Laurence Steinberg

Bio: Laurence Steinberg is an academic researcher from Temple University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Juvenile delinquency & Poison control. The author has an hindex of 115, co-authored 403 publications receiving 70047 citations. Previous affiliations of Laurence Steinberg include University of California, Irvine & King Abdulaziz University.

Parenting Style as Context: An Integrative Model

Abstract: Despite broad consensus about the effects of parenting practices on child development, many questions about the construct parenting style remain unanswered. Particularly pressing issues are the variability in the effects of parenting style as a function of the child's cultural background, the processes through which parenting style influences the child's development, and the operationalization of parenting style. Drawing on historical review, the authors present a model that integrates two traditions in socialization research, the study of specific parenting practices and the study of global parent characteristics. They propose that parenting style is best conceptualized as a context that moderates the influence of specific parenting practices on the child. It is argued that only by maintaining the distinction between parenting style and parenting practice can researchers address questions concerning socialization processes. During the past 25 years, research based on Baumrind's conceptualization of parenting style has produced a remarkably consistent picture of the type of parenting conducive to the successful socialization of children into the dominant culture of the United States. Authoritativeness—a constellation of parent attributes that includes emotional support, high standards, appropriate autonomy granting, and clear, bidirectional communication—has been shown to help children and adolescents develop an instrumental competence characterized by the balancing of societal and individual needs and responsibilities. Among the indicators of instrumental competence are responsible independence, cooperation with adults and peers, psychosocial maturity, and academic success (for reviews, see Baumrind, 1989,199 la). This work on authoritative ness and its beneficial effects builds on half a century of research on parenting and parenting style. Yet, despite some impressive consistencies in the socialization literature, important questions remain unanswered. As researchers have expanded beyond samples of White, predominantly middle-class families, it has become increasingly clear that the influence of authoritativeness, as well as other styles of parenting, varies depending on the social milieu in which the family is embedded. For example, Baumrind (1972) reported that authoritarian parenting, which is associated with fearful, timid behavior and behavioral compliance among EuropeanAmerican children, is associated with assertiveness among African-American girls. Furthermore, recent studies in which the effects of authoritativeness have been compared across ethnic groups have consistently shown that authoritative parenting is most strongly associated with academic achievement among

A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking.

Abstract: This article proposes a framework for theory and research on risk-taking that is informed by developmental neuroscience. Two fundamental questions motivate this review. First, why does risk-taking increase between childhood and adolescence? Second, why does risk-taking decline between adolescence and adulthood? Risk-taking increases between childhood and adolescence as a result of changes around the time of puberty in the brain’s socio-emotional system leading to increased reward-seeking, especially in the presence of peers, fueled mainly by a dramatic remodeling of the brain’s dopaminergic system. Risk-taking declines between adolescence and adulthood because of changes in the brain’s cognitive control system—changes which improve individuals’ capacity for self-regulation. These changes occur across adolescence and young adulthood and are seen in structural and functional changes within the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. The differing timetables of these changes make mid-adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability to risky and reckless behavior.

Cognitive and affective development in adolescence

Abstract: Questions about the nature of normative and atypical development in adolescence have taken on special significance in the last few years, as scientists have begun to recast old portraits of adolescent behavior in the light of new knowledge about brain development. Adolescence is often a period of especially heightened vulnerability as a consequence of potential disjunctions between developing brain, behavioral and cognitive systems that mature along different timetables and under the control of both common and independent biological processes. Taken together, these developments reinforce the emerging understanding of adolescence as a critical or sensitive period for a reorganization of regulatory systems, a reorganization that is fraught with both risks and opportunities.

Patterns of Competence and Adjustment among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful Families

Abstract: In order to test Maccoby and Martin's revision of Baumrind's conceptual framework, the families of approximately 4,100 14-18-year-olds were classified into 1 of 4 groups (authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or neglectful) on the basis of the adolescents' ratings of their parents on 2 dimensions: acceptance/involvement and strictness/supervision. The youngsters were then contrasted along 4 sets of outcomes: psychosocial development, school achievement, internalized distress, and problem behavior. Results indicate that adolescents who characterize their parents as authoritative score highest on measures of psychosocial competence and lowest on measures of psychological and behavioral dysfunction; the reverse is true for adolescents who describe their parents as neglectful. Adolescents whose parents are characterized as authoritarian score reasonably well on measures indexing obedience and conformity to the standards of adults but have relatively poorer self-conceptions than other youngsters. In contrast, adolescents from indulgent homes evidence a strong sense of self-confidence but report a higher frequency of substance abuse and school misconduct and are less engaged in school. The results provide support for Maccoby and Martin's framework and indicate the need to distinguish between two types of "permissive" families: those that are indulgent and those that are neglectful.

The Role of the Family Context in the Development of Emotion Regulation

Abstract: This article reviews current literature examining associations between components of the family context and children and adolescents' emotion regulation (ER). The review is organized around a tripartite model of familial influence. Firstly, it is posited that children learn about ER through observational learning, modeling and social referencing. Secondly, parenting practices specifically related to emotion and emotion management affect ER. Thirdly, ER is affected by the emotional climate of the family via parenting style, the attachment relationship, family expressiveness and the marital relationship. The review ends with discussions regarding the ways in which child characteristics such as negative emotionality and gender affect ER, how socialization practices change as children develop into adolescents, and how parent characteristics such as mental health affect the socialization of ER.

Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.

Abstract: Human beings can be proactive and engaged or, alternatively, passive and alienated, largely as a function of the social conditions in which they develop and function. Accordingly, research guided by self-determination theo~ has focused on the social-contextual conditions that facilitate versus forestall the natural processes of self-motivation and healthy psychological development. Specifically, factors have been examined that enhance versus undermine intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and well-being. The findings have led to the postulate of three innate psychological needs--competence, autonomy, and relatednesswhich when satisfied yield enhanced self-motivation and mental health and when thwarted lead to diminished motivation and well-being. Also considered is the significance of these psychological needs and processes within domains such as health care, education, work, sport, religion, and psychotherapy. T he fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly. That most people show considerable effort, agency, and commitment in their lives appears, in fact, to be more normative than exceptional, suggesting some very positive and persistent features of human nature. Yet, it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed and that individuals sometimes reject growth and responsibility. Regardless of social strata or cultural origin, examples of both children and adults who are apathetic, alienated, and irresponsible are abundant. Such non-optimal human functioning can be observed not only in our psychological clinics but also among the millions who, for hours a day, sit passively before their televisions, stare blankly from the back of their classrooms, or wait listlessly for the weekend as they go about their jobs. The persistent, proactive, and positive tendencies of human nature are clearly not invariantly apparent. The fact that human nature, phenotypically expressed, can be either active or passive, constructive or indolent, suggests more than mere dispositional differences and is a function of more than just biological endowments. It also bespeaks a wide range of reactions to social environments that is worthy of our most intense scientific investigation. Specifically, social contexts catalyze both within- and between-person differences in motivation and personal growth, resulting in people being more self-motivated, energized, and integrated in some situations, domains, and cultures than in others. Research on the conditions that foster versus undermine positive human potentials has both theoretical import and practical significance because it can contribute not only to formal knowledge of the causes of human behavior but also to the design of social environments that optimize people's development, performance, and well-being. Research guided by self-determination theory (SDT) has had an ongoing concern with precisely these

Emerging adulthood. A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties.

Abstract: Emerging adulthood is proposed as a new conception of development for the period from the late teens through the twenties, with a focus on ages 18-25. A theoretical background is presented. Then evidence is provided to support the idea that emerging adulthood is a distinct period demographically, subjectively, and in terms of identity explorations. How emerging adulthood differs from adolescence and young adulthood is explained. Finally, a cultural context for the idea of emerging adulthood is outlined, and it is specified that emerging adulthood exists only in cultures that allow young people a prolonged period of independent role exploration during the late teens and twenties.

A Theory of Development From the Late Teens Through the Twenties

Abstract: Emerging adulthood is proposed as a new conception of development for the period from the late teens through the twenties, with a focus on ages 18-25. A theoretical background is presented, Then evidence is provided to support the idea that emerging adulthood is a distinct period demographically, subjectively, and in terms of identity explorations. How emerging adulthood differs from adolescence and young adulthood is explained. Finally, a cultural context for the idea of emerging adulthood is outlined, and it is specified that emerging adulthood exists only in cultures that allow young people a prolonged period of independent role. exploration during the late teens and twenties.

Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy.

Abstract: This chapter suggests that delinquency conceals two distinct categories of individuals, each with a unique natural history and etiology: A small group engages in antisocial behavior of one sort or another at every life stage, whereas a larger group is antisocial only during adolescence. According to the theory of life-course-persistent antisocial behavior, children's neuropsychological problems interact cumulatively with their criminogenic environments across development, culminating m a pathological personality. According to the theory of adolescence-limited antisocial behavior, a contemporary maturity gap encourages teens to mimic antisocial behavior in ways that are normative and adjustive. There are marked individual differences in the stability of antisocial behavior. The chapter reviews the mysterious relationship between age and antisocial behavior. Some youths who refrain from antisocial behavior may, for some reason, not sense the maturity gap and therefore lack the hypothesized motivation for experimenting with crime.

School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence

Abstract: The concept of school engagement has attracted increasing attention as representing a possible antidote to declining academic motivation and achievement. Engagement is presumed to be malleable, responsive to contextual features, and amenable to environmental change. Researchers describe behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement and recommend studying engagement as a multifaceted construct. This article reviews definitions, measures, precursors, and outcomes of engagement; discusses limitations in the existing research; and suggests improvements. The authors conclude that, although much has been learned, the potential contribution of the concept of school engagement to research on student experience has yet to be realized. They call for richer characterizations of how students behave, feel, and think—research that could aid in the development of finely tuned interventions