Better to give than reciprocate? Status and reciprocity in prosocial exchange.

Reciprocity implies equality in the giving and receiving of benefits. However, we find that reciprocity does not generate equal benefits, in terms of social status. Instead, across 7 studies (N = 3,426), observers conferred more status to individuals who initiated (i.

The development of grit and growth mindset during adolescence.

Individual differences in grit and growth mindset predict effort and achievement in the face of challenges, but little is known about how the two traits influence each other during adolescence. In the current investigation, we analyzed data on grit and growth mindset collected from 1667 adolescents and their teachers on four occasions over 2 academic years. In autoregressive cross-lagged models, grit predicted rank-order increases in growth mindset and growth mindset predicted rank-order increases in grit.

The mindful adolescent: Developmental changes in nonreactivity to inner experiences and its association with emotional well-being.

Little is known about the naturalistic development of mindfulness in adolescence and how it relates to changes in emotional well-being. The current longitudinal study examined the development of one dimension of mindfulness, nonreactivity to difficult inner experience (or in more colloquial terms, being able to notice, but "take a step back" from distressing thoughts), in a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample ( = 1,657) during the transition from middle school to high school. Students participated in up to four assessment waves, from fall of 8th grade through spring of 9th grade, in which they completed self-report measures assessing nonreactivity, perceived stress, and positive and negative affect.

Fostering Grit: Perceived School Goal-Structure Predicts Growth in Grit and Grades.

Grit, the inclination to pursue long-term goals with passion and perseverance, predicts academic achievement and professional success, but how to encourage grit in students remains an open question. The goal of the current study was to understand how perceptions of school culture influence the development of grit in middle school students. We conducted a year-long, prospective, longitudinal study ( 1,277) examining grit, perceived goal structures (mastery vs.

Beliefs About Stress Attenuate the Relation Among Adverse Life Events, Perceived Distress, and Self-Control.

Prior research has shown that adverse events in the lives of adolescents precipitate psychological distress, which in turn impairs self-control. This study (N = 1,343) examined the protective effects of stress mindsets-beliefs about the extent to which stress might be beneficial or strictly detrimental. The results confirmed that increasing the number of adverse life events across the school year predicted rank order increases in perceived distress, which in turn predicted rank order decreases in self-control.