theories

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and their conceptualization of behavior change. These theories overlook the fact that many behavioral decisions are not the result of effortful reasoning; rather, people often engage in split-second decision making. The authors discuss the memory processes on which such split-second decisions are based, and point to self-regulation strategies that adolescents can use to protect themselves from such decisions (e.g., the if-then planning strategy, the mental contrasting strategy). In sum, Self-Regulation in Adolescence bridges basic research on the processes of self-regulation with developmental approaches to the study of adolescence. In an effort to provide an interdisciplinary and transformative approach, we asked authors from related fields such as anthropology, history, and primatology to offer their perspectives. Integrating diverse areas of knowledge and methodologies may help discover new and creative ways of supporting adolescents in mastering their developmental tasks during our time of rapid societal, environmental, and technological changes. Self-Regulation in Adolescence is based on the 22nd Conference in the prestigious series of Jacobs Foundation Conferences at Marbach Castle, a site known for inspiring scientific exchange and vibrant interdisciplinary dialogue. We thank the Jacobs Foundation, and in particular the former Chairman Dr. Johann Christian Jacobs and the members of the board of trustees (Stiftungsrat), as well as Simon Sommer, Head of Research at the Jacobs Foundation. They made the conference possible and encouraged us to design the present volume. We thank David E. Repetto, Senior Editor, Psychology, at Cambridge University Press for his guiding hand and care through the publishing process, and are particularly indebted to Doris Mayer and Silke Ranisch-Lilienthal who greatly supported us along the way. We trust that Self-Regulation in Adolescence will motivate scientists from different fields to collaborate on research that elucidates the role of self-regulation in adolescence, and in other life transitions as well.

Contributors

Pieter Baay, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, University College London Laurie Chassin, Arizona State University, Tempe Frans B. M. de Waal, Emory University Sabine Doebel, University of Colorado, Boulder Jacquelynne S. Eccles, University of Michigan Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University, Tempe Jennifer A. Fredricks, Connecticut College Kirsten Gilbert, Yale University Peter M. Gollwitzer, New York University and University of Konstanz Lori M. Hilt, Lawrence University James Jaccard, New York University Joseph F. Kett, University of Virginia Nicole Levitz, New York University Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Yale University Gabriele Oettingen, New York University and University of Hamburg Koraly P´erez-Edgar, The Pennsylvania State University

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Michael Rutter, King’s College London Alice Schlegel, University of Arizona, Tucson Judith G. Smetana, University of Rochester Laurence Steinberg, Temple University John R. Weisz, Harvard University Philip David Zelazo, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Contributors

Part I CONCEPTS AND PROCESSES OF SELF-REGULATION

1

Self-Regulation: Principles and Tools Gabriele Oettingen and Peter M. Gollwitzer

Author Note Gabriele Oettingen, Psychology Department, New York University and Department of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Germany; Peter M. Gollwitzer, Psychology Department, New York University and Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Gabriele Oettingen, Psychology Department, New York University, 6 Washington Pl., New York, NY 10003, USA, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Motivation has been traditionally defined as energy (e.g., running speed) and direction (e.g., toward food), and the determinants of motivation as need (e.g., for food), expectation (e.g., cognitive map of the maze), and incentive value (e.g., quality of the food). When motivation toward attaining a desired future meets resistance or conflict, self-regulation becomes relevant. The use of effective self-regulation tools can support individuals in dealing with such resistance or conflict (e.g., obstacles, difficulties, temptations). We discuss various self-regulation tools and then focus on the effects and mechanisms of two of them: mental contrasting and forming implementation intentions. Recent interventions attest to the effectiveness of combining these two strategies: Mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) is a time- and cost-effective tool that allows adolescents to master their everyday life and long-term development in a self-reliant way.

The other day a friend told us about the difficulties his adolescent son experiences with schoolwork. Our friend was puzzled: His son was well aware that studying was important and feasible, and he strongly intended to study. But then the father found the son doing everything else except studying. So the father simply felt at a loss, and so did the son. We argue 3

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that even when people are highly motivated and strongly intend to change their behavior, they still need self-regulation tools when resistances such as difficulties or distractions arise. We describe such tools, their effects and mechanisms, as well as interventions that allow adolescents to easily acquire and effectively use them in an autonomous way.

Motivation versus Self-Regulation The terms motivation and self-regulation call for clear definitions of both. In our definition of motivation we follow Hull (1943) who referred to motivation in terms of intensity and direction. The intensity is defined by the energization or arousal of an organism (Duffy, 1934; see also Oettingen et al., 2009), whereas the direction is defined by whether the behavior aims at approaching or avoiding a certain outcome (Atkinson, 1957; McClelland, 1985). Intensity and direction in turn are determined by need (e.g., for food), expectation (e.g., cognitive map of the maze), and incentive value (e.g., quality of the food; Tolman, 1932). Gollwitzer (1990, 2012) classified the determinants of motivation into desirability and feasibility. Desirability is the expected value of a desired future (i.e., the subjective attractiveness of reaching it), while feasibility pertains to perceived expectations of attaining it. Expectations are beliefs or judgments of the likelihood of future events that are based on past performance and experience (e.g., Ajzen, 1991; Atkinson, 1957; Bandura, 1977; Mischel, 1973; Oettingen & Mayer, 2002). They might pertain to (a) performing a certain behavior (self-efficacy expectations), (b) producing a desired outcome (outcome expectations), or (c) reaching the desired outcome (general expectations). In the 20th century, psychological research on behavior change primarily focused on the concept of motivation. Although theoretical approaches and concepts changed over time, incentive value and expectations were and still are considered to be the two core determinants of behavior change, with most motivational theories centering on questions of how the two variables influence behavior. In this vein, behavior change interventions such as motivational interviewing (Miller & Rollnick, 2002; see also Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992) or incremental theory training (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007) utilize strategies geared at modifying incentive value and expectations. The strategies render behavior change more important or strengthen people’s expectations of successfully achieving behavior change (see also, Eccles, Fredricks, & Baay, this volume; Wigfield, Tonks, Klauda, & Wenzel, 2009).

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Only recently has research on self-regulation gained more attention. In line with William James (1890), we understand self-regulation as helping people deal with resistance and conflict, such as with obstacles and temptations standing in the way of attaining desired future outcomes. Thus self-regulation tools are strategies that target resistance and conflict to help translate high incentive value and expectations of success into appropriate behaviors. In contrast to motivational strategies, self-regulation strategies do not aim at making future outcomes more desirable or feasible, but rather at assuring that they become behaviorally relevant. After providing an overview of the history and recent research on selfregulation, the present chapter introduces three self-regulation tools: mental contrasting, implementation intentions, and the combination of mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). Mental contrasting is a self-regulation tool that allows people to consider possible resistance and conflict when trying to reach a desired future. Mental contrasting means mentally juxtaposing the desired future (e.g., excelling in the impending exam on Tuesday) with a critical obstacle of reality (e.g., invitation to a party on Saturday). After mental contrasting, but not after relevant control exercises, expectations of success are activated (not changed) and determine behavior (e.g., studying for the exam). As a self-regulation tool, it helps effectively pursue feasible desired futures (summary by Oettingen, 2012). In a second step, we discuss forming implementation intentions as an additional self-regulation strategy. Implementation intentions are if . . . , then . . . plans that link a critical situation to an action that is instrumental in reaching a desired future (e.g., if my friend calls to join her at the party, then I will tell her that I have to study). These plans allow people to respond to a critical situation in a fast and effortless way and without any further conscious intent (summary by Gollwitzer, 2014). In a third step, we introduce the combination of both strategies. MCII is a self-regulation tool that enables individuals to hold both the desired future and the obstacles of reality in the mind, and it then provides people with explicit plans for how to deal with these obstacles. MCII has been found to be more powerful in changing behavior than mental contrasting and implementation intentions by themselves, and it is cost- and time-effective to learn and apply (summaries by Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2010; Oettingen, 2012).

Self-Regulation: Overview Self-regulation is required when people face resistance or conflict to attaining their desired future (Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011; James, 1890;

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Oettingen, 2012). Investigating self-regulation, some researchers focus on nonconscious processes (e.g., implicit goal shielding), whereas others target conscious strategies (e.g., distancing); still others focus on conscious strategies that trigger nonconscious processes, which in turn help overcome resistance and conflict (e.g., mental contrasting, forming implementation intentions). Nonconscious Self-Regulation Nonconscious Goals. Most approaches to self-regulation have assumed an agentic, conscious individual who makes decisions and behaves in a goaldirected way (Bandura, 2006; Vohs & Baumeister, 2011). However, selfregulation of goal-directed behavior may also occur nonconsiously; that is, it may operate outside of awareness. Research on priming attests to these nonconscious processes; priming is the activation of relevant mental representations outside of awareness (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). Primes can evoke concepts, procedures, or, importantly, goals (for reviews, see Bargh, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2010; Dijksterhuis & Aarts, 2010). When goals are primed, mental representations of goals (e.g., to be assertive) are activated and people act to fulfil these goals without knowing it (Oettingen, Grant, Smith, Skinner, & Gollwitzer, 2006). Primes can be presented subliminally or supraliminally (e.g., in the form of words, objects, scents), and the evoked goals may, for example, be to form a good impression or to achieve well, but also to cooperate or to help. Importantly, nonconscious goal pursuit has been shown to produce similar behavioral effects as conscious goal pursuit; goal-primed individuals show resumption after interruption and persistence in the face of difficulties (Bargh, Gollwitzer, Chai, Barndollar, & Tr¨otschel, 2001). Once a nonconscious goal is satisfied, its influence on goal pursuit disappears (e.g., Kawada, Oettingen, Gollwitzer, & Bargh, 2004). There is an important difference between conscious and nonconscious goal pursuit: Unlike individuals pursuing conscious goals, those pursuing nonconscious goals are puzzled why they did what they did once they become aware of their behavior. Their inability to explain their behavior creates negative affect (i.e., the behavior cannot be readily attributed to the respective goal; Oettingen et al., 2006). When such an explanatory vacuum occurs, people readily jump to any available plausible explanation to reduce their negative affect (Parks-Stamm, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2010). Goal Shielding. To attain a goal demands shielding the goal from distractions. Goal shielding is more pronounced when goal commitment is high

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(Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002). Emotions play a different role in goal shielding depending on whether the goal is distal or proximal. If the goal is distal, positive emotions signal strong goal commitment and thus heighten goal shielding; if the goal is proximal, positive emotions signal goal attainment and thus decrease goal shielding (Louro, Pieters, & Zeelenberg, 2007). Goal Hierarchies. Superordinate goals may consist of various subgoals (Fishbach, Shah, & Kruglanski, 2004). If a superordinate goal is activated, initial success with a subgoal implies strong commitment to the superordinate goal, while initial failure implies weak commitment. In contrast, if the superordinate goal is not activated, initial success on the subgoal implies goal attainment, whereas initial failure implies that the goal is still incomplete (Fishbach, Dhar, & Zhang, 2006). Conscious Self-Regulation Walter Mischel, a pioneer in the research on conscious self-regulation, focused on strategies enabling delay of gratification and resistance to temptation (Mischel, 1974; Mischel & Patterson, 1978). In his studies, he effectively established the prerequisites for investigating self-regulation: high incentive value (e.g., marshmallows as rewards for preschool children) and high expectations of success (e.g., trust that the experimenter would respond to a given behavior with the promised rewards). Delay of Gratification. In his studies on delay of gratification, Mischel first observed and then experimentally manipulated which self-regulation strategies children deployed to wait for a preferred reward (e.g., two marshmallows) instead of consuming a less preferred reward immediately (e.g., one marshmallow; Mischel, 1974; Mischel & Ebbesen, 1970). The children who more successfully waited for the delayed reward employed strategies to distract themselves such as humming, role playing, staring at the ceiling, or even falling asleep. These observations led to a series of experiments testing whether children who had to minimize arousal (e.g., imagine the marshmallow as a cloud) were more successful in delaying the bigger rewards. Effective self-regulation entailed cognitively transforming the rewards so that the immediate urge to consume them was minimized. Mischel followed his preschool participants until they became adolescents and adults. The results of the preschool studies predicted selfregulation outcomes in adolescence (Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988). Those children who had been able to wait longer at age four or five became

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adolescents whose parents rated them as more academically or socially competent, verbally fluent, rational, attentive, organized, and able to master disappointments and stressors. Even into adulthood (beyond 40 years old), those participants who originally were able to wait longer showed more self-control skills on a go/no-go task when asked to suppress a response to a happy face (but not to a neutral or fearful face). When the neural activity of some of the adult participants was assessed, the original patterns of delay of gratification were associated with reliable biases in frontostriatal circuitries, known to integrate motivational and cognitive processes (Casey et al., 2011). Resistance to Temptations. In their Mr. Clown Box studies, Mischel and Patterson (1978) told preschool children that they had to work on a boring task (putting pegs in a pegboard) to earn permission to play with fun toys. Before starting the pegboard task, children were informed that while working on the task, they would be tempted to do something fun: Mr. Clown Box (a robot) would tempt them to play with him. But in order to play with the fun toys later they would have to keep working on the boring pegboard task. There were four planning conditions (task-facilitating plan vs. temptation-inhibiting plan vs. combination of both plans vs. no plan). In the task-facilitating condition, children had to form the plan: “When Mr. Clown Box says to look at him and play with him, then you can just look at the pegboard and say, ‘I’m going to look at my work.’” In the temptation-inhibiting condition, they were provided with the plan: “When Mr. Clown Box says to look at him and play with him, then you can just not look at him and say, ‘I’m not going to look at Mr. Clown Box.’” In the combined condition, children had to combine the task-facilitating and temptation-inhibiting plans, while in the control condition, children were not asked to form any plan. The temptation-inhibiting plans were more effective than the task-facilitating plans, the combined plans, or no plans. That is, making a plan specifically targeted at looking away from Mr. Clown Box rather than focusing on the boring task was the most effective selfregulation strategy. To be effective, the plans did not need to be rehearsed (repeated several times by using inner speech). Addressing nonconscious self-regulation, we have discussed the phenomenon of nonconscious goal pursuit as well as the role that goal shielding and goal hierarchies play in goal pursuit. We then focused on strategies that help people distance themselves and minimize their arousal in the service of delaying gratification and resisting temptation. We will now turn to conscious strategies that trigger nonconscious processes to overcome resistance

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and conflict: mental contrasting, forming implementation intentions, and the combination of the two (MCII).

Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) Mental Contrasting Fantasy Realization Theory (FRT; review by Oettingen, 2012) identifies mental contrasting as a self-regulation tool that instigates and sustains behavior change. Specifically, mental contrasting of future and reality energizes people when chances of success are perceived as high and de-energizes them when chances of success are perceived as low (Oettingen, 2000; Oettingen, Pak, & Schnetter, 2001). When mentally contrasting, people imagine a desired future (e.g., settling a conflict with a friend) and then immediately identify and imagine the critical obstacle of reality that stands in the way of attaining this future (e.g., feeling insulted). Mental contrasting activates people’s expectations of attaining the desired future; they pursue (commit to and strive for) the desired future when chances look good, and let go when prospects are bleak (Oettingen et al., 2001). In sum, mental contrasting leads people to discriminate in their pursuits between high and low expectations, thereby allowing individuals to conserve energy and resources. Apart from mental contrasting, FRT has identified three further modes of thought: mentally elaborating the desired future without considering the reality (indulging), imagining the reality without the desired future (dwelling), and reversing the order of elaboration so that the reality is mentally elaborated before the future (reverse contrasting). Contrary to mental contrasting, when people indulge, they do not juxtapose the reality to the desired future, and when they dwell, they have not mentally experienced a desired future. Thus, these one-sided elaborations fail to clarify that obstacles are in the way of the desired future (indulging) or they fail to clarify the direction in which to act (dwelling). Reverse contrasting, finally, implies elaborating first the present reality and then the desired future; this order prevents the reality from being perceived as impeding the desired future (Kappes, Wendt, Reinelt, & Oettingen, 2013; Oettingen et al., 2001). Accordingly, reverse contrasting leaves goal pursuit unchanged, just like indulging and dwelling (e.g., Sevincer & Oettingen, 2013). To sum up, indulging, dwelling, and reverse contrasting do not instigate prudent (expectancy-based) goal pursuit and behavior change. Let us return to our friend and his adolescent son. When mental contrasting, the son would imagine excelling on the exam and elaborate the feelings

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of happiness. Immediately afterward, he would try to identify his critical obstacle. What is it that gets in the way of excelling on the exam? Feeling peer pressure to party? Browsing the internet? Watching all the latest TV shows? Of the many obstacles that come to mind, what is his most critical obstacle? Fear of failure? Feeling too shy to ask for help? Whatever the obstacle might be, finding and mentally elaborating it will energize the high school student, and he will put in the necessary effort to overcome it. Effects of Mental Contrasting. Mental contrasting is effective in different life domains, settings, and samples (summary by Oettingen, 2012). For example, an experimental study investigated adolescents in a vocational school for computer programming, where excelling in mathematics was highly desirable for the students (Oettingen et al., 2001, Study 4). Participants had to first identify positive outcomes they associated with improving in mathematics (e.g., increased job prospects, feeling of relief) and then find obstacles in their present reality that might impede their improvement (e.g., procrastination, partying). In the mental contrasting condition, participants had to imagine and write about two aspects of the desired future and two aspects of present reality, in alternating order, starting with a positive future outcome. In the indulging and dwelling conditions, participants had to mentally elaborate either four positive future outcomes or four reality aspects. Two weeks later, when asking the teachers how well participants did in class, those in the mental-contrasting condition had exerted effort and earned grades according to their expectations of success: Those with high expectations were the most energized, showed the most effort, and earned the highest grades, while those with low expectations showed the reverse pattern of results. Students in the indulging and dwelling conditions scored in between regardless of whether their expectations of success were high or low. Experimental studies replicated these findings in a variety of domains: studying abroad (Oettingen et al., 2001), acquiring a foreign language (Oettingen, H¨onig, & Gollwitzer, 2000), meeting a potential romantic partner, completing one’s doctoral degree and raising a child (Oettingen, 2000), reducing cigarette consumption (Oettingen, Mayer, & Thorpe, 2010), and solving interpersonal problems (e.g., getting along with one’s roommate; Oettingen et al., 2001). Cognitive (e.g., making plans), affective (e.g., feeling responsible), motivational (e.g., anticipating disappointment in case of failure), and behavioral indicators of goal attainment (e.g., investing effort, time, money) were measured subjectively and objectively (e.g., content analysis, observations), right after the experiment or weeks and months later.

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Across experiments, mental contrasting helped conserve resources: Participants invested much when the attainment of the future was likely and little when it was unlikely. As a self-regulation (vs. motivational) strategy, mental contrasting does not change expectations of success, but activates them and translates them into respective goal pursuit. In two experiments, Oettingen, Marquardt, and Gollwitzer (2012) investigated whether mental contrasting transforms expectations into heightened effort and performance even if they are induced in situ via positive feedback. Using a creativity task to provide bogus feedback to student participants, they observed that mental contrasting increased creative performance after positive feedback rather than after moderate feedback. By manipulating expectations through bogus feedback, the Oettingen et al. (2012) studies account for third-variable explanations of mental-contrasting effects on expectancy-dependent goal pursuit. They also suggest that mental contrasting will help translate positive situational feedback into heightened performance. Processes of Mental Contrasting. Mental contrasting affects behavior through changing cognitive and motivational processes as well as through changing responses to negative feedback. In terms of cognitive processes, mental contrasting modulates the mental associations between future and reality and between reality and the means to overcome or circumvent the reality. In addition, it shifts the meaning of reality so that it can be interpreted as an obstacle. In terms of motivational processes, mental contrasting changes feelings and physiological indicators of energy. And finally, mental contrasting changes the way people respond to negative feedback; negative feedback is processed as useful information without impairing an individual’s self-confidence. mental associations. Mental contrasting works by affecting the mental associations of future and reality (Kappes & Oettingen, 2014). It strengthens the association between future and reality when expectations are high, while it weakens this association when expectations are low. The futurereality associations in turn mediate the link between expectations and subjective as well as other-rated goal pursuit. Interestingly, mental contrasting’s effects on future-reality associations vanished after feedback that the desired future had been attained; they were no longer needed. Similar mental associations emerge between reality and the behavior instrumental to overcoming the present reality toward the desired future. Mental contrasting paired with high expectations of success leads to strong associations; paired with low expectations, it leads to weak associations.

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Again, no such effects are observed in the control groups (e.g., reverse contrasting, content control). The strength of the mental associations mediated mental-contrasting effects on goal pursuit (e.g., commitment, persistence, and observed performance). obstacle identification. FRT assumes that mental contrasting affects goal pursuit by redefining reality as an obstacle to attaining a particular future outcome. To study this process, Kappes et al. (2013) assessed explicit evaluation of reality (Study 1), implicit categorization of reality as an obstacle (Study 2), and detection of an obstacle (Study 3). They observed that mental contrasting (versus relevant control groups) heightened the interpretation of reality as an obstacle when expectations of success were high but lowered it when expectations of success were low. And again, the meaning of reality as an obstacle mediated mental-contrasting effects on goal pursuit. These results imply that mental contrasting affects goal pursuit by changing the meaning of a person’s reality. energization. Identifying the present reality as an obstacle is not enough to reach the desired future; one also needs the energy to deal with the obstacle. Mental contrasting increases energy for people with high expectations while decreasing it for people with low expectations, whether measured by self-report (e.g., “How energized do you feel?”) or via systolic blood pressure (SBP; Oettingen et al., 2009). By lowering energy, mental contrasting allows people with low expectations of success to turn to alternative, more promising projects. Importantly, energization mediates the relation between expectations and goal pursuit (e.g., commitment, actual performance; Oettingen et al., 2009; Sevincer, Busatta, & Oettingen, 2014). dealing with negative feedback. Feedback may originate from a parent, a peer, or a teacher, or from people one encounters during daily life. Negative feedback, more than positive feedback, provides useful information for attaining one’s goal effectively. However, often negative feedback is poorly processed and hardly remembered (Sedikides & Green, 2009). It may be interpreted as threatening and may lower people’s confidence (Nease, Mudgett, & Qui˜nones, 1999). Mental contrasting allows people to respond effectively to such negative feedback (Kappes, Oettingen, & Pak, 2012). When expectations of success are high, mental contrasting promotes the processing of negative feedback, and in turn leads participants to form plans to best solve the given task. It also preserves one’s confidence in the face of very strong (normative) negative feedback, and it facilitates optimistic attributions of such feedback. Altogether, these findings imply that mental contrasting can be used to help adolescents reap the benefits of negative

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feedback. As mental contrasting is an easy-to-apply, time- and cost-effective strategy, it may be a helpful tool to master one of the most difficult tasks in an adolescent’s life: learning from criticism and carrying on in spite of it. Mental Contrasting as a Meta-Cognitive Intervention. The observed benefits of mental contrasting on pursuing goals and processing critical feedback raises the question of whether it can be used as a meta-cognitive strategy that involves thinking about one’s own thinking (Flavell, 1979). If so, adolescents could apply mental contrasting to select and effectively pursue their own personal wishes, and parents and educators could adopt the strategy to improve their relationships with them. A series of intervention studies speaks to whether mental contrasting can be taught and effectively used as a meta-cognitive strategy. In one study, middle-level managers working in hospitals were taught how to apply mental contrasting versus indulging regarding solving everyday life problems. In comparison to those who indulged in a desired future, those who mentally contrasted the desired future with obstacles of reality were subsequently more successful in setting priorities and managing their time (Oettingen, Mayer, & Brinkmann, 2010). Mental contrasting was also useful for finding integrative solutions in a bargaining game (Kirk, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2011). Pairs of participants were asked to effectively negotiate with each other over buying/selling a car. For each pair, there was a buyer and a seller, and buyer and seller were asked to maximize their gains, which was facilitated by coming up with integrative solutions (e.g., regarding color of the car, price, audio system). Pairs in the mental-contrasting condition reached the highest combined gains compared to those in the relevant control conditions (indulging, dwelling, and no treatment control). The agreements in the mental-contrasting condition were also more equitable to both partners than those in the other three conditions. Mental contrasting leads to selective goal pursuit: People with high expectations engage fully, whereas people with low expectations disengage from futile endeavors, thus saving energy, time, and other resources for more promising projects. Sometimes, however, interventions aim for full engagement of all participants (e.g., doing homework). In these cases, participants must have high expectations when they mentally contrast. As discussed earlier in the chapter, one way to guarantee high expectations is to instill high expectations in situ by applying positive performance feedback (Oettingen et al., 2012). Another way is to provide participants with a novel task so no preexisting experiences will interfere with the assumption of success

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(A. Gollwitzer, Oettingen, Kirby, Duckworth, & Mayer, 2011). And third, participants may generate a personal wish or concern of their own that is challenging yet feasible (Oettingen, 2012). Applying the second of the three possibilities, A. Gollwitzer et al. (2011) showed in two studies that mental contrasting facilitated language acquisition in elementary school children and middle school adolescents. Second and third graders in Germany and fifth graders in the United States were asked to learn a vocabulary in a foreign language (English for the German children) or to learn to say “thank you” in ten different languages (adolescents in the United States). Using mental contrasting to learn the foreign language words facilitated the acquisition of new vocabulary more than indulging. An intervention study aimed at heightening physical activity applied the third option mentioned earlier. Members of a fishing club in northern England completed a postal questionnaire in which a mental-contrasting procedure geared at improved physical activity was either embedded or not (Sheeran, Harris, Vaughan, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2013). When participants were called by phone one month and seven months post baseline, those who received the mental-contrasting questionnaires (vs. the control) reported to be more physically active. Longitudinal, explanatory, and intention-to-treat analyses each indicated that mental contrasting was effective in enhancing rates of physical activity at both points in time. In another intervention study, students interested in losing weight listed specific weight-related wishes. They then mentally contrasted or indulged in fulfilling these wishes (Johannessen, Oettingen, & Mayer, 2012); no treatment was given to a third group. Compared to participants in the indulging or no treatment conditions, those in the mental-contrasting condition reported having consumed fewer high-calorie and more low-calorie foods. Importantly, the effects transferred into the exercise domain: Mental contrasting of the diet wishes also helped students increase their physical activity compared to participants in the other two conditions. Summary. Mental contrasting is a self-regulation strategy that facilitates both engagement with and disengagement from desired futures – depending on a person’s expectations of successfully attaining the envisioned future. It changes behavior by affecting nonconscious cognition (e.g., mental associations, interpretation of reality), energization (e.g., feelings, systolic blood pressure), and dealing with negative feedback constructively (e.g., processing of relevant information, protection of subjective competence). Thus, mental contrasting is a conscious strategy that produces changes in implicit

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cognition and energization that mediate behavior change (e.g., effort, successful performance). A person who uses mental contrasting engages in promising goals and disengages from futile ones, thereby conserving resources for improving everyday life and long-term development. Mental contrasting can be easily taught and used as a meta-cognitive strategy in various life domains, such as excelling in academics, preserving health, managing time, resolving conflict, and negotiating with others. Implementation Intentions Even when people are fully engaged in reaching a desired future, they may still need additional help in attaining their goals. Explicitly planning out in advance how to master particular challenges on the way to reaching the desired future turns out to be very helpful. Specifically, Gollwitzer (1993, 1999) suggested forming implementation intentions (i.e., if-then plans) that specify, “If critical situation X is encountered, then I will perform the goal-directed response Y!” Returning to the example at the beginning of the chapter, the son of our friend might form the following implementation intention to attain the goal of being more attentive in class: “If someone starts talking to me, then I’ll say: ‘Let’s talk after class!’” Forming implementation intentions raises the rate of goal attainment. A meta-analysis based on close to a hundred studies pertaining to attainment of goals in various life domains showed a medium to large effect size (d = .61; e.g., achievement, health, environmental, egalitarian, prosocial, and consumer goals; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). Processes of Implementation Intentions. Implementation intentions facilitate goal attainment based on mechanisms relating to the anticipated situation (the if-part) and the mental link created between the if-part and the then-part of the plan. For instance, in a dichotic listening task paradigm, Achtziger, Bayer, and Gollwitzer (2012) observed that words describing the anticipated situation presented to the non-attended ear disrupted the focused attention (i.e., performance in repeating the words presented simultaneously to the attended ear decreased in implementation-intention participants). The heightened accessibility of the anticipated critical situation (see also Parks-Stamm, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2007) partially mediated the effects of implementation intentions on goal attainment (Aarts, Dijksterhuis, & Midden, 1999). Further studies showed that forming implementation intentions also links the specified cue to the respective goal-directed response (Webb & Sheeran, 2007, 2008). These associative links (mental associations) are quite stable over time (Papies, Aarts, & de Vries, 2009),

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and mediation analyses suggest that both the accessibility of the cue and the strength of the cue-response link mediate the impact of implementationintention formation on goal attainment (Webb & Sheeran, 2007, 2008). Gollwitzer (1999) argues that the strong associative links (critical situation with goal-directed response) generated by forming implementation intentions facilitate the initiation of goal-directed responses by automating action initiation; it becomes immediate, efficient, and no longer needs a conscious intent. That is, if-then planners act fast (e.g., Gollwitzer & Brandst¨atter, 1997, Experiment 3), deal with cognitive demands effectively (e.g., speed-up effects are observed even under high cognitive load; Brandst¨atter, Lengfelder, & Gollwitzer, 2001), and implementationintention effects are observed even when the critical cue is presented subliminally (Bayer, Achtziger, Gollwitzer, & Moskowitz, 2009). The mechanisms underlying implementation-intention effects (enhanced cue accessibility, strong cue–response links, automated responses) allow if-then planners to effectively detect and seize opportunities to move toward desired futures. Making if-then plans thus strategically automates goal striving; people intentionally make if-then plans that in turn delegate control of goal-directed behavior to preselected situational cues (Gollwitzer, 2014). This delegation hypothesis has also been supported by studies that assessed brain activity using EEG (e.g., Gallo, Keil, McCulloch, Rockstroh, & Gollwitzer, 2009, Study 3) and fMRI (e.g., Gilbert, Gollwitzer, Cohen, Oettingen, & Burgess, 2009). Overcoming Typical Problems of Goal Striving. Implementation intentions help meet the four major challenges of goal striving: getting started, staying on track, disengaging from futile goals and faulty methods, and avoiding resource depletion (summaries by Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011; Gollwitzer, 2014). With respect to the first problem, implementation intentions helped individuals get started with goal striving in terms of remembering to act (e.g., adolescents better remembered to take contraceptive pills and prospectively acquired condoms; Martin, Sheeran, Slade, Wright, & Dibble, 2009). Moreover, regular dental care can be facilitated when adolescents form respective implementation intentions (e.g., heightened compliance with wearing intraoral elastics; Veeroo, Cunningham, Newton, & Ravess, 2014; regular tooth brushing in Iranian adolescents; Hajiagha & Saffari, 2012), and Chinese adolescents are more effective in translating their exercise goals into action when they make plans specifying when and where to engage in physical exercise (Cao, Sch¨uz, Xie, & Lippke, 2013).

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With respect to the second problem, implementation intentions can be used to effectively protect ongoing goal striving from a wide range of disruptions, both internal (e.g., general anxiety; Varley, Webb, & Sheeran, 2011; performance anxiety; Stern, Cole, Gollwitzer, Oettingen, & Balcetis, 2013) and external (e.g., sleep procrastination; Loft and Cameron, 2013; distracting video clips; Gollwitzer & Schaal, 1998; Wieber, von Suchodoletz, Heikamp, Trommsdorff, & Gollwitzer, 2011; offering cigarettes to adolescents trying to prevent smoking; Conner & Higgins, 2010). These implementation intentions can come in various formats. For example, if an adolescent wants to persist in studying even though her peers start playing games, she can form suppression-oriented plans, such as “And if my friends ask me to join them, then I will not get distracted!” The then-component of such suppression-oriented plans may alternatively specify a replacement behavior (“ . . . , then I will say, please let me focus on my work!”) or it may focus on ignoring the critical cue (“ . . . , then I’ll ignore their request!”). When one wants to control bad eating habits (Adriaanse, Van Oosten, De Ridder, De Wit, & Evers, 2011), implementation intentions to negate the distraction are less effective than the latter two (i.e., replacing and ignoring it). Implementation intentions protect ongoing goal striving not only by directly targeting the disruption but also by stabilizing the order of steps to be taken; such plans effectively block the disruptive effects created by inappropriate moods or ego-depletion (e.g., Bayer, Gollwitzer, & Achtziger, 2010). In line with these findings, Webb et al. (2012), conducting studies on risk-taking behavior, observed that implementation intentions reduce the detrimental effects of unpleasant mood and arousal whether the plans aimed at controlling the negative mood/heightened arousal or directly targeted the risk-taking behavior. When goals or means are no longer feasible and/or desirable, goal striving should be adjusted or disengaged from. Implementation intentions can be used to solve this problem by specifying negative feedback as a critical situation and linking this situation to switching to an alternative goal or means (Henderson, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2007). Finally, implementation intentions can also prevent overextending oneself because they induce automated goal striving that does not require deliberate effort. Therefore, the person does not become depleted (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Indeed, in studies using different ego-depletion paradigms (e.g., Webb & Sheeran, 2003), participants who used implementation intentions to self-regulate in a first task did not show reduced self-regulatory capacity in a subsequent task.

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Critical Tests of Implementation-Intention Effects. Goal striving is sometimes extraordinarily hard. For example, goal striving is hard (1) when a person’s knowledge and skills constrain performance, (2) when a competitor limits one’s performance, and (3) when the desired behavior (e.g., not snacking) conflicts with habits favoring antagonistic responses. In all three situations, implementation intentions are beneficial. First, when knowledge and skills constrain performance, simple implementation intentions (i.e., if-then instructions to be confident) were found to enhance adolescents’ performance on the Raven intelligence test (Bayer & Gollwitzer, 2007). Second, when an opponent limits performance, a study with tennis players in competitive tennis tournaments showed that implementation intentions helped cope effectively with critical situations during the game (Achtziger, Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2008). Similar results emerged when pairs of negotiators used implementation intentions (e.g., when a common resource had to be distributed; Tr¨otschel & Gollwitzer, 2007; or anger had to be regulated when unfair offers were received in an ultimatum game; Kirk, Gollwitzer, & Carnevale, 2011). Third, the self-regulation of goal striving becomes particularly difficult when habits conflict with appropriate goal-directed responses (e.g., Wood & Neal, 2007). In studies on snacking behavior, if-then plans that spelled out a response contrary to the habitual response of snacking have been found to be effective in Dutch college students (Adriaanse et al., 2011) and Iranian adolescent girls (Karimi-Shahanjarini, Rashidian, Omidvar, & Majdzadeh, 2013). Other habitual responses are automatic cognitive biases, such as stereotyping; these can get in the way of the goal to be fair. Implementation intentions designed to counter automatic stereotypes (e.g., “When I see a black face, I will then think ‘safe’”) reduced automatic stereotyping (Stewart & Payne, 2008) and its behavioral expression (Mendoza, Gollwitzer, & Amodio, 2010). Forming implementation intentions can also control primed behavioral responses (Gollwitzer, Sheeran, Tr¨otschel, & Webb, 2011). Doing research on binge drinking in adolescents, Rivis and Sheeran (2013) found that priming the binge drinker stereotype (i.e., binge drinkers are outgoing, funloving, cheerful, and friendly) increased the frequency of binge drinking assessed over the period of one month in 16-year-old high school students; however, this effect was no longer evident when the students were induced to form implementation intentions to take an outside observer’s perspective whenever the urge to binge occurred.

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Armitage, Rowe, Arden, and Harris (2014) recently proposed to form an alternative type of implementation intention to counter habitual (or primed) unwanted responses. Rather than specifying an antagonistic response that could outrun the habitual (or primed) response, the authors had adolescent alcohol drinkers who wanted to reduce their alcohol consumption form implementation intentions to engage in selfaffirmation (then-component) whenever health-related anxiety was experienced (if-component). When the researchers provided a health risk message designed to reduce alcohol consumption, participants processed the information without much defensiveness and in turn significantly reduced their drinking. Summary. Forming implementation intentions is a self-regulation tool that links goal-directed responses to critical situational cues. As a consequence, when the critical situation is encountered, the specified response is executed immediately, effortlessly, and without conscious intent. That is, if-then planners can strategically delegate their response to critical situational cues. Importantly, individuals who have low executive control resources (ECR) will also benefit from forming implementation intentions (Hall, Zehr, Ng, & Zanna, 2012). In line with these findings, implementation intentions help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by improving both their inhibitory functions (e.g., Gawrilow & Gollwitzer, 2008; Gawrilow, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2011a) as well as their ability to delay gratification (Gawrilow, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2011b). MCII as a Meta-Cognitive Intervention Mental contrasting and implementation intentions have been combined to form a meta-cognitive strategy called MCII (Oettingen, 2012). The two self-regulation tools support each other. Mental contrasting of feasible wishes creates nonconscious associations between reality and instrumental means. Explicitly forming implementation intentions strengthens this association even further. Implementation intentions in turn benefit from mental contrasting. Mental contrasting creates energization and goal commitment, which are prerequisites for implementation intentions to achieve their effects (Sheeran, Webb, & Gollwitzer, 2005). In addition, mental contrasting helps identify personal obstacles and the appropriate means to attain the desired future; the obstacle can then be used as the if-component and the instrumental means as the then-component of an implementation intention. In sum, if-then plans in MCII may be framed as: If . . . [obstacle], then I will . . . [response] to overcome or circumvent the obstacle.

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MCII Is More Effective Than MC and II. MCII is more effective than mental contrasting or forming implementation intentions alone. Using the integrative bargaining paradigm described earlier in the chapter, Kirk, Oettingen, and Gollwitzer (2013) asked the negotiating pairs to either engage in MCII, to only mentally contrast, or to only form implementation intentions. Those who were taught MCII achieved the best integrative performance (i.e., the highest combined gain) followed by participants who either engaged in mental contrasting or implementation intentions alone. Importantly, participants formed more cooperative and integrative plans when they had engaged in MC beforehand than when the plans were made without being prepared by mental contrasting. MCII also was more effective in breaking bad habits (i.e., unhealthy snacking) than mental contrasting or forming implementation intentions alone (Adriaanse, Oettingen, Gollwitzer et al., 2010). Student participants in the MCII condition consumed fewer unhealthy snacks than participants in a control condition who thought about and listed healthy snack options, and they were more effective in breaking bad snacking habits than participants in both the mental-contrasting condition and the implementation-intention condition. Mental contrasting also helped participants clarify their personal obstacles standing in the way of breaking their snacking habit (e.g., mindless eating; feeling stressed out) that then could be effectively used as cues in the implementation intentions (e.g., if I catch myself eating mindlessly, then I will drink a glass of water). In line with these findings, when Adriaanse, de Ridder, and de Wit (2009) compared implementation intentions that were personalized vs. kept general (i.e., pertained to participants’ personal problems vs. a general problem), the personalized plans were more effective. In an intervention study, high school students scheduled to take the fall Preliminary SAT were given the MCII exercise before the summer, while students in the control group had to write an essay on an influential person or event in their life (Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2011). Participants in both groups received Barron’s 12th edition of How to prepare for the PSAT workbook. As part of the MCII exercise, participants wrote down two positive outcomes they associated with completing all of the practice tests in the workbook (e.g., feeling “relieved,” “calm,” “well prepared”) and two obstacles of present reality (e.g., being “tired,” being in “vacation mode,” “wanting to hang out with friends”) that could interfere with this task. Thereafter, they rewrote the first positive outcome, imagined it “as vividly as possible,” and wrote their thoughts and images down. They did the same for the first obstacle, the second positive outcome, and the second obstacle.

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Students then generated a solution to deal with each obstacle. Specifically, they completed two if-then plans (i.e., implementation intentions) in the following way: ‘If [obstacle], then I will [action].’ The workbooks were collected in October right after students had taken their PSAT. MCII helped in preparing for the PSAT: Students in the MCII condition completed 60% more questions in their workbooks than did control participants. MCII also helped resolve school-related concerns in young adolescents at risk and not at risk for ADHD (Gawrilow, Morgenroth, Schultz, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2013). Those who applied MCII to their most pressing schoolrelated concerns (e.g., trying to be more attentive in French class) benefited more from MCII than from a mere learning style intervention; the benefits of MCII were particularly pronounced for children at risk for ADHD. When parents rated how their children managed their school-related tasks (e.g., homework done, vocabulary learned, desk tidied) over the period of two weeks, the more ADHD symptoms the children showed before the intervention, the more they benefited from the MCII intervention. In economically disadvantaged young adolescents (Duckworth, Kirby, A. Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2013), MCII helped improve attendance, conduct, and grade point average (GPA). From official report cards of the first and second quarters, attendance, conduct, and GPA were recorded. At the start of the third quarter, children were randomly assigned to either complete the MCII or a positive-thinking control exercise regarding their most important school-related wishes and concerns. Trained interventionists instructed children in groups of 4 to 5 for one hour. At the end of the third quarter, attendance, conduct, and GPA were recorded again. Children taught how to apply MCII (vs. control) improved their school attendance, conduct, and GPA. An important developmental task in adolescents is the regulation of romantic relationships. In romantic relationships, MCII reduced anxiety as expressed in insecurity-based behaviors (e.g., checking the partner’s e-mails to assure oneself of the partner’s loyalty; Houssais, Oettingen, & Mayer, 2013). Students in the MCII condition reported fewer insecurity-based behaviors than those in two control conditions (reverse contrasting and no-treatment). At the same time, participants in the MCII condition felt more committed to their partner. Summary. MCII is a self-regulation tool that is more effective in changing people’s behavior than either mental contrasting or implementation intentions alone. MCII is cost- and time-effective to learn and apply, and it benefits adolescents facing complex everyday obstacles such as ADHD or

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socioeconomic disadvantages. Instructions on how to apply MCII can be found at http://www.woopmylife.org and in Oettingen (2014).

Self-Regulation: Individual Differences In this chapter we have focused on describing the scope of self-regulation strategies and understanding the processes of mental contrasting and implementation intentions as well as their combination. But there are also personality perspectives on self-regulation. These, for example, pertain to the conscientiousness factor of the Big Five personality model, which encompasses dependability, punctuality, and orderliness (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Alternatively, Duckworth (2009) distinguishes between the personal attributes of grit and self-control. Grit is the tendency to maintain interest and effort regarding long-term goals; it is measured by statements like “I am a hard worker,” and “I finish whatever I begin.” Self-control is the regulation of behavioral, emotional, and attentional impulses in the face of temptations or diversions; it is measured by statements like “My mind wandered when I should have been listening,” and “I talked back to my teacher or parent when I was upset” (Duckworth & Carlson, 2013). Grit and self-control predict successful performance over and above measures of IQ, SAT, or other standardized achievement scores or physical fitness scores. For example, high levels of grit and self-control predicted surviving the first summer of training at West Point and reaching the final rounds of the National Spelling Bee, retention in the U.S. Special Forces as well as graduation from Chicago public high schools. Self-control predicts changes in report card grades over time better than do measures of intelligence (Duckworth, Quinn, & Tsukayama, 2012).

Conclusion One central task for adolescents is to build a future that is safe and beneficial for themselves and for others, and that can be the basis for their long-term development. A first step to help adolescents with this task is to provide them with energy and direction by strengthening both the incentive value of responsible actions (desirability), as well as their expectations of success (feasibility). But beyond high desirability and feasibility, when facing resistance and conflict (e.g., obstacles, temptations), adolescents will benefit from self-regulation tools guaranteeing that they actually follow through (e.g., graduating from high school, caring for others, taking responsibility in

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the community). The self-regulation tools of mental contrasting and forming implementation intentions, and the combination of the two (MCII), can support adolescents in attaining their desired futures by overcoming obstacles and setbacks. Children and adolescents from different backgrounds and cultures can easily learn how to apply MCII as a metacognitive strategy that benefits their everyday life and long-term development. REFERENCES

Aarts, H., Dijksterhuis, A. P., & Midden, C. (1999). To plan or not to plan? Goal achievement or interrupting the performance of mundane behaviors. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 971–979. Achtziger, A., Bayer, U. C., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2012). Committing to implementation intentions: Attention and memory effects for selected situational cues. Motivation and Emotion, 36, 287–300. Achtziger, A., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2008). Implementation intentions and shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 381–393. Adriaanse, M. A., De Ridder, D. T. D., & De Wit, J. B. F. (2009). Finding the critical cue: Implementation intentions to change one’s diet work best when tailored to personally relevant reasons for unhealthy eating. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 60–71. Adriaanse, M. A., Oettingen, G., Gollwitzer, P. M., Hennes, E. P., de Ridder, D. T. D., & de Wit, J. B. F. (2010). When planning is not enough: Fighting unhealthy snacking habits by mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 1277–1293. doi:10.1002/ejsp.730 Adriaanse, M. A., van Oosten, J. M., de Ridder, D. T., de Wit, J. B., & Evers, C. (2011). Planning what not to eat: Ironic effects of implementation intentions negating unhealthy habits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 69–81. Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211. Atkinson, J. W. (1957). Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior. Psychological Review, 64, 359–372. Armitage, C. J., Rowe, R., Arden, M. A., & Harris, P. R. (2014). A brief psychological intervention that reduces adolescent alcohol consumption. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 82, 546–550. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215. Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychology of human agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 164–180. Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54, 462–479. Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., Chai, A. L., Barndollar, K., & Tr¨otschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1014–1027.

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Expectancies, Values, Identities, and Self-Regulation Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Jennifer A. Fredricks, and Pieter Baay

Author Note Jacquelynne Eccles, School of Education, University of California, Irvine; Jennifer A. Fredricks, Department of Human Development and the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy, Connecticut College; Pieter Baay, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University, NL Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Jacquelynne S. Eccles, School of Education, University of California, Irvine, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract In this chapter, we discuss the emergence of intense interest and the self-regulatory behaviors associated with enacting and perfecting the skills related to these intense interests. We focus on the adolescent years and the Eccles Expectancy-Value Theory of Motivated Behavioral Choices (EEVT). More specifically, we discuss possible associations among positive behavioral self-regulation, interest development, and personal identity development during adolescence. We investigate these associations in light of EEVT and Interest Theory. In the first two sections, we discuss links of the EEVT with both interest and identity development. In the final section, we relate EEVT to a specific qualitative study of adolescents behavioral engagement in skill-based leisure activities like sports and the arts.

Why do some youth become intensely interested in, and committed to, a particular activity? What underlies the self-regulated behaviors needed to stay heavily engaged over time in a particular skill-based, time-consuming, and difficult activity? How is type of self-regulation related to development during the adolescent years and, conversely, how are the more general processes associated with development during the adolescent years linked to enactment of this type of self-regulation? Questions like these are central to our 30

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general understanding of talent and interest development as well as to our understanding of identity development and self-regulated behavior. They are central to the Eccles et al.’s Expectancy-Value Theoretical Model of Activity Choice (EEVT), as well as other theories of interest development during adolescence in particular and positive youth development more generally. In this chapter, we explore the association of positive behavioral self-regulation, talent/interest development, and identity development during adolescence. We investigate this question in light of these two theoretical frameworks. In the first two sections, we describe possible links of EEVT to both interest and identity development and behavioral choices during adolescence. In the final section, we focus more in depth on the EEVT by summarizing the findings of a qualitative study of adolescents’ high levels of engagement in skill-based activities. Most research on self-regulation, particularly during adolescence, focuses on the uses of self-regulation to avoid engagement in risky behaviors and risky settings or engage in activities that are not especially appealing or enjoyable. Some developmental scientists focus on the ontogeny of children’s and adolescents’ ability to regulate their negative emotions, desires, and behaviors, particularly those related to aggression, impulsivity, risky behaviors in “hot contexts,” and other unhealthy or risky behaviors (see other chapters in this volume). Some of these scholars are particularly interested in the increase in risky behaviors during adolescence (e.g., Steinberg, 2005). But self-regulation is also needed to engage in the many growthpromoting behaviors linked to achievement and skill acquisition (Atkinson, 1957; Duckworth, 2011; Eccles, 2009; Gollwitzer & Kirchhof, 1998; Lerner, 1995; McClelland, 1985). It is during adolescence that young people become increasingly responsible for, and dedicated to, regulating their engagement in such activities. This is particularly true for voluntarily chosen activities, such as those linked to nonacademic skill acquisition in sports or instrumental music and other performing arts. This is the period in life when individual’s time is sufficiently unstructured to allow heavy investment in skill acquisition and civic involvement – later in life time is taken up with work and family-related responsibilities and earlier in life one’s time is organized to a much greater extent by one’s parents. It is also the time in development when interest in living a meaningful, self-chosen life begins to emerge and when issues of identity formation become more salient (Eccles, 2009; Erikson, 1980). We focus on these aspects of self-regulation in this chapter. Why do some youth become intensely interested in, and committed to, a particular activity? What leads to, and then sustains intense, self-regulated engagement in specific activities across childhood and into adolescence? How is such intense engagement related to interest and identity formation

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and expression? Questions such as these are central to our general understanding of the links of self-regulated behaviors to talent and interest development (i.e., the ontogeny of well-developed interests; Hidi & Renninger, 2006) as well as to our understanding of identity development (i.e., the development of idealized or hoped for selves/future self-related goal systems that guide subsequent behavioral choices). In this chapter, we explore these links. In the first section, we describe possible links between such motivational theories as the EEVT (e.g., Eccles [Parsons] et al., 1983; Eccles, 2009) to behavioral choices/engagement and interest/identity development. Each of these motivational theoretical perspectives assume that behavior reflects the implementation of choices related to the plans or intentions that are themselves related to one’s preferences. These theories focus on the psychological and social forces that lead up to and then influence these intentions and goals. They deal much less with the psychological and social forces that influence the behavioral enactments and implementations of these choices and intentions. In contrast, behavioral self-regulation-linked theoretical perspectives focus more on the psychological forces that influence both behavioral enactment and inhibition. We discuss these processes in the second section. Together these two perspectives help us understand both the chosen direction and the pathways by which the actor plans to get from here to there. In the third section, we summarize the findings of a qualitative study that we conducted with a group of adolescents who had been highly engaged in either competitive sports or the arts during the elementary school years to investigate the psychological and social influences on becoming and remaining versus dropping out of very intense levels of engagement in skillbased activities. We focus in particular on the relevance of EEVT and notions of self-regulation during adolescence for understanding these high levels of activity engagement. We end with a brief discussion of future questions and new directions.

EEVT and Interest/Identity Development The Eccles et al. Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement-Related Choices was originally formulated to explain individual and group differences in achievement-related choices, engagement, and persistence related to academic and occupational choices, in particular individual and gender differences in the pursuit of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) (see Eccles, 1987). It has since been extended to explain individual and group differences in the engagement in many activities and settings. In this model, depicted in simplified form in Figure 2.1, Eccles

Expectancies, Values, Identities, and Self-Regulation A. Cultural Milieu 1. Gender/etc. role stereotypes 2. Cultural stereotypes of subject matter and occupational characteristics 3. Family Demographics

E. Child's Perception of…

G. Child's Goals and General Self-Schemata

1. Socializer's beliefs, expectations, attitudes, and behaviors 2. Gender roles 3. Activity stereotypes and task demands

1. Personal and social identities 2. Possible and future selves 3. Self-concept of one's general/other abilities 4. Short-term goals 5. Long-term goals

33 I. Activity Specific Ability Self Concept and Expectations for Success

K. Achievement-Related Choices, Engagement and Persistence

B. Socializer's Beliefs and Behaviors

C. Stable Child Characteristics 1. Aptitudes of child and sibs 2. Child gender 3. Birth order

H. Child's Affective Reactions and Memories

J. Subjective Task Value 1. Interest -enjoyment value 2. Utility Value 3. Attainment value

F.Child's Interpretations of Experience

4. Relative cost 5. Prior Investments

D. Previous AchievementRelated Experiences

Across Time

Figure 2.1. General expectancy value model of achievement choices.

and colleagues linked salient life-defining behavioral choices, such as those related to education, recreation, occupations, and so forth, most directly to two broad sets of beliefs: the individual’s expectations for success/ability self-concepts, and the importance or subjective task value the individual attaches to the various options perceived by the individual as available. Eccles and colleagues argued that the probability of an individual selecting a specific activity was increased if the person was both confident about his/her ability to master or complete the task/activity and attached relatively higher value to this activity or task than other available options. They have also argued that the joint development of differentiated ability self-concepts and subjective task values across different skill-based domains inform those aspects of identity development linked to skill based activities. Other expectancy-value-related theories lead to a similar prediction. EEVT differs from these other theories in two ways: (1) Eccles and her colleagues elaborated a framework for thinking about the immediate psychological influences on the relative subjective task value individuals would come to attach to various activities or tasks or skills and thus influence the emergence of specific future identity-related goals (see also Gollwitzer & Kirchhof, 1998, for a similar argument). (2) They then hypothesized how these domain-specific self- and task-related beliefs might be influenced by

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cultural norms, social category linked role-related (e.g., gender roles or racial/ethnic group membership) and task-related stereotypes, experiences, aptitudes, and more general personal beliefs and values (see Eccles et al., 1983; Eccles, 1987). For example, consider decisions related to becoming an outstanding athlete or musician rather than spending one’s free time watching TV. According to the EEVT, people should be most likely to put effort into such highly skill-based activities if they think they can in fact develop these skills and acquiring such skills has relatively high task value for them – higher than the value of time spent doing something else. Expectations for success (domain-specific beliefs about one’s personal efficacy to master the task), in turn, depend on both the confidence that individuals have in their various abilities/potential and the individuals’ estimations of the difficulty of the various options they are considering. Eccles and colleagues also predicted that these self- and task-related beliefs were shaped over time by both experiences with the related activities and individuals’ subjective interpretation of these experiences (e.g., does the person think that her/his prior successes reflect high ability or lots of hard work? And if the latter, will it take even more work to continue to be successful in the future; is one’s ultimate level of competence in this skill determined by effort or by innate talents that they either have or do not have; can one achieve high levels of competence by hard work and practice?). Likewise, in the EEVT model, Eccles and colleagues argued that the subjective task value of various possible activities is influenced by several factors. For example, does the person enjoy doing the related practice or participation? Is participation in this activity seen as instrumental in meeting the individual’s long or short-range goals? Have the individual’s parents, counselors, friends, or romantic partners encouraged or discouraged the individual’s participation in this? Does doing this activity interfere with other, more valued options because of the amount of work needed to be successful? More specifically, they hypothesize that subjective task value is composed of at least four components: interest value (the enjoyment one gets from engaging in the task or activity), utility value (the instrumental value of the task or activity for helping fulfill another short- or long-range goal), attainment value (the link between the task and one’s sense of self and identity – with identity being those most valued aspects of one’s perceived self), and cost (defined in terms of either what may be given up by making a specific choice or the negative experiences associated with a particular choice). EEVT and Identity Formation It is at the juncture between ability self-concepts/expectancies and subjective task value that issues of identity development become salient. At its

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most basic level, identity development is about the development of a set of self-concepts about one’s relative abilities, characteristics, aptitudes, and so on. But in the classic Eriksonian sense, identity development is also about exploring possible “identities” or self-schemata, developing a differentiated hierarchy of subjective task values associated with various possible identityrelated options, and then committing oneself (or setting specific goals) to become intensely engaged in particular tasks, activities, and roles. These identity-linked fragments, desired states, and behaviors then become part of one’s emerging identities and thus take on high subjective attainment task value within EEVT. In this sense, identities emerge out of highly valued interests that can then become even more well-developed interests (see Hidi & Renninger, 2006) if these identity components motivate sufficient behavioral and emotional engagement. What is missing in EVT theories themselves are the processes associated with actually implementing these goals and intentions. The scholars associated with the various EVTs assume that these goals or plans or intentions will be implemented. And thus, in EEVT, achievement and choices were included in the same “outcome” box. But many plans are never implemented or, if implemented, are not done so with sufficient commitment and energy to bring about the desired result. This is where the ideas elaborated in self-regulation perspectives become essential. Behavioral self-regulation is critical to the implementation of one’s intentions, activity goals, and plans. The research being done under the label of self-regulation, thus, is essential to theories focused on planned action and behavioral choice – a point well articulated by Gollwitzer and Kirchhof (1998) in their stress on the importance of a goal perspective for understanding identity development.

Behavioral Self-Regulation Researchers focusing on the link between intentions and subsequent actions have investigated two major phenomena: the sources of an intentionbehavior gap (or goal-action gap, e.g., Sheeran, 2002), and interventions designed to increase successful implementation of one’s goals. We briefly summarize the principles that have grown out of this work and then we discuss briefly why adolescence is a particularly interesting time to study the link between emerging skill-acquisition-related goals/intentions and actual behavioral choices. Understanding the Intention-Behavior Link Researchers interested in the intention-behavior gap have shown that the following characteristics of intentions affect the probability and intensity of

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their enactment: (a) their stability, (b) the certainty with which they are held, (c) their specificity, (d) their link with specific and well-articulated strategies for attainment rather than being experienced largely as fantasies about possible future states, (e) their relative value compared to other viable intentions, and (f) their congruence or conflict with other intentions or goals, which, in turn influences the cost of implementing any specific intention, (e.g., Abraham et al., 1999; Bagozzi & Yi, 1989; Conner, Sheeran, Norman, & Armitage, 2000; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Oettingen, 2012; Oettingen & Mayer, 2002; Pieters & Verplanken, 1995; Sheeran & Orbell, 2000; Sheeran, Orbell, & Trafimow, 1999). There are several other factors that can stand between stable, certain, specific, personally important intentions and sustained engagement. One such factor that specifically relates to the changes humans face as they mature is the availability of opportunities and sufficient time to enact one’s intentions. According to the Theory of Planned Behavior, people who perceive more behavioral control show a stronger relation between their intentions and behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Armitage & Conner, 2001; Sheeran 2002). One aspect that is argued to increase perceived behavioral control is the opportunity to act on one’s intentions. Such opportunities will vary across the life span as well as across various intentions due to both internal psychological and external social processes. One other important set of factors related to the intention-behavior gap is the set of self-regulating strategies one uses to maintain focus on the implementation of one’s intentions. Intervention studies have identified two particularly useful strategies that are even more effective when used together: Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (Kirk, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2013; Oettingen, 2012; Oettingen, Wittchen, & Gollwitzer, 2013). Intervention studies have shown that such self-regulatory strategies can be taught and used effectively in a variety of domains, including interpersonal, environmental, and health (Oettingen, 2012; Oettingen et al., 2013). Implementation intentions take the form of if-then statements designed to help an individual overcome potential barriers to successful implementation. These statements relate a relevant cue (“If I am tired after coming home from school”) to a goal-directed response (“then I will first play violin for twenty minutes”) (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). These mental associations between each specific obstacle and appropriate coping actions instigate automatic action control. Implementation intentions, more so than goal intentions (“I will play violin for twenty minutes as often as possible”), make critical cues and appropriate

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coping strategies more accessible (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006; Webb & Sheeran, 2007, 2008). Mental contrasting is a problem-solving technique in which people think about a desired future-state (“I want to play football for a professional team”) and obstacles of the present reality that stands in the way of future goal attainment (“my kicking technique is insufficient”) (Oettingen, 2000, 2012; Oettingen, Pak, & Schnetter, 2001). Contrasting the current situation with a preferred future activates expectations about the feasibility of taking away obstacles that create this contrast. If individuals’ expectations indicate that obstacles can be resolved, commitment is increased. When expectations for success are low, commitment to the initially desired future is reduced and individuals will strive for other future-states. Hence, instead of affecting expectancies or values, mental contrasting changes commitment and effort depending on these expectancies (Oettingen, Mayer, & Thorpe, 2010; Oettingen, Mayer, Thorpe, Janetzke, & Lorenz, 2005). Adolescence as an Important Developmental Period in the Link between Intentions and Successful Behavioral Engagement As noted earlier, adolescence is the time in life when both identity formation processes and intense behavioral engagement in skill acquisition are particularly salient (see Eccles, 2009). Why might this be so? Cognitively, it is a time during which there are rapid changes in several mental processes linked to self-regulated behavior and identity formation, including future orientation and the ability to imagine various possible futures, as well as executive functioning in the service of effective self-regulation due to frontal lobe maturation (see Higgins, Peterson, Lee, & Phil, 2007). It is also a time of rapid physical changes linked to sexuality, reproduction, and body shapes, leading to the emergence of new interests and capacities. In addition, it is a time when exposure to different models for identity development increases dramatically as a result of school transitions and increased exposure to, and interest in, peers and sophisticated mass media. Finally, in Western countries, adolescence is a time with maximal freedom to explore various identities stemming from increased independence and limited responsibilities to others. The coalescence of these four developmental trajectories make this period of life ideal for studying the emergence of identity-related intentions and behavioral engagements. In early adolescence, this coalescence may lead to decreased links between emerging new identities and behavioral enactment due to the instability and inexactness of each of the identity fragments as well as to the potential conflicts among one’s various emerging identity fragments. But as identity formation proceeds and

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self-regulatory skills increase over the adolescent and early adulthood years, the link between intentions and behavioral enactment should increase. For example, there are several reasons to suspect that identity-related intentions may become more stable over adolescence. From an EEVT perspective, intentions are expected to change if self-efficacy beliefs and values change. We know that these self and task beliefs do change and then become more stable (e.g., Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998) across childhood and adolescence. Reasons for these changes include the identity development processes that occur during this period, leading youth to explore different behaviors and identities and to move gradually toward more stable, “achieved” identities over the second and third decades of life. Changes in social experiences also can contribute to shifts in one’s ability self-concepts/self-efficacies and subjective task value. During late middle childhood and adolescence, youth are increasingly exposed to experiences outside their family resulting from spending increased time with their peers, their teachers, and the mass media (e.g., Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Wood, Read, Mitchell, & Brand, 2004), leading adolescents to question the goals and priorities of their family. Moreover, as standards of excellence and sources of social comparison change, beliefs about one’s own relative abilities compared to the abilities of others likely change. A particularly sudden example of this type of change occurs at the transition from elementary to secondary school. This transition is characterized by initial changes in selfefficacy beliefs, values, and the perceived usefulness of different activities (e.g., Eccles & Midgley, 1989). Over adolescence, these new sources of information and experiences should lead to identity exploration and the gradual emergence of more stable, “achieved” identities that form the basis for more sophisticated and stable behavioral intentions. We also know that the existence of conflicting intentions increase the intention-behavior gap (Sheeran, 2002). Given that youths’ contexts (e.g., school teachers, parents, and peers) may contain different task value hierarchies, conflicting intentions are particularly likely among early adolescents. Similar to the notion of costs in EEVT, it can be expected that the presence of alternative options with similar benefits may make the opportunity costs of pursuing the initial behavior too high for sustained engagement to occur during the early adolescent period. These conflicts should decrease over adolescence as more “achieved” identities emerge. Similarly, intentions have stronger effects on behavior when intention identification is higher. Intentions that accord with someone’s self-schema and that are therefore considered more self-descriptive and important relate to behavior more strongly (Sheeran & Orbell, 2000). Given the unstable

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identity of early adolescents, their intentions may be less likely to be integrated in the self-schema. Similar to the notion of attainment value in EEVT, their intentions may be too weak for sustained engagement to occur. But this should change over the adolescent years as more “achieved” identities emerge. Each of these aspects of adolescence should lead to increasing stability in one’s intentions. But will this lead to increased implementation of one’s intentions? Perhaps not. Although the adolescence period is characterized by an increasing level of freedom of choice regarding where individuals invest their time, this freedom will become more constrained as adolescents move into and through tertiary school and into adulthood as educational, occupational, and family responsibilities become more demanding. This decrease in free time may increase the costs of implementing newly developed intentions as one moves into adulthood. Increases in the perceived cost of any particular behavior should reduce the subjective task value of that behavior and lead to decreased likelihood of the related intention actually being successfully implemented. Thus, in terms of intentions related to such life-defining activities as one’s career or one’s investment in developing highly challenging skills or interests, middle to late adolescence may be the period in life when individuals have both the needed time and the self-regulatory skills to successfully enact one’s intentions. We now turn to the description of a qualitative study of the continuing investment of adolescents in such activities.

Studying Activity Selection and Engagement: A Qualitative Study of Activity Commitment and Interest Now let us turn to a more concrete example of how we have used EEVT to study the development of highly engaged behavioral involvement. Eccles and her colleagues have spent the last 40 years investigating the development of motivational beliefs linked to expectations for success and subjective task value and the link of these beliefs to actual behavioral engagement in specific activities. To some extent, such engagement both results in, and reflects, the development of intense interest in particular activities. In one such study, Eccles and her colleagues used qualitative methods to explore adolescents’ understanding of their own behavioral engagement in specific skill-based activities. The aim of this qualitative study was to delineate the psychological processes underlying adolescents’ commitment to – and intense, self-regulated behavioral engagement in – particular highly challenging skill-based activities. By and large, the key themes that emerged in these adolescents’

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responses fit very well with the theoretical ideas lying at the interface between EEVT and self-regulation. To facilitate the presentation of these themes, we use the EEVT model as our organizing framework. We conclude this section with an interpretative framework linking identity development to the maintenance of intense, self-regulated behavioral engagement in particular activities. This qualitative study is part of a larger (N = 873), ongoing longitudinal survey project (Childhood and Beyond Study, CAB) about academic and extracurricular activity choice in childhood and adolescence conducted by Eccles and her colleagues at the University of Michigan. In general, the children lived in two-parent intact (93%), middle-class, white families. The interviewed subsample included 41 middle-class EuropeanAmerican adolescents (15 males, 26 females) in grades 9 (n = 12), 10 (n = 14), and 12 (n = 15) who had evidenced high levels of ability self-concepts, subjective task value, actual competence, and involvement in either skillbased athletic or art/music/drama activities when they were in elementary school. Twenty-four of the adolescents were involved in a single activity and 17 pursued more than one activity (e.g., choir and softball). Twenty-six adolescents were in sports (football, soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, swimming, and gymnastics); 12 were in instrumental music (e.g., piano, violin, guitar, trumpet); 9 sang in a choir; 6 were involved in dance; 5 were in drama; and 2 were in art (Note: Numbers add to 60 rather than 41 because some participants were involved in multiple activities). Eccles and colleagues used the parent, child, and teacher surveys in this project to identify youth who were perceived (by themselves as well as by their parents and teachers) as being highly competent (7 on a 7-point scale) in at least one nonacademic, skill-based activity, who valued engagement in that activity very highly (7 on a 7-point scale), and who spent considerable time (by self- or parental report) involved in that activity (more than five hours per week in music or more than seven hours per week in sports). They then used telephone and survey data collected five years later to identify two groups of youth: those who had maintained their high levels of competence, value, and involvement into adolescence, and those youth who had recently stopped participating in at least one of their activities. Each adolescent’s family was initially contacted by phone and informed that their adolescent had been identified as being very highly involved in outof-school activities. One parent (typically the mother) and the adolescent were interviewed separately in their home. The interview questions were organized around the following areas: (a) general changes in the adolescent’s life over the last three to four years, (b) the adolescent’s general hopes and plans for the future, (c) the adolescent’s history of involvement and

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accomplishment in the activity, (d) hopes and concerns about the activity, (e) the impact of the activity on other aspects of life, such as school, peers, and the family, (f) the role of significant others such as family members, coaches or teachers, and peers on his/her involvement, and (g) hopes and plans for involvement in the future. All interviews were conducted and coded by five female graduate students who had some background in motivation and development (see Fredricks et al., 2002 for more description of the qualitative study). This team used a combination of inductive, deductive, and verification techniques to analyze the interviews and created a set of codes from the themes that emerged from the interviews and existing knowledge from prior research. They coded all interview transcripts with HyperResearch (Hesse-Biber, Kinder, Dupis, Dupis, & Tornabene, 1994), a computer software tool for coding qualitative data. In order to better understand how individuals made decisions about their level of involvement, they examined all passages that had been coded for “motivation,” “costs and benefits,” “future expectations,” “characteristics of classes and teams,” and “changes in level of involvement” in greater detail. Each member of the team wrote a summary of the common themes that emerged for one of these codes and noted which cases did not correspond to this theme and why. The research team met weekly or biweekly to reach consensus on emerging themes and how they fit together. As a team, they also developed a working model, or interpretive framework, of the processes they were identifying in the data, which was continually refined over the course of data analysis (see Fredricks et al., 2002, for more details). We discuss this framework after we summarize some of the key findings. Key Findings The Importance of Adolescence. As we had expected, most of these adolescents and their parents felt that the beginning of high school was a major turning point in their self-regulatory behavioral engagement in sports and the arts. Even though the participants had evidenced fairly comparable levels of activity involvement during late childhood, variations in their involvement began to emerge during early adolescence. Of this sample of 41 adolescents, 9 individuals did not think they would continue their involvement in their activities in any form after graduation; 11 planned to continue their activity at least as a hobby in adulthood. Although we focus in this chapter on the decision to remain committed to a voluntary skill-based activity, it is important to note that the individuals reported that they were continually reevaluating their participation in each

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of their activities. This need to reevaluate involvement was particularly true for within-school activities where the cycle of seasons and school years required periodic reaffirmations of one’s commitment to participate. Adolescents were also confronted with choices about their level of involvement in high school when activities became more competitive and required a greater time investment. Each adolescent’s ultimate decision about whether to commit to a skill-based activity unfolded over time as the result of this repeating series of self-assessments and decisions. This process appeared to become much more conscious and self-directed during early and middle adolescence. Competence and Mastery Motivation. As predicted by EEVT, one factor that appeared to influence adolescent’s intentional, intense engagement was the perceptions that they were good at the activity. This belief motivated the adolescents to continue participating in an activity. For example, in response to the question “What do you like about it and why is it fun?” a ninth-grade male engaged in basketball replied: I think you know, because like I have a skill for it. . . . It is something that I go out there and I enjoy doing. You know, because I am good at it. I think if I weren’t as good I probably would not have stuck with it so long. I probably would have dropped it last year or a couple of years ago.

Consistent with ideas of an innate desire for mastery and achievement (e.g., Atkinson, 1957; Harter, 2012; McClelland, 1985; White, 1959) and competence (Ryan & Deci, 2000), several of these adolescents appeared to be motivated by a desire for personal improvement, and spent considerable time and effort on their own trying to master their activity. They took extra lessons, went to special camps, and practiced by themselves with hopes of honing their skills. This desire for mastery seemed to strengthen their engagement over time. For example, a ninth-grader remarked about his involvement in instrumental music: I keep pushing myself to be better and better. And the better I am, the more I tend to like it. Probably, since I’m first chair, I’m better than seniors and everybody. That’s pushed me a lot. Whenever I get a new CD or something, I’ll try to figure that out. That keeps me busy with guitar, and makes me better. . . . Little things that keep pushing me.

Consistent with ideas inherent in need-achievement theory, the importance of a sense of competence was also evident in these adolescents’ desire to challenge themselves (Atkinson, 1957). Several of these adolescents stressed their desire to find an activity that they perceived as challenging – one

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that would help them develop their skills. If adolescents perceived too little challenge and a high probability of success, they were less motivated to keep investing effort over time. For example, some adolescents felt that their high school teams and classes were less challenging than the opportunities available to participate in activities outside of their schools. I don’t really like orchestras as much as private lessons. . . . You get less personal attention. In [school] orchestra you have to play at the level that the whole entire class can play at. It’s usually lower than you’d like to play. I was in [another] orchestra on Saturday. So I was in private lessons and two orchestras at the same time. And they played really hard music then and I really liked it (10th-grade female violinist).

These adolescents sought out more challenge by participating in nonschool-based opportunities, such as community-organized or private teams and classes. Flow is most likely to occur in situations where there is a balance between skills and perceived challenges (Nakamura & Csikzentmihalyi, 2002). The balance between challenges and skills changes over time, as individuals need to find new challenges to avoid boredom and new skills to avoid anxiety (Csikzentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1993). This is consistent with research indicating that the perception of an advanced state of accomplishment (e.g., through sharing intentions or positive fantasies) can lead to reduced effort (Oettingen & Mayer, 2002). In contrast, adolescents who felt that the challenge was too great were more likely to quit. As individuals got older, many of the activities became more competitive, with more individuals vying for fewer places. These adolescents, who had once felt they were among the most skilled in their activities, found themselves competing with a larger group of very skilled individuals in secondary school. Those adolescents who did not feel that they had the skills necessary to compete at these more select levels tended to lose interest in their activities over time. For example, one female who quit sports said about her involvement: I was a pitcher, but I could never get my technique and I wasn’t fast enough. We had another pitcher that’s like really good. I knew that I wouldn’t play. . . . And I knew that I would be sitting on the bench three days a week when everybody else would be playing a game. I would be just sitting on the bench keeping score or warming the bench (12th-grade female who quit softball).

Subjective Task-Value (STV). In EEVT, Eccles and her colleagues assume that subjective task values influence adolescents’ decision about whether to commit the time and emotional resources to a voluntary skill-based activity. As noted earlier according to EEVT, Subjective Task Value (STV)

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is composed of four components: interest value (enjoyment), utility value (the value of the activity for fulfilling short or long range goals), attainment value (the link between the task and one’s sense of self and identity), and cost (what is given up by engaging in the activity). We found consistent evidence of the importance of each of these subcomponents of STV for motivating continued self-regulated engagement. intrinsic value. Enjoyment was the most common reason that participants reported when participating in any activity. Many of the adolescents described positive affect toward their activity and feelings of pleasure and fun. A few youth even reported getting so much emotional satisfaction that they wanted to do their activity all of the time. These youth appeared to be in a state of flow where they became so involved in the activity that they lost track of time and forgot about everything but the activity: “I’d dance all day if I could. Forget school, forget dinner, forget everything” (9th-grade female in dance). “I love the game. I just can’t stop. I just want to play all of the time” (10th-grade male in baseball). “You just love it so much. . . . If I could act all the time I would” (12th-grade female in drama). Such responses clearly illustrate the importance of intrinsic motivation as proposed in self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000). utility value. In childhood, youth were involved primarily for either intrinsic reasons or to please their parents. Extrinsic incentives became more important motives in adolescence. Adolescents discussed being motivated by positive feedback from significant others, receiving a special award, getting accepted to a special team or class, and from the thrill of beating others. This external recognition seemed to validate their skills, strengthen their commitment, and enhance their enjoyment of the activity. For example, a 12th-grade male in choir said about his teacher: [The choir teacher] was excited about what I was going to do in the future. And he thought I had a chance to be good. . . . He just said, “Yeah, you have a good voice. You know, I want you to stick with it.” And then, from then on, I just stuck with it, because I got a boost of confidence (12th-grade male in choir).

Commitment to an activity also taught youth many lessons and values, including: the importance of discipline, how to get along with others and work as a team, responsibility and the importance of deadlines, how to deal with disappointments, and the value of hard work and perseverance. This quote from an adolescent involved in multiple activities illustrates the range of “life lessons” that can be gained from participation in a variety of activities:

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I think I’ve learned a lot of discipline from football . . . I have never been shy, but I have learned just to become more comfortable speaking with people through drama. . . . In football you have to work together to pull a play off. You have to work together as a choir. So I think teamwork, discipline, and friendships that I’ve made (12th-grade male in football and choir).

Activity participation also helped fulfill short- and long-term social goals. The majority of adolescents reported that their involvement increased the extent to which they came into contact with different peers as well as their good friends. For example: “I played three sports so it was easy to make friends” (10th-grade female in sports). “Drama let me be with more people and do more group activities, parties, you know friends” (10th-grade male in drama). Adolescents also reported that they decided to participate in their activity because it helped them find a peer group that shared common values and interests. This appeared to contribute to the adolescents’ perceptions of school belonging, which is an important issue because many of the adolescents attended large high schools where students are less likely to receive personalized attention. So I was automatically drawn into it, because my friend, she’s been extras for the plays and stuff. And there’s like kind of an automatic thing that we just do it together. I mean, that group of people who does the drama club do the drama club activities. The kind of people that I want to be around (10th-grade female in drama).

In addition to gaining a more extensive social network, many adolescents discussed the strength and intimacy of the friendships they developed through their activities. For example, consider this quote from a 12th-grade male discussing his involvement in drama: “Hamilton Players Group at my school is like a family. Everybody is there for everybody. It’s like a real close group.” These social benefits were important to the ongoing commitment to the domain. On the other hand, when adolescents perceived substantial social costs, it appeared that adolescents reduced their involvement in the activity. Many of the adolescents hoped that they would have a life-long connection with the activity either as a hobby or a career. In addition, some of the adolescents talked about the potential benefits of activity participation for getting a college scholarship. Although the majority of these youth thought that they would be involved in the activity in the future as a hobby, nine of the adolescents reported aspiring to a professional career directly as an athlete, actress, or musician or indirectly through production, coaching, or

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teaching. What appeared to distinguish the adolescents who aspired to a career from the others was that they seemed to exhibit a passion in their activity that was not evident in the other participants. I get my self-satisfaction out of playing, even if I’m not playing well . . . I love to play. . . . When I want to be alone I play my violin. When I’m feeling depressed I play my violin. And even when I’m . . . feeling really happy I’ll play my violin and I’ll feel happier (12th-grade female in instrumental music).

These “career-track” individuals’ identities were so intertwined with the activity that they could not imagine life without it. attainment value. An adolescent’s developing identity played a critical role in his or her self-regulatory behavior and the decision to participate in the activity in the future. Several adolescents discussed feeling that they began to define themselves in terms of their activity (i.e., “an athlete,” a “musician,” or “an artist”). For these individuals, the activity had become so much a part of who they were and what they valued that they could not envision not being involved in the activity. For example, a ninth-grade female in soccer told us: I just can’t see [soccer] not being part of my life, because it always was. Because I guess I’ve just always done it. I just always, you know, played. I can’t like picture myself not playing soccer. It’s something that I just enjoy to do. . . . It makes me feel good. If I couldn’t play sports I just don’t know what I’d do. Sports are just like a really important part of my life.

Although these adolescents acknowledged that their ongoing involvement in their activity required time and effort, they were willing to make sacrifices because participation was so central to their values and how they defined themselves. We say more about this later. In contrast, for other adolescents an identity as an “athlete” or “artist” did not fit with who they were and who they thought they wanted to be. For example, The dream kind of faded away when I was maybe like seven or eight. Cause it was like, what am I thinking? I’m never going to be a ballerina. I wasn’t really, I’ve never always been like into doing lots of work. I’ve never really liked that. And I didn’t really want to have to work. I was just in ballet class to take ballet and just do something, have fun. And then later on, I realized that I just didn’t like it and I quit (10th-grade female who quit ballet).

These adolescents were unlikely to want to continue their activity at an intense level and instead chose to devote their time to other interests.

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The relation between activity participation and their short- and longrange goals changed over time. In childhood, youth were often involved in multiple activities. In adolescence, specialization began to occur. Because of both the time and emotional commitment required to participate at higher levels, adolescents had to make decisions about which activities to continue and which to drop. It was no longer possible to be involved in everything. They had to figure out how the activity fit with the developing notion of why they were and who they wanted to be. They also had to consider the time investment in the context of competing demands from school, work, and their peers. This brings us to the important role of perceived cost in determining these adolescents’ intentions to continue participating. costs. All participants noted some negative aspects of participation in their activity. One cost of participation was the lack of time youth felt they had to spend on other aspects of their lives. These youth talked about not having enough time for their schoolwork, to spend with their friends who were not in the activity, and to try other activities. Adolescents discussed the stress and tension over trying to balance their activity with these other obligations in their lives. The following quote by a 10th-grade female involved in multiple activities illustrates a common theme of tension: It’s time consuming. I don’t have a lot of time to myself. I feel that my weekends aren’t even relaxing, especially right now. The rest of the year it’s okay, but right now, it’s really hard training. The school team starts up for training. And at the same time, I have drama club, so it’s like I go straight from soccer to rehearsal. Then on the weekends, it’s not even free time to me, it’s just when I have to get this work done, or have to do this around the house. And, it’s stressful (10th-grade female in soccer and drama).

All of the adolescents appeared to weigh the benefits and costs of participation when making decisions about their continuing level of involvement. Adolescents who remain committed to their activity throughout high school did perceive the costs of participation, but felt that benefits far outweighed these costs and were willing to make sacrifices in order to continue. For example, I don’t even have time to go to work with this [activity], because it’s after school every day until six. And I don’t have time to do anything. And people have a hard time believing it can actually take so much of my time. But it’s just like being an Olympic figure skater. You just love it so much you are willing to dedicate your life.

In contrast, the adolescents who decided to cease their involvement perceived the costs to be much greater than the benefits. For example, in

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response to the question “What do you think it takes to be a good dancer?” a 10th-grade female who quit dancing replied: You have to have the desire to do it. You have to have the total commitment, which means going in every day. Going in Friday night for partnering. Going in Saturday all day, staying late for rehearsal. It’s like you have to make the choice between if you want a life or if you want to dance. And that’s what makes you good.

These adolescents reported that in order to be successful in it, the activity had to be their whole life, and they were not willing to make this sacrifice. But how does this process begin? What initiates and supports the early interest in becoming engaged in a particular type of activity or with developing one’s skills and expertise in a particular activity or knowledge domain? Within EEVT, we stress the critical role of parents, friends, schools, and the larger culture in laying the ground work for the types of behavioral choices linked to developing these high levels of interest in particular activities. Here we will provide a brief summary of the role of parents evident in our participants’ responses. Parents as Initiators and Facilitators of Intense Engagement. The critical role of parents in supporting self-regulatory behavior was very evident in these adolescents’ and their parents’ interviews. According to both the parents and the youth, parents were essential in both providing initial exposure and scaffolding high levels of subsequent engagement. Parents provided initial exposure to the activity by buying equipment, signing the child up for their first classes or teams, paying for lessons, and driving them to practices and games. Parents also spent time helping their children develop their skills, listening to music, helping with their lines, practicing sports techniques, and coaching sports teams. The following quotes illustrate the ways that parents provide this exposure and support: I brought my organ down from my parent’s house when he was about two, and he spent a lot of time just picking around on that. As he grew he started to pick out songs and just do it for himself, and when he was about first grade . . . we found a teacher and he started at the end of first grade. He just showed a tremendous amount of interest. He couldn’t wait to get to the piano (Mother of 10th-grade in music).

Parents also supported self-regulatory behavior by providing emotional support and encouragement, which, in turn, helped increase youths’ enjoyment and perceptions of the value of participation. A ninth-grader said about her parents’ reaction to her involvement:

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Adolescence

(early involvement)

Adulthood QUIT • It made me do things I regretted (domain values don t match identity) • I ve never been into doing lots of work (benefits don t match motivation) • Do you want a life? (costs outweigh benefits)

Perceptions of Context Challenge Costs and Benefits

Opportunities for participation in school and community

Decisions about future level of continuation after high school

Identity Psychological Factors QUIT • I wasn t good enough (not good at it) • You don t really concentrate on you team (not enough social participation) • I was afraid she would be angry (motivated for others, not self) • I wasn t producing (too much challenge) • Everyone else is holding me down (too little challenge)

Focus on Enjoyment Ability/Competence Social Other Motivations

Figure 2.2. Identity formation and intense engagement.

They were thrilled. . . . My mom made it such a big ordeal. . . . Like, I’d get up and dance, and everybody would clap and smile, and it just made me feel really good. I mean I was a little kid and I thought I was the only person in the world that counted to my parents. And they’d come and watch me and really care, and they’d like support me.

As children moved into adolescence and higher levels of competition, parents provided advice on how to manage time, juggle competing interests, and deal with disappointments. They also helped find coaches and teachers that their child liked, and more challenging teams and lessons where their child could develop his or her skills. Parents continued to provide emotional support but also allowed their adolescent more autonomy in making decisions about their involvement. Interest Development, Identity, and Self-Regulatory Behavior The synergy between psychological factors, context, and identity formation helped shape self-regulated behavioral engagement. We developed an interpretative framework for how these ideas are related in this sample of participants (see Figure 2.2). Early support and encouragement from parents is critical to getting the child initially involved in the activity. Opportunities to participate in the

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school or community also need to be available in childhood for the individual to initially develop his or her skills and interests. Decisions about whether to continue or quit in adolescence are based on a complex interplay of individual factors, context, and identity development. This process is depicted as a dynamic circle, with components of individual factors (person) and context (activity) influencing each other and the adolescents’ identity reciprocally. We portray the centrality of identity by locating it at the core of the decision-making process, being influenced reciprocally by both individual and contextual factors, which also influence each other. At any point during this dynamic process, the adolescent could decide to quit or change his/her level of involvement. The reasons for quitting the activity are depicted as arrows from the circle, meaning that the adolescent did not stay in the activity long enough to stay in the circle. The last portion of the model illustrates how adolescents who have decided to continue in their activity determine what level of commitment they will have in college and adulthood. Self-regulation is a critical component of all aspects of this model even though it is not explicitly included on the figure itself. We discuss this further later in the chapter.

EEVT and Self-Regulated Behaviors Inherent in the EEVT is the assumption that the value of any activity for the individual is determined by the fit between the perceived opportunities afforded by the activity and the individual’s own ability self-perceptions, identity-related beliefs such as goals and personal values, and the relative cost of engaging in that specific activity relative to other activities. Thus far, we have summarized the key factors in adolescents’ explanations for their intense engagement in particular skill-based activities. By and large, their explanations are quite congruent with the tenants of both EEVT and various theories of self-regulated behaviors. Consistent with the EEVT model of activity choice, these adolescents stress perceptions of their abilities and the activity itself that either increase or decrease the value of the activity to the individual. On the expectancy side of the EEVT, these adolescents acknowledged the importance of their actual abilities in their decisions to continue participating in these types of skill-based activities. Several decided to drop out of the activity once they concluded that they either were no longer one of the very best at their activity or that maintaining a competitive level of competence would take too much time and effort. Within the EEVT, either of these beliefs should lower the actor’s expectations for achieving the level

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of success with which he/she would be satisfied. Such a conclusion should directly reduce the likelihood of continued engagement. It should also indirectly reduce the likelihood of continued engagement through its impact on the subjective task value to the actor because it increases the perceived cost of continued participation in terms of the amount of time needed or the anticipated/experienced levels of stress and anxiety likely to result from reduced confidence in one’s ability to succeed. On the subjective task value side of the EEVT, these adolescents acknowledged the importance of several aspects of the task and their own identities that should increase the subjective task value of continued participation. Most importantly for this chapter, they stressed the importance of several aspects of intrinsic enjoyment including the joy experienced when doing something one is good at and the joy experienced when doing something that is challenging. Together these two feelings lead to what Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues label as flow (Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1993). The qualitative findings clearly show that experiencing flow is a key motivational component of these adolescents continuing commitment to their chosen activity. How do the case studies of these highly engaged adolescents relate to the ideas inherent in the study of self-regulation? We believe they represent examples of how individuals manifest self-regulated behaviors in the service of enacting their personal identities (see Eccles, 2009). At the most basic level, one might say that such commitment both reflects and contributes to the development of highly stable, specific, and highly valued intentions that then become incorporated into their personal identities, which, in turn, provides further motivation to enact one’s intention. In addition, the role that parents and other adults play in supporting the adolescents’ behavioral enactment of their intentions provided these youth with examples of effective implementation strategies. Over time, such experiences should be internalized into a framework of effective self-regulatory strategies that can be linked with specific intentions.

Concluding Thoughts Writing this chapter has led us to think much harder about the nature of sustained engagement in particular activities. It has also led us to think harder about the longer-term processes that help adolescents focus on several different activities/interests and shift their focus from one activity/interest to another over time. This has also raised several questions for us.

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For example, we have become interested in the management of one’s set of identity-related intentions. How many intense interests and the related intentions can a person implement at any one point in time given that each of these interests requires extensive self-regulated behavioral enactments? What leads a person to drop one “interest” and then shift to developing a new interest and the associated intentions? What leads a person to narrow their range of engagements across several different potential interests and intentions and then which interests do they “select”? People can only be intensely involved in a limited number of interests; limitations in time, energy, and other resources such as money, as well as personal and social limitations, make it impossible to become highly expert and intensely engaged in very many interests. Within EEVT, we talk about this dilemma in terms of the impact of the cost of engagement on the subjective task value of various possible activity choices. With regard to self-regulation, this dilemma manifests itself in terms of the need to regulate one’s behavioral engagements over time in ways that make best use of one’s assets and limitation in service of one’s interests and goals. The intention-behavior gap literature has given us some insight by providing characteristics of our interests that may affect subsequent engagement (e.g., stability, certainty, presence of conflicting interests, interest identification). With regard to handling costs and limited opportunities, strategies like mental contrasting and implementation intentions were informative and practical. We are also concerned with the role of age or life stage in shaping interest development. It is this set of issues that are most directly related to the role of adolescence in self-regulated interest development. How are these “selection” processes and the accompanying self-regulated behavioral enactments related to life-course developmental issues such as age, maturity, other life demands, changing circumstances and capacities, and critical events? Are some periods of life, for example, middle childhood and adolescents or the retirement years, particularly well-suited for the emergence of new interests and the related intentions because there are fewer competing time or responsibility demands? Or because of particular physiological changes that result from biological and social maturation? To what extent do shifting patterns of competencies and both physical and mental assets and limitations influence the range of interests one can pursue? Writing this chapter has further led us to think harder about individual differences in the propensity to engage in activities with sufficient energy and commitment to produce sustained interests, expertise, and competence in various skill based activities. Are some individuals more driven to engage activities in ways that lead to well-developed interests than others, and if so, why? Work related to such personality characteristics or temperamental

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dispositions as conscientiousness (Higgins et al., 2007) and grit (Duckworth, Kirby, Tsukayama, Berstein, & Ericsson (2011) is directly related to this set of questions. Other stable characteristics such as individuals’ social skills, neuroticism, general mental health, aptitudes, ratio of hope for success and fear of failure, or ability to elicit social and financial support should also influence the demands inherent in adequate levels of self-regulated behavioral engagement. Decisions on whether to sustain engagement and search for new challenges or to reduce effort and consume accomplishments may relate to traits like the orientation toward mastery versus performance and approach versus avoidance motivation. Again with EEVT, we think about such issues under factors influencing the cost of intense engagement, which in turn we propose to be influenced by such relatively stable characteristics and aptitudes as conscientiousness or grit. Finally, writing this chapter has stimulated our interest in the relationship between self-regulatory processes linked to increasing one’s ability to resist temptation or to engage in “onerous” but healthy behaviors and selfregulatory processes linked to the ontogeny of a well-developed interest. Will the kinds of self-regulation interventions designed to assist people to resist temptations or to better implement health supportive behaviors also help individuals achieve their goals and intentions in building new interests and skill sets? What is the relationship between self-regulatory processes in service of resisting alluring temptations, self-regulatory processes in service of enacting healthy behaviors that are seen as not particularly interesting or desirable, and self-regulatory processes in service of achieving one’s growth promoting or identity related goals? These types of questions are addressed in some of the other chapters in this collection, as well as in the work of Duckworth, Gollwitzer, Oettingen, and their colleagues (e.g., Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2011; Duckworth, Kirby, A. Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2013; Oettingen, 2000; Oettingen et al., 2005).

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Self-Regulation: Conceptual Issues and Relations to Developmental Outcomes in Childhood and Adolescence Nancy Eisenberg

Author Note Nancy Eisenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University. Writing of this chapter was partially supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Correspondence should be addressed to Nancy Eisenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287–1104. E-mail: Nancy [email protected] Abstract Self-regulatory capacities are frequently discussed as predictors of diverse developmental outcomes in childhood and adolescence, including adjustment, maladjustment, and educational outcomes. The purpose of this chapter is to consider some conceptual distinctions among regulatory/control processes and to apply them when considering the role of self-regulation in developmental outcomes in adolescence. Effortful, voluntary aspects of regulation are differentiated from less voluntary, more reactive control processes. Research on relations of both types of processes to children’s and adolescents’ maladjustment, social competence, and academic functioning are briefly reviewed, as is research on self-regulation as a process mediating the relation of quality of parenting to developmental outcomes. Finally, the implications of research on effortful control and reactive control for recent work on regulated behavior and goal pursuit in adolescence are discussed.

There is considerable debate regarding what capacities are included in the construct of “regulation” or “self-regulation.” My view is that, regardless of the terminology used, it is important to differentiate among several types of regulating processes. In the developmental literature, self-regulation tends

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to be discussed in the regard to emotion regulation and its effects on behavior. Eisenberg, Hofer, Sulik, and Spinrad (2014) defined emotion-related self-regulation as including processes used to change one’s own emotional state, to prevent, initiate, or augment emotion responding (e.g., by selecting or changing situations), to modify the significance of an event for the self, and to modulate the behavioral expression of emotion (e.g., through verbal or nonverbal cues). We use the term “emotion-related” self-regulation because many of the processes and capacities involved in emotion-related regulation are also used for the regulation of multiple aspects of functioning, including, for example, persistence on a task that is not very emotional. Emotion self-regulation is when self-regulatory skills are applied directly to modulating the experience or expression of emotion. However, selfregulation skills can also be used to manage aspects of cognition, attention, and behavior that do not involve (or secondarily or minimally involve) managing the expression and experience of emotion. Of course, external influences such as parents or providers of social support can contribute to the modulation of emotion behavior, but for clarity, we prefer not to include such factors in the definition of “self-regulation” (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Eggum, 2010). We also believe it is useful to differentiate, using some sort of terminology, between self-regulatory processes that can readily be volitional if required to adapt or achieve a goal and those processes that are harder to control volitionally. As has been widely discussed, many non-volitional processes clearly have important modulating (in a sense, regulating) effects on attention, cognition, behavior, and physiological responding (see Carver, 2005). Perhaps a term such as “potentially volitional, self-regulatory processes” would be more precise than “self-regulation”; however, in this chapter, the latter term is used for simplicity. Because it is difficult to differentiate emotion from its self-regulation, we believe it is useful to focus on the processes used to manage emotion, cognition, and associated behavior, rather than on the amount of emotion experienced or expressed. For this reason, we have often used the construct of effortful control (EC) as a proxy for self-regulation. Indeed, we would argue that EC is the temperamental core of self-regulation, but that emerging selfregulation includes more than the basic executive functioning related skills in involved in EC (e.g., the abilities to effortfully shift and focus attention and to effortfully activate and inhibit behavior as needed for adaptation). For example, complex cognitive strategies (e.g., cognitive restructuring), seeking social support, and motivational components such as the desire

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to act in ways consistent with norms or expectations might contribute to self-regulation after the early years.

Effortful Control (EC) EC has been defined as “the efficiency of executive attention, including the ability to inhibit a dominant response and/or to activate a subdominant response, to plan, and to detect errors” (Rothbart & Bates, 2006, p. 129). It is the temperamental basis of self-regulation and involves the abilities to effortfully (i.e., willfully) deploy attention (e.g., to effortfully focus and shift attention as needed) and to willfully inhibit or activate behavior (for inhibitory control and activational control, respectively), especially when doing so is a subdominant (non-preferred) response. EC is often measured with parents’ and teachers’ ratings of children’s abilities to focus and modulate their attention, as well as children’s abilities to inhibit or activate behavior as necessary for goal attainment or initiate behavior when they do not want to do so (e.g., reports of the ability to concentrate on homework or related activities, being able to shift gears from one activity to another, or working on, rather than putting off, tasks). In addition, it is often measured with a variety of behavioral measures, including those assessing the ability to delay gratification (e.g., wait until a bell rings to pick up a snack, inhibiting and activating similar behaviors based on different commands [games like Simon says], and doing tasks that require the child to, for example, knock the table when an adult taps it and tap the table when the adult knocks it). EC is believed to be centered primarily in cortical regions such as the anterior cingulate gyrus and prefrontal areas (Cohen & Lieberman, 2010; Rothbart & Bates, 2006), although there are undoubtedly many links between these areas and subcortical systems (Goldsmith, Pollak, & Davidson, 2008). Thus, some executive functioning (EF) abilities – most notably, effortful deployment of attention, integrating of information attended to, and planning – are involved in EC; and we view EF and EC as partially overlapping but not analogous constructs (Eisenberg & Zhou, in press). As previously noted, EC is not totally analogous to emotional self-regulation because EC can be used for tasks/goals besides regulating emotion. Moreover, selfregulation capacities likely include more than EC; for example, they can be viewed as including the motivation to utilize EC/EF in the service of goals and a variety of higher-level skills (including using complex cognitive restructuring skills to cope) built on the basic processes in EC.

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I have suggested that although EC is defined as effortful or willful, this does not mean that the individual is always aware that he or she is modulating emotion or behavior. Some aspects of EC may become automatic and executed without much conscious awareness in contexts with relevant trigger cues (Mischel & Ayduk, 2011); however, by definition, an EC process can shift into a volitional and often more conscious mode of functioning when it is adaptive to move from an automatic to effortful status. EC, like the larger construct of self-regulation, is not necessarily good or bad in terms of its consequences. People can use EC/self-regulatory skills to achieve goals that are maladaptive, socially or otherwise, in the short or long term, or both. Nonetheless, effortful self-regulatory processes may be more likely than some less volitional aspects of control (see discussion later in the chapter) to result in adaptive outcomes, or at least in desired goals (regardless of whether they are actually adaptive or not) because EC can be applied at will and flexibly rather than in a reflexive, rigid manner to accommodate to the demands of specific contexts.

Reactive Control There are many processes that are controlling or regulating in the sense that they modulate another system but which also are relatively non-volitional, nearly always automatic, and perhaps less flexible than EC. Because both the volitional nature and the flexibility of controlling processes likely affect their effectiveness and outcomes, we believe it is useful to differentiate volitional self-regulation from less volitional processes, including those that are rigidly over- or undercontrolled. Rothbart (e.g., Rothbart & Bates, 2006) differentiated between temperamental regulation and reactivity. Reactivity refers to “responsiveness to change in the external and internal environment” (p. 100) and includes emotional reactivity and action tendencies. We use the term “reactive control” to refer to the action tendencies, rather than the emotion, that are part of reactivity. Rothbart and Bates (2006) further defined self-regulation as “processes such as effortful control and orienting that function to modulate reactivity” (p. 100). Although Rothbart and colleagues (e.g., Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997) view emotional reactivity and behavioral reactivity as strongly linked, it seems likely that reactive behaviors sometimes occur without being evoked by emotion because they are part of a child’s characteristic way of responding in some contexts. We differentiate between overcontrolled and undercontrolled behaviors and consider them as two types of reactive control. In regard to

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overcontrol, sometimes children’s inhibition/constraint is relatively involuntary and difficult to modulate willfully (Eisenberg & Morris, 2002). For example, children labeled as “behaviorally inhibited” typically are wary and overly constrained in novel and stressful situations and have difficulty modulating their inhibition (Kagan, 1998). In regard to undercontrol, the impulse to approach people or inanimate objects in the environment can be relatively involuntary. Some people are more likely than others to approach rewarding or positive situations or stimuli, and this pull may be relatively involuntary; such people generally are viewed as impulsive. Undercontrol and overcontrol map onto Gray’s (Pickering & Gray, 1999) behavioral activation (BAS; which involves sensitivity to cues of reward or cessation of punishment) and behavioral inhibition (BIS; activated in situations involving novelty and stimuli signaling punishment or frustrative nonreward) systems, believed to be centered in subcortical regions of the brain. The distinction between volitional and non-volitional regulatory processes has been discussed in many literatures, including work on coping (Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001), and in the personality, clinical, social psychological, and cognitive literatures (see Carver, 2005, for a review of similar perspectives, including dual processing models). Consistent with this distinction, Eisenberg and colleagues (Eisenberg et al., 2004, 2013; Valiente et al., 2003) have been able to differentiate empirically between the two types of processes using a variety of adult-report and/or behavioral measures of EC and reactive control from 30 months to pre/early adolescence. Thus, prediction of developmental outcomes is likely to be enhanced by considering both types of processes.

Relations of Effortful and Reactive Control to Adjustment and Maladjustment Much of the research on the relations of EC and reactive control to measures of adjustment and maladjustment has been conducted with children, although there is some work on adolescents. In this section of the chapter, I provide a brief overview of what has been found, with greater emphasis on relevant research with adolescents and work from our laboratory. Eisenberg, Spinrad et al. (2010) hypothesized that children with high effortful control of attention and behavior and who were not high in either reactive overcontrol and undercontrol would be the most socially competent and the least maladjusted. Children low in all types of EC, high in

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undercontrol (impulsivity), and low in overcontrol (behavioral inhibition) were expected to be prone to externalizing problems and to be low in social competence. In contrast, those high in overcontrol, low to moderate in effortful inhibitory control, low in activational control, and low to average in attentional control were predicted to be prone to internalizing problems. In a typical study of relation of EC to older children’s and adolescents’ adjustment/maladjustment, EC is assessed with teachers’ and/or parents’ reports and sometimes behavioral indices such as those described earlier. In longitudinal studies, it is possible to predict later (mal)adjustment from earlier measures of EC (after being aggregated statistically) while controlling for initial levels of (mal)adjustment. Such an approach is consistent with the interpretation that EC predicts a change in (mal)adjustment over time, although even longitudinal data of this sort are correlational and cannot prove causality.

Maladjustment Numerous researchers have found significant relations of low effortful control or high impulsivity to externalizing problems in childhood (see Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Eggum, 2010, for a review), pre/early adolescence (e.g., Eisenberg, Valiente et al., 2009; Lengua, 2006; Martel & Nigg, 2006; Oldehinkel, Hartman, Ferdinand, Verhulst, & Ormel, 2007), and adolescence (Martel et al., 2007; Monahan, Steinberg, Cauffman, & Mulvey, 2009). Impulsivity has also been related to high substance use disorders in adolescence (e.g., Handley et al., 2011; King & Chassin, 2004). Conversely, high effortful control and executive functioning have been related to fewer substance use problems, although the findings are somewhat less consistent than those for impulsivity (see Handley et al., 2011, for a review). As children age, EC appears to become a stronger unique predictor of externalizing problems (Eisenberg et al., 2004; Valiente et al., 2003) or of combined externalizing and internalizing problems (King, Lengua, & Monaham, 2012). Although findings for internalizing are not as consistent as for externalizing, high EC also has been related to low levels of internalizing problems (e.g., Valiente et al., 2006), especially when using self-report measures with adolescents (Lengua, 2006; Muris, van der Pennen, Sigmond, & Mayer, 2008; see Eisenberg, Spinrad et al., 2010). When attentional control and inhibitory control have been examined separately, attentional control and internalizing problems generally have been negatively related. In contrast, inhibitory control and internalizing have been inconsistently related (see Eisenberg, Spinrad, et al., 2010).

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Most studies of reactive overcontrol have been conducted with fairly young children. In general, children high in behavioral inhibition tend to develop internalizing problems (Biederman, Rosenbaum, Hirshfeld, & Faraone, 1990; Huey & Weisz, 1997), as well as low levels of aggression, impulsivity, and danger seeking in early adulthood (Caspi & Silva, 1995). Moreover, there is some evidence that reactive undercontrol is negatively related to internalizing problems (e.g., Eisenberg, Chang, Ma, & Huang, 2009). In contrast to other data, Martel et al. (2007) reported a negative relation of reactive control (i.e., overcontrol vs. undercontrol) to internalizing problems in adolescence. In this study with high-risk youths, externalizing and internalizing were substantially, positively related. When the authors controlled for externalizing problems, the relation between high reactive control and internalizing became positive, suggesting that the negative relation between EC and reactive control was due to the high level of externalizing co-occurring with internalizing (Michelle Martel, personal communication, October 17, 2012).

Social Competence In childhood, there are fairly consistent positive relations of EC with social competence (e.g., Spinrad et al., 2006; see Eisenberg, Vaughan, & Hofer, 2009, for a review). In adolescence, low attentional control has been related to victimization by peers, few reciprocated friendships, and self-report of low-quality friendships (Jensen-Campbell & Malcolm, 2007). However, French adolescents’ EC was inconsistently negatively related to adult- or self-reported popularity (Hofer, Eisenberg, & Reiser, 2010). In addition, children’s impulsivity sometimes has been positively related to their peer status (Gleason, Gower, Hohmann, & Gleason, 2005), perhaps because somewhat impulsive children, compared to overcontrolled children, are viewed as resilient (that is, able to deal with and rebound from stress; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Morris, 2002). Because spontaneity and resiliency seem to be attractive to peers (see Martel et al., 2007; Spinrad et al., 2006), the relation between self-regulation and social competence may depend on the type of social competence assessed (e.g., if peer-rated or not). Although much less is known about the social competence of children with reactive overcontrol, Caspi and Silva (1995) found that children who were inhibited at age 3 scored low on social potency at age 18. Moreover, shy children, who tend to be overcontrolled, often tend to have social difficulties in childhood and thereafter (e.g., Caspi, Elder, & Bem, 1988; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Thus, overcontrol seems to have some negative effects on social competence.

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Academic Competence In the last few years, there has been an accumulation of research indicating that EC is related to school liking, positive relationships with teachers, and performance on tests or grades (see Eisenberg, Valiente, & Eggum, 2010, for a review; Duckworth, Tsukayama, & May, 2010; Valiente, LemeryChalfant, & Swanson, 2007). However, there is less work on this issue with adolescents. Martel et al. (2007) found that a number of aspects of executive functioning that are involved in effortful self-regulation predict adolescents’ academic competence. Duckworth, Quinn, and Tsukayama (2012) observed that self-control as measured by the Impulsivity Scale for Children (ISC) predicted change in youths’ report card grades (but not standardized test scores) better than did IQ. Moreover, Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen, and Gollwitzer (2011) and Duckworth, Kirby, Gollwitzer, and Oettingen (2013) found that rather complex self-regulation strategies (mental contrasting, involving cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality) can be trained and then used to enhance academic performance. Some researchers have reported negative relations between impulsivity and math and reading achievement (e.g., NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003; Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010). However, Martel et al. (2007) found that, when controlling for EC, reactive control was unrelated to achievement. Similarly, Valiente, Eisenberg, Haugen, Spinrad, and Kupfer (2013) found that young adolescents’ EC but not impulsivity (both measured with teachers’ and parents’ reports of youths’ attention shifting, attention focusing, and inhibitory control) uniquely predicted adolescents’ grade point average (GPA) two years later (at a mean age of 14) when controlling for GPA (as well as socioeconomic status and children’s sex) at the earlier assessment, even though impulsivity tended to be negatively related to GPA in zero-order correlations. At the earlier assessment (mean age of 12 years), however, both EC and impulsivity uniquely, positively predicted concurrent GPA. When the low EC that is characteristic of impulsive children was controlled, impulsivity predicted higher GPA, perhaps because it reflected spontaneity or an approach orientation.

Summary Across a number of studies, including some with adolescents, there is evidence that EC is related to positive developmental outcomes, including low levels of maladjustment, relatively high social competence, and schoolrelated competence. Impulsivity is often associated with negative outcomes,

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although when one controls for the low EC associated with impulsivity, the approach behavior that remains may be adaptive in some contexts. With age, the unique effects of EC appear to become stronger than those of reactive undercontrol in predicting developmental outcomes. There is much less research on the correlates of reactive overcontrol after early childhood, although reactive overcontrol appears to be associated with internalizing problems over time. Nonetheless, the effects of reactive overcontrol in adolescence, especially if considered as somewhat different from shyness, are not very clear.

EC as a Mediator of the Relation of Parenting to Children’s/Youths’ Adjustment and Maladjustment Consistent with the theorizing of Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad (1998), there is considerable evidence that EC/self-regulation mediates the relation of quality of parenting to a range of child outcomes. In the elementary school years and early adolescence, for example, more positive and/or sensitive parenting predicts higher levels of concurrent or subsequent EC, which in turn predict higher social competence and lower externalizing and internalizing symptoms in childhood (Belsky, Fearon, & Bell, 2007; Chang, Olson, Sameroff, & Sexton, 2011; Valiente et al., 2006) and into early adolescence (Cunningham, Kliewer, & Garner, 2009; Kim & Brody, 2005). For example, in one study (Eisenberg et al., 2005), parents (mostly mothers) were observed interacting with their children while involved in an activity at the mean age of 9 years and again at age 11 and 13. Their warmth and positive affect during these interactions were coded from videotapes. Teachers and parents reported on children’s EC (attention shifting, attention focusing, and inhibitory control) at all ages. Another measure of EC was a puzzle task in which youths had to try to complete a difficult jigsaw puzzle when alone without looking (cheating). The index of EC was time persisting without cheating. In structural equation models (a type of statistical analysis that combines multiple measures of constructs), positive parenting at approximately age 9 predicted higher levels of youths’ EC at age 11 (when controlling for earlier levels of EC), which in turn predicted their parent- and teacher-reported externalizing problems at age 13 (when controlling for prior levels of externalizing problems). Although positive parenting predicts higher EC even in the toddler and early elementary school years, it is not clear that EC mediates the relations of quality of parenting to adjustment and maladjustment (Eisenberg, Spinrad, et al., 2010; Spinrad et al., 2007). However, there is some evidence that EC does mediate the relation of higher parenting quality to young children’s

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subsequent committed compliance with adults’ expectations (Spinrad et al., 2012) and higher levels of preschoolers’ adult-reported ego resiliency (Taylor, Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Widaman, 2013). These findings were obtained when statistically controlling for prior levels of committed compliance or ego resiliency at young ages, suggesting that supportive parenting affects children’s internalization of mothers’ expectations and their ability to deal with stress and regroup through the positive effect of supportive parenting on children’s EC. Findings regarding mediation by EC of quality of parenting to (mal)adjustment after early adolescence are limited. Hofer et al. (2010), using a concurrent sample of French 10th to 12th graders, found that EC mediated the relations of adolescent- and parent-reported positive parenting (i.e., monitoring, expression of positive emotion in the family, and a positive adolescent-parent connection) or negative parenting (psychological control and the expression of negative emotion in the family) to adolescents’ parent- and teacher-reported ego (personality) resiliency (i.e., the ability to cope with and rebound from stress/negative emotions), which in turn mediated relations to parent-, adolescent-, and teacher-reported social competence and lower levels of internalizing symptoms; the relation of parenting to externalizing was only through EC. The finding that ego resiliency mediated the relation of EC to adjustment and internalizing problems is consistent with similar mediated pathways found in childhood (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2003, 2004; Spinrad et al., 2006). Other work, however, is consistent with the notion that children’s selfregulation affects the quality of parenting in the early years and childhood (e.g., Bridgett et al., 2009; Eisenberg et al., 2004; Eisenberg, Vidar, et al., 2010), as well as adolescence (Eisenberg et al., 2008). Moreover, Eisenberg et al. (1999) found evidence of bidirectional paths; children’s EC at age 6–8 years predicted less punitive parenting in response to children’s expression of negative emotions at age 8–10, which in turn predicted higher EC when controlling from prior EC at age 10–12 years. Belsky et al. (2007) reported evidence of similar bidirectional prediction across time with elementary school children. It is possible that children’s self-regulation or dysregulation has a stronger effect on parenting quality with age. However, because of the considerable stability of both parenting quality and children’s self-regulatory capacities over time (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2005, 2008), it is also quite possible that the strength of any newly emerging effect of parenting quality on adolescents’ self-regulation (or vice versa) diminishes with age because the already existing causal effects are set in place and simply are stable over time.

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Implications of Research on EC and Reactive Control for Recent Research on Regulated Behavior and Goal Pursuit in Adolescence It is clear that effortful control/self-regulation continues to develop into adolescence. For example, Steinberg et al. (2009) found that younger, compared to older, adolescents exhibited greater willingness to accept a smaller reward delivered sooner than a larger, delayed reward and viewed themselves as less likely to anticipate the consequences of their decisions for the future. In addition, they found that planning ahead dropped from age 10–11 years to 12–15 years and then increased with age until about age 25. There is also evidence of an increase in the abilities to inhibit attention and behavior into early adolescence and beyond (Leon-Carrion, Garc´ıa-Orza, & P´erez-Santamar´ıa, 2004; Murphy, Eisenberg, Fabes, Shepard, & Guthrie, 1999) and in the ability to shift attention as needed (Crone, Somsen, Zanolie, & Van der Molen, 2006). Moreover, Steinberg et al. (2008) found that impulsivity declined from age 10 to early adulthood (but see further discussion of this finding later in the chapter). Neuroscience findings indicate that the neurological structures underlying the development of volitional selfregulation are still developing in adolescence (Casey, Jones, & Somerville, 2011). These changes in regulatory capacities should have implications for socioemotional development in adolescence.

Conceptual Differentiations in Adolescent Research The difference between reactive and volitional control systems in adolescence is discussed under a variety of guises. Researchers have begun to notice that volitional effort control/executive functioning processes sometimes relate differently than reactive control to substance abuse, internalizing and externalizing problems, and ADHD symptoms. For example, Martel, Nigg, and von Eye (2009) examined relations of dimensions of ADHD with a “top-down” control factor including cognitive control and conscientiousness/effortful control and an affective or “bottom-up” factor including low neuroticism/negative emotionality, high agreeableness, and reactive overcontrol in elementary school children and adolescents (some with AHDH and some control children). In the younger group, the top-down factor uniquely negatively related to children’s inattention whereas the bottomup factor related to low hyperactivity-impulsivity. For adolescents, the first factor was related to both low inattention and hyperactivity, whereas the second factor was related only to low hyperactivity. In other work already mentioned, Martel et al. (2007) found that EF/EC but not reactive control

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predicted better academic outcomes and social competence in adolescence, whereas both volitional and reactive control processes uniquely predicted maladjustment. Additional distinctions could further clarify the relations of regulation/control processes to adjustment and maladjustment in adolescence. For example, in the Steinberg et al. (2008) study, their measure of impulsivity increased with age in adolescence. However, their measure of selfreported impulsivity seemed to include many items that reflect EC as much or more than reactive control (e.g., “It’s hard for me to think about two different things at the same time”). Thus, the decline in “impulsivity” in this study might be attributable to increases in EC rather than actual declines in impulsivity, or to both these developmental changes. Empirical data are needed to address this question. Luciana and Collins (2012; also Luciana, Wahlstrom, Porter, & Collins, 2012) argued that incentive motivation increases from childhood into adolescence and then declines somewhat from late adolescence into early adulthood and/or during early adulthood, and initial data support this assertion (Uroˇsevi´c, Collins, Muetzel, Lim, & Luciana, 2012). They defined incentive motivation as the energizing of instrumental behavior – the vigor and rate of responding – by anticipated reward acquisition. High incentive motivation is characterized by positive attentional biases, approach-related motor behavior, and subjective states of anticipatory engagement, especially under novel conditions. Such a definition is consistent with Gray’s (Pickering & Gray, 1999) behavioral activation system and, at relatively extreme levels, overlaps with what we have labeled reactive undercontrol or impulsivity. High incentive motivation likely contributes to impulsive behavior that involves approach without much thought. The data discussed by Luciana et al. (2012) and Uroˇsevi´c et al. (2012) suggest that reactive undercontrol follows a somewhat different developmental trajectory in adolescence than does EC. Luciana et al. (2012) view incentive motivation as related but not identical to sensation seeking because sensation seeking is predominantly arousalbased and valence free (Luciana & Collins, 2012). Steinberg et al. (2008) found different patterns of development for sensation seeking and his selfreport measure of impulsivity (or combined impulsivity and EC), with sensation seeking peaking at age 12–13 and then declining. Consistent with the suggestion of Luciana and Collins (2012), it is likely that sensation seeking, albeit substantially correlated with impulsivity in Steinberg et al. (2008), is different in some ways from impulsivity or incentive motivation, with (based on Steinberg’s work) sensation seeking perhaps peaking at a

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younger age. However, there is a need to carefully differentiate, conceptually and empirically, among volitional self-regulation, incentive motivation and its extremes (reactive undercontrol), and sensation seeking. The construct of reactive overcontrol overlaps with the notion of the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) responding. BIS is hypothesized to be involved in responses to threat and punishment and to inhibit approach responses in contexts with conflict between reward and risk (McNaughton & Gray, 2000). However, the way BIS responding and overcontrol are measured seems to change somewhat with age. In childhood, it is often operationalized as behavioral inhibition, especially in novel contexts. However, in adolescence, it is sometimes measured with scales that especially measure worrying, with items such as “I worry about making mistakes” or “I feel worried when I think that I have done poorly at something” (Blair, Peters, & Granger, 2004; Carver & White, 1994; note this scale has also been modified for children). Thus, although Uroˇsevi´c et al. (2012) found that BIS responding peaked in adolescence for girls (but was stable from childhood to adulthood for boys), it is not clear that this pattern would hold for reactive overcontrol if conceived as more than or different from worrying and/or as reflecting behavioral inflexibility. More differentiation is needed in thinking about and measuring responses involving reactive inhibition to approach in childhood and adolescence.

Implications for Interventions One of the more successful interventions for self-regulation in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood is learning to use mental contrasting that helps set binding goals and form strategies for implementing them (Duckworth et al., 2011, 2013; Oettingen, 2000; summary by Oettingen, 2012). Mental contrasting involves imagining a desired future (e.g., excelling at school) and then reflecting on the present reality that stands in the way of reaching that future (e.g., obstacles or temptations such as having little time or being distracted). If the desired future is feasible, mental contrasting turns this imagined future into a binding goal with subsequent goal pursuit and high performance (e.g., mental contrasting instills high academic performance already in second graders; A. Gollwitzer, Oettingen, Kirby, Duckworth, & Mayer, 2011). To strengthen goal attainment in the face of particularly challenging obstacles, mental contrasting has also been combined with implementation intentions: Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) is even more effective for reaching one’s academic and personal goals than either mental contrasting or

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implementation intentions alone (Oettingen, 2012; Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2010). While goal intentions (e.g., “I intend to achieve outcome X”) describe desired end states, implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006) spell out in advance when, where, and how these goals can be realized. Implementation intentions are viewed as more effective when they involve an if-then format (“If situation Y arises, then I will perform action Z!”) The if-component describes a concrete situation that is a good opportunity to act, whereas the then-component specifies an instrumental goal-directed response (for implementation intentions in school children, see Wieber, von Suchodoletz, Heikamp, Trommsdorff, & Gollwitzer, 2011). The construct of effortful self-regulation is useful for thinking through some of the mediating skills involved in these processes. For example, mental contrasting of possible desired futures forms strong associations between a possible future and obstacles of current reality as well as between the current reality and instrumental means to overcome it. Thus, the experimental procedures used in studies of mental contrasting probably elicit attentional control and planning and teach people to use those skills. Coming up with if-then plans involves planning and sometimes antecedent regulation – that is, self-regulation before exposure to an evocative/emotional event or context (e.g., choosing not to put oneself in a distracting situation when studying). Oettingen (2012) found that mental contrasting helps people not only to focus on goal pursuit but also to disengage from unfeasible desired future outcomes. Carrying out if-then plans may sometimes involve activational control and/or inhibitory control (effortfully activating or inhibiting behavior, respectively); indeed, both mental contrasting and implementation intentions are effortful mental procedures, albeit ones that activate nonconscious cognitive and motivational processes. An interesting finding is that these initially effortful regulatory procedures can be taught so that people use them in a self-reliant way during their everyday life (Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011; Oettingen, 2012). An unanswered question is the degree to which these processes become more automatic with practice. There are clear individual differences in EC, and it is quite possible that they moderate effectiveness of various interventions. Such moderation could work in several ways. For example, certain interventions may be effective only with individuals who have the requisite level of attention, planning, and so forth, to incorporate the desired change in cognitions or behavior. In this example, interventions basically change motivation and strategy knowledge for those with prerequisite regulatory skills. Alternatively, an intervention may be especially effective for those youths with

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relatively low regulation and/or high impulsivity because it provides them with new skills that people with higher self-regulation already possess and use. Consistent with this idea, EC is a better predictor of outcomes such as problem behaviors and social competence in children prone to experience negative emotions (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2004).

Future Questions Many important questions remain regarding self-regulation and its correlates in adolescence. What is the role of earlier vs. newly emerging EC in adolescence in risk taking, maladjustment, and social adjustment? We suspect both will prove to be important. What is the joint (unique additive and interacting) role of reactive control and EC in predicting developmental outcomes in adolescence? A reasonable hypothesis is that reactive undercontrol vies with EC more in early childhood and adolescence than in the elementary school years. What is the role of parenting in change in EC in childhood versus adolescence and, hence, in adolescent outcomes? Our prediction is that parents affect children’s EC more in childhood than children affect parents but that in adolescence, the direction of relations reverse (e.g., parents react to youths’ EC more than they shape EC). What are mediators of the relation of effortful and reactive control to adolescent outcomes? Ego resiliency, quality of social relationships, and feelings of self-efficacy are three likely mediators. How does EC relate to individual differences in, and training of, mental contrasting, goal-setting processes, and implementation processes and the effectiveness of various other interventions in adolescence (see prior discussion)? Do EC and reactive control moderate the effectiveness of interventions like those in goal-setting experiments? These are just a few of the many unanswered questions pertaining to the role of effortful self-regulation and reactive control in adolescent development. REFERENCES

Belsky, J., Fearon, R. M. P., & Bell, B. (2007). Parenting, attention and externalizing problems: Testing mediation longitudinally, repeatedly and reciprocally. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 1233–1242. doi:10.1111/j.1469–7610.2007.01807.x Biederman, J., Rosenbaum, J. F., Hirshfeld, D. R., & Faraone, S. V. (1990). Psychiatric correlates of behavioral inhibition in young children of parents with and without psychiatric disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 47, 21–26. doi:10.1001/ archpsyc.1990.01810130023004 Blair, C., Peters, R., & Granger, D. (2004). Physiological and neuropsychological correlates of Approach/Withdrawal tendencies in preschool: Further examination of the behavioral inhibition System/Behavioral activation system scales for young children. Developmental Psychobiology, 45, 113–124. doi:10.1002/dev.20022

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Bridgett, D. J., Gartstein, M. A., Putnam, S. P., McKay, T., Iddins, E., et al. (2009). Maternal and contextual influences and the effect of temperament development during infancy on parenting in toddlerhood. Infant Behavior & Development, 32, 103–116. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2008.10.007 Carver, C. S. (2005). Impulse and constraint: Perspectives from personality psychology, convergence with theory in other areas, and potential for integration. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 312–333. doi: 10.1207/s15327957pspr0904_2 Carver, C. S., & White, T. L. (1994). Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 319–333. doi: 10.1037/0022–3514.67.2.319 Casey, B. J., Jones, R. M., & Somerville, L. H. (2011). Braking and accelerating of the adolescent brain. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21, 21–33. doi: 10.1111/j.1532– 7795.2010.00712.x Caspi, A., Elder, G. H., & Bem, D. J. (1988). Moving away from the world: Life-course patterns of shy children. Developmental Psychology, 24, 824–831. doi: 10.1037/0012– 1649.24.6.824 Caspi, A., & Silva, P. A. (1995). Temperamental qualities at age three predict personality traits in young adulthood: Longitudinal evidence from a birth cohort. Child Development, 66, 486–498. doi: 10.2307/1131592 Chang, H., Olson, S. L., Sameroff, A. J., & Sexton, H. R. (2011). Child effortful control as a mediator of parenting practices on externalizing behavior: Evidence for a sexdifferentiated pathway across the transition from preschool to school. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 71–81. doi: 10.1007/s10802-010-9437-7 Cohen, J. R., & Lieberman, M. D. (2010). The common neural basis of exerting neural self-control in multiple domains. In R. R. Hassin, K. N. Oscher, & Y. Trope (Eds.), Self control in society, mind, and brain (pp. 141–160). New York: Oxford University Press. Compas, B. E., Connor-Smith, J. K., Saltzman, H., Thomsen, A. H., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2001). Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence: Problems, progress, and potential in theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 87–127. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.87 Crone, E. A., Somsen, R. J. M., Zanolie, K., & Van der Molen, M. W. (2006). A heart rate analysis of developmental change in feedback processing and rule shifting from childhood to early adulthood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 95, 99–116. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2006.03.007 Cunningham, J. N., Kliewer, W., & Garner, P. W. (2009). Emotion socialization, child emotion understanding and regulation, and adjustment in urban African American families: Differential associations across child gender. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 261–283. doi: 10.1017/S0954579409000157 Derryberry, D., & Rothbart, M. K. (1997). Reactive and effortful processes in the organization of temperament. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 633–652. doi:10.1017/S0954579497001375 Duckworth, A. L., Grant, H., Loew, B., Oettingen, G., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2011). Self-regulation strategies improve self-discipline in adolescents: Benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions. Educational Psychology, 31, 17–26. doi: 10.1080/01443410.2010.506003 Duckworth, A. L., Kirby, T. A., Gollwitzer, A., & Oettingen, G. (2013). From fantasy to action: Mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) improves

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academic performance in children. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 745–753. doi: 10.1177/1948550613476307 Duckworth, A. L., Quinn, P. D., & Tsukayama, E. (2012). What No Child Left Behind leaves behind: The roles of IQ and self-control in predicting standardized achievement test scores and report card grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 439–451. doi: 10.1037/a0026280 Duckworth, A. L., Tsukayama, E., & May, H. (2010). Establishing causality using longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling: An illustration predicting achievement from self-control. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 311–317. doi: 10.1177/1948550609359707 Eisenberg, N., Chang, L., Ma, Y., & Huang, X. (2009). Relations of parenting style to Chinese children’s effortful control, ego resilience, and maladjustment. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 455–477. doi:10.1017/S095457940900025X Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 241–273. doi:10.1207/s15327965pli0904_1 Eisenberg, N., Edwards, A., Spinrad, T. L., Sallquist, J., Eggum, N. D., & Reiser, M. (2013). Are effortful and reactive control unique constructs in young children? Developmental Psychology, 49, 2082–2094. doi: 10.1037/a0031745 Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Guthrie, I. K., Murphy, B. C., & Reiser, M. (1999). Parental reactions to children’s negative emotions: Longitudinal relations to quality of children’s social functioning. Child Development, 70, 513–534.doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00037 Eisenberg, N., Hofer, C., Spinrad, T. L., Gershoff, E. T., Valiente, C., et al. (2008). Understanding mother-adolescent conflict discussions: Concurrent and across-time prediction from youths’ dispositions and parenting. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 73, 1–180. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5834.2008.00470.x Eisenberg, N., Hofer, C., Sulik, M., & Spinrad, T. L. (2014). Effortful control and its socioemotional consequences. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd ed., pp. 157–172). New York: Guilford Press. Eisenberg, N., & Morris, A. S. (2002). Children’s emotion-related regulation. In R. V. Fox (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (pp. 189–229). New York: Academic Press. Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Eggum, N. D. (2010). Emotion-related self-regulation and its relation to children’s maladjustment. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, 495–525. doi: 10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131208 Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., Eggum, N. D., Silva, K. M., Reiser, M., et al. (2010). Relations among maternal socialization, effortful control, and maladjustment in early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 507–525. doi:10.1017/ S0954579410000246 Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., Fabes, R. A., Reiser, M., Cumberland, A., et al. (2004). The relations of effortful control and impulsivity to children’s resiliency and adjustment. Child Development, 75, 25–46. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00652.x Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Morris, A. S. (2002). Regulation, resiliency, and quality of social functioning. Self and Identity. Special Issue: Self and identity, 1, 121–128. doi: 10.1080/152988602317319294 Eisenberg, N., Valiente, C., & Eggum, N. D. (2010). Self-regulation and school readiness. Early Education & Development, 21, 681–698. doi: 10.1080/10409289.2010.497451

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Huey, S. J., & Weisz, J. R. (1997). Ego control, ego resiliency, and the five-factor model as predictors of behavioral and emotional problems in clinic-referred children and adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 404–415. doi: 10.1037/0021843X.106.3.404 Jensen-Campbell, L., & Malcolm, K. T. (2007). The importance of conscientiousness in adolescent interpersonal relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 368–383. doi: 10.1177/0146167206296104 Kagan, J. (1998). Biology and the child. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) and N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Social, emotional and personality development. Vol. 3. Handbook of child psychology (pp. 177–235). New York: Wiley. Kim, S., & Brody, G. H. (2005). Longitudinal pathways to psychological adjustment among black youth living in single-parent households. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 305–313. doi: 10.1037/0893-3200 .19.2.305 King, K. M., & Chassin, L. (2004). Mediating and moderated effects of adolescent behavioral undercontrol and parenting in the prediction of drug use disorders in emerging adulthood. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 18, 239–249. doi: 10.1037/0893164X.18.3.239 King, K. M., Lengua, L. J., & Monahan, K. C. (2012). Individual differences in the development of self-regulation during pre-adolescence: Connections to context and adjustment. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41, 57–69. doi: 10.1007/s10802012-9665-0 Lengua, L. J. (2006). Growth in temperament and parenting as predictors of adjustment during children’s transition to adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 42, 819–832. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.819 Leon-Carrion, J., Garc´ıa-Orza, J., & P´erez-Santamar´ıa, F. J. (2004). Development of the inhibitory component of the executive functions in children and adolescents. International Journal of Neuroscience, 114, 1291–1311. doi: 10.1080/00207450490476066 Luciana, M., & Collins, P. F. (2012). Incentive motivation, cognitive control, and the adolescent brain: Is it time for a paradigm shift? Child Development Perspectives, 6, 392–399. doi: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2012.00252.x Luciana, M., Wahlstrom, D., Porter, J. N., & Collins, P. F. (2012). Dopaminergic modulation of incentive motivation in adolescence: Age-related changes in signaling, individual differences, and implications for the development of self-regulation. Developmental Psychology, 48, 844–861. doi: 10.1037/a0027432 Martel, M. M., & Nigg, J. T. (2006). Child ADHD and personality/temperament traits of reactive and effortful control, resiliency, and emotionality. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 1175–1183. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2006.01629. Martel, M. M., Nigg, J. T., & Von Eye, A. (2009). How do trait dimensions map onto ADHD symptom domains? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37, 337–348. doi: 10.1007/s10802-008-9255-3 Martel, M. M., Nigg, J. T., Wong, M. M., Fitzgerald, H. E., Jester, J. M., et al. (2007). Childhood and adolescent resiliency, regulation, and executive functioning in relation to adolescent problems and competence in a high-risk sample. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 541–563. doi: 10.1017/S0954579407070265 McNaughton, N., & Gray, J. A. (2000). Anxiolytic action on the behavioural inhibition system implies multiple types of arousal contribute to anxiety. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61, 161–176. doi: 10.1016/S0165-0327(00)00344-X

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Mischel, W., & Ayduk, O. (2011). Willpower in a cognitive-affective processing system: The dynamics of delay of gratification. In Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 83–105). New York: Guilford Press. Monahan, K. C., Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., & Mulvey, E. P. (2009). Trajectories of antisocial behavior and psychosocial maturity from adolescence to young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1654–1668. doi: 10.1037/a0015862 Muris, P., van der Pennen, E., Sigmond, R., & Mayer, B. (2008). Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and aggression in non-clinical children: Relationships with self-report and performance-based measures of attention and effortful control. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 39, 455–467. doi: 10.1007/s10578-008-0101-1 Murphy, B. C., Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S., & Guthrie, I. K. (1999). Consistency and change in children’s emotionality and regulation: A longitudinal study. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 45, 413–444. NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2003). Do children’s attention processes mediate the link between family predictors and school readiness? Developmental Psychology, 39, 581–593. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.39.3.581 Oettingen, G. (2000). Expectancy effects on behavior depend on self-regulatory thought. Social Cognition, 18, 101–129. Oettingen, G. (2012). Future thought and behaviour change. European Review of Social Psychology, 23, 1–63. doi: 10.1080/10463283.2011.643698 Oettingen, G., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2010). Strategies of setting and implementing goals: Mental contrasting and implementation intentions. In J. E. Maddux & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Social psychological foundations of clinical psychology (pp. 114–135). New York: Guilford. Oldehinkel, A. J., Hartman, C. A., Ferdinand, R. F., Verhulst, F. C., & Ormel, J. (2007). Effortful control as modifier of the association between negative emotionality and adolescents’ mental health problems. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 523–539. doi: 10.1017/S0954579407070253 Pickering, A. D., & Gray, J. A. (1999). The neuroscience of personality. In O. P. John & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 277– 299). New York: Guilford Press. Romano, E., Babchishin, L., Pagani, L. S., & Kohen, D. (2010). School readiness and later achievement: Replication and extension using a nationwide Canadian survey. Developmental Psychology, 46, 995–1007. doi: 10.1037/a0018880 Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (2006). Temperament. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology. Vol. 3. Social, emotional, personality development (6th ed., pp. 99–166). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W. M., & Parker, J. G. (2006). Peer interactions, relationships, and groups. In N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.) and W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 3): Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 571–645). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Spinrad, T. L., Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., Fabes, R. A., Valiente, C., et al. (2006). The relations of temperamentally based control processes to children’s social competence: A longitudinal study. Emotion, 6, 498–510. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.498 Spinrad, T. L., Eisenberg, N., Gaertner, B., Popp, T., Smith, C. L., et al. (2007). Relations of maternal socialization and toddlers’ effortful control to children’s adjustment

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and social competence. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1170–1186. doi: 10.1037/00121649.43.5.1170 Spinrad, T. L., Eisenberg, N., Silva, K. M., Eggum, N. D., Reiser, M., et al. (2012). Longitudinal relations among maternal behaviors, effortful control and young children’s committed compliance. Developmental Psychology, 48, 552–566. doi: 10.1037/a0025898 Steinberg, L., Albert, D., Cauffman, E., Banich, M., Graham, S., & Woolard, J. (2008). Age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity as indexed by behavior and selfreport: Evidence for a dual systems model. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1764–1778. doi: 10.1037/a0012955 Steinberg, L., Graham, S., O’Brien, L., Woolard, J., Cauffman, E., & Banich, M. (2009). Age differences in future orientation and delay discounting. Child Development, 80, 28–44. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01244.x Taylor, Z. E., Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Widaman, K. F. (2013). Longitudinal relations of intrusive parenting and effortful control to ego-resiliency during early childhood. Child Development, 84, 1145–1151. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12054 Uroˇsevi´c, S., Collins, P., Muetzel, R., Lim, K., & Luciana, M. (2012). Longitudinal changes in behavioral approach system sensitivity and brain structures involved in reward processing during adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 48, 1488–1500. doi: 10.1037/a0027502 Valiente, C., Eisenberg, N., Haugen, R., Spinrad, T. L., & Kupfer, A. (2013). Effortful control and impulsivity as concurrent and longitudinal predictors of academic achievement. Journal of Early Adolescence, 37, 946–972. doi: 10.1177/0272431613477239 Valiente, C., Eisenberg, N., Smith, C. L., Reiser, M., Fabes, R. A., et al. (2003). The relations of effortful control and reactive control to children’s externalizing problems: A longitudinal assessment. Journal of Personality, 71, 1171–1196. doi: 10.1111/14676494.7106011 Valiente, C., Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., Reiser, M., Cumberland, A., Losoya, S., & Liew, J. (2006). Relations among mothers’ expressivity, children’s effortful control, and their problem behaviors: A four-year longitudinal study. Emotion, 6, 459–472. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.459 Valiente, C., Lemery-Chalfant, K., & Castro, K. S. (2007). Children’s effortful control and academic competence: Mediation through school liking. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 53, 1–25. doi: 10.1353/mpq.2007.0006 Wieber, F., von Suchodoletz, A., Heikamp, T., Trommsdorff, G., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2011). If-then planning helps school-aged children to ignore attractive distractions. Social Psychology, 42, 39–47. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000041

4

Effortful Control in Adolescence: Individual Differences within a Unique Developmental Window Koraly P´erez-Edgar

Author Note Koraly P´erez-Edgar, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University. Thank you to Bradley Taber-Thomas and Amanda Guyer for their excellent advice and commentary on earlier drafts of this chapter. Support for manuscript preparation was provided by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Koraly P´erez-Edgar (MH# 094633). Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Koraly P´erezEdgar, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, 270 Moore Bldg, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-3106. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Individual differences in emotional reactivity emerge in the first months of life. In some infants, this is marked by a fearful withdrawal from the uncertainty of the larger world, while other infants display a joyful embrace. While early reactivity can shape behavior over time, it is not immutable. The child can come to shape, or regulate, these initial emotional tendencies, allowing him to meet individual goals and conform to societal expectations of behavior. This chapter focuses on effortful control as a key component of an individual’s regulatory arsenal. It explores the role of effortful control in helping individuals navigate the exceedingly complex social and emotional world confronted in adolescence, highlighting the behavioral, cognitive, and neural mechanisms at play.

In many ways, psychology, as a science, has chosen for itself a rather difficult target of study relative to its empirical peers. Like the chemist examining atomic structures, the psychologist is faced with a complex, multi-unit structure whose elements interact in surprising, nonlinear fashion. Much like the biologist peering at a cell, the psychologist is chasing an evolving, growing organism whose transformations reflect both quantitative and 78

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qualitative change. However, unlike the atom or the cell, the human is able to observe, judge, and willfully change previous patterns of behavior. Thus, the psychologist must be nimble in the attempt to measure a construct even as the object of study is employing that very construct to modify its behavioral manifestation. Developmental psychology, in particular, must capture a rapid rate of change, the insistent shift from external to internal mechanisms of control, and the expanding universe of forces that shape the developmental trajectory of an individual child. This chapter focuses on one mechanism by which children come to shape their own behavior, their understanding of the world around them, and the paths by which they navigate their environment – effortful control. The discussion defines and characterizes the current understanding of effortful control as both a temperamental trait and a regulatory mechanism that emerges over the course of childhood. The emphasis is on individual differences in the efficacy and deployment of effortful control, particularly as it reflects a core component of temperament. Throughout, the focus is on the unique role effortful control may play in behavior during adolescence as individuals confront tasks that increasingly reflect the challenges of adulthood while relying on regulatory mechanisms that are neither fully mature nor stable in their deployment. In doing so, the chapter also highlights the strength of bringing together converging data from multiple sources and levels of analysis.

Effortful Control as a Core Component of Temperament Temperament Encompasses Both Reactivity and Regulation Individual differences in behavior are evident from the first days of life. Some infants spend their days in relative serenity soaking in environmental stimuli and, eventually, reaching out to engage with a larger world. Other infants, in contrast, feel bombarded by the multitude of sensory inputs that surround them. They respond by pulling back and displaying strong, unmistakable signs of negative affect. These two groups of infants are displaying the earliest temperament markers of emotional reactivity, their initial automatic response to the environment. This is the affective and behavioral style that they will carry with them as they navigate an ever-expanding social world (Kagan, 2012; Rothbart, 2012). Temperamental reactivity emerges in the first months of life, shows relative stability across contexts and time, and serves as the initial biological building block for the later emergence of personality from childhood into adolescence and then adulthood (Rothbart, Ahadi, & Evans, 2000).

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Environmental Demands Social Experience

Overcontrol Effortful Control Reactive Control

Adaptive Functioning Undercontrol

Affective Responses

Motivational Inputs

Figure 4.1. This simplified model depicts the multilayered processes that impact longitudinal trajectories into adolescence. Here, effortful and reactive control mechanisms work in response to initial affective and motivational forces to shape behavior within the ecological context of functioning. When flexible and able to adapt to shifting resources and demands, effortful control can work to enhance adaptive functioning. When coupled with poor social supports and extreme affective inputs, variations in effortful control may lead to over- or undercontrolled patterns of behavior.

This is not to say, however, that early temperamental reactivity is immutable. The individual child’s environment, socialization pressures brought to bear by parents and peers, as well as internal psychological processes all work to shape initial biases. Indeed, temperament-linked individual differences in the ability to regulate emerge as early as the second year of life. Regulatory mechanisms (e.g., effortful control) work to modulate initial responses in light of individual goals or concerns. Thus, specific developmental trajectories are shaped by the interplay between initial reactivity and subsequent regulation. The specific direction of these trajectories (e.g., toward or away from the social world) are rooted in motivational systems that categorize the environment as appetitive or aversive and energize behavior accordingly (Quevedo, Benning, Gunnar, & Dahl, 2009). The discussion that follows will highlight the individual components of this model, illustrated in Figure 4.1. The Construct of Effortful Control Effortful control can be defined as the ability to inhibit a dominant response in the service of performing a subdominant response (Rothbart & Rueda,

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2005). For example, a child playing ‘Simon says’ must carefully regulate her behavior in order to perform (or avoid performing) as needed. Effortful control is also invoked when individuals must detect errors during, or must engage in planning in anticipation of, performance. Effortful control is seen as a core tool in the child’s arsenal needed to both self-regulate and integrate oneself as an adaptive member of the larger social environment. Thus individual differences in effortful control have been associated with the emergence of conscience and empathy (Kochanska, Murray, & Coy, 1997), levels of academic success (Checa & Rueda, 2011), and the quality and quantity of peer relationships (Valiente, Lemery-Chalfant, Swanson, & Reiser, 2008). Effortful versus Reactive Control In characterizing effortful control, a distinction is often made with reactive control. Reactive control (Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2004) encompasses the child’s implicit evaluation of objects or events as aversive or rewarding. Reactive control is motivated by immediate incentives and is sufficiently spontaneous that it is not considered deliberate (Martel & Nigg, 2006). This implicit evaluation then triggers relatively automatic or reflexive response strategies, which can indicate approach or withdrawal behavior (Rueda, 2012). Effortful control brings to bear more deliberate or conscious processing, interpretation, and manipulation of these initial reactive tendencies (Rothbart & Bates, 2007). The Emergence of Effortful Control Individual differences in reactivity are evident from the first weeks of life (Kagan, Snidman, Kahn, & Towsley, 2007). In contrast, regulatory mechanisms are slower to emerge (Posner & Rothbart, 2000), can be somewhat crude in the initial application (Posner, Rothbart, & Thomas-Thrapp, 1998), and are initially dependent on external forces (Bernier, Carlson, & Whipple, 2010). For example, a three-month-old may show regular patterns of high negative affect but the first glimmers of self-regulation may not appear until close to the first birthday (Posner et al., 1998). In many cases, regulation will require an adult or older child who can intervene and introduce a new focus of attention (Fox & Calkins, 2003). This might involve, for example, providing a child with a new toy just as a dangerous object is removed from his grasp. On a practical level, the researcher examining the interplay between reactivity and regulation in infancy and early childhood can take advantage of bold behavioral responses on the part of the child. Emotional responses to distressing cues involve clear markers, such as crying and turning away.

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Regulatory mechanisms, even when invoked, are relatively slow and only partially effective – allowing us to capture variability across individuals and time. In contrast, in the older child or adolescent emotional and cognitive responses to salient stimuli can be quite subtle or completely hidden from the researcher’s glare (Luna & Sweeney, 2004). Indeed, many of the standard laboratory tasks used with young children to measure reactivity and effortful control (e.g., Please wait 5 minutes before eating a treat) are no longer developmentally appropriate past the very early elementary school period (Rueda, 2012). Effortful Control in Adolescence As a field we have focused on the initial stabilization or coalescing of effortful control in early to middle childhood (Rosso, Young, Femia, & YurgelunTodd, 2004). This limited scope leaves unexplored a critical period during which effortful control skills are expanded, applied to more complex and long-term goals, and subjected to new pressures that accompany the expanding experiential environment for adolescents. Effortful control skills can be seen as the “mediator between genetic predispositions, early experience, and adult functioning” (Fonagy & Target, 2002). Without a focus on the specific application of effortful control skills on the unique demands of adolescence, the link to the final component of this triad is missing. In adolescence, effortful control is called on to modulate behaviors that are growing in both specificity and complexity. Effortful control mechanisms are often characterized as broad, context-free tools that are brought to bear across a complex spectrum of behaviors and tendencies. In this sense, the self-regulation strategies of mental contrasting (Oettingen, 1999, 2012) and implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011) qualify as effortful control, even though their effects on behavior change are based on non-effortful, automatic processes. However, as discussed in the following sections, the individual and environmental contexts of regulation may play a very important role in the observed relation between effortful control skills and developmental outcomes.

Attention in Effortful Control and Socioemotional Development Attention as Gatekeeper in Social Development The centrality of attention in development grows out of its role as a specific brain-based mechanism whose core function is to influence the operation of other mechanisms – by choosing the focus of attention for further processing, by maintaining this focus as needed, and by disengaging from

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the focus of attention when it no longer serves current goals (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). The earliest forms of self-regulation and effortful control are rooted in the ability to disengage, shift gaze, and reorient on a new focus of attention (Rothbart, Posner, & Rosicky, 1994). If this view is correct, early life individual differences in attention should be associated with diverging trajectories of socioemotional development during early childhood – potentially extending into adolescence. Since attention mechanisms can link early traits to later broad patterns of functioning, they can be considered a “developmental tether.” Developmental tethers bind children to specific developmental trajectories. From our lab’s perspective, developmental tethers grow out of the child’s individual early traits or biases. These biases then provoke an environmental response. The child processes and interprets these responses and frames subsequent behaviors based on the conclusions drawn. This can become cyclical, growing progressively more entrenched (and at times biased) with each successive iteration, and setting the trajectory for socioemotional development. This process may be particularly acute in children at temperamental risk for socioemotional difficulties. As a first examination of attention as a developmental tether (P´erezEdgar, McDermott et al., 2010), my colleagues and I had nine-month-old infants watch an engaging video of Sesame Street. We then intermittently presented a bulls-eye in the periphery of their visual field. Based on how engaged they remained with the video, infants were characterized for high or low levels of sustained attention. We followed the children until adolescence, periodically assessing social behavior with unfamiliar peers in our lab. Infants with low levels of sustained attention showed increasing levels of social withdrawal and discomfort through age 14 years. In addition, initial social difficulties as toddlers (14 months) predicted adolescent social behavior only in the children with low levels of sustained attention, thus tethering the child to his initial biases. The observed developmental trajectories may be a reflection of the important gatekeeping role that attention plays in day-to-day psychological processes. Mechanisms of Attention Attention is a complex, multifaceted neuropsychological process. Posner’s model of attention (Posner, Rothbart, Sheese, & Voelker, 2012) has suggested three core areas of functioning that allow a child moving through her busy environment to notice an important event (alerting), shift attention to the event (orienting), and then decide if she needs to act (executive). The alerting system is tasked with obtaining and maintaining an alert state,

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is subserved by midbrain structure with strong interconnectivity between frontal and parietal regions, and is linked to norepinephrine functioning. The second, orienting system is thought to select sensory events for further processing, is linked to inferior and superior parietal systems, and is linked to cholinergic activity. The orienting system plays an important role in early self-regulation as it is evident in the first year of life and is a core tool for modulating emotion. Appearing later in development is the executive attention system. This system is called in to resolve conflict among responses, is linked to prefrontal (including the anterior cingulate cortex, ACC) activity, and is closely aligned with dopaminergic functioning. This system is thought to reflect the effortful control behaviors researchers observe in older children. Indeed, poor executive attention is associated with lower levels of effortful control (Ellis, Rothbart, & Posner, 2004). Over time, initial attempts at reactive control supported by the orienting system are subsumed by effortful control mechanisms and the executive attention system. This transition provides the individual with greater flexibility in responding to environmental stimuli and a wider range of options when needing to regulate. Unlike the younger child, the adolescent’s orienting system can recruit the executive system to meet a challenge, as needed (Shulman et al., 2009).

Neural and Psychophysiological Underpinnings of Effortful Control A number of empirical tasks have been designed to assess effortful control. These include the Stroop color-word task (Stroop, 1935) and its emotional variants (P´erez-Edgar & Fox, 2003), the Go–No Go task (Casey et al., 1997), the spatial conflict task (Gerardi-Caulton, 2000), and the flanker task (Eriksen, 1995). Each task was initially designed for use with adults from the perspective of cognitive psychology or neuropsychology. This heritage can cause difficulty when trying to modify tasks for use with very young children (P´erez-Edgar & Bar-Haim, 2010). However, adolescents are often fully capable of meeting the behavioral demands placed on them by these tasks. In addition, these tasks are amenable for use with psychophysiological and imaging techniques (Fox, Hane, & P´erez-Edgar, 2006). Since adolescents are relatively good at masking their affective or cognitive responses to our laboratory tasks, in vivo noninvasive methods are particularly useful in revealing underlying patterns of reactivity and regulation (Luna & Sweeney, 2004; Taber-Thomas & P´erez-Edgar, in press).

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Response Inhibition One core component of effortful control is the ability to withhold a prepotent response, which is often assessed with the Go–No Go or flanker task. The inhibitory effort exerted is reflected in the N2 component of the eventrelated potential (ERP). ERPs capture the electrical activity of the brain time-locked to the precise presentation of a specific stimulus or response. The N2 is noted approximately 200 ms after stimulus presentation and is maximal at medial-frontal electrode sites. The amplitude of the N2 is often taken to reflect underlying levels of conflict monitoring (Donkers & van Boxtel, 2004) or response inhibition (Folstein & Van Petten, 2008). Under ideal performance conditions, the N2 reaches adult levels by mid- to late adolescence (Ladouceur, Dahl, & Carter, 2007) and is used to index the availability and efficacy of cognitive functions that underlie control processes. Performance Monitoring A second ERP component often used to capture individual differences in effortful control is the event-related negativity (ERN). The ERN indexes the individual’s ability to detect errors and monitor ongoing performance. This, in turn, is thought to allow children to flexibly assess performance, adapt to changing demands, or shift behavior in order to increase the probability of goal attainment. The ERN is observed 50–150 ms after a child makes a response and is maximal in medial-frontal electrode sites (Falkenstein, Hoormann, Christ, & Hohnsbein, 2000). In the process of completing a task, the ERN is thought to signal conflict monitoring after an error response is made, while the N2 reflects conflict monitoring before a correct response. The general consensus is that larger ERN and N2 amplitudes necessarily reflect “better” functioning. However, as discussed later in the chapter, individual differences in temperament can shift the relation between these two ERP components and psychological outcomes. Functional Neural Systems Underlying Effortful Control ERPs are unique in their ability to closely track the chronometry of processing. However, ERPs can only grossly approximate the location of the neural generators triggering the evident differences in ERP components. Conversely, localization is more clearly revealed with technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The fMRI environment can be quite difficult for very young children as it is quite noisy, can seem overwhelming, and requires minimal movement (often less than 3 mm) during data collection (P´erez-Edgar & Bar-Haim, 2010). This limits the

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use of fMRI technology with young children. Luckily, by middle childhood and adolescence, children can often easily tolerate these demands, allowing researchers the first opportunity to extensively explore the neural correlates of effortful control. The behavioral dichotomy between emotional reactivity and effortful regulation is paralleled by separate neural systems for emotional arousal and motivation versus effortful or executive control (Dennis, O’Toole, & DeCicco, 2013). The reactive system is centered on an interconnected network that includes the amygdala, insula, striatum, and medial orbital frontal cortex (mOFC). The effortful or executive control system is centered on more cortical regions including the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC), medial PFC, lateral OFC, and the ACC. The ACC, in particular, subserves cognitive control functions associated with monitoring the effectiveness, efficiency, and meaning of behavior and performance. The dorsal ACC is considered a transition zone in the frontolimbic network (Ridderinkhof, Ullsperger, Crone, & Nieuwenhuis, 2004), linking together the emotional processing of objects and events rooted in the limbic system with the regulatory mechanisms of the frontal cortex. As such, activity in the ACC may be involved in effortful control processes brought to bear in challenging contexts, helping the adolescent monitor and resolve conflicts while navigating the environment. The ventral ACC is connected to the amygdala, mOFC, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, and anterior insula (Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000). This neuroanatomical architecture is consistent with an important role for the ACC in assessing the salience of emotional and motivational information. Integrating Affective and Cognitive Processes in Adolescence Within the executive functioning literature, a distinction is often made between “cool” and “hot” environments and tasks (Zelazo, Qu, & M¨uller, 2005). Cool environments are emotionally neutral and can be considered a baseline measure of performance under ideal conditions. Hot environments, in contrast, are emotionally charged and often involve highly salient motivational components. This can include rewards or punishments based on level of performance (e.g., the adolescent must perform well in order to avoid giving a dreaded speech), the use of emotionally salient stimuli (e.g., emotion faces used as stimuli in a Go–No Go task), or the presence of an emotional trigger (e.g., a critical audience observing performance). Adolescents often exhibit adult levels of performance in cool tasks (Prencipe et al., 2011), suggesting that the underlying effortful control skills are mature. However, performance often breaks down under hot

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conditions. This seeming regression in skill level may reflect the system’s inability to maintain high levels of performance in a core task (e.g., sorting pictures) while simultaneously regulating the reactive response generated by the affective pressures of the task (e.g., avoiding the dreaded speech; Taber-Thomas & P´erez-Edgar, in press). At the neural level, adolescence reflects a unique disequilibrium between regulatory and reactive neural mechanisms. Somerville and Casey (2010) have suggested that pubertal, hormonal, and neuroendocrine forces shape reactive mechanisms, such that they show a rapid increase in sensitivity, peaking in adolescence, which then subsides over time – creating an inverted U-shaped curve. Unfortunately, the regulatory mechanisms centered in the PFC that are needed to reign in initial reactive tendencies are not yet mature as they have a protracted maturational progression compared to other neuropsychological functions (Gogtay et al., 2004). Detecting and processing novel and salient cues may overwhelm regulatory capacities, exerting a stronger influence on behavior for adolescents, relative to children and adults (Figner, Mackinlay, Wilkening, & Weber, 2009). Ernst and Fudge (2009) capture this imbalance within their triadic model. Illustrated using a triangle, each corner of the triangle reflects underlying regulatory and reactive neural systems. The model has regulatory capacities at its peak. The base corners of the triangle are assigned to approach motivations and avoidance motivations, respectively. Throughout development, the goal is for the peak of the triangle to keep the base in balance. However, in adolescence, the pull of approach and reward mechanisms may be particularly strong, overwhelming the regulatory peak of the triangle. As a result, the triangle tips in the direction of this corner of the base. With the continuing stabilization and growth of regulatory mechanisms, the balance is restored as the individual transitions into young adulthood (Taber-Thomas & P´erez-Edgar, in press). This imbalance can be seen at the neural level. Galvan et al. (2006) observed children, adolescents, and adults as they performed a monetary reward task within the fMRI environment. They found that adolescents reacted comparably to adults in the nucleus accumbens, a subregion of the striatum. The nucleus accumbens is active when individuals are working to translate motivation into action. In contrast, when examining activation levels in the PFC, the adolescents were more comparable to the children in the sample. The fundamental imbalance between motivation and regulation may be the root foundation for the impulsive, risky, and emotionally volatile behavior that we often view as the hallmark of adolescence. While the societal emphasis on Sturm und Drang may be an exaggeration, this stereotype

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may be rooted in this underlying imbalance. In adolescence, individuals can often articulate a clear understanding of the potential consequences of their behavior (Steinberg, 2008), reflecting improvement in the ability to imagine hypothetical scenarios and extrapolate consequences. However, implementation becomes more difficult in the heat of real-life choices in emotionally evocative contexts. Thus, the thoughtful adolescent who can recite driving safety rules becomes an aggressive speeder when out with friends.

Effortful Control in the Unique Context of Adolescence From an evolutionary perspective, adolescence may by necessity be marked by risk-taking, impulsiveness, and new heights of creativity. These traits impart the necessary motivation and brashness needed to leave the home base, explore new territories, and establish independent family units (Spear, 2004). The difficulty lies in the intersection of ancient evolutionary engines and modern societal constraints. Effortful Control and Socialization in Adolescence Adaptive developmental outcomes, defined as the ability to successfully navigate and integrate into the surrounding social world, depend not only on the ability to regulate but also the ability to realize what behaviors need to be regulated. Universal, biologically based mechanisms of regulation are shaped to conform to the cultural norms of the society in which the child is embedded (Rothbart, 2007). The successful adolescent is able to mold or modulate initial temperamental biases to fit the demands and expectations of the specific culture he finds himself in. It is in the temperament-culture mismatch, much like a temperament-parenting mismatch (Mangelsdorf, Gunnar, Kestenbaum, Lang, & Andreas, 1990), that one can find the roots of dysfunction. This becomes most evident in adolescence as societal expectations become more stringent and more closely aligned with adult patterns of behavior. Effortful control may facilitate environmental efforts to socialize the child to cultural expectations (Posner & Rothbart, 2009). For example, young children are often given greater latitude from adults when judging their ability to target and modulate behaviors deemed inappropriate or socially undesirable. The two-year-old who, after seeing a plate of cookies, rushes to grab one, or two, or three is told to wait his turn and share with others. However, on the whole, the cookie-grabber can be considered charming and a bit funny. The twelve-year-old who engages in the same behavior

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is considered rude and deviant. Children entering into adolescence are increasingly expected to independently regulate underlying tendencies and also more closely reflect ideal patterns of adult behavior (Steinberg, 2008). A child who can bring to bear effortful control skills when extrapolating another’s mental state (theory of mind) to anticipate their responses to behavior may be able to better conform to social expectations (Carlson, Moses, & Breton, 2002). This initial example of the plate of cookies reflects a relatively minor and ephemeral transgression of societal norms. However, the adolescent is also now, more than before, dealing with much larger issues calling for both short-term and long-term regulation of behavior. Impulse versus Investment in Adolescence Consider the famous marshmallow task (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989) in which a young child is presented with a delicious treat. He is asked to wait patiently and refrain from eating the treat with the expectation that he will receive two marshmallows if he survives the ordeal. A large literature base suggests that children who can refrain from eating the marshmallow display greater cognitive, academic, and social outcomes in both the short and long terms (Casey et al., 2011). Presumably, this reflects underlying effortful control skills linked to inhibitory control and attention regulation. This task is marked by a tangible, visible goal and a short (although unknown to the child) time frame. With adolescence, goals are often intangible, have a much longer time frame, and involve opportunities with a much larger impact on future outcomes. For example, we can substitute for the marshmallow the potential for admissions to a highly selective college or university. The time frame extends from 15 minutes to multiple years. This window encompasses the span of time during which the adolescent must first recognize the goal, navigate academic and social pressures as he attempts to build the academic record needed for admissions, and, finally, years later, actually submit an application. The eventual reward is a relatively ephemeral notice of admission. This process requires that the adolescent delay gratification, inhibit impulsive behavior, and carefully plan and organize activities across multiple domains (Yucel et al., 2012). The adolescent is asked to repeatedly confront the impulsive choice and the investment dilemma (Davey, Yucel, & Allen, 2008). In the impulsive choice, the adolescent must decide between the proximal reward (an invitation to a great party) and the distal costs (a university’s rejection letter). For the investment dilemma, the adolescent must weigh the proximal cost (missing the party to go to the library) versus distal rewards (receiving an

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acceptance letter). A student who fails to navigate these choices early in his academic career cannot simply reverse course years later. It must be an early and sustained course of action during a time period where the goals are distant and intangible and the current competing interests may be engaging, immediate, and concrete. Both behavioral and neuroimaging research show that adolescents are particularly attuned to salient environmental stimuli and cues (Ernst & Spear, 2009), suggesting that powerful effortful control mechanisms are needed to keep the adolescent on track. Effortful Control and the Independence of Adolescents Across adolescence, there is also an increase in the diversity or variability of the contexts under which adolescents must regulate their behavior. Adolescence often represents the first time we are given real freedom to actively choose and shape our environments (Steinberg et al., 2006). Thus, the increasing complexity of the targets of regulation is coupled with an explosion in the potential goals and contexts that regulation must take place. The adolescent must intentionally set goals that can be supported by subsequent automatic or reactive processes. Since many of these goals have a long time horizon (e.g., university admissions), the adolescents must be able to monitor the ongoing progress he is making toward the goal and have the flexibility to shift underlying strategies based on feedback over time. These course corrections are made outside of the immediate context or environment that generated the central goal. As noted earlier, regulation in childhood often involves objectives that are immediate, tangible, and close at hand.

Individual Differences in the Impact of Effortful Control on Development The discussion to this point has held closely to the proposition that higher levels of effortful control, and the underlying skills leading to effortful control, are necessarily positive influences on the course of development. This is indeed generally the case. However, as with most aspects of development, the impact of a particular skill or trait must be assessed within the context in which it is manifested. For example, the ability to monitor performance for errors and adjust subsequent behavior accordingly is a hallmark of mature behavior and is thought to underlie observed improvement in task performance with age. Children who are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or who show high levels of impulsive behavior have deficits in performance and error monitoring (Nigg, Goldsmith, & Sachek, 2004).

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At the neural level, this is often reflected in smaller ERNs (Liotti, Pliszka, Perez, Kothmann, & Woldorff, 2005) or less ACC activation (van Veen & Carter, 2002) during computer-based tasks, such as the flanker task. In this context, increases in performance monitoring over time are often treated as milestones of improving developmental outcomes. However, this pattern of increased monitoring leading to better outcomes may not carry over to children prone to anxiety. For example, Fox, Henderson, Rubin, Calkins, and Schmidt (2001) recruited a large sample of four-month-old infants with high levels of negative reactivity to novel sensory stimuli. Negative reactivity in infancy increases the risk for social difficulties in childhood (Fox et al., 2001) and elevated anxiety in adolescence (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2009). At age 15, adolescents completed a traditional flanker task (McDermott et al., 2009). Temperamental risk was positively associated with ERN amplitudes in adolescence. Importantly, elevated ERN amplitudes were associated with increased levels of clinical anxiety among the participants with the highest levels of social difficulties. Henderson (2010) found a similar pattern with the N2 in shy 9–13-yearolds. These psychophysiological findings are in line with an fMRI study indicating that adolescents with a childhood history of temperamental risk for anxiety show altered neural responses to salient cues only when they are indicative of the adolescent’s performance (Bar-Haim et al., 2009; Helfinstein et al., 2011). These data suggest that heightened error monitoring in anxiety-prone children may reflect an overcontrolled behavioral style. Here, the subcomponents of effortful control, rather than freeing the child to flexibly and nimbly respond to environmental demands, may lock the child into a rigid response pattern (Wong et al., 2006). Coupled with biased patterns of attention, discussed earlier, this regulatory style may set the stage for biased cognitions that lead to anxiety and social withdrawal. Indeed, children and adolescents with the ability to flexibly shift attention (White, McDermott, Degnan, Henderson, & Fox, 2011), who have high overall levels of attentional control (Sportel, Nauta, de Hullu, de Jong, & Hartman, 2011), or do not show an attention bias toward threat (P´erez-Edgar, Bar-Haim, et al., 2010; P´erez-Edgar et al., 2011) are buffered from the observed link between early temperament and anxiety. These data suggest that the individual subcomponents of effortful control may play independent roles in moderating the long-term impact of early temperamental reactivity (Henderson, Pine, & Fox, 2015). However, no studies to date have followed this potential differentiation from childhood into adolescence, leaving a gap in the literature.

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Levels of effortful control are also associated with broad patterns of externalizing behavior, such as aggression. Researchers often make the distinction between proactive and reactive aggression (Dodge, 1991). Proactive aggression is marked by the deliberate aggressive acts against others that are goal oriented and planned. Reactive aggression, in contrast, is often impulsive and driven by the perception of immediate threat. This distinction appears to map onto our general understanding of the interplay between reactive and effortful control in self-regulation (Frick & Morris, 2004). That is, low levels of effortful control are associated with greater reactive aggression, particularly in children prone to high levels of anger (Eisenberg, Champion, & Ma, 2004). This may be due to poor emotional regulation and the inability to inhibit initial reactive tendencies. In contrast, high levels of effortful control are associated with proactive aggression, when coupled with contextual factors that encourage aggressive behavior (Rathert, Fite, & Gaertner, 2011). Here, goal setting, planning, and performance monitoring are drawn on in support of planful acts of aggression. There may be an optimal level of behavioral or effortful control that is sensitive to the vulnerabilities and strengths of the individual and helps optimize adaptation to shifting environmental demands. Adolescents with high levels of negative reactivity, a rigid reactive regulatory style, and overcontrolled effortful regulation may be vulnerable to anxiety. Counterparts with high levels of surgency, an equally rigid reactive regulatory style, and an undercontrolled effortful control style may show difficulties in the form of aggression. The increased pressures faced by adolescents may trigger the emergence of maladaptive tendencies rooted in patterns of inflexible underor overcontrol, leading to the documented spike in psychopathology within this age range (see Figure 4.1).

Outstanding Issues Kagan (2008) has suggested that “contemporary scientists resemble children who can only read six words trying to read a Harry Potter novel” (p. 162). This characterization can be applied to our attempts to study effortful control into adolescence. While an impressively wide array of research has worked to delineate and explain the emergence of effortful control in infancy and toddlerhood, we know relatively little of its role in the transition to adolescence and adulthood. Thus, there are a number of outstanding issues or questions that must be addressed. First, we as researchers must create empirical methods that can capture the evolution of reactivity and regulation as children confront the increasing pressures and expectation of adolescence. This is particularly difficult given

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that with age the two systems become on the surface so intertwined that one wonders if reactivity and regulation can ever be separately addressed. Thus, the second challenge is to incorporate measures at multiple levels of analysis, across multiple contexts, in order to create multidimensional profiles of reactivity and regulation in action. The use of both behavioral and biological measures in tandem may prove crucial. As seen here, taking into account changes in affective context and temperamental differences across individuals may be particularly important. Finally, longitudinal studies must encompass a broader time frame extending into adolescence so that we can capture the long-term stability or dynamism of effortful control. Given the unique challenges of adolescence, we do not know if our current understanding of effortful control in this time window is transient in nature, responding to the unique stressors of adolescence, or a marker of long-term patterns of functioning. Indeed, we do not know how (or if) individual differences in the efficacy of effortful control in adolescence shape subsequent life patterns. The promise holds in seeing effortful control as one dimension of an intricately assembled system working at the level of individual and context to alter the course of development.

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Zelazo, P. D., Qu, L., & M¨uller, U. (2005). Hot and cool aspects of executive function: Relations in early development. In W. Schneider, R. Schumann-Hengsteler, & B. Sodian (Eds.), Young children’s cognitive development: Interrelationships among executive functioning, working memory, verbal ability, and theory of mind (pp. 71–93). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Part II HISTORICAL AND BIOLOGICAL INFLUENCES

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Historical Perspectives on Self-Regulation in Adolescence Joseph F. Kett

Author Note Joseph F. Kett, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Joseph F. Kett, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia, Nau Hall – South Lawn, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Several factors have determined the scope of self-regulation in adolescence in America and England since the 17th century. These include an expansion of the range of options open to young people, changes in the ages at which life tasks are expected to be accomplished, changes in the age structure of peer groups of youths, a tendency toward the isolation of teenagers in institutions that they share with their exact age peers, changes in the agents responsible for socializing young people, shifts in the prevailing moral values of society, and changes in the way in which young people are perceived by their elders. Collectively, these changes have reduced the importance of households and siblings as agents of socialization, while elevating the importance of parents, professionals, and the media. Several assumptions lay behind American society’s extensive apparatus for testing the vocational interests of adolescents, counseling them as they transit from youth to adulthood, and evaluating their decisions. First, to speak of adolescents setting and implementing goals assumes that they have what the psychologist William James once called “live options,” options that allow a choice among achievable goals. Modern usage implies that youths have live options. For example, vocational education has been renamed career education. Etymologically, a vocation is a calling, a word that, historically, implied a passive response to the divine will. The word “career,” which long signified a road, roundabout, or course, has gradually come to mean a field of employment with possibilities for advancement. Expecting occupations to offer such possibilities, we now counsel adolescents to seek careers. 103

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Second, we assume that young people are free to choose from a range of live options. Their choices are not dictated by the demands of survival from one day to the next. Finally, we assume that they can make informed choices by drawing on an extensive apparatus of guidance in the form of information and advice provided by parents, teachers, counselors, and the media. Historians agree that ordinary people in North America and West Europe have experienced a wider range of live options since democratic revolutions of the late 18th century and the industrial revolution, which started after 1760 in England and in the 1790s in the United States. This essay investigates the effects of these revolutions, especially the industrial revolution, on the experience of coming of age. It focuses on the United States, but it alludes to West Europe, especially England. These effects include changes in the ages at which life tasks are accomplished, in the age structure of the peer groups of young people, and in the agents (parents, craft masters, siblings, other relatives) of socialization. A common thread running through these changes has been the gradual isolation and segregation of adolescents in institutions that they share with their exact age peers. Correspondingly, the range of agents responsible for socializing adolescents has narrowed. Parents and professionals have taken over many of the tasks once carried out by older siblings, uncles and aunts, fellow apprentices, and servants. Perhaps the most dramatic of all changes in the history of adolescents occurred during the early 20th century. Male adolescents, who for much of the 19th century had been seen as menacingly independent, came to be seen as vulnerable, as troubled rather than troublesome, and as in need of a moratorium on their assumption of adult responsibilities. This transformation was intimately tied to the birth of a new psychology of adolescence for which an American psychologist, G. Stanley Hall, served as midwife. This essay uses Hall’s life experience to describe how adults often have perceived adolescent society through a window tinted by adult anxieties about social tendencies that affect all age groups. It also speculates about how this process of projecting adult anxieties on adolescents might affect self-regulation by adolescents.

The Language of Age and the Experience of Growing Up Past societies had neither our numerous and exact terms (“teens,” “tweens”) to describe phases of the life cycle nor clear expectations of age-appropriate behavior. More than any other factor, an individual’s social rank conditioned the timing of his or her experiences of growing up in early modern Europe and America. In some cases, rank was hereditary. Ten kings of post-AngloSaxon England, one at the age of nine months, ascended to the throne during their minorities. More often, the high social rank of parents acted as a proxy for a young man’s character and ability. Although membership in England’s House of Commons was not hereditary, into the 17th century teenagers were elected to it (Brewer, 2005). Similarly, into the 18th century

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the parents of upper-class “boys fresh from the nursery,” some as young as three, purchased commissions for them in the British army. One’s status depended less on age or capacity for rational consent than on birthright. The small role that age played as a predictor of life experiences was reflected in our ancestors’ vagueness when they spoke of stages of life. The first U.S. census in 1790 distinguished only two age groups, those under 16 and those 16 and over, and it drew this distinction only for white males. Many Americans did not know their age, and the only birthdays celebrated were those of great men, such as George Washington. In American schools and colleges from the 17th well into the 19th century, students varied widely in age. One-room schoolhouses contained children from ages 4 or 5 into their 20s; collegians ranged from their early teens to their late 20s and even early 30s. Much of this began to change during the 19th century. By the early 20th century, the printing of birthday cards was becoming an industry in itself (Chudacoff, 1989). Over the long course of time, chronological age has come to play a much greater role in structuring the life experiences of everyone; the tendency has been toward more uniformity in the ages at which people attend school, leave school, marry, bear children, start work, retire, and die (Modell, 1989). Reflecting this, our language to describe the life cycle is precise. In comparison, conceptions of the life cycle were much vaguer in the past. While childhood, youth, maturity, and old age were distinguished (e.g., Shakespeare’s “seven ages of man”), the ages attached to each stage were broad and overlapping. For example, in the United States during the early 1800s, “youth” could apply to anyone between 7 and 30 (Chudacoff, 1989). This vagueness reflected features of early modern societies (many of which persisted into industrial society). In addition to the preeminent role of social rank in the timing of life experiences, specific experiences bore little correlation to specific stages of life. For example, death had no particular association with old age. A study of a parish in Berlin between 1725 and 1875 reveals that nearly one-third of all deaths occurred among infants under one year and about half occurred among children under eight (Imhof, 1996). In sum, the vague language used by our ancestors from the 17th into the 19th century to describe the stages of life reflected the realities of preindustrial and early industrial society. These realities had many implications for how children and young people were socialized. Historians no longer accept the idea that children in preindustrial society routinely grew up in multigenerational families (Laslett, 2000). Mortality ruled this out. Peter Laslett cited the example of an English village in the late 17th century in which

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35.5% of children in their dependent years were orphaned by the loss of one or both parents. But dependent children were placed in households that were marked by wide ranges of age. The household of a late 17th-century English baronet contained, in addition to the husband and wife, their 7 daughters, all under the age of 16, and 28 servants, of whom 17 were men or boys and 11 women or girls (Laslett, 2000). Young people in 17th-century England and North America were expected to be under supervision within households, although not necessarily or even primarily their parents’ household. To say this is to say that young people were supervised when at work, since nearly all productive activities took place in or near households. Beyond the household, the principal institution for ordering the lives of young people at a time when Christianity provided Europeans with an unquestioned explanation of life was the village church. In Stuart England, children and young people were to gather after morning prayers on Sunday in each of England’s 10,000 parishes to be catechized on their duties to parents and governors, a custom continued when the Puritans took over the Church of England in the 1640s. In this way, children and young people learned that the Fifth Commandment constituted the basis for the performance of duties to inferiors, equals, and superiors. In a similar way, 17th-century New England Puritans thought of the discharge of obligations within families as the model for social order (Demos, 1970). In Puritan thinking, God had placed each person in a position for His own glory, some high and some low. Each person had an obligation (to God) to discharge the duties of his station. Puritan colleges reflected these values in their method of discipline. In colonial Harvard and Yale, students were ranked (or “placed”) shortly after matriculation in a digitally exact order on the basis of the prestige of their fathers’ public office. Although a student could do nothing to elevate his initial rank, he could lose it by misconduct – failing to live up to expectations – and suffer “degradation” to the foot of the class. Little wonder that contemporaries spoke of the “terrors of degradation,” for now he who had walked first in all processions had to walk last (Morison, 1932). Although expressions like “children,” “young people,” and “youth” frequently overlapped in early modern Europe and America, historians have found evidence that young people, or youths, formed a social group within towns and villages. Composed of young men from around age 14 (an age with religious significance in confirmation) until marriage, this social group went under different names in different parts of Europe: Abbeys of Misrule in France, Br¨uderschaften in Germany and parts of Switzerland. Although these groups do not appear to have had economic functions, they sometimes

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grew out of militias and often enforced their own rules on the conduct of bachelors and maidens. Such groups typically barred outsiders’ access to village maidens, disciplined the sexually precocious of both sexes, and harassed wife beaters and widowers who remarried too quickly (Gillis, 1974). Scholars have described such youth groups as engaging in charivaries (called shivarees in the United States), which involved both ritualistic disorder and adherence to traditional moral standards. Charivaries were also ways to let off steam; for a day the lowest became the highest, the fool became the prince. Into the 1840s, Harvard students staged a mock commencement in which the most frequently disciplined student became the Lord Admiral, the most profane the Lord Bishop, and so on. Despite the considerable vagueness of terminology, preindustrial and early industrial European and American societies recognized youth as a stage of life and assigned it the function of preparation for assuming adult responsibility. For example, in pre-1860 America, young people composed the core membership of various societies – societies that rarely had “youth” in their titles – devoted to self-improvement: reading circles, debating clubs, and clubs for performing plays (Kett, 1977). In these societies young people were likely to have role models in the shape of somewhat older youths.

Effects of Industrialization The onset of industrialization in Britain and North America between 1760 and 1860 affected the socialization of youths. In 17th-century America and England, children who were orphaned or superfluous (i.e., their work was not needed by their parents) were sent to live in nearby households. Industrialization increased the likelihood that youths of both sexes would leave their parents in order to travel considerable distance in search of work in factories, or work related to the new technology of railroads and steamboats, or work in offices in rapidly growing towns and cities. In relative terms, the most rapid urbanization in American history occurred between 1820 and 1860. New York City, with a population of 124,000 in 1820, had 800,000 people by 1860. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 turned Rochester, New York, from a village of a few hundred in 1817 into a city of 9,000 by 1830. While immigration from Europe significantly contributed to urban growth, growth was initially driven by the migration of people from the rural hinterland. Historians have found a great deal of “chain migration” during early industrialization. In combination, high fertility rates (in 1800 the white

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fertility rate in the United States was 7.04) and high child mortality made it likely that children would have considerably older and younger siblings. A 12-year-old boy might leave home to reside with his 24-year old brother in the city. Parents probably played less of a role socializing children than we imagine, but older siblings had a larger role than we realize. The “youth” or “young man” who migrated to cities during the first half of the 19th century was a far cry from what later became known as the adolescent, and not merely because adolescence applied to a narrow range of ages. The fundamental difference between a young man in 1850 and an adolescent in 1910 lay in expectations of maturity. Mid-century moralists told male youths to grow up as fast as possible, to put aside childish things, and to act in a “manly” way. They were advised to form “character” by an exertion of willpower and then to expect success as a reward for character. In 1850, “manly” behavior meant the opposite of childish behavior. In contrast, by 1900 it meant the opposite of feminine behavior. Theodore Roosevelt liked to praise the “manly boy.”

The Transformation The key architect of this change was G. Stanley Hall, the author of Adolescence (1904), which initiated intense interest among psychologists, social investigators, and youth workers. Hall believed that adolescence had become more stressful in urban and industrial America than in the agricultural past and that male youths in cities would benefit from a moratorium on decision making. This belief ran against the grain of the advice conveyed to young people for much of the 19th century. Born on a farm in western Massachusetts in 1844, Hall grew up in a society filled with warnings about the dangers awaiting youths who left farms for the city. In the 1840s and 1850s, Protestant clergymen wrote cascades of treatises that warned against the moral dangers faced in the cities by “youths” from, roughly, 14 to 25. The authors of these tracts took it for granted that their readers had been raised on farms and now resided in cities, where (writers also assumed) they were working as clerks in counting houses and similar mercantile establishments and where they were exposed to gambling dens, prostitution, and liquor. In my study of this literature I never discovered an instance of an author who advised young men to return to their farms. Rather, the authors’ advice boiled down to the cultivation of “character.” Historically, the word had several meanings, including a distinctive mark or appearance (“he has the character of a prince”) or a reputation gained for public acts. Without losing these meanings, character acquired a new meaning in the 19th century.

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It came to mean a kind of habitual rectitude or gyroscope that guided an individual’s behavior regardless of his immediate environment. The English Dissenter John Foster (1770–1843) popularized this new meaning, which became a key concept in Anglo-American thought during the 19th century. Foster’s most influential essay spoke of “decision of character,” and his contemporaries described character formation as depending on an exertion of willpower. Character can fairly be viewed as a secularized version of the low-church experience of religious “conversion” or “turning to” Christ as savior (Kett, 1977). As envisioned by contemporaries, character, at least ideally, would be the same from person to person. Schools aimed to build character by exposing all children to uniform experiences. They would study the same books and advance in lockstep from grade to grade. In this respect, character differed from the later concept of personality, which Gordon and Floyd Allport developed in the 1920s. Personalities distinguished one person from another. Like faces, they “have no duplicates; each one is a unique mixture of various degrees of divers traits” (Quoted in Kett, 2013, p. 152). Compared with the extensive apparatus by which modern society tries to help young people set goals and make decisions – guidance counseling, tests for vocational interests and aptitudes, for personality and scholastic ability – 19th-century advisors told youths to look within when they formulated goals and to listen to the promptings of their conscience when thinking about their vocations. Whereas this advice-to-youth literature urged character formation to accelerate maturation, Hall dreaded “precocity” and wanted to delay maturation. The attribution of storm and stress to adolescents transformed teenagers from an imperiled group into a dependent one. To strengthen his case, he focused on the conflict, scarcely mentioned in traditional advice literature except for warnings against “secret vice,” between the sexual drives experienced at puberty and social prohibitions against sexual expression. Hall’s “discovery” of adolescence was also an invention. Investigators during the 1910s and 1920s found little evidence of storm and stress among American teenagers, and it is likely that he fastened on the idea because it suited his prescription for a moratorium. In a pattern that would be repeated during the 20th century, identifying special problems experienced by young people became part of the process by which adults themselves adapted to social and cultural change. Hall projected his own anxieties about the rise of urban and industrial America onto young people. He told those who worked with young people as teachers, counselors, or ministers that teenagers lived unnatural, overwrought, and precocious lives in cities – that, for example,

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they had to be brought back into touch with rural values by instructing them in arts and crafts and woodworking. Hall’s preference for a moratorium on decision making was rooted in a personal crisis, shared with his mentor William James, over religious belief. Hall and James grappled with issues that were torturing sensitive Victorians in Britain and America. Did the scientific materialism emerging from Herbert Spencer’s Britain destroy free will? Are we justified in believing any proposition (e.g., God exists) absent conclusive evidence? James was not the first philosopher to have a religious crisis, but he was the first to think systematically about the process by which we arrive at convictions and agendas. Reflecting his own escape from paralyzing doubt, he concluded that we are justified in trusting our emotional inclinations. The message of his The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) was that people with different temperaments need different religions; the religion of a Luther might work for one person, that of an Emerson for another. Similarly, Hall’s call for prolonging adolescence implicitly endorsed the idea that male youths (he wrote mainly about boys) should not experience premature pressure to accept the dictates of reason over their affective inclinations. The foregoing helps us account for Hall’s rather striking embrace of the idea of a moratorium. But the enormous impact of Hall’s concept of adolescence requires us to examine social trends that were bringing the early to mid-teens to prominence around 1900 and cultural values that led contemporaries to fear more than welcome the early onset of maturation.

Social and Cultural Contexts After 1890, social forces were focusing public attention on the early teens, increasingly seen as an especially critical period of life, and spurring calls for prolonging schooling through high school. By 1940, high schools had become the main institutions in the lives of American teenagers. “High school students” and “adolescents” had become nearly synonymous terms, so much so that students who left high school before graduation were thought of as young adults rather than as adolescents (Hollingshead, 1949). In this respect, adolescence described a new life experience by defining a stage of life in terms of a recently developed stage of schooling. But, under the guise of scientifically describing maturation, the concept of adolescence also prescribed the appropriate conduct of teenagers and the behavior of adults toward them. The emerging class of experts on adolescents maintained that healthy maturation required shielding them from intimate knowledge of

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the world of adults, specifically from observing the many contradictions between the prescribed and actual behavior of adults. The movement that would culminate with Hall’s proposal to protect adolescents from the premature assumption of adult responsibility began before 1860 with the establishment of institutions that provided total environments for pre-adolescents in order to implant character. In colonial America and into the early 1800s, schools had often been “kept” in private houses and barns. Students who attended post-elementary private schools, called academies, lived in private residences in the town rather than in dormitories, socialized with adults by attending court proceedings and political events, and ranged in age from around 10 to the early 20s. In contrast, the private boarding schools founded in the second quarter of the 19th century sought to become total environments for children rather than accessories to the adult world for a broader age group (McLachlan, 1970). Among American public educators, there was new attention to school architecture. Schools were to look different from other buildings and to be located out of earshot of the shouts of teamsters and the turbulence of the working world. Teachers were to be trained professionally for teaching. Schools were to be graded by age and attainment, so that 4-year-olds would no longer mix with 20-year-olds. Children were to study from graded schoolbooks rather than from whatever books their parents happened to possess (Kett, 1977). The irony of these moves to segregate children at a time when they were being exploited in mines and factories during the early industrial revolution has not been lost on historians (Somerville, 1982). In its initial forms, the segregation of children applied mainly to small children rather than to the larger and more inclusive age group signified by youth or young people. At least in the United States, the grading of schools by age and attainment had the short-term effect of eliminating the older children, the “large boys” and “large girls,” from schools where their disruptive and corrupting effect of their younger schoolmates was feared. By 1900, leading public educators in the United States assumed that most children would complete elementary school by age 13 or 14 and that the small fraction of students who continued to high school would enter at around age 14 and leave at around 18. Colleges increasingly enrolled 18- to 21-year-olds. The age grading of schools enabled the discovery or invention (it contained elements of each) of adolescence toward the end of the 19th century. Although Hall associated adolescence with sexual “awakening,” he popularized the notion that adolescence started at age 12. In 1900, the age of menarche for girls was around 14 and it had been as high as 16.8 in parts

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of Europe in the 19th century. Puberty for boys, various studies indicated, had median and average ages of 13.9 and 14.4 in the 1900s and 1910s, respectively (Macleod, 1983). Why, then, 12? The likeliest answer is that, in combination, the grading of schools by age and attainment and mounting anxiety about the school persistence of early teenagers, especially boys, were turning the period from 12 to 14 into a critical period, especially for urban boys (the early students of adolescence wrote much more about boys than girls.) In America, public elementary schools were often called “common” schools; they were expected to impart the education that Americans had in common. The grading of schools implanted the belief that nearly all children who started elementary school graduated, normally between ages 12 and 14. At the very time when Hall and others were discovering adolescence, evidence of attrition was shattering this expectation. Leonard P. Ayres’s influential study of the attrition of pupils in public schools (Ayres, 1909) demonstrated that most children in city schools only persisted through the fifth grade and that only one-half reached the eighth grade. Public schools, Ayres established, were filled with “laggards.” The substantial proportion of 13- and 14-year-olds in elementary school who were still below the sixth grade formed a pool of “drop-outs,” a phrase apparently coined in the early 1900s. On the streets, juveniles got into trouble; at work, they were locked into jobs without futures, so-called dead-end jobs. In view of the growth of high schools between 1890 and 1950, it is tempting to think that the idea of adolescence as a stage of life in which teenagers were to be protected from the assumption of adult responsibility reflected the social reality that advanced industrialization had rendered teenagers superfluous in the world of work. The reality, in fact, was more subtle. Although enrollments in public high schools doubled between 1890 and 1920, most parents could not afford the opportunity costs of prolonging their children’s education beyond grade school. True, over the long course, the decline of the farm population and the advance of industrialization reduced labor force participation by children and early teenagers. Some of these changes were evident by 1900 (Osterman, 1980). By shrinking labor market opportunities for children and young people, the Depression of the 1930s eventually gave an added boost to high school enrollments. By 1940, the high school had become the principal institution for adolescents in the United States. But there were countercurrents, which help explain why reformers of the early 1900s targeted juvenile labor as a growing rather than declining problem. In 1910, half of all boys and one-quarter of all girls aged 15 were gainfully employed (Modell, 1989). Walter Licht’s study of the

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employment of youth in Philadelphia, which was being affected by the same industrial forces as most other major U.S. cities, points to an intensifying demand for teenage labor during the late 19th century. Licht found that the proportion of white males aged 16 who were at work rose from 42% in 1860 to 57% in 1870, 67% in 1880, and 73% in 1890. During the same period labor force participation by white females age 16 rose from 30% to 58%. The effect of advanced industrialization in Philadelphia, which Licht views as driving these changes, was not to prolong education for teenagers, but to push teenagers accustomed to hanging around the streets (more than the schools) into gainful employment (Licht, 1992). By 1916, when Congress passed the first federal law restricting child labor (it was declared unconstitutional in 1918), intensifying employment of children in factories had led a majority of states to prohibit industrial employment of children younger than 14. The decline of the farm population between 1870 and 1920 nevertheless took some of the glow off the world of work, for in Anglo-American culture, farms were thought to be excellent nurseries of character. Farms were much more compatible with on-and-off school attendance than were factories or offices, which typically required full-time work. None of the early laws against child labor in the United States applied to labor on farms. With large-scale industrialization, moreover, parents could exert less control over children in factories than in the more traditional partnerships, where they were often placed with relatives. In sum, urging the early assumption of adult responsibility on young people no longer seemed consistent with their welfare. Whether young people were at school or work, ties between the younger and older members of youth groups that engaged in unsupervised activities were disappearing in the late 19th century. Before 1870, American youths had an active political presence in the parades and electioneering activities of the political parties (the famous street gangs of the 19th century had partisan connections), and they were active in fire companies and militias. The newly professionalized fire companies of the 1870s and 1880s wanted no part of the boys who had joined the antebellum volunteer fire companies; the professionalization of militia service, signified by the organization of the National Guard after the railway strike of 1877, effectively shrunk the volunteer military companies, composed of boys and young men, that had flourished up to the Civil War. The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), which arose in North America in the 1840s to address the religious needs of young men from farms who had migrated to the cities, initially

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expected that members between 16 and 25 would look after the 8- to 15year-olds, but it quickly discovered the older youths in the cities wanted no part of association with boys (Kett, 1977; Skowronek, 1982). The atrophy of the traditional voluntary associations in which boys and girls and young men and young women had engaged gave rise to sundry adult-sponsored organizations for boys and girls in the late 19th century. These included the YMCA, originally founded to cater to the spiritual needs of young men over 16 but which began activities for boys in the 1880s, and the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), founded in 1910 and modeled on a similar organization in Britain founded in 1908. In contrast to YMCA boys’ work, which aimed at street urchins, the BSA targeted middle-class youths. The BSA set its minimum age at 12; the YMCA hoped to attract boys 12 to 18 into its boys’ work programs. Both organizations admired the “manly” boy. YMCA boys’ work, for example, emphasized sports rather than homilies or lectures (basketball was invented at the YMCA training college in Massachusetts in 1891). Boy Scouts earned merit badges for handicrafts, knot-tying, and similar pastimes. Protestant clergymen who had worried for some time about the feminization of Christianity and who had absorbed “muscular Christianity” from British writers like Thomas Hughes (Tom Brown’s School Days, 1857) eagerly supported boys’ work. Scout leaders borrowed Hall’s ideas about the need for a moratorium on assuming adult responsibilities during adolescence in order to justify engaging boys in boyish activities. Whereas the advice-to-youth authors of the mid-19th century had seen a cornucopia of opportunity waiting for the youth who had fixed his course (by developing “character”), Hall and his contemporaries saw only industrial monotony and the suppression of craftsmanship and creativity. These men reflected the growing disillusion with work among late 19th-century intellectuals and their quest for surrogates that would impart to young people the moral values traditionally associated with work while exempting them from all of the features of modern work that rendered it unappetizing (Rodgers, 1978). In this respect, organizations for boys differed from those for girls, because girls usually were encouraged to learn approved adult roles by mastering cooking and sewing. Boys’ organizations, including the BSA, more determinedly held boys to juvenile activities than did organizations like the Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls (Macleod, 1983). The same can be said if we compare the BSA with the principal American youth organization for farm boys and girls, 4-H (founded in 1914). Farm boys and girls acted out their likely adult roles by exhibiting prize livestock and learning canning. In contrast, the BSA

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rested on the assumption that direct lines no longer connected middle-class urban boys with their likely adult roles. On a parallel track, public-school educators increasingly stressed retaining students in school as long as possible. Educators saw retention primarily as a solution to the “boy problem,” the fact that the school persistence of girls over boys rose from the sixth grade onward (Tyack & Hansot, 1990). Despite rising enrollments in high schools in the early 1900s, most teenagers were not in school. Rather, they were either at work or on the streets. In an increasingly age-conscious society, children, especially boys, around the age of 12 or 13 riveted the attention of social investigators. Between 1900 and 1920, public educators contended that retaining children in school during the critical period from 12 to 14 or, ideally, 16 would secure their initial placement in jobs with futures. Indeed, there was evidence in 1910 that young people who delayed their entry into the workplace until 16 had better job prospects, although the success of such young people may have depended merely on their family resources, which enabled them to delay their entry into work. By the 1920s, American educators and psychologists were implementing measures to ease the transition from school to work. These included tracking, which aimed at prolonging schooling by placing schoolchildren into different curricula and onto different vocational paths on the basis of tested academic ability. In response to the wave of strikes between 1916 and 1922, American psychologists constructed an arsenal of tests for vocational aptitudes and interests in order to smooth the transition from school to work. In contrast to youth counselors of the mid-19th century, who advised young men to set their life course by exertions of willpower and expect success as a reward for character, vocational psychologists sought to render decision making an automatic and noiseless experience by which round pegs would scientifically be guided into round holes.

Limits of Adult Influence on Youth Engineering noiseless transitions between school and work complemented the desire of psychologists to reduce the pressure on adolescents to make decisions. But adults discovered that their ability to restrain the independence and self-reliance of teenagers encountered severe limits. For example, the technology of vocational testing never fulfilled expectations. The psychologist Walter Van Dyke Bingham observed in 1937 that the great majority of tests for vocational aptitudes could be blown away with a single

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blast of criticism (Kett, 2013). Adolescents still had to set their own vocational trajectories. The Boy Scouts and similar character-building institutions founded between 1890 and 1920 aimed at teenagers but mainly attracted younger boys. The BSA had difficulty retaining boys much beyond the age of 12. Many scouts dropped out as soon as they reached puberty. The sexual awakening that accompanied puberty, which Hall’s generation thought could be managed by some combination of cold showers, exposure to farm life, and insulation from the city’s streets, began to look more menacing amid the sexual revolution after World War I. Although Hall invited Sigmund Freud to the United States and presided over Freud’s American lectures in 1909, Hall voiced the old-fashioned idea that masturbation led to insanity. In contrast, by the 1920s, sex was in the open and high school students were pioneering a new form of relationship between the sexes – dating. Dating began in the 1910s and spread during the 1920s. It reflected affluence, the increasing age homogenization within high schools, and the sexual revolution, which allowed girls more freedom. Although polls showed that high schoolers and collegians held conservative opinions about the value of monogamous marriage and evils of premarital coitus, young people were making new rules for themselves and seeking greater control over the youth life course. This was especially true of girls, who had been most restrained by chaperonage and who became the main architects of the dating system (Fass, 1977; Moran, 2000). Dating occurred away from home, excluded chaperons, did not require parental consent, and was not as closely regulated by peers as the frolics of yore were (Bailey, 1988; Modell, 1989). Changes in the nature of engagement accompanied the rise of dating. In the 1920s and 1930s, engagement was becoming less a binding contract and more a period of mutual exploration beyond dating. It was coming to resemble the “companionate” marriage proposed in the 1920s by Ben B. Lindsey (Shindo, 2010). In combination, changes in dating and engagement gave young, middle-class actors more control over their life experiences. The younger generation set itself off from its parents by demanding more control over family formation, a lessening of the double standard, and more shared responsibility between males and females for family formation (Modell, 1989). The foregoing underscores the difficulty of launching generalizations about dependence and independence among young people. By many measures, young people of the 1920s, especially middle-class youths, enjoyed unprecedented freedoms. On the other hand, as the Lynds observed in their landmark study of Muncie, Indiana (“Middletown”), high schoolers no

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longer participated in adult activities. With its interscholastic sports and extracurricular activities, Muncie’s high school had become a world of its own by the 1920s (Lynd & Lynd, 1929). World War II modified the pattern, set in the 1920s, of greater freedom for youth combined with the greater insularity of the youth culture. As those aged 18 and older entered the service, teenagers under 18 found new opportunities for employment in manufacturing, and although some of these young workers continued in school part time, the revival of manufacturing jobs did not fit schooling very well. In October 1945, the proportion of boys and girls in their upper teens still enrolled in school was below that in 1940 (Modell, 1989). Although wartime employment gave teenagers new opportunities to participate in adult activities, by the late 1940s moralists were denouncing signs of independence among teenagers as deviant, a form of juvenile delinquency. In the 1950s, movies such as “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Blackboard Jungle” painted less glamorous, more troubling images of youth (Brumberg, 1997; Gilbert, 1986). As James Gilbert has contended about the alleged postwar epidemic of delinquency, the certainty of pundits that delinquency was on the rise exceeded evidence of any real rise. Conservatives nevertheless played Jeremiah by denouncing delinquency as evidence of deranged family relationships and slack discipline caused by images of sex and violence spread by the mass media (Wertham, 1953). Supported by an increasingly influential body of anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists, liberals constructed normative theories of adolescence that portrayed delinquency as a predictable response to such contradictions of modern society as the conflict between the spread of middle-class values of achievement and selfmastery and the reality of constrained opportunities (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; Cohen, 1955) From either perspective, the behavior of young people, especially the independence they acquired during the war, was scrutinized for what it might say about future social trends. Most observers drew a connection between the alleged rise of delinquency and the independence of teenagers with paychecks in their pockets. By the 1950s, high schoolers had increasing access to automobiles, and the driver’s license, obtainable at 16 in most jurisdictions, had become a rite of passage. Seventeen began publication in 1944 and in the years after World War II Eugene Gilbert, himself just out of high school, began to build his career as a consultant to corporations on the potential of adolescents as consumers. By the 1950s, advertisers, who in the 1920s primarily had targeted the “typical” American family, had grown more sophisticated in pitching messages to subpopulations, especially early to mid-teenagers (Brumberg, 1997; Gilbert, 1986).

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In sum, the postwar tendency was to magnify actual changes in the behavior of teenagers by the lens of interpretation. As had been true of the parents and counselors who glimpsed the dazzling images of wild collegians in the 1920s with a mixture of prurience and horror, public discourse about teenagers in the 1950s tended to conceal the continuity between the behavior of teenagers and their parents at a time when mass consumption, now liberated by the end of the Depression and the war, was affecting adults and teenagers alike. The emergence of an industry of experts on youth has often obscured the close relationship between changes in the experiences of youth and shifts in the larger society. Experts on youth have not always recognized that the subpopulation they study has changed in ways that parallel other age groups. For example, the architects of adolescence who in the early 1900s defined youth as vulnerable and dependent were certain that changes in the experience of growing up, especially the shift from country to city, required greater adult supervision of youth and less self-reliance by youth. Their arguments had the ring of plausibility, but we should not neglect the public’s greater dependency in the late 19th century on experts and specialists of every sort – carpenters, plumbers, nurses, doctors, educators – and on institutions – hospitals, governments, and schools – in many departments of life (Starr, 1982). Youth, thus, was not the only social group to be defined as dependent at the turn of the century. Similarly, the outpouring of concern by educators and health officials since the 1970s about the “epidemic” of teen pregnancy has disguised the close correlation between teen pregnancy rates and those among adults of similar races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic status. Blocking off the behavior of teenagers for special investigation tends to create an “imaginary wall” that distorts “adult understandings of teen behavior” (Moran, 2000). Even when they have yielded misleading impressions of reality, social perceptions of young people have illuminated the process of cultural change. In the 1840s and 1850s, the heyday of the advice-to-youth books, social commentators on youth selected a subpopulation of young people (Protestant young men who moved from country to city) as a template for society. For all the alarm sounded by these moralists, none of them told their readers to go back to the farm. A century later, policymakers and pundits responded to the postwar wave of consumption by riveting attention on juvenile delinquents. They did so in a climate of uneasiness about the penetration of mass consumption into every corner of life, but none of them urged restrictions on consumption. Rather, the effect of their criticism was to bring the larger problem of mass society into focus and gradually to reduce the level of

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alarm (Gilbert, 1986). In sum, discourse about youth tells us much about the process by which adults adjust themselves to cultural change. If it is true that the aforementioned “imaginary wall” distorts adult understanding of adolescent behavior, then interventions aimed at inducing self-regulation by adolescents promise only as much success as inducing self-regulation in adults does. This risk is heightened whenever adolescents suspect adult hypocrisy, and adolescents are most likely to suspect hypocrisy during periods of rapid social and cultural change affecting all age groups. The 1920s afford one example of this. During the 1920s, adults were growing more tolerant of divorce and “companionate” marriage and relished films portraying “flaming” youth. At the end of the decade, Hollywood adopted the so-called Hays Code, which prohibited the major studios from showing unmarried couples in bed. The Hays Code was not a response to scandalous behavior among teenagers, but to scandals involving Hollywood stars such as Fatty Arbuckle. Today, the effectiveness of the crazy quilt of federal and state laws that discourage or prohibit the purchase of alcoholic beverages by those under 21 is constrained by inconsistencies. For example, many jurisdictions allow the consumption of alcoholic beverages by those under 21. The same problem would arise were smoking marijuana legalized for adults but prohibited for teenagers. There are some signs that “the revolt of modern youth” (the title of a 1925 book by Ben B. Lindsey) has been attracting less interest and alarm in recent decades. Boosted by economic growth, higher educational attainment, feminism, and emancipation from parental oversight, the late 1960s and 1970s initiated a period of enormous change in American views of sexuality and marriage. In contrast to the Baby Boom configuration – dating leading to engagement, then to economic self-sufficiency (for males), and next to marriage and parenthood – in the recent past both dating and engagement have declined, premarital sexual activity has become more acceptable, cohabitation before marriage (or as a substitute for marriage) is much more widely practiced, marriage has become more detached from both true love and the attainment of economic self-sufficiency, and marriages have become less likely to be contracted at the most typical ages and even the most typical months within the year (Modell, 1989). Yet none of this seems to have aroused the same level of alarm as the “flaming youth” of the 1920s, whose challenge to traditional norms was less far-reaching. We can only speculate about the reasons for the muteness of authorities on the family in recent decades. One possibility bears mentioning. Accepting that the changes in the sexual behavior of young people that triggered

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alarm in the 1920s were also occurring among adults, we should recognize that until the late 1960s, the media – first movies and then television – imposed production codes on themselves that sharply restricted adult sexual behaviors that could be visually depicted. Journalists censored themselves by taking no public notice of drunken athletes (Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle), gay movie stars (Rock Hudson), or philandering presidents (FDR, JFK). Today, the situation has changed. Teens and adults no longer seem to have much to hide from each other. It is not just that adults do the same things as teenagers; rather, they do the same things and everyone knows it.

Conclusion This essay has traced three developments in the history of American and English youth. In the 17th century, the main responsibility for socializing children and young people into adulthood rested with the church and, more important, the household. The prevailing expectation was that everyone – children (whether orphaned or not), servants, apprentices, masters and their wives – would live in a household. Unlike families, households were likely to contain many unrelated people. Households also included individuals who differed widely in age. Since much production occurred in households, a young person growing up would be exposed to a microcosm of the society. The church would instruct each child about his or her duties, above all the duty of obedience to parents and masters, but as they came of age, children learned much by observation of their superiors. Early industrialization from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century did not destroy the expectation that children and youths would be subjected to household discipline, but as the growth of cities suggests, children and youths now had to travel far from their home villages to find work in factories or in the commercial and transportation industries spun off from industrialization. Advice literature aimed at youths, which once had stressed obedience to parents and masters, now assumed that young people were beyond the reach of parental or even church guidance. In effect, young people were now urged to regulate their conduct by the adoption of “decision of character.” As an ideal, decision of character suited the ideal of selfemployment in the age of the “self-made” man who relied on his will and energy to gain material success. Mid-19th-century advice-to-youth books urged young men to be self-reliant, to be wary of their associates, and to choose a vocation and stick to it. The third development – the prolongation of adolescence – began with the sanitizing of childhood during early industrialization. Educators and

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moralists urged the segregation of prepubescent children from the world of affairs. The boundaries of the household, once nearly coterminous with those of society, contracted to the affective circle of children and parents. Educators insisted on the grading of schools by age and attainment and on special buildings to house schools. Authors drenched the family circle in sentiment. By the early 1900s, adolescence was experiencing a similar kind of segregation and by 1950s teenagers were spending most of their time with their exact-age peers. With age segmentation, there is always the danger that the blind will lead the blind. A case can be made, nevertheless, that, with the decline of restraints on the media, young people today are being exposed to far more realistic images of their future roles than was the case in more innocent times. REFERENCES

Ayres, L. P. (1909). Laggards in our schools. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Bailey, B. (1988). From front porch to back seat. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Brewer, H. (2005). By birth or consent: Children, law, and the Anglo-American revolution in authority. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Brumberg, J. J. (1997). The body project: An intimate history of American girls. New York: Random House. Chudacoff, H. P. (1989). How old are you? Age consciousness in American culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cloward, R. A., & Ohlin, L. E. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity: A theory of delinquent gangs. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Cohen, A. (1955). Delinquent boys: the culture of the gang. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Demos, J. (1970). A little commonwealth: Family life in Plymouth Colony. New York: Oxford University Press. Fass, P. S. (1977). The damned and the beautiful: American youth in the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press. Gilbert, J. B. (1986). A cycle of outrage: America’s reaction to the juvenile delinquent in the 1950s. New York: Oxford University Press. Gillis, J. R. (1974). Youth and history: Tradition and change in European age relations, 1770–present. New York: Academic Press. Hall, G. S. (1904). Adolescence: Its psychology and its relation to physiology, anthropology, sociology, sex, crime, religion, and education. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Hollingshead, A. de B. (1949). Elmtown’s youth: The impact of social classes on adolescents. New York: J. Wiley. Hughes, T. (1857). Tom Brown’s school days. London: Macmillan. Imhof, A. E. (1996). Lost worlds: How our European ancestors coped with everyday life and why life is so hard today. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature, being the Gifford Lectures on natural religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. London: Longmans, Green & Co.

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Kett, J. F. (1977). Rites of passage: Adolescence in America, 1790–Present. New York: Basic Books. Kett, J. F. (2013). Merit: The history of a founding ideal from the American revolution to the 21st century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Laslett, P. (2000). The world we have lost: Further explored. London: Routledge. Licht, W. P. (1992). Getting work: Philadelphia, 1840–1959. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lynd, R. S., & Lynd, H. M. (1929). Middletown: A study in contemporary American culture. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. Macleod, D. I. (1983). Building character in the American boy: The Boy Scouts, YMCA, and their forerunners, 1870–1920. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. McLachlan, J. (1970). American boarding schools: A historical study. New York: Scribner. Modell, J. (1989). Into one’s own: From youth to adulthood in the United States, 1920–1985. Berkeley: University of California Press. Moran, J. P. (2000). Teaching sex: The shaping of adolescence in the twentieth century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Morison, S. E. (1932). Precedence at Harvard College in the seventeenth century. Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 42, 371–431. Osterman, P. (1980). Getting started: The youth labor market. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rodgers, D. T. (1978). The work ethic in industrial America, 1850–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shindo, C. J. (2010). 1927 and the rise of modern America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Skowronek, S. (1982). Building a new American state: The expansion of national administrative capacities, 1877–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Somerville, C. J. (1982). The rise and fall of childhood. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Starr, P. (1982). The social transformation of American medicine. New York: Basic Books. Tyack, D., & Hansot, E. (1990). Learning together: A history of coeducation in American schools. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wertham, F. (1953). The seduction of the innocent. New York: Rinehart & Company.

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Adolescence: Biology, Epidemiology, and Process Considerations Michael Rutter

Author Note Michael Rutter, M.R.C., Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Professor Sir Michael Rutter, PO 80, M.R.C. SGDP Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The changes in adolescence are considered in relation to brain development, the neuroendocrine system, cognition, education, drug use, and the peer group culture. Psychopathological changes are discussed with respect to depression, suicide, eating disorders, crime, substance abuse, and schizophrenia. Possible causal pathways and the implications for self-regulation are discussed. This chapter aims to provide a context for the analysis of self-regulation in adolescence by reviewing the bodily changes associated with puberty, the brain changes and cognitive development that occur during adolescence, together with the key life changes and the psychopathology that is manifest during the same age period. The multiple possible pathways are similarly considered.

Definition of Adolescence Adolescence is associated with major biological changes, but these do not define adolescence. Age is an ambiguous phenomenon (Rutter, 1989) that indexes both biological development and changed psychological and social circumstances. The temporal relationship among these indices has varied markedly over time and across cultures (Brown, Larson, & Saraswathi, 2002; Mortimer & Larson, 2002). Up to 100 years ago, children often left 123

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school and started work well before reaching puberty. Clearly, adolescence then meant something very different from its meaning now when most people reach sexual maturity several years, and often many years, before completing their schooling. In addition, commercial interests have played a major role. Up to the 1950s, there was little or no commercial interest in the adolescent market, but since then there has been an explosion of spending by adolescents on clothes, music, and entertainment. Youth ‘pop’ culture has been shaped in considerable part by commercial market forces. In addition, adolescence might seem to be defined in terms of legal transitions with respect to the age when young people can vote, can marry without parental consent, drink alcohol, drive motor vehicles, and carry responsibility for criminal behavior. While there can be little doubt that these are important transitions, they are very arbitrary as emphasized by the substantial variation across countries as to how and when these take place (Graham, 2004). During the 30 years from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s there was both a collapse of the youth labor market and an expansion of the higher educational system; the average age of leaving home rose considerably (Hagell, 2012); as a result of these trends and delayed financial independence, there was a marked prolongation of adolescence. The proportion of children living in homes headed by a lone parent nearly doubled, and adolescents increasingly lived in a wider range of family structures. Young people became subject to a much broader range of information about the global world, fueled in large part by the explosion in new media and communications structures and information technology. Adolescence cannot be considered as an age period that is independent of what went on during earlier childhood (Rutter, in press). For example, monkey studies have shown that an adverse early life environment during infancy is associated with long-term alterations in the serotonin system that are likely to have implications for the development of emotional disorders (Spinelli et al., 2010), and probably also aggression-related disorders (Schwandt et al., 2010). In addition, Miller et al. (2009) have shown that early social adversity has effects that persist into old age – perhaps as a result of biological programming. In humans, Dodge et al. (2009) have argued that the empirical research findings suggest a cascade model in which each succeeding step is not only predictable from the preceding step but also significantly mediates the next step in development and the outcome in adolescence. McLaughlin, Conron, Koenen, and Gilman (2010), using epidemiological data, found that childhood adversities were associated with stress sensitization effects in adult life. Other evidence also shows that there

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is a varying relationship between brain changes during adolescent development and cognitive performance. Dumontheil, Houlton, Christoff, and Blakemore (2010) found that there were nonlinear changes in reasoning as a result of temporarily poorer performance during mid-adolescence. Key questions remain on the particular connections between brain functioning and the workings of the mind. There has been an attempt to link brain changes with changes in psychological functioning (Shaw et al., 2006), but the findings are complex and not easy to interpret, despite the evidence that there are meaningful connections (Kuhn, 2006).

Neuroendocrine System In many ways, the most characteristic aspect of adolescence involves puberty and the hormonal changes that precede and accompany it. The first phase concerns the adrenarche – meaning the increase in adrenal androgen output that occurs at around 6–8 years in both boys and girls (Angold, 2008). It is not entirely clear what role adrenarche has in the onset of puberty. At one time it was thought to be a trigger for its onset, but that is not the case, although it may play a facilitative role in the initiation of puberty. The changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) come about 2–3 years later. Declining GABA-ergic luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) suppression results in increases in the release of glutamate and other neurotransmitters, permitting the onset of puberty, manifested initially as closely sleep-entrained nighttime pulses of luteinizing hormone, beginning in late childhood. A critical sex difference is that females develop pulsatile gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) secretion along with fluctuating estradiol and progesterone levels. Pulse frequency decreases in late puberty as LHRH release becomes more sensitive to negative feedback control from gonadal steroids. These hormonal changes are associated in time with enormous changes in cognitive, psychological, social, and sexual functioning, as discussed later in the chapter. For obvious reasons, puberty produces an interest in sexual behavior that was relatively absent in childhood, and clearly this change is a result of hormones. Nevertheless, whether a person has sexual intercourse by mid-teens depends on a lot more than his or her libido. Factors such as religious affiliation, parental supervision, peer group social norms, availability of alcohol, and a host of other features all play an obvious part (Angold, 2008; Rutter & Rutter, 1993). It should be noted that androgens are responsible for the increase in libido in females as well as males and that the hormonal changes in adolescence impinge on a brain that has already

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been influenced by prenatal and early postnatal hormonal effects. All of these changes need to be seen in a developmental context.

Body Changes with Puberty The hormonal changes are accompanied by the obvious physical changes of puberty as indexed by the menarche, breast development, and acquisition of pubic hair in girls and enlargement of the penis and testes in boys, together with pubic hair growth and, later, facial and body hair (Tanner, 1970). There is also a spectacular increase in height and marked changes in physique (Rutter & Rutter, 1993). In girls, there is an increase in hip width and an accumulation of fat as they cease to gain height. Boys, by contrast, have a greater increase in shoulder breadth and muscle. On the whole, in Western societies, most boys welcome these changes whereas most girls are unhappy about the acquisition of fat. By late adolescence about half of all girls have dieted – usually unsuccessfully (Rutter & Rutter, 1993). The increase in androgens is also accompanied by the rise in pimples, blackheads, and acne – especially in boys. It is important to appreciate that there are significant cultural variations in young people’s reactions to the body changes of puberty. Also, there are environmental influences on the timing of puberty. Marked subnutrition and weight loss tends to delay puberty (Russell, 1992), and severe psychosocial deprivation tends to bring it forward in time (Belsky et al., 2007; Sonuga-Barke, Schlotz, & Rutter, 2010). Findings on the psychological consequences of early and late puberty are somewhat inconsistent, but early puberty in girls (but not boys) tends to increase disruptive behavior (probably through peer group influences). Late puberty in boys probably constitutes a slight psychological risk factor for low self-esteem.

Brain Development Nerve cells in the brain are formed before birth but then have to migrate to the appropriate part of the cortex. Once neurons migrate to their destinations, their axons must extend in order to make connections with other neurons, thereby forming synapses. Most synapses develop postnatally, particularly during the first year, and are formed in excessive numbers. This is followed by a period of systematic pruning of synapses. The time periods for the overproduction and pruning vary by brain area. Thus, they are reached by the fifth or sixth postnatal year in the visual cortex but not until mid- to late adolescence in the frontal cortex. There is a linear increase in

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white matter through age 20 and nonlinear changes in grey matter over the same time period. Thus, there is an increase in grey matter until about 12 years of age in the frontal and parietal lobes, followed by a decrease. In the temporal lobes, by contrast, the increase continues until age 16, followed by a decrease. White matter increases linearly and shows growth well into the third decade of life, whereas the grey matter shows earlier rapid growth and slower growth later (Nelson, 2011; Paus, 2005; Toga, Thompson, & Sowell, 2006). Developmental shaping continues throughout the third decade of life before stabilizing (Petanjek et al., 2011). Although many of these changes in brain structure and function occur roughly at the time of puberty, their course seems to be independent of puberty. Casey, Jones, and Hare (2008) have argued that an understanding of cognitive and behavioral developments during adolescence requires attention to the balance between the limbic area that is involved with affective processing and the prefrontal cortex that is concerned with control over emotional responses. The implication is that earlier limbic changes will be associated with emotional reactivity and that it is only the later prefrontal changes that provide the control necessary to deal with the emotional responses. The changes in brain structure and function continue well into the third decade of life, with the pruning resulting in improved function and more appropriate interconnectivity among different regions of the brain.

Cognitive Development Some commentators on cognitive development in adolescence have focused almost entirely on the evidence that between childhood and early adolescence (say between 11 and 16 years), there are marked improvements in reasoning and information processing more generally. Young people become more capable of abstract, multidimensional, deliberative, and hypothetical thinking, but these abilities plateau at around 16 years when they reach a level that is approximately that of adults. This is so not only in terms of experimentally tested reasoning but also in terms of the ability to make decisions in practical situations (BMA, 2001). However, there are at least three other features that indicate that adolescent thinking in everyday settings is a function of social and emotional processes and not just abstract reasoning. The first is that decision making will be influenced by peer pressure, and this is something that decreases during the latter part of the adolescent period. Steinberg (2009) speculated that this may be a function of the greater connectivity between cortical and subcortical regions (Paus, Keshavan, & Giedd, 2008). Second, over the course of adolescence and into young adulthood,

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individuals become more future-oriented, with increases in their consideration of future consequences, in their concern about their future and in their ability to plan ahead (Steinberg, 2008). Whether or not adolescents’ weaker future orientation, as compared with adults, reflects their more limited life experience or changes in brain function is not known. The third change is that, relative to adults, adolescents are more sensitive to immediate rewards. They do not differ in risk perception; rather, they evaluate rewards differently when assessing the benefits of a risky decision against the costs. In other words, what distinguishes adolescents from adults is not that teenagers are less knowledgeable about all risks, but rather that they attach greater value to the rewards that risk taking provides (Galvan, Hare, Voss, Glover, & Casey, 2007; Steinberg, 2008). Fourthly, adolescents and adults differ with respect to the ability to control impulsive behavior and choices. This is shown in measures focused particularly on self-regulation, but also in terms of studies focusing on the experimental examination of planning ahead (e.g., Lahey, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2003). The importance of some of these age-related changes in self-control was shown in the Dunedin longitudinal study where poor self-control in adolescence predicted worse health outcomes in adult life (Moffit et al., 2011). This was partially due to the fact that poor self-control led to what they called adolescent “snares” (such as smoking, teenage pregnancy, school dropout, and so forth). Nevertheless, poor self-control still predicted worse health outcomes even when these ‘snares’ were avoided. The young people who improved in self-control over time had better outcomes, implying that this may have had a causal relationship. However, this has still to be tested through a randomized controlled trial of interventions designed to prove self-control. In summary, decision making is a function not only of abstract reasoning but also of socioemotional processes that impinge on decision making. If only one possibility is studied, misleading inferences may be made. Thus, Langley, Heron, O’Donovan, Owen, and Thapar (2010) showed that, although ADHD has been assumed to involve impaired executive control, empirical research findings showed that impaired social understanding was the key mediator.

Key Life Circumstance Changes in the Transition to Adolescence There are many experiential changes associated with the transition into adolescence. However, these vary substantially according to local circumstances

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and their variations are over time. This is well illustrated by educational features. Education In many countries the transition from primary to secondary school involves moving into a rather different set of circumstances (Hagell, Gray, Galton, & McLaughlin, 2012). Thus, typically, children have just one main teacher in primary school, who knows them well, and they tend to have a base in a single classroom. By contrast, there are multiple teachers in secondary schools and no single classroom base. In many educational systems, there is also increased testing and more exams to pass. The school-leaving age varies greatly across countries. Thus, in many developing countries, compulsory education finishes at the end of primary schooling and children are expected to go out to work. During the current worldwide financial difficulties, the unemployment rate among school leavers, and also among leavers from higher education, has risen greatly, with all the demoralization this frequently entails. Financial pressures have also been associated with a higher proportion of young people remaining in the parental home until they are much older than used to be the case. Financial independence has taken much longer to acquire and, not surprisingly, this has been associated with tensions in some families. At least in the United Kingdom, there has been an increase over time in the proportion of young people who are not in education, employment, or training (NEETs). The situation in other countries, particularly Germany, is rather better with respect to both the existence of vocational qualifications and the availability of clear pathways for young people who are not bound for university, who do not necessarily know just what they want to do, and for whom few jobs now exist. Love Relationships For most young people, adolescence constitutes an age period during which the first intense love relationships take place. Over the years, in many countries, there has been a fall in the age at which sexual relationships are initiated (Wellings et al., 2001). The changing cultural values and expectations are likely to have been largely influential. To a much greater extent than in previous generations, some of these love relationships involve cohabitation. One consequence of that is that it has become more difficult to end a relationship that is not working out. It is probable that all of this puts pressure on young people to make decisions on when they embark on sexual

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relationships, and when they enter into a cohabiting pattern. The need to acquire skills in self-regulation is obvious. Availability and Taking of Drugs Somewhat similar issues with respect to decision making apply to the increase in adolescence of both opportunities to take illicit substances for recreational purposes and to have the resources to purchase such substances. There are very considerable cultural variations in the extent to which this is the case, but for many young people decisions have to be taken on whether to smoke, to drink alcohol, or to use substances such as marijuana, cocaine, or heroin. It is not just that there are risks associated with these substances, but rather that, in addition, there are challenges, and sometimes stresses, involved in the decision making. One of the difficulties here is that many adolescents do not recognize the problems and hence may be reluctant to accept the need for self-regulation. Peer Group Culture Peer groups have an important place in childhood as well as in adolescence, but during the teenage years, the influence of peer groups tends to be stronger and more pervasive. It is not the case that most young people become alienated from their families, but it is the case that, in many but not all circumstances, peer group influences become somewhat stronger. Such groups can have a supportive effect, but they can also have a risk-taking effect. The evidence on the consequences of these key life circumstance changes in adolescence is very limited. Although there is no overall increase in stress experiences in adolescence, for some young people there is an increase in some particular types of stress experiences that are either more common in adolescence or stronger in their influence.

Psychopathological Changes in Adolescence During the adolescent age period, there is a major increase in several different forms of psychopathology, each of which involves a slightly different mix of mediators (Rutter, 2007). Depressive Disorders The changes with age in rates of depression, and in its sex ratio, have been well documented in both the general population samples and clinical populations (Angold, 2008). During childhood, the rates of depression, however measured, are much lower than in adolescence, but, strikingly,

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the rates of depression are at least as high in boys as they are in girls. About the age of 12–14 years, rates of depression rise substantially and continue to rise up to the end of the teenage period. This rise, however, is much more marked in females than males, and hence adolescence is the time when the female preponderance of depression becomes established. The timing of this rise in depression in girls would seem to suggest that puberty is likely to be implicated in some way. However, is that because of the physical changes associated with puberty, or is it a function of the hormone levels? Angold, Costello, Erkanli, and Worthman (1999) in the Great Smoky Mountain Study (GSMS) found that the effects were entirely explained by the rise in rates of testosterone and estradiol. If these two hormones were combined to produce a single sex steroid level (SSL), when the SSL was below 1.3 nanomole (nmol), the rate of depression was very low, but it increased substantially when the SSLs were between 1.3 nmol and 2.3 nmol. There was a further rise when the nmol level rose above 2.3 nmol, but once adult levels of sex steroids were reached, there was no consistent relationship between SSL and depression. It seemed, therefore, that there was a threshold that must be reached before sex steroids had an effect on depression but once an adult level had been reached, the relationship between hormone levels and depression largely disappeared (Angold, 2008). That the hormone levels do not directly cause depression is also shown by the lack of a relationship in adult life when hormone levels are therapeutically increased or decreased (Buchanan, Eccles, & Becker, 1992). Thus the rise in depression, and the emerging preponderance in females, seems to be more a function of hormonal changes than increasing stress. Self-regulation to counter the rise of vulnerabilities for depression in adolescent girls is therefore sorely needed. It would be helpful to increase the understanding of this necessity in the female adolescents themselves as well as in educators and parents. Suicide and Attempted Suicide The British Office of National Statistics (2004) showed that the rate of suicide (including undetermined deaths) in 2003 was 6.58 per 100,000 for adolescent males 15–19 years old and 2.24 per 100,000 for females of the same age. The rates were very much lower at 10–14 years (0.62 per 100,000 for males and 0.42 per 100,000 for females). Data from the United States and the Netherlands showed that the suicide rate went up markedly to reach a peak at some point between 25 and 65 years, depending on the time period, the peak being earlier during the 1980s than it was during the 1960s. The time trends for suicide have also varied by age group. The findings for

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attempted suicide are quite different in that this is much more common in females than males, with a peak occurrence in mid-adolescence or early adult life, the rate leveling off or decreasing after that (Diekstra, Kienhorst, & de Wilde, 1995; Hawton et al., 2012). As much of suicidal behavior is impulsive, there is a particular need for effective self-regulation, but therapeutic interventions focused on self-regulation have yet to be investigated systematically. Eating Disorders In Western societies, there is a very high rate of dieting among adolescent girls, but most of these diets do not have the key features of self-induced vomiting, laxative misuse, and excessive exercise that are associated with diagnosed eating disorders. Moreover, the few longitudinal studies that are available have indicated that most of these dieters do not go on to show anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa (Fairburn & Gowers, 2008). Dieting is also common among models and ballerinas where the career pressures to remain ultra slim are quite strong. Again, however, few of those go on to show overt eating disorders. The classification of eating disorders in the existing official classifications is notably unsatisfactory in that the great majority are diagnosed as having an “eating disorder not otherwise specified” (Uher & Rutter, 2012). Nevertheless, the limited available evidence suggests that most of these have much the same characteristics as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia is the rarest of the eating disorders, with prevalence figures well below 1%. The onset is typically in early adolescence, but it can begin in childhood and, very infrequently, it can begin in early adult life. Bulimia nervosa has a prevalence of 1–2% and an age of onset that is mainly in early adult life (18–40 years). All eating disorders are much more frequent in females, but they do occur in males with a broadly similar pattern of features. With respect to self-regulation, two key features are important. First, eating disorders are associated with excessive control, and second, most individuals with an eating disorder are reluctant to accept that they need help. The most effective treatment is a form of cognitive behavior therapy that focuses on modifying the maladaptive behavior and thought patterns (Fairburn & Gowers, 2008). Self-regulation thus should focus on down-regulating the need to be thin as well as curbing the overregulation of dieting and exercising. Crime Crime statistics in almost all countries show that crime peaks in late adolescence or very early adult life (Rutter, Giller, & Hagell, 1998). However, this pattern, to a very considerable extent, must be related to the age of criminal

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responsibility, which varies widely from age 7 to age 18 internationally. Nevertheless, on the whole, self-reported delinquent behavior shows much the same age trend. Moffitt (1993) postulated an important distinction between what she called “life-course persistent antisocial behavior” and what she termed “adolescent-limited antisocial behavior.” The former had an onset in childhood and an association with both neurodevelopmental problems and serious family adversity. Barker and Maughan (2009) found that persistence to age 13 was associated with an undercontrolled temperament as well as harsh parenting, domestic cruelty, and maternal anxiety during the pregnancy. By contrast, the adolescent-limited variety showed fewer risk factors. By and large, research over the last two decades has confirmed the validity of this distinction. On the other hand, three main modifications have been necessary (Nagin, Farrington, & Moffitt, 1995; Odgers et al., 2008; Roisman, Monahan, Campbell, Steinberg, & Cauffman, 2010). First, many years ago, Robins (1966; 1978) showed that slightly less than half of the childhood onset antisocial behavior persisted into adult life, and the trajectory analyses undertaken by Odgers and colleagues showed much the same. It is clear that there has to be a group of childhood-limited antisocial behavior. Second, the adolescentlimited group actually continued with antisocial behavior in adult life, albeit behavior that on the whole was less likely to jeopardize their jobs or marriages. Third, both the risks and the patterns probably are best considered in dimensional terms rather than in clear-cut categorical distinctions. That is in keeping, too, with the universal finding that a high proportion of individuals sometimes engage in antisocial behavior (Rutter et al., 1998). The Dunedin longitudinal study (Moffit, Caspi, Rutter, & Silva, 2001) brought out a further important point – namely, that life course persistent antisocial behavior was much more frequent in males than females, whereas adolescence-limited antisocial behavior included more females. The evidence showed that this was not because there was a difference between the sexes in response to risk factors. Rather, the main difference stemmed from the fact that neurodevelopmental impairment was much less common in females than in males. Why that is the case is not well understood. The challenge for self-regulation therapeutic approaches is that persistence has its origins in early childhood and is associated with neurodevelopmental impairment. Substance Use and Abuse Substance use, similarly, shows a marked increase in prevalence over the adolescent age period. This is so whether dealing with tobacco use or alcohol consumption or illicit drugs such as amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin.

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The precise pattern varies with substance and varies internationally, but the overall pattern is reasonably consistent. The same data (Heath, Lynskey, & Waldron, 2008) show that the great majority of individuals engage in recreational use of substances only occasionally, with many fewer engaging in heavy regular and dependent use. The rates of substance use and abuse are somewhat greater in males than in females, but the sex difference is not large. On the whole, individuals whose use of substances began at an earlier age were more likely to go on to show dependence. A lack of self-regulation is a key element in the development of dependence, but interventions are constrained by the frequent unwillingness to recognize that help is needed. Schizophreniform Disorders The last form of psychopathology to be considered is that of schizophreniform disorders. It has long been known that overt schizophrenia in the form of a psychosis usually has an onset in later adolescence or early adult life, being quite rare in childhood (Hollis, 2008). However, research over the last three decades has clearly shown that risk factors for schizophrenia are already evident in early childhood in the form of neurodevelopmental delays and are apparent in the psychotic-like symptoms appearing in late childhood/early adolescence, as well as in the changes evident during the period immediately leading up to the psychosis (Rutter, in press). In short, it is not that schizophrenia begins in adolescence, but rather that the precursors become transformed into an overt psychosis. Although the origins are clearly biological, it is clear, too, that abnormal cognitive biases involving rigid thinking and faulty jumping to conclusions are closely involved with delusions (Ross, Freeman, Dunn, & Garety, 2011), and that cognitive remediation training may have limited efficacy (Waller, Freeman, Jolley, Dunn, & Garety, 2011; Wykes, Huddy, Cellard, McGurk, & Czobor, 2011; Wykes & Spaulding, 2011). The approaches focus on correcting faulty reasoning, and it may be that this is a necessary element in treatment. Commonalities among Psychopathological Changes in Adolescence In all cases, changes in the rates of overt disorder are closely paralleled by similar changes in the dimensions of the same behavior that extend into normality. Accordingly, it would be misleading to view the changes as just referring to categorical mental disorders if the change applies across a broad spectrum of behavior. That does not necessarily mean that there is not also a degree of discontinuity between the dimension and the category. Thus, the meaning of dieting and a concern to be very slim does appear different

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in key ways from overt eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. Similarly, although schizophrenia seems to be on a spectrum dimension, there is a real difference between the overt psychosis of schizophrenia and the various precursors. The other common feature is that the changes apply to females much more than males. This is quite different from the neurodevelopmental disorders with an onset in early childhood, which mainly involves a marked male preponderance. The last point to note is that with several of the psychopathological patterns, there have been substantial changes over time. In no case has that involved an obliteration of a pattern, but it has involved an appreciable change in sex ratio of disorders. For example, that is very evident in the case of antisocial behavior and/or depression.

Possible Pathways Involved in Adolescent Transitions It is tempting to suppose that these adolescent changes in different forms of psychopathology all involve a similar mechanism. It may be that there is some unifying mechanism that is concerned with the mainly female preponderance of disorders peaking in adolescence, but it is also clear that it is likely that the possible pathways in these different adolescent transitions may vary by the form of psychopathology (Rutter, 2007). Because these have not been much investigated in detail, firm conclusions on the pathways are not yet warranted, but there certainly are some important leads. Depression As already noted, there is likely to be an indirect role of hormonal changes, which provide the substrate for the development of depression, although variations in hormone level do not seem to have a direct effect. It may also be that there is a “switching on” of genes involving susceptibility to stress, as suggested by Eaves, Silberg, and Erkanli (2003). It might be supposed that the rise in depression in adolescence could be a function of an increase in some forms of life stressors, but questionnaire measures have shown no marked age differences in their occurrence. It remains possible, however, that the salience of some life stressors does vary with age. For example, bullying constitutes a significant stressor at all ages, but it tends to be more of a problem in secondary schools than it is in primary schools (Arseneault, Bowes, & Shakoor, 2009). Perceived educational pressures may be greater in adolescence than in childhood, and it has been suggested that these constitute an appreciable mental health risk (Layard & Dunn, 2009).

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However, sound systematic data on age differences in stress are not available. It could also be that a tendency to ruminate in an unhelpful way that impairs problem solving is relevant (Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008). We know that rumination is more common in females than males and that it is associated with depression, and it may be that a tendency to ruminate increases with age as individuals become more self-reflective in their thinking. Again, hard evidence on this is lacking. In addition, puberty may be associated with heightened stress responsivity (Spear, 2009). Lastly, the increase in depression and depressive disorders in adolescence could be due, at least in part, to the heavy use of alcohol and of other substances. There is good evidence that there are robust associations between alcohol and substance use and an increased risk of depression (Hagell, Aldridge et al., 2012). In that connection, it is certainly pertinent that both heavy alcohol consumption and substance use increase a good deal in the transition from childhood to adolescence. Use of Drugs and Alcohol There is an abundance of evidence that recreational use of both legal and illicit substances increases over the transition from childhood to adolescence, and the question is: What are the factors in the individual or in society that predispose to this age-related increase? There is growing evidence that there may be age-related changes in young people’s response to mind-altering substances (Windle et al., 2008). Accordingly, it seems likely that this might play a role in the increased use of drugs and alcohol in adolescence. In addition, there is the social context in which there is much greater availability of substances in the teenage years, the increased resources required to purchase substances, and peer group pressures or expectations that this is a “normal” and “mature” thing to do. The evidence does not allow a quantification of the relative importance of these different features, and in any case, these are likely to vary by social context. However, it does seem very likely that they all contribute to the rise with age in substance use. Antisocial Behavior What requires explanation is not the basis of antisocial behavior, but rather the peak of antisocial behavior in adolescence. This involves two somewhat separate, albeit interrelated, issues. First, among young people whose antisocial activities began at a much earlier age, there is an increase in adolescence in the likelihood of this involving not only breaking the law

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but being convicted of some criminal offense. Second, there is the rise in the onset of antisocial behavior in adolescence among young people who have not shown this propensity when younger. The rise in criminal offenses will, in part, be a function of the physical changes that allow greater violence. But, in addition, violent offenses will increase as a function of adolescents being more likely to carry weapons. Peer group influences are important, and it is relevant that most crime is committed with others. In addition, there is the evidence that being part of a delinquent gang makes it more likely that individuals will commit crimes. This has been shown, for example, by the changes over time in the delinquent activities of individuals according to whether or not they are members of such a gang (Thornberry, Krohn, Lizotte, & Chard-Wiershem, 1993). In some cultures, there is a substantial tendency for young people to become disengaged from school during their teenage period and, as a consequence, be more likely to truant. This in turn provides a greater opportunity for delinquent activities. Finally, there is the predisposing effect of the use of drugs and alcohol (Rutter et al., 1998). It is clear that there are bidirectional influences: That is, antisocial behavior at an earlier age increases the risk of alcohol or drug problems at a later age, and vice versa. Also, alcohol tends to cause disinhibition and that may play a role in relation to some violent crime. However, it is important to recognize that much of the association arises from the impulsive, reckless, aggressive lifestyle of heavy drinkers as much as from the chemical consequences of alcohol. It is known that there is a shared genetic liability that includes both substance use and antisocial behavior (McGue, Iacono, Legrand, & Elkins, 2001). Schizophrenia It cannot be claimed that the cause of the rise of the onset of schizophrenia in adolescence is known, but there are two likely causal influences. First, there are important brain changes occurring during this age period, and it may well be that those are implicated in the development of schizophrenia (Andreasen, 2010; Keshavan, Kennedy, & Murray, 2004; Rapoport & Gogtay, 2011). The rationale is provided by the extensive evidence that there are brain differences between individuals with schizophrenia and controls, and that this holds up after controlling for possible confounding variables. In addition, perhaps particularly when the onset of schizophrenia has been unusually early, there may be further changes that take place after the onset of psychosis. The causal inference would have greater force if it could be shown that brain differences in late adolescence/early adult life could

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predict the onset of schizophrenia in high-risk individuals. The Edinburgh study (Johnstone, Ebmeier, Miller, Owens, & Lawrie, 2005) provides some pointers on this possibility. However, the numbers studied have been small and predictive associations have not been as strong as one might have expected. Suicide and Attempted Suicide The rise in suicide and attempted suicide is marked in adolescence, and it is known that both are associated with mental disorders of various kinds. The strongest associations are with depression, depressive disorders, antisocial behavior, and the use/abuse of drugs/alcohol. As already noted, all three of those show a marked increase in the transition to adolescence (Evans, Hawton, & Rodham, 2004). It would seem to follow that an age-related rise in each of these forms of psychopathology is likely to have played a role in the parallel rise in suicide and attempted suicide. Both suicide and attempted suicide are associated with having a friend who attempted suicide, and suicide clusters are more common in adolescence than they are in childhood. Both psychological autopsy and casecontrol studies indicate that young people who die by suicide experience a higher rate of exposure to recent stressful life events such as rejection, conflict, or loss as well as disciplinary or legal crises. On the whole, children tend to have familial stress, whereas older adolescents typically describe peer-related stressors (Hawton & Fortune, 2008). Finally, there is the contributing role of the increase in availability of the means of suicide as young people grow older. Conclusions It is evident that there are some commonalities among the pathways associated with different forms of mental disorder. Thus, there is substantial overlap among the disorders, and the likely role of substance use/abuse and social context apply across several different forms of psychopathology. It is important to recognize the diversity of mediating mechanisms, and there is certainly a great need for more research to test hypotheses on what these mediating mechanisms might be.

Key Developmental Process Considerations Individual Differences in Environmental Responsivity As with the whole of biology, there are marked individual differences in the timing of development, and in environmental responsivity. There is a

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marked heterogeneity in response to all manner of environmental circumstances – as shown by both naturalistic and experimental studies by human research and by animal models (Rutter, 2012b, 2013). Because genes are involved in this heterogeneity, there has been a hope to use pharmacogenomics as a way of developing truly individualized treatments. However, it is not just genes that are involved, and the enthusiasm for personalized medicine (Collins, 2010; Mrazek, 2010) has yet to receive strong empirical research support. Gene-Environment Interplay There is an abundance of evidence showing that genetic and environmental influences are nowhere near as separate as once was thought. The interplay involves gene-environment correlations, gene-environment interaction, and environmental effects on gene expression (Rutter, 2012a). One aspect of this individuality concerns the fact that adverse experiences of one kind or another may either lead to stress sensitization (meaning that the experience of stress or adversity at one time makes it more likely that individuals will be vulnerable at a later time) or steeling or strengthening effects in which the experience of stress or adversity at one time leads to effective coping and provides a resistance to later stresses or adversity. One of the challenges with respect to epigenetics and other possible mediating influences is whether they account for these individual differences in response. Bidirectionality of Parent-Child Influences For many years, it was assumed that the association between socialization practices and child outcomes was the result of the causal effect of socialization. A key paper by Bell (1968) challenged that assumption and raised the query as to whether at least some of the associations were attributable to children’s effects on parents rather than parents’ effects on children. Since that time, much research has amply shown that there are indeed bidirectional effects (Anderson, Lytton, & Romney, 1986; Kerr, Stattin, & Burk, 2010). This constitutes a reminder that interventions to improve self-regulation (Oettingen, 2012) need to be concerned with both partners and to consider the effect of changes in one person’s behavior on the other’s self-regulation. Developmental Changes When dealing with any kind of developmental transition (adolescence is simply one example of this), it is necessary to recognize that it is a mistake to assume that what applies to the loss of a function in a normally developing

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individual (as a result of brain injury of some kind or other) is not the same as impairment in a developing function. Karmiloff-Smith and her colleagues have given multiple examples of the ways in which patterns change over time, and what may at first sight appear to be a genetically determined modular function actually is something that develops over time as a result of more basic general processes (Farran & Karmiloff-Smith, 2012). Dodge et al. (2009) have somewhat similarly argued that development involves cascades in which an influence at one age has effects that shape the next phase, which in turn shapes the phase after that. Continuities and Discontinuities As well exemplified by what is known about developmental psychopathology (Rutter, in press), there is a complex mix of continuities and discontinuities over both the span of behavioral variation and the course of development. It is implausible that any single model can account for this mix of findings. As part of this complex pattern, it is clear that active, successful coping with stress or adversity may actually be protective (Rutter, 2012b, 2013). It is a normal part of human development to need to cope with challenges and it is a mistake to regard prevention as entirely concerned with the avoidance of stress and adversity. Rather, there needs to be a concern that individuals face challenges at a time and in a way in which it is likely that they can cope. Active Processing of Experiences From very early in life, infants and toddlers process their experiences and develop internal models of both the experiences and what they mean to the individual. It might be thought that objective measures of the environment are always superior to subjective ones, but the research undertaken by Nancy Adler and her colleagues (Cohen, Alper, Adler, Treanor, & Turner, 2008; Singh-Manoux, Marmot, & Adler, 2005) made clear that may not be the case. Much is still to be learned as to what is involved in young people’s processing experiences, but it is clear that this remains an important topic for further investigation.

Conclusion It is clear that adolescence does indeed constitute a key transition period (albeit one that is influenced by earlier age periods), but it does so for both biological and experiential reasons. Moreover, it is apparent that there are large individual differences in the pattern and timing of these adolescent changes. The understanding of the implications for cognitive processes and

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their impact depends not only on the complex mix of features but also on the need to take account of multiple process considerations. With respect to the implications for self-regulation, four major issues derive from the findings reviewed here. First, there are several mental disorders where it is common for the individuals to be reluctant to accept that there is a problem that requires change. This applies to eating disorders, use of drugs and alcohol, and schizophrenia. It also applies to early onset antisocial behavior, with the additional complication that an early intervention would seem to be needed for the lifecourse persistent variety. Second, in both eating disorders and schizophrenia, the problem seems to lie in deviant thinking patterns that require an intervention that aims to alter them (rather than focusing just on self-regulation as such). Third, it is necessary to recognize the major biological changes occurring during adolescence and the importance of dimensional, multiphase causal pathways. Fourth, biological findings indicate that alternative pathways are usually available, and that even with the most powerful interventions, there will usually be other ways of reaching the same end. REFERENCES

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7

Emotion Regulation and Primate Sociality Frans B. M. de Waal

Author Note Frans de Waal, Living Links, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Psychology Department, Emory University. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Frans B. M. de Waal, Psychology Department (PAIS Bldg), Suite 270, 36 Eagle Row, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. E-mail : [email protected] Abstract The emotions are a neglected area of research in our close relatives, the primates. Instead of focusing on a nonexistent field of study, this chapter seeks to convey the social sophistication of the primates, making it obvious why emotion regulation is useful. Primates live in a hierarchical world, which requires them to suppress certain impulses in order to avoid dire consequences. To resolve conflicts effectively and preserve beneficial relationships, they need to overcome distress or hostility. Consoling distressed individuals, a behavior activated by empathy, is one way of overcoming or preventing personal distress. The social lives of apes and monkeys are sufficiently complex that we recognize many of the subtle emotions of our own species, and thus can assume that they require equally effective emotional controls.

One cannot have emotions without control over them, which is what sets the emotions apart from that other popular concept: instincts. To say that animals have instincts was a way of saying that they follow genetic programs that make them act without too much reflection or flexibility. In his classical paper on the psychology of emotions, William James (1884) married them to the instincts, seeing the emotions likewise as an unlearned response

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system. This is precisely why the next century saw the emotions go out of favor, since we were supposedly born as blank slates. The emotions are back, however, not only in humans but also in other species. Animal emotions used to be taboo, but the tide has been turned by both observational studies and affective neuroscience (de Waal, 2011; Panksepp, 2011). Certain situations arouse specific emotions, such as fear, jealousy, or affection, which steer behavior in a given direction but not without cognitive evaluations, modifying factors, and inhibitions. Emotion regulation is as old as the emotions themselves, therefore. Barrett (2006) describes an emotion as an orchestrated response to a significant event across multiple systems at once: perceptual, cognitive, motivational, expressive, bodily, and experiential. Frijda (2004) argues that the whole point of having emotions is goal-oriented action. This action potential, central for James and his contemporaries, is often absent from recent definitions, however. But even if emotions happen inside the individual, they are triggered by the environment and predispose the organism’s engagement with it. Their effect on behavioral outcomes is central to any evolutionary account, which assumes that emotions evolved to benefit the organism. Organisms have been selected to enter a particular bodily and mental state under particular circumstances: Those who did furthered their interest better than those who did not. The first emotion likely was fear, and it is easy to see the survival value of a coordinated fear response. In the felicitous phrase of Lazarus and Lazarus (1994, p. 184), emotional reactions reflect “the wisdom of ages.” My own definition of an emotion incorporates these causal and functional insights: An emotion is a temporary state brought about by biologically relevant external stimuli, whether aversive or attractive. The emotion is marked by specific changes in the organism’s body and mind – brain, hormones, muscles, viscera, heart, etc. . . . There exists no one-on-one relation between an emotion and ensuing behavior, however. Emotions combine with individual experience and cognitive assessment of the situation to prepare the organism for an optimal response (de Waal, 2011, p. 194).

My goal here is not to review all possible emotions displayed by the primates, but to select a few areas for special consideration so as to offer an impression of how sophisticated social interactions are in our close relatives, including conflict resolution, concern for others, reciprocal exchange, and a sense of fairness. Instead of offering cognitive explanations of these phenomena, I tend to put them in the light of emotional responses that primates share

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with us. Emotion regulation plays an obvious role in all of this, for example, when an individual needs to overcome fear or hostility to approach a former opponent for an embrace, or when the distress perceived in another is translated into a caring reaction, as occurs when primates console victims of aggression.

Impulse Control Even if a focus on emotions offers a more flexible framework than one on instincts, the old view of animals as firmly tied to fixed species-typical responses still intrudes, such as when it is assumed that other animals cannot inhibit their emotions. I am interested in this view in relation to moral evolution, the opposite of morality being that we just do “what we want” (de Waal, 2013). Animals cannot be moral, so the thinking goes, because they run blindly after every want or need they feel. Kitcher (2006) went so far as to label chimpanzees “wantons,” defined as creatures vulnerable to whichever impulse strikes them. Kitcher went on to speculate that somewhere in the past our ancestors overcame this wantonness, which is what made us human. This process is supposed to have started with the “awareness that certain forms of projected [predicted] behavior might have troublesome results” (Kitcher, 2006, p. 136). But of course, myriad of animals live with this awareness, not only when they try to avoid detection by predators or prey through the suppression of sound and movement but also in the social domain. The dominance hierarchy is one giant system of social inhibitions, and impulse control is key to avoid “troublesome results.” Thus, primate males vary their behavior around females dependent on the presence or absence of higher-ranking males. As soon as alpha turns his back, other males approach females. But high-ranking individuals, too, benefit from impulse control. For example, an alpha male chimpanzee may receive a pointed challenge from a younger male, who throws rocks in his direction or makes an impressive charging display, with all his hair on end. This is a way of testing alpha’s nerves. Experienced dominant males totally ignore the din, however, as if they barely notice, thus forcing their challenger to either give up or escalate (de Waal, 1998 [1982]). That nonhuman primates are capable of impulse control is supported by experiments on deferred gratification. Both apes (Beran, SavageRumbaugh, Pate, & Rumbaugh, 1999) and monkeys (Amici, Aureli, & Call, 2008) will pass up immediate rewards in favor of better ones that arrive with

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a delay. Apes can inhibit their impulse to collect food for up to 18 minutes. It has further been shown that chimpanzees, like children, play more with toys in the presence of accumulating rewards suggesting deliberate efforts at self-distraction in the face of temptation (Evans & Beran, 2007). Other studies show that apes can override an immediate drive in favor of future needs, an essential aspect of successful action planning (Osvath & Osvath, 2008). It seems, therefore, that the same intertwinement between emotion and cognition known of our own species applies to our close relatives, including effective suppression of primary urges. Emotions are subject to powerful appraisal mechanisms inserted between stimulus and response (Scherer, 1994). The prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotions, is often assumed to be exceptionally large in our own species, yet this view is outdated. The human cerebral cortex holds 19% of all neurons in the brain, just like any typical mammalian brain, which is why the growth in relative volume of the frontal cortex during human evolution has been called “unremarkable.” Our brain, therefore, is essentially a linearly scaled-up primate brain. It may be large overall, but the way its various parts relate to each other is unexceptional (Barton & Venditti, 2013; HerculanoHouzel, 2009).

Primate Adolescence Inhibitions associated with the hierarchy ultimately come about through punishment, which usually starts in adolescence. Ape youngsters go virtually unpunished for the first years of life. They can do nothing wrong, such as using the back of a dominant male as a trampoline or pulling food out of the hands of others. One can imagine the shock when youngsters are rejected or punished for the first time. From then on, they learn their place in the hierarchy and control their impulses in relation to food and mates. Adolescence is a tumultuous period in the lives of apes since half of them, the females, prepare to leave the community and the other half seeks integration into the male hierarchy, which is a harsh world of challenge and counter-challenge. Adolescence is usually defined as the period between sexual maturity (the ability to copulate with ejaculation or to bear a fetus to term) and fullgrown body size. Both male and female chimpanzees approximately double in weight between these two time points, showing a distinct growth spurt between the ages of about 9 and 15 years of age (Pusey, 1990). This time frame applies to wild chimpanzees: In captive apes the process is speeded up, owing to better nutrition, and both menarche and full body size are

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reached years earlier. Females go through a period of adolescent sterility of up to three years during which they engage in sex but rarely carry a fetus to term. They have their first live births around the age of twelve. During this entire period both males and females steadily decrease the amount of time spent close to their mothers and become increasingly independent (Pusey, 1990). Females usually leave the community to join a neighboring one and lose all contact with their mother, whereas males stay in the same community. In bonobos, a close relative of the chimpanzee, a male remains attached to his mother, and in fact receives support from her in fights with other males. Chimpanzee males, on the other hand, go their own way, and despite a special relationship with their mother, they are not attached. In both species, sexual relations between mother and son are avoided. Since these apes do not have a family structure like ours, fatherhood is unknown, and every adult male is potentially a father. By leaving the community at puberty, females avoid fertilizations by their father and brothers. There is no specialized field of research on primate adolescence, and all I can give here is my impression from years of watching captive bonobos and chimpanzees. Adolescence is a period of great insecurity, especially in males as they are constantly faced with the prospect of adult male aggression. They try to keep a low profile since adult males increasingly perceive them as rivals. Young males may be visibly aroused by a sexually receptive female, yet will need to find a way of mating with her out of view of dominant males, who otherwise will punish them. Among themselves, young males tend to bond, and test their strength in roughhousing play that sometimes escalates into fights, which are quickly reconciled. They often mate with young females, which arouse far less sexual competition than fully grown ones (Muller, Emery Thompson, & Wrangham, 2006). Adolescent females often initiate sexual contact, as they seem increasingly curious about sex, but also begin to notice the political leverage associated with their attractiveness during estrus. Some of them start more fights during this period, especially with other females, knowing they will have male backing. They also become more persistent begging for food from males. In both bonobos and chimpanzees, sex serves females as a currency for exchange (Crick, Suchak, Eppley, Campbell, & de Waal, 2013; de Waal, 1987). Females rapidly grow more distant from their mothers during this period as they prepare to venture out of the community. Female chimpanzees meet competition from other females when they enter a new community, and settle in their own home range where they will raise their offspring, but bonobo females attach themselves to specific older resident females in the new community

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and quickly integrate in the tightly bonded secondary sisterhood (not based on kinship) that characterizes this species (Furuichi, 2011). Both males and females negotiate new relationships during adolescence, females with complete strangers and males by trying to gain acceptance within the male hierarchy. The obvious need for emotion regulation notwithstanding, and despite studies discussing the process at both the behavioral (Suomi, 2002) and neurological level (Davidson, Fox, & Kalin, 2006), this topic remains woefully understudied in animals. We do not have nearly enough data on the careful calibration of emotional responses during early life that sets the stage for optimal regulation in adulthood. One study found that capuchin monkey juveniles with secure mother-offspring attachments reconciled after fights with others in a more appeasing manner than did juveniles with insecure attachments (Weaver & de Waal, 2003), and another study found that bonobo juveniles raised by their own mothers consoled distressed companions more frequently than did orphaned bonobos in the same groups (Clay & de Waal, 2013a). Consolation behavior being interpreted as an expression of empathy (see discussion later in the chapter), these findings confirm that certain emotional capacities of nonhuman primates require a natural affectionate upbringing, as they do in humans (Fries & Pollak, 2004; Tottenham et al., 2010). Clay and de Waal (2013b) recently collected new data on the same bonobos, which even more closely related their findings to emotion regulation. They showed that individuals who are easily distressed and stay distressed for a long time show low rates of consolation when others are distressed. The authors conclude that the key variable for expressions of empathy is how well one’s own emotions are being regulated, and that orphans are at a serious disadvantage in this regard.

Conflict Resolution Reconciliation In the summer of 2002, various national European behavioral biology and ethology societies came together for a conference on animal conflict resolution. This field started out with simple descriptive work, but is now moving toward a theoretical framework (i.e., the valuable relationship hypothesis; see discussion that follows) supported by observational as well as experimental data (reviewed by de Waal, 2000; Aureli & de Waal, 2000). Reconciliation among primates was first reported by de Waal and van Roosmalen (1979). A typical example concerns two male chimpanzees who have been chasing each other, barking and screaming, and afterward rest in a tree (Figure 7.1). Ten minutes later, one male holds out his hand, begging the

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Figure 7.1. Reconciliation ten minutes after a protracted, noisy conflict between two adult males at the Arnhem zoo. The challenged male (left) had fled into the tree, but ten minutes later his opponent stretched out a hand. Within seconds, the two males had a physical reunion. (Photograph by the author.)

other for an embrace. Seconds later, they hug and kiss, and climb down to the ground together to groom each other. Termed a reconciliation, this process is defined as a friendly contact not long after a conflict between two parties. A kiss is the most typical way for chimpanzees to reconcile. Other animals have different styles. Bonobos do it with sex, and stumptail macaques wait until the subordinate presents, then hold its hips in a so-called hold-bottom ritual. Each species has its own way, yet the basic principle remains the same, which is that former opponents physically reunite following a fight. Primatology has always shown interest in social relationships so that the idea of relationship repair, implied by the reconciliation label, was quickly taken seriously. We now know that about 30 different primate species reconcile after fights, and recent studies show that reconciliation is not limited to the primates. There is evidence for this mechanism in hyenas, dolphins, wolves, domestic goats, and corvids. Reconciliation seems a basic process found in a host of social species. The reason for it being so widespread is that it restores relationships that have been disturbed by aggression but are nonetheless essential for survival. Many animals establish cooperative relationships within which conflict occasionally arises.

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Figure 7.2. Primates show a dramatic increase in body contact between former opponents during post-conflict (PC) as compared to matched control (MC) observations. The graph provides the cumulative percentage of opponent-pairs establishing friendly contact during a 10-minute time window following 670 spontaneous aggressive incidents in a zoo group of stumptail macaques.

A standard research procedure is the PC/MC method (de Waal & Yoshihara, 1983). Observations start with a spontaneous aggressive encounter after which the combatants are followed for a fixed period of time, say ten minutes, to see what subsequently happens between them. This is the PC or post-conflict observation. Figure 7.2, which concerns stumptail macaques, shows that approximately 60% of the pairs of opponents come together after a fight (de Waal & Ren, 1988). This is compared with control observations that tell us how these monkeys normally act without a preceding fight. Since control observations are done on a different observation day but matched to the PC observation for the time of the day and the individuals involved, they are called MCs, or matched controls. If the same observations and analyses are conducted on human children, such as we did at a preschool near our university, one finds the familiar PC/MC pattern (Verbeek & de Waal, 2001). A review of child studies by Verbeek, Hartup, and Collins (2000) confirms that the data look essentially the same for children, chimpanzees, monkeys, and other animals. After fights, individuals come together more than usually, often with intense contact patterns, doing so especially with partners whom they need for one reason or another. The latter is known as the valuable relationship hypothesis, which can be formulated thus: Reconciliation will occur especially between individuals who stand much to lose if their relationship deteriorates.

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This hypothesis is well supported by observational studies (de Waal, 2000) as well as by an elegant experiment on monkeys, which manipulated relationship value by promoting cooperation, then found a dramatically increased reconciliatory tendency (Cords & Thurnheer, 1993).

Empathy Emotional Linkage When Zahn-Waxler visited homes to find out how children respond to family members instructed to feign sadness (sobbing), pain (crying), or distress (choking), she discovered that children a little over one year of age already comfort others (Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, Wagner, & Chapman, 1992). This is a milestone in their development: An aversive experience in another person draws out a concerned response. An unplanned sidebar to this classical study, however, was that some household pets appeared as worried as the children were by the “distress” of a family member. They hovered over them or put their heads in their laps (Zahn-Waxler, Hollenbeck, & RadkeYarrow, 1984), a finding recently replicated in greater detail (Custance & Mayer, 2012). Intersubjectivity has many aspects apart from emotional linkage, such as an appraisal of the other’s situation, experience-based predictions about the other’s behavior, extraction of information from the other that is valuable to the self, and an understanding of the other’s knowledge and intentions. When the emotional state of one individual induces a matching or related state in another, we speak of emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993). With increasing differentiation between self and other, and an increasing appreciation of the precise circumstances underlying the emotional states of others, emotional contagion develops into full-blown empathy. Empathy encompasses – and could not possibly exist without – emotional contagion, yet it goes beyond it in that it places filters between the other’s state and one’s own, and adds a cognitive layer. The subject does not confuse one’s own internal state with the other’s. These various levels of empathy, including personal distress and sympathetic concern, are defined and discussed in detail by Eisenberg (2000), along with their neural underpinnings by Decety (2011). Empathy is a social phenomenon with great adaptive significance for group-living animals. The fact that most modern textbooks on animal cognition do not index empathy or sympathy does not mean that these capacities are not essential; it only means that they have been overlooked by a science traditionally focused on individual rather than inter-individual

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capacities. Inasmuch as the survival of many animals depends on concerted action, mutual aid, and information transfer, selection must have favored proximate mechanisms to evaluate the emotional states of others and quickly respond to them in adaptive ways. Even though the human empathy literature often emphasizes the cognitive side of this ability, Hoffman (1981, p. 79) rightly notes that “humans must be equipped biologically to function effectively in many social situations without undue reliance on cognitive processes.” Early Experiments An interesting older literature by experimental psychologists addresses animal empathy (reviewed by Preston & de Waal, 2002a, 2002b). In a paper provocatively entitled “Emotional reactions of rats to the pain of others,” Church (1959) established that rats that had learned to press a lever to obtain food would stop doing so if their response was paired with the delivery of an electric shock to a neighboring rat. Even though this inhibition habituated rapidly, it suggested something aversive about the pain reactions of others. Perhaps such reactions arouse negative emotions in those who see and hear them. The recent study by Bartal, Decety, and Mason (2011) on empathy-induced altruism by rats is in line with Church’s findings. In the same period, Miller, Murphy, and Mirsky (1959) published the first of a series of pioneering papers on the transmission of affect in rhesus macaques. They found that monkeys react with avoidance to pictures of conspecifics in a fearful pose, and that this reaction is stronger than that toward a negatively conditioned stimulus. This was an astonishing discovery, suggesting that to see the fear of a two-dimensional, soundless representation of another monkey is more disturbing than the anticipation of an actual electric shock. Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the strength of the empathic reaction in monkeys came from Wechkin, Masserman, and Terris (1964) and Masserman, Wechkin, and Terris (1964). They found that rhesus monkeys refuse to pull a chain that delivers food to themselves if doing so shocks a companion. One monkey stopped pulling for five days, and another one for twelve days after witnessing shock delivery to a companion. These monkeys were literally starving themselves to avoid inflicting pain on another. Sympathetic Concern Yerkes (1925, p. 246) reported how his bonobo, Prince Chim, was so extraordinarily concerned and protective toward his sickly chimpanzee companion, Panzee, that the scientific establishment might not accept his claims: “If I

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Figure 7.3. Robert Yerkes with two apes in his lap. This photo was taken in 1923, before the discovery of the bonobo as a distinct species. We know now that the ape on the right, named Prince Chim, was a bonobo. Prince Chim was described by Yerkes as gentler and more empathic than any other ape he knew. Photograph by Lee Russell, courtesy of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

were to tell of his altruistic and obviously sympathetic behavior towards Panzee I should be suspected of idealizing an ape” (Figure 7.3). Ladygina-Kohts noticed similar empathic tendencies in her young chimpanzee, Joni, whom she raised at the beginning of the 20th century in Moscow. Ladygina-Kohts, who analyzed Joni’s behavior in the minutest detail, discovered that the only way to get him off the roof of her house after an escape (much better than any reward or threat of punishment) was by appealing to his sympathy:

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Figure 7.4. Consolation among chimpanzees: A juvenile puts an arm around a screaming adult male who has just been defeated in a fight with a rival. This behavior is almost identical in both form and circumstances to expressions of sympathetic concern in humans. Photograph by the author.

If I pretend to be crying, close my eyes and weep, Joni immediately stops his plays or any other activities, quickly runs over to me, all excited and shagged, from the most remote places in the house, such as the roof or the ceiling of his cage, from where I could not drive him down despite my persistent calls and entreaties. He hastily runs around me, as if looking for the offender; looking at my face, he tenderly takes my chin in his palm, lightly touches my face with his finger, as though trying to understand what is happening, and turns around, clenching his toes into firm fists (Ladygina-Kohts, 2001 [1935], p. 121).

Similar reports are discussed by de Waal (1996, 1997a), who suggests that apart from emotional connectedness, apes have an appreciation of the other’s situation and a degree of perspective-taking. Apes show the same empathic capacity that was so enduringly described by Adam Smith (1937 [1759], p. 10) as “changing places in fancy with the sufferer.” Chimpanzee consolation of distressed parties is well documented (Figure 7.4).

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De Waal and van Roosmalen (1979) based their conclusions on an analysis of hundreds of post-conflict observations, and a replication by de Waal and Aureli (1996) included an even larger sample in which the authors sought to test two relatively simple predictions. If third-party contacts indeed serve to alleviate the distress of conflict participants, these contacts should be directed more at recipients of aggression than at aggressors, and more at recipients of intense aggression than of mild one. Comparing third-party contact rates with baseline levels, we found support for both predictions. At present, several quantified accounts of consolation behavior in apes show that the behavior qualifies as sympathetic concern since it follows predictions from empathy-based explanations. For example, apes show the same-sex bias as observed in Zahn-Waxler’s child studies, with females consoling more than males, and the behavior is generally aimed at partners that are socially close (Clay & de Waal, 2013a; Palagi, Paoli, & Borgognini Tarli, 2004; Romero, Castellanos, & de Waal, 2010). Russian Doll Model The literature includes many accounts of empathy as a cognitive affair, even to the point that apes, let alone other animals, probably lack it. This “topdown” view equates empathy with mental state attribution and theory-ofmind (ToM). The opposite position has recently been defended, however, in relation to autistic children. Contra earlier assumptions that autism reflects a deficit in ToM, autism is noticeable well before the age of 4 years at which ToM typically emerges. Williams, Whiten, Suddendorf, and Perrett (2001) argue that the main deficit of autism concerns the socio-affective level, which then negatively impacts more sophisticated downstream forms of interpersonal perception, such as ToM (see also Baron-Cohen, 2004). Preston and de Waal (2002a) propose that at the core of the empathic capacity is a basic mechanism that provides an observer (the “subject”) with access to the subjective state of another (the “object”) through the subject’s own neural and bodily representations. When the subject attends to the object’s state, the subject’s neural representations of similar states are automatically activated. The more similar the subject and object, the more the object will activate matching peripheral motor and autonomic responses in the subject (e.g., changes in heart rate, skin conductance, facial expression, body posture). This activation allows the subject to understand that the object also has an extended consciousness including thoughts, feelings, and needs, which in turn foster sympathy, compassion, and helping.

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Figure 7.5. The Russian Doll model of empathy. Empathy induces a similar emotional state in the subject as the object, with the perception-action mechanism (PAM) at its core. The doll’s outer layers, such as sympathetic concern and perspective-taking, build on this hard-wired socio-affective basis. Even though the doll’s outer layers depend on prefrontal functioning and an increasing self-other distinction, they remain fundamentally linked to its inner core. Based on de Waal (2008).

This “bottom-up” view, which may also include the cellular level (e.g., mirror neurons; di Pelligrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese, & Rizzolatti, 1992), has the perception-action mechanism (PAM) at its core and other layers around it, as in a Russian doll (de Waal, 2008; Figure 7.5). Accordingly, empathy covers all forms of one individual’s emotional state affecting another’s, with simple mechanisms at its core and more complex mechanisms, cognitive filters, and perspective-taking abilities built on top. In conclusion, empathy is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon: It covers a wide range of emotional linkage patterns, from the very simple and automatic to the very sophisticated. It seems logical to first try to understand the more basic forms, which are widespread indeed, before addressing the interesting variations that cognitive evolution has constructed on top of this foundation. This view of empathy is a layered one. Instead of driving wedges between, let us say, emotional contagion versus empathy, compassion versus sympathy, or automatic versus deliberate empathy, I consider all of these capacities connected. None of them could probably exist without the others. For example, what would empathy be without emotional engagement? Psychopaths may be capable of perspective-taking that superficially looks like empathy, but given their lack of emotional investment, they cannot truly be called

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empathetic (Mullins-Nelson, Salekin, & Leistico, 2006). Instead of viewing emotional contagion, personal distress, and other emotional reactions as distinct from empathy defined by perspective-taking, or theory of mind, I see them as being at the heart of it. This reflects a typically biological way of thinking, stressing the unity behind a phenomenon and the realization that evolution rarely throws out anything. It rarely replaces one trait with another. Traits are transformed, modified, co-opted for other functions, or “tweaked” in another direction, in what Darwin called descent with modification. Thus, the frontal fins of fish became the front limbs of land animals, which over time turned into hooves, paws, wings, hands, and flippers. In the case of empathy, this means that the simple forms remain very much present in the more advanced ones.

Cooperation Reciprocity Chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys – the two species I work with the most – are special because they are among the very few primates that share food outside the mother-offspring context. The capuchin is a small animal, easy to work with, as opposed to the chimpanzee, which is many times stronger than humans are. But chimpanzees, too, are interested in each other’s food and will share on occasion – sometimes even hand over a piece of food to another. Most sharing, however, is passive, where one individual will reach for food owned by another, who will let go. But even such passive sharing is special compared to most animals, in which such a situation might result in a fight or assertion by the dominant, without sharing. To measure the degree of reciprocity in chimpanzee food sharing, a second service needed to be included. For this, grooming between individuals prior to food sharing was used. The frequency and duration of hundreds of spontaneous grooming bouts in a group of captive apes was measured. Within half an hour after the end of these observations, the apes were given two tightly bound bundles of leaves and branches and nearly 7,000 interactions over food were recorded. It was found that adults were more likely to share food with individuals who had groomed them earlier in the day. In other words, if A groomed B in the morning, B was more likely than usual to share food with A later in the same day. Also, aggressive protest by food possessors to approaching individuals was aimed more at those who had not groomed them than at previous groomers. Of all existing examples of reciprocal altruism in nonhuman animals, the exchange of food for grooming in chimpanzees comes closest to fulfilling the requirements of

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calculated reciprocity – memory-based, partner-specific exchange (de Waal, 1997b). Another experiment concerned the idea that monkeys cooperate on a tit-for-tat basis. Inspired by a classic 1930s study, we presented a pair of capuchin monkeys with a tray with two pull bars attached to it (de Waal & Berger, 2000). Both monkeys sat in a test chamber with mesh between them, so that they could see each other and share food through the mesh. The tray was counterweighed such that a single monkey could not pull it: They needed to work together. Only one side was baited, meaning that only one of the two monkeys would obtain a food reward. After successful pulls we measured how much food the possessor shared with its helper. Possessors could easily keep the food by sitting in the corner and eating alone, but they did not do so. We found that food sharing after cooperative efforts was higher than after solo efforts. That is, the possessor of food shared more with the monkey on the other side of the mesh if this partner had played a role in securing the food than if the possessor had acquired the food on its own. Capuchins thus seem to reward helpers for their efforts, which is of course also a way of keeping assistants motivated. Fairness The experiments described in the preceding section relate to the distribution of payoffs: How skewed can it be before cooperation disappears? According to a recent theory, the well-known human aversion to inequity relates to the need to maintain cooperation (Fehr & Schmidt, 1999). Similarly, cooperative nonhuman species seem guided by a set of expectations about payoff distribution. De Waal proposed a sense of social regularity, defined as [a] set of expectations about the way in which oneself (or others) should be treated and how resources should be divided. Whenever reality deviates from these expectations to one’s (or the other’s) disadvantage, a negative reaction ensues, most commonly protest by subordinate individuals and punishment by dominant individuals (de Waal, 1996, p. 95).

Note that the expectations have not been specified: they are species-typical. To explore expectations held by capuchin monkeys, we made use of their ability to judge and respond to value. We knew from previous studies that capuchins easily learn to assign value to tokens. Furthermore, they can use these assigned values to complete a simple barter. This allowed a test to elucidate inequity aversion by measuring the reactions of subjects to a partner receiving a superior reward for the same tokens.

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We paired each monkey with a group mate and watched reactions if their partners got a better reward for doing the same bartering task. This consisted of an exchange in which the experimenter gave the subject a token that could immediately be returned for a reward. Each session consisted of 25 exchanges by each individual, and subjects always saw their partner’s exchange immediately before their own (Figure 7.6). Food rewards varied from low-value rewards (a cucumber piece), which they are usually happy to work for, to high-value rewards (a grape), which were preferred by all individuals tested. Individuals who received lower-value rewards showed both passive negative reactions if their partner received better food (i.e., refusal to exchange the token, ignoring the reward) and active rejections (i.e., violently throwing out the token or reward). Compared to tests in which both received identical rewards, the capuchins were far less willing to complete the exchange or accept the reward (Brosnan & de Waal, 2003). Of course, there is the possibility that subjects were reacting to the mere presence of the higher-value food and that what the partner received (free or not) did not affect their reaction. However, a replication of the study with more subjects and more control conditions showed that the reaction is not attributable to available foods or to what kind of food has been received previously. This new study confirmed that the reactions are due specifically to what the partner is getting, and added effort as a factor, in the sense that the most negative reactions occurred when the subject’s own effort was large and the partner was nevertheless getting better rewards (van Wolkenten, Brosnan, & de Waal, 2007). The latest experiment on fairness is the Ultimatum Game (UG) played with chimpanzees (Proctor, Williamson, de Waal, & Brosnan, 2012). The UG has become the gold standard of the human sense of fairness (G¨uth, Schmittberger, & Schwarze, 1982; Henrich et al., 2001). No one had been able to play the game successfully with nonhuman animals, the problem being that one individual needs to propose a reward division to another that the other needs to accept, a procedure that is not easily arranged without language. In the UG, one individual proposes to split a sum of money with another, but both individuals will only get their part of the split if both agree. If the partner rejects the offer, both will go without any reward. Previous tests on apes have tried to mimic the UG with complex apparatuses, but these efforts produced inconclusive or negative results (e.g., Jensen, Call, & Tomasello, 2007). We used a completely different design in which one ape was given a choice between two colored tokens (small pieces of plastic tube), each one representing a particular reward division. With his or her partner’s cooperation, this individual could exchange the

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Figure 7.6. A capuchin monkey in the test chamber returns a token to the experimenter with her right hand while steadying the human hand with her left hand. Her partner looks on. If both monkeys receive the same rewards for the task, they perform many times in alternation, but if one of the two receives a better reward than the other, the one with the lower-quality reward stops performing and becomes agitated. Drawing by Gwen Bragg and Frans de Waal based on a video still.

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token for rewards. One color offered equal rewards to both players, whereas the other color favored the individual making the choice. The chooser needed to hand the token to the partner, who then could exchange it with the experimenter for food. This way, both individuals needed to be in agreement. Testing 6 adult chimpanzees and 20 human children (ages 2–7 years), both species responded like typical human adults. If the partner’s cooperation was required, they split the rewards equally. However, with a passive partner, who had no chance to reject the offer, chimpanzees and children chose the selfish option. At this point, it is unclear if and how the human sense of fairness differs from that of the chimpanzee (Proctor et al., 2012).

Conclusion This brief review of emotional reactions related to conflict, reciprocity, distress of others, and reward division shows profound continuity between the reactions of humans and other primates. No emotional states are off the table, from forgiveness to fairness and from empathy to gratitude. Even if not all of these labels are regularly applied to the behavior of other primates, the behavioral manifestations that we humans associate with these emotional states can be demonstrated. This suggests that these states are probably less constructs of human culture, language, and education than we like to think. They are grounded in our basic biology and the need to build harmonious, cooperative relationships, a need that we share with other primates.

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Part III NEURAL MECHANISMS

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The Neural Underpinnings of Adolescent Risk-Taking: The Roles of Reward-Seeking, Impulse Control, and Peers Laurence Steinberg

Author Note Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University. This chapter summarizes findings from a program of research supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. I am indebted to the many collaborators who have worked on these studies over the years, in particular Dustin Albert, Marie Banich, Elizabeth Cauffman, Jason Chein, Sandra Graham, Lia O’Brien, Kaitlyn Uckert, and Jennifer Woolard. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University, 1701 N. 13th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This chapter summarizes results from two programs of research, the first designed to examine age differences in reward-seeking, cognitive control, and risk-taking, and the second to see whether these differences are exacerbated by the presence of peers. Findings indicate that middle adolescence (ages 14 to 17) is characterized by relatively higher reward-seeking in the context of relatively lower impulse control; heightened reward-seeking impels adolescents toward risky activity, and immature self-regulatory capabilities do not restrain this impulse. Although heightened reward-seeking in the context of immature cognitive control renders adolescents relatively more vulnerable to risky decision making, this vulnerability is further exacerbated by the impact of peers on adolescents’ sensitivity to rewards.

The greatest threats to the well-being of young people in industrialized societies come from preventable and often self-inflicted causes, including automobile and other accidents, violence, drug and alcohol use, and sexual

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risk-taking (Ozer & Irwin, 2009). Although considerable progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of disease and chronic illness among this age group, similar gains have not been made with respect to reducing the morbidity and mortality that result from risky and reckless behavior (Steinberg, 2008). Whereas rates of certain types of adolescent risk-taking, such as driving under the influence of alcohol or having unprotected sex, have dropped over time, the prevalence of risky behavior among teenagers remains high, and there has been no decline in adolescents’ risk behavior in several years (Eaton et al., 2012). In general, adolescents are more likely than adults older than 25 to binge-drink, smoke cigarettes, have casual sex partners, engage in violent and other criminal behavior, engage in deliberate self-injurious behavior, commit suicide, drown accidentally (likely due to poor judgment about safety), and have fatal or serious automobile accidents, the majority of which are caused by reckless driving or driving under the influence of alcohol. Because many forms of risk behavior initiated in adolescence elevate the risk for the behavior in adulthood (e.g., drug use), and because some forms of risk-taking by adolescents put individuals of other ages at risk (e.g., reckless driving and criminal behavior), public health experts agree that reducing the rate of risk-taking by young people would make a substantial improvement in the overall well-being of the population (Steinberg, 2008). The primary approach to reducing adolescent risk-taking in most industrialized countries has been through educational programs, most of them school-based, but there is reason to be skeptical about the effectiveness of this approach. According to the AddHealth survey (Bearman, Jones, & Udry, 1997), virtually all American adolescents have received some form of educational intervention designed to reduce smoking, drinking, drug use, and unprotected sex. Nevertheless, data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicate that about one-third of American high school students did not use a condom either the first time or the last time they had sexual intercourse, that during the month before the survey nearly 15% of high school seniors rode in a car driven by someone who had been drinking, that 20% reported multiple episodes of binge-drinking during the previous two weeks, and that nearly 20% were regular cigarette smokers (Eaton et al., 2012). The high rate of risky behavior among adolescents relative to adults, despite massive, ongoing, and costly efforts to educate teenagers about its potentially harmful consequences, has been the focus of much theorizing and empirical research by developmental scientists for at least 25 years. In general, where investigators have looked to find differences between

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adolescents and adults that would explain the more frequent risky behavior of youth, they have not been successful. Among the widely held beliefs about adolescent risk-taking that have not been supported empirically are that adolescents are irrational or deficient in their information processing or that they reason about risk in fundamentally different ways than adults do, that adolescents do not perceive risks where adults do or are more likely to believe that they are invulnerable, and that adolescents are less risk-averse than adults are (for an overview, see Albert & Steinberg, 2011a). None of these assertions is correct: The logical reasoning and basic informationprocessing abilities of 16-year-olds are comparable to those of adults; adolescents are no worse than adults at perceiving risk or estimating their vulnerability to it; and increasing the salience of the risks associated with making a poor or potentially dangerous decision has comparable effects on adolescents and adults (for a summary, see Steinberg, 2008). Indeed, most studies find few, if any, age differences in individuals’ evaluations of the risks inherent in a wide range of dangerous behaviors (e.g., driving while drunk, having unprotected sex), in their judgments about the seriousness of the consequences that might result from risky behavior, or in the ways that they evaluate the relative costs and benefits of these activities. In short, adolescents’ greater involvement than adults in risk-taking does not stem from ignorance, irrationality, delusions of invulnerability, or faulty calculations (Reyna & Farley, 2006). The fact that adolescents are as knowledgeable, logical, reality-based, and accurate in the ways in which they think about risky activity as adults, but nevertheless engage in higher rates of risky behavior, raises important considerations for both scientists and practitioners. For the former, this observation invites us to think differently about the factors that may contribute to age differences in risky behavior and to ask what it is that changes between adolescence and adulthood that might account for these differences. For the latter, the observation demands that we ask why educational interventions have been so limited in their success and raise the possibility that providing adolescents with information and decision-making skills may be an ineffective strategy. If we wish to change adolescents’ behavior and not just their knowledge or beliefs, we need a new approach to public health interventions aimed at reducing adolescent risk-taking.

The Dual Systems Model of Adolescent Risk-Taking In the past several years, a new perspective on risk-taking and decision making during adolescence has emerged, one that is informed by advances in

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developmental neuroscience (Casey, Jones, & Somerville, 2011; Steinberg, 2008, 2010). According to this view, risky behavior in adolescence is the product of the interaction between changes in two distinct neurobiological systems: a “socioemotional incentive processing” system, which is localized in limbic and paralimbic areas of the brain, including the amygdala, ventral striatum, orbitofrontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and superior temporal sulcus; and a “cognitive control” system, which is mainly composed of the lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices and those parts of the anterior cingulate cortex with which they are interconnected (Steinberg, 2008). According to this “dual systems” model, adolescent risk-taking is hypothesized to be stimulated by a rapid and dramatic increase in dopaminergic activity within the socioemotional system around the time of puberty, which is presumed to lead to increases in reward-seeking (Galv´an, 2010). However, this increase in reward-seeking precedes the structural maturation of the cognitive control system and its connections to areas of the socioemotional system, a maturational process that is gradual, unfolds over the course of adolescence, and permits more advanced self-regulation and impulse control (Luna, Padmanabhan, & O’Hearn, 2010). The temporal gap between the arousal of the socioemotional system, which is an early adolescent development, and the full maturation of the cognitive control system, which occurs later, creates a period of heightened vulnerability to risk-taking during middle adolescence (Steinberg, 2008; Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, & Banich, 2009). Although aspects of this “dual systems” approach have received some criticism (Pfeifer & Allen, 2012), its general parameters remain unchallenged, and neurobiological evidence in support of the model has been rapidly accumulating. For example, a growing literature, derived primarily from rodent studies, but with implications for human development, indicates substantial remodeling of the dopaminergic system at puberty, especially with respect to projections from mesolimbic areas (e.g., striatum) to the prefrontal cortex. These projections increase during mid- and late adolescence and then decline (Doremus-Fitzwater, Varlinskaya, & Spear, 2010). Because dopamine plays a critical role in the brain’s reward circuitry, the increase, reduction, and redistribution of dopamine receptors around puberty is likely to increase reward-sensitivity and reward-seeking. There is equally compelling neurobiological evidence for changes in brain structure and function during adolescence and the early 20s that facilitate improvements in self-regulation and permit individuals to modulate their inclinations to seek rewards, although this development is presumed

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to unfold along a different timetable than the development of rewardsensitivity and to be independent of puberty (Albert & Steinberg, 2011a; Smith, Chein, & Steinberg, 2013). As a consequence of synaptic pruning and the continued myelination of prefrontal brain regions, there are improvements over the course of adolescence in many aspects of executive function, such as response inhibition, planning ahead, weighing risks and rewards, and the simultaneous consideration of multiple sources of information. There is also improved coordination of affect and cognition, which is facilitated by the increased connectivity between regions associated with the socioemotional and cognitive control systems. Research on adolescent behavioral development has not kept pace with advances in our understanding of brain development, however, and the notion that the developmental course of reward-sensitivity (thought to increase between preadolescence and middle adolescence and then decline) differs from that of impulse control (thought to increase gradually over adolescence and continue to increase into early adulthood) has not been examined systematically. Thus, while there is good evidence that risk-taking is higher during adolescence than during preadolescence or adulthood, it is not clear whether the increase and then decline in risk-taking that occurs at this time stems from changes in reward-sensitivity, changes in impulse control, or some combination of the two (Casey et al., 2011). Most discussions of the development of self-regulation in adolescence tend to emphasize improvements in executive function, which are certainly noteworthy. But as I argue in this chapter, a complete story must also include consideration of changes in reward-sensitivity. Adolescence is not a vulnerable time simply because self-control is immature. It is a vulnerable time because this immaturity coincides with a period during which individuals are especially motivated to seek rewarding experiences. It is also important to remember that reward-seeking and cognitive control influence adolescent behavior in context. One of the limitations of extant work on risky decision making is that our assessment of risk-taking usually occurs under conditions in which emotional arousal and social influence are deliberately minimized (Steinberg, 2004). Individuals are generally tested alone in laboratory settings using hypothetical dilemmas. In the real world, however, adolescents’ risk-taking, more often than not, occurs when they are with peers, and when they are emotionally aroused (Albert & Steinberg, 2011b). To put it concretely, answering a questionnaire in a university office about making risky decisions is not the same thing as making those sorts of decisions when one is with friends out in the real world.

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My colleagues and I have been especially interested in the impact of peers on adolescents’ risky decision making. Adolescents’ risk-taking usually occurs when they are in groups. This is true with respect to experimentation with alcohol and illicit drugs, antisocial behavior, and reckless driving (Steinberg, 2008). Our interest has been in examining whether this “peer effect” is related to age differences in reward-sensitivity and cognitive control (Albert & Steinberg, 2011b). In this chapter I summarize results from two programs of research, the first designed to examine whether age differences in reward-seeking, cognitive control, and risk-taking are consistent with predictions derived from the dual systems model, and the second to see whether these differences are exacerbated by the presence of peers.

Age Differences in Reward-Seeking and Cognitive Control Our primary study of age differences in reward-seeking and cognitive control employed five U.S. data collection sites: Denver, Irvine (California), Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. The sample includes 935 individuals between the ages of 10 and 30 years, recruited to yield an age distribution designed both to facilitate the examination of age differences within the adolescent decade and to compare adolescents of different ages with young adults. In order to have cells with sufficiently large and comparably sized subsamples for purposes of data analysis, age groups were created as follows: 10–11 years (N = 116), 12–13 years (N = 137), 14–15 years (N = 128), 16–17 years (N = 141), 18–21 years (N = 138), 22–25 years (N = 136), and 26–30 years (N = 123). The sample was evenly split between males and females and was ethnically diverse. Participants were predominantly working and middle class. Research participants were recruited via newspaper advertisements and flyers posted at community organizations, churches, community colleges, and local places of business in neighborhoods targeted to have an average household education level of “some college” according to 2000 U.S. Census data. Data collection took place either at one of the participating university’s offices or at a location in the community where it was possible to administer the test battery in a quiet and private location (more details about the study can be found in Steinberg, Cauffman et al., 2009). Participants completed a two-hour assessment that consisted of a series of computerized tasks, a set of computer-administered self-report measures, a demographic questionnaire, several computerized tests of general intellectual function (e.g., digit span, working memory), and an assessment of

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IQ. The tasks were administered in individual interviews. Research assistants were present to monitor the participant’s progress, reading aloud the instructions as each new task was presented and providing assistance as needed. The age groups did not differ with respect to gender or ethnicity but did differ (albeit very modestly) with respect to SES and IQ. As such, all subsequent analyses controlled for these variables. A widely used measure of Self-Reported Impulsivity, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, Version 11, adapted for use with adolescents (Fossati, Barratt, Acquarini, & Di Ceglie, 2002), was part of the questionnaire battery; the measure has been shown to have good construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. Based on inspection of the full list of items (the scale has 6 subscales comprising 34 items) and some exploratory factor analyses, we opted to use only 18 items (α = .73) from three 6-item subscales: motor impulsivity (e.g., “I act on the spur of the moment”), inability to delay gratification (e.g., “I spend more money than I should”), and lack of perseverance (e.g., “It’s hard for me to think about two different things at the same time”). This 18-item scale showed excellent fit to the data (NFI = .912, CFI = .952, RMSEA = .033), and reliability of the scale is α = .73. Scores on these items were averaged to form a total impulsivity score. Self-Reported Reward-Seeking was assessed using a subset of 6 items from the Sensation Seeking Scale (Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978). Many of the items on the full 19-item Zuckerman scale appear to measure impulsivity, not sensation seeking (e.g., “I often do things on impulse.” “I usually think about what I am going to do before doing it.”). In view of our interest in distinguishing between impulsivity and reward-seeking, we used only the six Zuckerman items that clearly index reward or novelty seeking (e.g., “I like to have new and exciting experiences and sensations even if they are a little frightening.”, “I’ll try anything once.”, “I sometimes do ‘crazy’ things just for fun.”). Item scores were averaged. The resulting 6-item scale showed an excellent fit to the data (NFI = .955, CFI = .967, RMSEA = .053) and good internal consistency (α = .70). We used the Tower of London task, which is typically used to measure planning and executive function, to generate a behavioral index of impulsivity. In the version of the task employed in the present study (Berg & Byrd, 2002), the subject is presented with pictures of two sets of three colored balls distributed across three rods, one of which can hold three balls, one two balls, and the last only one ball. The first picture shows the starting positioning of the three balls, and the second depicts the goal position. The

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subject is asked to move the balls in the starting arrangement to match the other arrangement in as few moves as necessary, using the computer cursor to “drag” and “drop” each ball. Five sets of four problems are presented, beginning with four that can be solved in three moves and progressing to those that require a minimum of seven moves. In the administration of the task, the starting and goal positions are displayed, and the subject takes as much (or as little) time as necessary before making each move. Hasty performance, particularly with respect to first moves on each problem, has been linked to response inhibition difficulties among children, adolescents, and adults (Asato, Sweeney, & Luna, 2006). Shorter latencies to first move indicate greater impulsivity. A modified version of the Iowa Gambling Task provided a behavioral measure of reward-seeking. The task is a widely used measure designed to assess risky decision making under conditions of uncertainty. In the version of the task employed here, individuals attempt to earn pretend money by playing or passing cards from 4 different decks, presented on the computer screen. As in the original task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), two of the decks are advantageous and result in a monetary gain over repeated play; the other two decks are disadvantageous and produce a net loss. The task was modified such that participants made a play/pass decision with regard to one of four decks preselected on each trial, rather than deciding to choose to draw from any of the four decks on any trial, as in the original task. This type of modification permits one to independently track behavior that reflects reward-seeking (i.e., selecting advantageous decks) versus behavior that reflects cost aversion (i.e., avoiding disadvantageous decks) (Peters & Slovic, 2000). In addition to modifying the response option (i.e., play/pass), we also modified the outcome feedback, such that participants received information on the net gain or loss associated with a card, rather than information on both a gain and the loss separately (Bechara et al., 1994). In order to examine whether the two behavioral tasks did, as proposed, differentially index reward-seeking and impulsivity, regression analyses were conducted in which the two self-report measures were considered as simultaneous predictors of the two behavioral tasks’ principal outcome measures. As expected, in the regression predicting average time to first move on the Tower of London from self-reported impulsivity and sensation-seeking, self-reported impulsivity is a significant predictor (ß = −.082, p < .05), but self-reported sensation-seeking is not (ß = .059, ns) (Steinberg et al., 2008). In contrast, in the comparable regression analysis predicting draws from the advantageous decks in the final block of the Iowa Gambling Task

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(IGT) (when participants presumably had begun to figure out which decks were advantageous), self-reported impulsivity is not a significant predictor (ß = −.062, ns) but self-reported sensation-seeking is (ß = .091, p < .05). Additionally, self-reported sensation-seeking is not predictive of draws from the disadvantageous decks on the final block of the IGT (ß = .037, ns), suggesting that avoidance of the bad decks is not driven by the same psychological factors as is preference for the rewarding ones. In order to test the hypothesis that reward-seeking increases in early adolescence and then declines, but that impulsivity shows a gradual decline with age, continuing through late adolescence and into young adulthood, age differences in these self-reports were examined via sets of two hierarchical multiple regression analyses (for details, see Steinberg et al., 2008). Age, IQ, and SES were entered on the first step, and the quadratic term for age entered on the second step. Results of the first set of regression analyses indicated significant linear and curvilinear effects of age on reward-seeking (ß = −.115, p < .001, and ß = −.437, p < .005, for the linear and quadratic terms, respectively) but only a linear effect of age on impulsivity (ß = −.149, p < .001, and ß = −.091, ns, respectively). Consistent with our hypothesis, reward-seeking increases during the first half of adolescence and then declines steadily from age 16 on. In contrast, impulsivity declines or remains stable over the entire 20-year period studied. Age differences in participants’ time before first move on the Tower of London task, our behavioral measure of impulsivity, were examined using a repeated-measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with age, gender, and ethnicity as the independent variables; IQ and SES as covariates; and individuals’ average time (in milliseconds) before making a first move at each level of problem difficulty (three-, four-, five-, six-, and seven-moves) as a five-level within-subjects factor. Analyses revealed a significant effect of age on average time to first move, with older subjects taking more time before moving than younger ones (F(6, 813) = 17.58, p < .001). More interesting, however, there was a significant interaction between age and problem difficulty, such that with increasing problem difficulty, older, but not younger, subjects waited longer before their first move (F(24, 3252) = 8.976, p < .001). Indeed, the three youngest groups (ages 10–11, 12–13, and 14–15) generally did not wait any longer before their first move in the most difficult (7-move) problems than in the easiest ones (3 moves). In order to examine age differences in reward-seeking on the Iowa Gambling Task, we examined change over time in draws from the advantageous and disadvantageous decks. Our hypothesis that reward-seeking peaks in

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mid-adolescence (i.e., between 14 and 17) was tested via two regression analyses (one predicting change in pulls from good decks between the first and last blocks of the task, and one for change in pulls from bad decks); in each, we entered age, IQ, and SES on the first step of the regression and the quadratic term for age on the second. As expected, and consistent with participants’ self-reports of sensation-seeking, draws from the advantageous decks increased between preadolescence and ages 16–17 and then declined; the linear term was non-significant (ß = −.024, ns), but the curvilinear term was (ß = −.577, p < .001). In contrast, in the prediction of change in pulls from the bad decks showed only a pattern of linear change over time, with individuals becoming more cost-averse with age (ß = −.114, p < .001); the quadratic term was not significant (ß = .051, ns). We also analyzed these data using multilevel modeling and came to the same conclusion (Cauffman et al., 2010). According to their own reports, therefore, and as reflected in their performance on computer tasks designed to measure reward-seeking and impulsivity, adolescents and adults differ along both dimensions in ways that are theoretically coherent with recent research on adolescent brain development, which points to extensive and dramatic remodeling of reward circuitry early in adolescence but protracted maturation of brain systems implicated in self-regulation. The observed pattern of age differences on the self-report and performance measures of impulsivity were comparable, with both indicating gradual but steady gains in impulse control between ages 10 and 30. Similarly, both measures of reward-seeking showed the predicted curvilinear relation with age, with reward-seeking generally higher in middle adolescence (ages 14 to 17) than before or after. These findings are exactly what is predicted from the dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking and are consistent with a recent analysis of data from the large-scale Children of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, which also found that age differences in self-reported sensation seeking followed an inverted U-shaped pattern between ages 12 and 24, with sensation seeking peaking in mid-adolescence, whereas self-reported impulsivity declined linearly over this age range (Harden & Tucker-Drob, 2011). The heightened reward-seeking during mid-adolescence calls to mind other studies of sensation-seeking (e.g., Stephenson, Hoyle, Palmgreen, & Slater, 2003) and reward-sensitivity (e.g., Galv´an, et al., 2006), which show increases in both during the early adolescent years. The linear decline in self-reported impulsivity also is consistent with prior research (e.g., Galv´an, Hare, Voss, Glover, & Casey, 2007) and with findings reported in studies of self-reported impulsivity that have included middle

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adolescents and adults (e.g., Leshem & Glicksohn, 2007). Our finding of a linear decline in hasty behavior on the Tower of London is consistent with previous studies using this paradigm (e.g., Asato et al., 2006) as well as numerous behavioral studies that compare children, adolescents, and adults on a range of self-regulatory tasks such as the antisaccade, Flanker, Go/NoGo, and Stroop (see Casey, Getz, & Galv´an, 2008). Thus, converging evidence from questionnaire, behavioral, and neurobiological studies indicates that impulse control not only improves between childhood and adolescence but continues to improve between adolescence and adulthood as well.

The Impact of Peers on Adolescent Risk-Taking As I noted earlier, adolescents’ risky behavior occurs more often with peers than is the case among adults (Steinberg, 2008). This is not simply due to the fact that adolescents spend more time with peers. In an experiment we conducted several years ago, adolescents (mean age = 14), youths (mean age = 19), and adults (mean age = 37) were tested on a computer driving task that mimicked the real-life experience of approaching a yellow light and deciding whether to stop and wait for the light to turn green again or drive through the intersection and risk being hit by an unseen car (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005). Peer context was manipulated by randomly assigning each group of three participants to play the game either individually (alone in the room), or with two same-aged observers present. When tested alone, the three age groups engaged in a comparable amount of risk-taking. However, when tested with peers in the room, adolescents and youths showed a significant increase in risk-taking, whereas adults did not. Specifically, adolescents scored twice as high on an index of risky driving when tested with their peers in the room, relative to when they were alone, whereas the college-aged group was approximately 50% riskier, and adults showed no differences in risky driving related to context. This experimental demonstration of heightened peer influence on risk-taking in adolescence represents an important advance over prior studies correlating adolescents’ risk behavior with behavior reported by their peers, findings that are subject to alternative explanations like selection or opportunity effects. How can we account for this age difference in risky behavior in response to the presence of peers? Developmental neuroscience provides some clues (Pfeifer & Blakemore, 2012). Puberty-related increases in gonadal hormones have been linked to a proliferation of receptors for oxytocin within the limbic system, including such structures as the amygdala and nucleus accumbens (Spear, 2009). Oxytocin neurotransmission has been implicated in a variety

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of social behaviors, including facilitation of social bonding and recognition and memory for positive social stimuli (Insel & Fernald, 2004). This evidence for puberty-related increases in gonadal hormones and oxytocin receptors is consistent with changes in a constellation of social behaviors observed in adolescence. In addition to reporting a spike in interest in opposite-sex relationships, adolescents begin to spend more time interacting with peers, and report the highest degree of happiness when they are doing so (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi, Larson, & Prescott, 1977). This behavioral shift toward peer affiliation appears highly conserved across species; adolescent rats also spend more time than younger or older rats interacting with peers, with evidence that such interactions are highly rewarding (Spear, 2009). Moreover, recent developmental neuroimaging studies indicate that, relative to children and adults, adolescents show heightened activation within the socioemotional system in response to a variety of social stimuli, such as facial expressions and social feedback (Burnett, Sebastian, Kadosh, & Blakemore, 2011). In other words, not only are adolescents potentially more responsive to rewards, but due to puberty-related increases in sensitivity to social and emotional stimuli, this inclination toward approaching risky rewards may be exacerbated when adolescents are in the presence of their peers. Empirical and theoretical work detailing the influence of affective states on decision making suggests plausible neurobiological mechanisms for how such a peer effect might be instantiated in the brain (Winkielman, Knutson, Paulus, & Trujillo, 2007). Pointing to the extensive structural overlap of neurobiological systems mediating processing of socioemotional and incentive stimuli, it has been suggested that positive emotional responses may sensitize incentive circuitry toward activation of approach responses to appetitive stimuli. Given evidence of puberty-related intensification of socioemotional reactivity in adolescence, my colleagues and I have suggested that adolescents are more likely than their younger counterparts to strongly activate such circuitry when in the presence of their peers, resulting in greater sensitization to the reward value of risky choices (Albert & Steinberg, 2011b). We have found evidence for this account in several studies. In the large study of age differences in reward-seeking and cognitive control discussed earlier in this chapter, we had participants play a risky driving game similar to that employed in the Gardner and Steinberg (2005) study. As expected, adolescents took more risks than adults did, with risky driving especially apparent among the younger adolescents (Steinberg et al., 2008). But two additional findings from these analyses are especially intriguing and relevant to the present discussion. First, risky driving on this task was correlated

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with higher scores on our index of reward-seeking, but not with scores on measures of impulse control, suggesting that risky driving on this task may be the result of sensation-seeking rather than poor impulse control. Second, risky driving was correlated with self-reported pubertal development, even after controlling for chronological age. Given other research showing a link between pubertal maturation and reward-seeking (see Forbes & Dahl, 2010; Martin et al., 2001), this finding is consistent with our hypothesis that it is an increase in reward-seeking, rather than simply diminished self-control, that partly accounts for the rise in risky behavior during adolescence. We have tested this proposition in several studies, and have found evidence in support of the notion that the presence of peers increases adolescents’ risky behavior by increasing their sensitivity to reward. In one study (O’Brien, Albert, Chein, & Steinberg, 2011), we administered a standard delay-discounting task to late adolescents (aged 18–20), randomly assigning them to perform the task either alone or in the presence of two friends. In this paradigm, the participant is presented with a series of choices between a relatively small, immediate reward (e.g., $200 today) and a larger, delayed reward (e.g., $1,000 in one year). An extensive empirical literature links the propensity to discount the value of delayed rewards to behaviors and traits indicative of preference for immediate rewards, such as substance use (e.g., Petry, 2002), as well as weaker future orientation (e.g., Steinberg, Graham et al., 2009). We hypothesized that the presence of peers would lead individuals to evince a stronger preference for immediate rewards. In our version of the discounting task, the amount of the delayed reward was held constant at $1,000. We varied the length of the delay in 6 blocks (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year), presented in a random order. The respondent was asked to choose between an immediate reward of a given amount and a delayed reward of $1,000 (e.g., “Would you rather have $200 today or $1000 in six months?”). If the immediate reward was preferred, the subsequent question presented an immediate reward midway between the prior one and zero. If the delayed reward was preferred, the subsequent question presented an immediate reward midway between the prior one and $1,000. Participants then worked their way through these ascending and descending choices, choosing between the reward just rejected and the previously rejected lower or higher reward, until their responses converged and their preference for the immediate and delayed reward were equal, at a value reflecting the “discounted” value of the delayed reward (i.e., the subjective value of the delayed reward if it were offered immediately; Green, Myerson, & Macaux, 2005), referred to as the indifference point (Ohmura, Takahashi, Kitamura, & Wehr, 2006). For each

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individual we computed the indifference point for each delay interval, the average indifference point, and the discount rate, which is an index of the degree to which an individual devalues a reward as a function of the length of delay to receipt. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that participants who performed the task with their friends watching evinced a significantly lower average indifference point than did those who performed the task alone (F(1, 98) = 4.02, p < .05, d = .397). We also found that participants who were observed by their peers more strongly discounted the value of delayed rewards, indicating a stronger preference for more immediate rewards than shown by those who performed the task alone (F(1, 92) = 6.48, p < .05, d = .498). The peer effect found using the delay-discounting task argues against the idea that adolescents take more risks when they are with their friends simply to impress them with their “courageousness.” In this study, we showed that adolescents’ reward processing, and not just their risk-taking, was influenced by the presence of peers; there was no risk involved in choosing immediate rather than delayed rewards. I should note as well that in experiments we have conducted to examine the impact of peers on adolescents’ cognitive control, we find no peer effect; that is, adolescents do not demonstrate either weaker or stronger impulse control when they are with their friends than they do when they are alone. This has led us to speculate that the impact of peers on adolescents’ risky behavior is not through interference with cognitive control but through hyperactivation of reward-seeking. We tested the hypothesis that the peer effect on adolescents’ risky behavior was due to the intervening impact of peers on reward-sensitivity by adapting our risky driving paradigm for use in the fMRI environment, where we were able to compare patterns of brain activation found when participants performed the task alone versus with their friends watching (Chein, Albert, O’Brien, Uckert, & Steinberg, 2011). All participants were scanned in both conditions, with the order of the conditions counterbalanced across participants. In one session, the participants completed the tasks while their peers were observing their performance from the scanner control room, on a computer monitor; in the other session, participants completed the task with no observation. In each case, participants were made aware of whether their friends were able to see their performance. In order for the interaction to be ecologically valid, immediately before the observation condition began, the peers were permitted to speak authentically while informing the scanned participant of their presence, demonstrating their ability to observe task

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performance on the monitor. The peers were carefully instructed to make these specific points during the interaction, however, and to avoid comments that might explicitly or intentionally bias behavior. As in Gardner and Steinberg (2005), we found that adolescents, but not adults, took significantly more risks when observed by peers than when alone. We do not yet know whether this peer effect on risk-taking is limited to situations in which adolescents are in the presence of same-aged individuals, or whether a comparable phenomenon would be apparent if the observers were adults. Our group is currently conducting research, with support from the U.S. Army, to see if risky decision making in groups of late adolescents can be attenuated by the presence of an older individual, a question of great practical importance to the military, which groups individuals into “fireteams” for combat missions, but which heretofore has not considered whether some age mixes are superior to others. Consistent with our hypothesis that peers influence risk-taking through their impact on reward-sensitivity, we found significant age by social context interactions on brain activity in the ventral striatum (VS) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) – regions known to be involved in reward prediction and valuation. Specifically, we saw significantly greater activation of the VS and OFC among adolescents when they were observed by peers relative to when they were alone, but did not see differences in the older individuals. Moreover, we found a significant correlation between the magnitude of increase in VS activity when peers were present and the number of risky driving decisions that individuals made. Although adults showed no differences related to peer context in activation of socioemotional reward centers, they did show stronger activation of cognitive control regions than did adolescents in both conditions, consistent with the notion that impulse control increases during adolescence and young adulthood. Because peers were located in a separate room and were prevented from interacting with participants during the task, adolescents’ heightened inclination to take risks when watched by their friends in this study cannot be explained by greater explicit encouragement from their peers to engage in risky behavior. In other words, the observed peer effect was not due to overt “peer pressure.” Instead, we posit that the risk-promoting effect of peer presence on adolescent decision making arises from a neural vulnerability that emerges due to the discordant maturation of the brain systems that influence decision making, and that the presence of peers differentially sensitizes adolescents to the potential rewards of risky choices. The presence of peers is not as rewarding for adults as it is for teenagers, and adults are

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better able to recruit cognitive control regions to suppress reward system activation as they enact strategic decision making. We speculate that the stronger activation of cognitive control by adults in our study, regardless of whether they were being observed, corresponds to a greater reliance on a deliberative strategy to guide decision making.

Concluding Comments To the extent that vulnerability to risk-taking during adolescence is the product of high reward-seeking and low impulse control, our findings suggest why risk-taking may increase between preadolescence and late adolescence, and then decline as individuals mature into adulthood. Middle adolescence appears to be a time of growing vulnerability to risky behavior, as this period is characterized by relatively higher reward-seeking in the context of relatively lower impulse control; heightened reward-seeking impels adolescents toward risky activity, and immature self-regulatory capabilities do not restrain this impulse. As to the other side of the inverted-U function, vulnerability toward risky behavior would be expected to decline from late adolescence on, since both reward-seeking and impulsivity diminish after this age. Although heightened reward-seeking in the context of immature cognitive control renders adolescents relatively more vulnerable to risky decision making, this vulnerability is further exacerbated by the presence of peers. Notably, it appears that the impact of peers on adolescents’ risky behavior is not through the effects of peers on adolescents’ cognitive control, but rather through the impact of peers on reward-sensitivity. This serves as an important reminder that self-regulation is the product of two interacting forces: those that impel us toward rewarding stimuli, and those that permit us to curb these inclinations. To date, far more research has focused on the development of “braking” systems than on developmental changes in the strength of the “accelerator,” but it is clear that a complete understanding of the changes in self-regulation require taking both into account. There are important practical and policy implications of this work. To the extent that normative developmental change makes adolescents more vulnerable to risky behavior, and to the extent that this vulnerability is not mainly due to lack of knowledge about risk or faulty risk perception (Steinberg, 2008), there may be more effective strategies to diminish adolescent risk-taking than ones designed to make adolescents more informed or more thoughtful. For example, interventions might attempt either to strengthen

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adolescents’ cognitive control or reduce adolescents’ opportunities to engage in harmful risk behavior. With respect to the practical implications of this research, there is evidence that interventions such as the teaching of self-regulatory strategies such as mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII; e.g., Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2011; Gawrilow, Morgenroth, Schultz, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2013; Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011; Oettingen, 2012; Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2010), as well as training specifically designed to strengthen aspects of executive function (e.g., Chein & Morrison, 2010; Morrison & Chein, 2011), improve underlying capacities that in turn may help adolescents moderate impulsive behavior (e.g., Verbeken, Braet, Goossens, & van der Oord, 2013). With regard to the policy implications of this work, strategies such as raising the price of cigarettes, more vigilantly enforcing laws governing the sale of alcohol, increasing adult supervision of adolescents during afterschool hours, and graduated drivers’ licensing would likely be more effective in limiting adolescent smoking, substance abuse, risky sexual behavior, and automobile fatalities than attempts to make adolescents wiser or more knowledgeable.

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Pfeifer, J., & Allen, N. (2012). Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends in Cognitive Science, 16, 322– 329. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.011 Pfeifer, J., & Blakemore, S.-J. (2012). Adolescent social cognitive and affective neuroscience: Past, present, and future. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 1–10. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsr099 Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision-making: Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1–44. doi: 10.1111/j.1529–1006.2006.00026.x Smith, A., Chein, J., & Steinberg, L. (2013). Impact of socio-emotional context, brain development, and pubertal maturation on adolescent decision-making. Hormones and Behavior, 64, 323–332. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.03.006 Spear, L. (2009). The behavioral neuroscience of adolescence. New York: Norton. Steinberg, L. (2004). Risk-taking in adolescence: What changes, and why? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 51–58. doi: 10.1196/annals.1308.005 Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78–106. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.002 Steinberg, L. (2010). A dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Psychobiology, 52, 216–224. doi: 10.1002/dev.20445 Steinberg, L., Albert, D., Cauffman, E., Banich, M., Graham, S., & Woolard, J. (2008). Age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity as indexed by behavior and selfreport: Evidence for a dual systems model. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1764–1778. doi: 10.1037/a0012955 Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., Woolard, J., Graham, S., & Banich, M. (2009). Are adolescents less mature than adults? Minors’ access to abortion, the juvenile death penalty, and the alleged APA “flip-flop.” American Psychologist, 64, 583–594. doi: 10.1037/a0014763 Steinberg, L., Graham, S., O’Brien, L., Woolard, J., Cauffman, E., & Banich, M. (2009). Age differences in future orientation and delay discounting. Child Development, 80, 28–44. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01244.x Stephenson, M. T., Hoyle, R. H., Palmgreen, P., & Slater, M. D. (2003). Brief measures of sensation seeking for screening and large-scale surveys. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 72, 279–286. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2003.08.003 Verbeken, S., Braet, C., Goossens, L., & van der Oord, S. (2013). Executive function training with game elements for obese children: A novel treatment to enhance selfregulatory abilities for weight-control. Behavior Research and Therapy, 51, 290–299. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2013.02.006 Winkielman, P., Knutson, B., Paulus, M., & Trujillo, J. L. (2007). Affective influence on judgments and decisions: Moving toward core mechanisms. Review of General Psychology, 11, 179–192. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.11.2.179 Zuckerman, M., Eysenck, S., & Eysenck, H. J. (1978). Sensation seeking in England and America: Cross-cultural, age, and sex comparisons. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46, 139–149. doi: 10.1037//0022-006X.46.1.139

9

Development of the Social Brain in Adolescence Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Author Note Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London. The author is supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, and by grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the Nuffield Foundation. Correspondence concerning this chapter should be addressed to Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The brain has evolved to understand and interact with other people. We are increasingly learning more about the neurophysiological basis of social cognition and what is known as the social brain, that is, the network of brain regions involved in understanding others’ minds. This chapter focuses on how the social brain develops during adolescence. Adolescence is a time characterised by change – hormonally, physically, psychologically and socially. In the past 15 years or so, research has started to focus on how the brain develops in adolescence. Large-scale structural magnetic resonance imaging studies have demonstrated development during adolescence in white matter and grey matter volumes in several brain regions. Brain imaging studies of social cognition have shown changes between adolescence and adulthood in activity in the social brain during a variety of social and affective tasks. Recent behavioural studies have shown that social cognitive behaviour and metacognitive ability also develop in adolescence.

Half a century ago, very little was known about how the human brain develops. In the second half of the 20th century, interest in brain development rapidly increased. Most research in this field relied on non-human animal

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brains and focused on early development of the brain. Data on human brain development were rare because of the scarcity of post-mortem human brains of different ages. It is only in the past 15 years or so, because of advances in neuroimaging techniques, that research has revealed a great deal about the development of the living human brain across the life span. Technical advances in brain imaging methods, in particular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI), have revolutionised what we know about how the human brain develops. It is now understood that the human brain undergoes protracted development, continuing throughout adolescence and beyond. In this chapter, I focus on how the social brain – that is, the network of brain regions involved in understanding other people’s minds – develops during adolescence. Most researchers in the field use the onset of puberty as the starting point for adolescence. The end of adolescence is harder to define, and there are significant cultural variations. However, the end of the teenage years represents a working consensus in Western countries. Adolescence is characterised by psychological changes in terms of identity, self-consciousness and relationships with others. Compared with children, adolescents are more sociable, form more complex and hierarchical peer relationships and are more sensitive to acceptance and rejection by peers (Steinberg, 2010). Although the underlying factors of these social changes are most likely to be multifaceted, one possible contribution is development of the social brain. In this chapter, I focus on development of the social brain during adolescence. I first describe the social brain network. Second, I review recent MRI studies on structural development in the living human brain, with a particular focus on regions of the social brain. Third, I discuss fMRI developmental imaging studies on the social brain during adolescence. Fourth, I discuss recent behavioural studies on social cognitive development in adolescence. Finally, I describe a recent study that investigated metacognitive ability in adolescence.

The Social Brain Humans are an exquisitely social species. We are constantly reading other people’s actions, gestures and faces in terms of underlying mental states and emotions, in an attempt to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling. This is known as ‘theory of mind’, or ‘mentalising’ (Frith & Frith, 2007). An understanding of others’ mental states plays a critical role in social interaction because it enables us to work out what other people

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mPFC pSTS

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Figure 9.1. Brain regions involved in mentalising include the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and the anterior temporal cortex (ATC).

want and what they are about to do next, and to modify our own behaviour accordingly. Developmental psychology research on theory of mind has demonstrated that the ability to understand others’ mental states develops over the first four or five years of life. While certain aspects of theory of mind are present in infancy (Baillargeon, Rose, Scott, & Hea, 2010), it is not until around the age of four or five years that children explicitly understand, and are able to report, that someone else can hold a belief that differs from their own, and which can be false (Barresi & Moore, 1996). A number of studies have shown remarkable consistency in identifying the brain regions that are involved in mentalising. These studies have employed a wide range of stimuli including stories, sentences, words, cartoons and animations, each designed to elicit the attribution of mental states (see Amodio & Frith, 2006, for review). In each case, the mentalising task resulted in the activation of a network of regions including the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), the anterior temporal cortex (ATC) and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC; Figure 9.1). The agreement between neuroimaging studies on mentalising is remarkable, and the consistent localisation of activity within

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this network suggests that these regions are key to the process of mentalising (Burnett, Sebastian, Cohen-Kadosh, & Blakemore, 2011). Meta-analyses of DMPFC activation by different mentalising tasks indicate that the peak activation lies within the anterior DMPFC (Amodio & Frith, 2006; Gilbert et al., 2006). This region is activated when one thinks about psychological states, regardless of whether these psychological states are applied to oneself (Johnson et al., 2002; Ochsner et al., 2004; van Overwalle, 2009; Vogeley et al., 2001), one’s mother (Ruby & Decety, 2004), imagined people (Goel, Grafman, Sadato, & Hallett, 1995) or animals (Mitchell, Banaji, & Macrae, 2005). Frith has proposed that the DMPFC is involved in the necessary decoupling of mental states from physical reality, whereas the pSTS/TPJ is involved in predicting what movement a conspecific is about to make (Frith, 2007; although see Saxe, 2006, for alternative viewpoint). In this chapter, I focus on how this social brain network develops in human adolescence.

Development of Brain Structure in Adolescence In the past 15 years, the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience has undergone unprecedented expansion, mostly due to technological advances in neuroimaging methodology. Research using MRI to acquire structural images from participants across the life span has revealed that the human brain continues to develop for many decades. Two main age-related changes in the human brain have been described in MRI studies. First, there is a steady increase in white matter volume in several brain regions during childhood and adolescence (Lebel et al., 2012; Lenroot et al., 2007; Westlye et al., 2010). Brain regions communicate with each other via white matter tracts. White matter volume appears to stop increasing at some point in the 30s or early 40s (Fjell et al., 2013; Lebel et al., 2012), although the precise age at which white matter stops increasing is dependent on a range of factors, including individual differences such as gender, culture, environment and genetics. Second, grey matter in the cortex undergoes non-linear changes between childhood and adulthood. Grey matter – which contains cell bodies, blood vessels and synapses – is at its greatest volume during childhood, and decreases across adolescence (Brain Development Cooperative Group, 2012; Gogtay et al., 2004; Raznahan et al., 2011; Tamnes et al., 2013). Most of the cortex undergoes significant gradual decline in grey matter volume (sometimes called cortical thinning) during the teenage years and into the early 20s or beyond (Shaw et al., 2008).

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What Do Developmental Changes in Grey Matter Represent? MRI computerised pictures of the brain are made up of thousands of tiny (typically 1mm; Giedd & Rapoport, 2010) cubes called voxels, which are classified by a computer as either white or grey. The spatial resolution of MRI is higher than other types of brain scanning, but low compared with studying brain cells under a microscope: Each voxel of white matter can contain thousands of axons. Each voxel of grey matter contains tens of thousands of neurons and millions of connecting synapses. Thus, we cannot be sure what changes in grey or white matter, as seen in MRI, correspond to at the level of the cell or the synapse, and this question is debated (Paus, Keshavan, & Giedd, 2008). The linear increase in white matter has been interpreted as reflecting continued axonal myelination during childhood and adolescence. As the brain develops, axons become coated in a fatty substance called myelin, which acts as an insulator and speeds up transmission of signals along axons. The increase in white matter volume observed in developmental MRI studies has been interpreted as axons becoming increasingly sheathed in myelin during development (Paus et al., 2008). Another interpretation is that axons increase in diameter across development (Paus et al., 2008). Both of these processes result in increased signal transmission speed, and the increases in white matter with age therefore suggest that neural signalling becomes faster as an individual gets older. The change in grey matter across development is proposed to reflect, at least in part, a key neurodevelopmental process: the reorganisation of synapses. Early in postnatal development, the brain begins to form new connections (synapses) between nerve cells (neurons) so that at some point in early development the number of connections per unit of brain tissue greatly exceeds adult levels (Hubel & Wiesel, 1962). This process of generating new synapses (called synaptogenesis) lasts up to several months or years, depending on the species of animal, and is followed by the elimination of excess synapses (called synaptic pruning; Cragg, 1975). Which synapses survive and which are selectively eliminated is partly experience-dependent in that synapses that are being used are strengthened while synapses that are not being used are pruned away (Low & Cheng, 2006). Research carried out in rhesus monkeys demonstrated that synaptic densities in the part of the brain that processes vision (visual cortex) reach maximal levels two to four months after birth, after which time pruning begins (Bourgeois, GoldmanRakic, & Rakic, 1994). Synaptic densities gradually decline to adult levels at around three years, around the time rhesus monkeys reach sexual maturity.

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In the late 1960s and 1970s, research on post-mortem human brains revealed that some brain areas continue to develop well beyond early childhood (Huttenlocher, 1979; Huttenlocher, Decourten, Garey, & Vanderloos, 1982). Post-mortem human brain data suggested that the organisation of synapses continues to change throughout childhood and adolescence in the prefrontal cortex (Webb, Monk, & Nelson, 2001). Studies involving a relatively small number of post-mortem brains, carried out by Peter Huttenlocher, showed that there is a proliferation of new synapses in the prefrontal cortex during early and mid-childhood, followed by a plateau phase and a subsequent elimination of synapses during adolescence (Huttenlocher, 1979). This finding has recently been supported and expanded by a largerscale study of synapses in the prefrontal cortex in 32 post-mortem human brains of different ages (from one week to 91 years; Petanjek et al., 2011). This study demonstrated that the number of synapses in the prefrontal cortex increases during childhood, resulting in numbers that exceed adult levels two- or threefold by puberty, and then decreases gradually during adolescence. The elimination of synapses continues beyond adolescence and throughout the third decade of life, providing evidence for astonishingly protracted synaptic development in the human prefrontal cortex. Thus, the MRI results demonstrating non-linear developmental changes in grey matter in various brain regions throughout adolescence have been interpreted as reflecting, at least in part, the synaptic reorganisation that occurs during puberty and adolescence. In other words, the increase in grey matter volume during childhood seen in MRI studies might reflect continued synaptic proliferation, while the gradual decrease in grey matter volume that occurs during adolescence and beyond might, at least in part, reflect synaptic pruning. However, it is important to note that grey matter contains a number of different cellular components in addition to synapses. Changes in grey matter with age also reflect changes in other processes, including myelination (which changes grey matter into white matter), and changes in the packing density of other neural matter, including neuronal cell bodies, glia (support cells for neurons) and blood vessels (Gogtay et al., 2004; Paus et al., 2008).

Development of the Social Brain during Adolescence Areas within the social brain network continue to develop in terms of grey matter structure across adolescence, before stabilizing in the early 20s. In a recent study using a large sample of individuals with at least two brain scans between ages 7–30 years, we examined the structural developmental

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