Developmental Conditions of Adaptive Self-Stabilization in Adolescence

In a cross-sectional study with 541 German students (mean age: 12.61 yrs) and (for a subsample of N = 350) one of their parents, developmental conditions for a particular resource of self-regulation (“Flexibility of Goal Adjustment”; Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990) are investigated. Theoretical arguments and empirical results from related fields suggested in particular two sets of variables as possible predictors of adolescents' adaptive competencies. Individual aspects (students' cognitive capacities and earlier developmental stimulations) as well as external conditions (parental coping competences and parent-youth-coorientation) were assessed and included into a path model. Results suggest that both the parental variables and particular cognitive resources contribute directly to adolescents' adaptive resources, whereas earlier developmental stimulations influenced adolescents' adaptive resources in an indirect way. Suggestions for further studies were discussed with respect both to theoretical and methodological aspects.