Adolescent Future Orientation: The Role of Identity Discovery in Self-Defining Activities and Context in Two Rural Samples

Abstract

This study, using data from two samples of rural adolescents, examined how identity experiences in a self-defining activity and perception of access to opportunities were related to four dimensions of adolescent future orientation and whether the relationship between identity experiences in a self-defining activity buffered the effects of limited opportunities on future orientation. Adolescents' identity experiences in a self-defining activity emerged as having a significant, positive association with most dimensions of future orientation in both samples and were found to be the strongest predictors of future orientation in Sample 1. In the more racially diverse Sample 2, perception of limited opportunities was the strongest and most consistent predictor of future orientation. In Sample 1, results also indicated that the strength of the negative relationship between limited opportunity and optimism is attenuated for adolescents reporting high levels of personal expressiveness compared to adolescents with low personal expressiveness. The findings suggest that interventions designed to target adolescents' time use and leisure-related identity experiences may have an impact on adolescent future orientation.

Notes

¹Searches were conducted using the key words: “future and activities,” “activity involvement,” “extracurricular activities,” and “leisure.”

²People Using Leadership Skills Effectively (PULSE) is a community-facilitated camp program that recruits youth through contacts from school personnel and social service workers to serve adolescents who have been identified as leaders in the school and community and adolescents who have been identified as at risk for problems.

^a Reflects age in years.

^b Falls within the range of some college.

^c Range of 1 to 5.

^d Range of 1 to 3.

^e Falls within range of 0 to 7.

^f Range of 0 to 24 activities for Sample 1; range of 0 (none) to 4 (more than 2) for Sample 2.

*p < .05.

Note. Correlations for Sample 1 (n = 111) are presented above the diagonal; correlations for Sample 2 (n = 211) are presented below the diagonal. Gender: 1 = male; 2 = female.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Note. If the block significantly contributed to the overall model, partitioning was done to examine the unique contribution of each variable within that block.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Note. If the block significantly contributed to the overall model, partitioning was done to examine the unique contribution of each variable within that block.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Note. If the block significantly contributed to the overall model, partitioning was done to examine the unique contribution of each variable within that block.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Note. If the block significantly contributed to the overall model, partitioning was done to examine the unique contribution of each variable within that block.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

³This finding is most likely due to a suppressor effect. A suppressor effect can result from the inclusion in the regression equation of a predictor that has a zero or small correlation with the outcome variable, but is moderately or strongly correlated with one or more copredictors (i.e., multicollinearity; Smith, Ager, & Williams, 1992; Walker, 2003). In the case of this finding, flow experience was not significantly correlated with importance of future goals and plans, but had a significant, negative beta weight in the final model. It is difficult to determine whether or not a suppressor effect is responsible for this kind of contradictory finding, but we did explore the beta weight for flow experiences predicting importance of future goals and plans with personal expressiveness and goal-directed behavior removed from the model, and the association direction reversed (i.e., there was a positive association between flow experiences and importance of future goals and plans) and became nonsignificant.