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18-02-2019 | Empirical Research

Developing Morality, Competence, and Sociability in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of Gender Differences

Auteurs: Elisabetta Crocetti, Silvia Moscatelli, Goda Kaniušonytė, Wim Meeus, Rita Žukauskienė, Monica Rubini

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence | Uitgave 5/2019

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Abstract

Morality, competence, and sociability have been conceptualized as fundamental dimensions of social judgment that individuals use to evaluate themselves and other people and groups. The way in which adolescents perceive themselves along these dimensions affects the quality of their relationships across multiple social contexts. Given the centrality of morality, competence, and sociability for adolescents’ social life, the purpose of this study was to understand how these dimensions develop over time with a focus on gender differences, since males and females can show distinct trajectories due to socialization and developmental processes. Participants were 916 (51.4% girls; Mage = 15.64 years) adolescents involved in a three-wave longitudinal study with annual assessments. The findings highlighted that females reported increasing levels of morality and competence, while males showed decreasing levels in all dimensions. Furthermore, females also showed greater consistency in the configuration of morality, competence, and sociability, and inter-individual differences appeared to be already well-settled in each dimension for both males and females. Overall, this study increases the developmental understanding of how core dimensions of social judgment change in the adolescent phase, highlighting gender differences and similarities.
Voetnoten
1
As a preliminary step, longitudinal measurement invariance (Little 2013; Van de Schoot et al. 2012) was tested. Thus, for each dimension the configural (baseline), metric (in which factor loadings were constrained to be equal across time), and scalar (in which both factor loadings and item intercepts were constrained to be equal across time) models were compared. Model comparisons were conducted considering changes in fit indices (e.g., Chen 2007). Findings indicated the establishment of the three levels of longitudinal measurement invariance for all study constructs.
 
2
A further confirmation of this can be obtained by rank ordering at each wave observed scores of morality, competence, and sociability for males and females separately. For males the first dimension was, at each wave, sociability; whereas for females it was morality.
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
Developing Morality, Competence, and Sociability in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of Gender Differences
Auteurs
Elisabetta Crocetti
Silvia Moscatelli
Goda Kaniušonytė
Wim Meeus
Rita Žukauskienė
Monica Rubini
Publicatiedatum
18-02-2019
Uitgeverij
Springer US
Gepubliceerd in
Journal of Youth and Adolescence / Uitgave 5/2019
Print ISSN: 0047-2891
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-6601
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-00996-2