Psychological Bulletin

Durlak, Joseph A.; Mahoney, Joseph L.; Boyle, Alaina E.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000383pmid: N/A

This article reviews 12 meta-analyses of universal, school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs for children from early childhood education through high school. The aims were to assess the breath and consistency of outcomes across meta-analyses and the potential influence of different moderators (i.e., individual, programmatic, ecological, and methodological) on program impacts. Collectively, the meta-analyses were rated to be high quality and included 523 unique reports conducted in many countries and involving an estimated 1 million students. Mean effects were consistently statistically significant across reviews on a range of outcomes including increased SEL skills, attitudes, prosocial behaviors, and academic achievement, and decreased conduct problems and emotional distress (post ds ranged from 0.09 to 0.70 and follow-up ds ranged from 0.07 to 0.33 depending on the outcome and the specific review). However, there was little consistency regarding the moderators examined, or findings when the same moderators were assessed across reviews. Moreover, there is little information on possible interactions between moderators. Research has yet to clarify which individual, contextual, methodological, and programmatic variables promote or hinder the development of different SEL skills for diverse school-aged children and youth. Recommendations to guide future research in identifying the conditions and mechanisms by which SEL programs are most effective are provided.

Powers, Katherine E.; Schaefer, Lena; Figner, Bernd; Somerville, Leah H.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000382pmid: N/A

Real-world health and crime statistics indicate that adolescents are prone to engage in risks in the presence of peers. Although this effect has been documented in several lab studies, existing evidence varies and the psychological mechanisms that give rise to peer observation-induced shifts in adolescent risky decision-making remain poorly understood. We conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to quantify the magnitude of the effect of direct peer observation on risky decision-making in adolescents. Across 186 effect sizes, representing data from 53 distinct research reports and over 5,000 participants, we found evidence that during adolescence, observation by peers increases decisions to take risks relative to decisions made while unobserved, with a small mean effect size (Hedges’ g = 0.16). We also found high effect size heterogeneity (I2 = 82.63% and τ2 = 0.078), motivating analysis of moderation. We evaluated whether variables hypothesized by theory and prior research to amplify or reduce risk taking in the presence of peers systematically moderated the size of this effect, including factors related to the decision context, the peer context, and the experimental design. The overall effect was moderated by peers’ expression of risk-seeking preferences, such that the effect of peer observation was only significant when peers were also expressing pro-risk attitudes. Evidence for publication bias was not consistently observed. Taken together, this work supports the notion that mere peer observation increases adolescent risky decision-making, but this effect is extremely small unless the peers are additionally expressing pro-risk preferences. Moreover, this work provokes questions regarding whether the field’s approach to studying peer influence is optimal at conceptual and practical levels, and whether it is maximally translatable to real-world contexts. We offer suggestions for future work that could lead to a clearer understanding of peer observation effects during adolescence.

Ryan, Richard M.; Duineveld, Jasper J.; Di Domenico, Stefano I.; Ryan, William S.; Steward, Ben A.; Bradshaw, Emma L.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000385pmid: N/A

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a theoretical framework for addressing human motivation and wellness that has been actively and increasingly researched over 4 decades. As a cumulative knowledge base, many of SDT’s fundamental tenets have been repeatedly examined. We identified 60 meta-analyses that tested many of the propositions of SDT’s six mini-theories, other theory-based hypotheses, and SDT’s utility in applied domains. In this review, we examine what these meta-analyses establish, highlighting the support they lend to the validity of SDT’s motivational taxonomy and its hypotheses regarding the respective effects of basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration on well-being and ill-being. Meta-analytic evidence also strongly supports the relevance of SDT for organizations, health care, parenting, and education among other domains, with identifiable gaps in the meta-analytic literature. We conclude by discussing the importance of broad theory and the use of meta-analytic knowledge as scaffolding for further theory and research, albeit with its own methodological limitations.

Koutsoumpis, Antonis; Oostrom, Janneke K.; Holtrop, Djurre; van Breda, Ward; Ghassemi, Sina; de Vries, Reinout E.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000381pmid: N/A

The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) is a popular closed-vocabulary text analysis software program that is used to understand whether individuals’ use of linguistic categories (i.e., word categories, such as negative affect) depends on their personality traits. Here, we present the first meta-analysis of the relations between the Big Five personality traits and 52 linguistic categories of the English language. Across 31 eligible samples (n = 85,724), the results showed that (a) self-reported personality traits are significantly correlated with linguistic categories, but the effect sizes are relatively small (the strongest effect sizes between the Big Five and linguistic categories ranged from |ρ| = .08 to .14, and the 52 LIWC categories explained on average 5.1% of personality variance); (b) observer-reported personality traits are significantly correlated with linguistic categories, with the effect sizes being small-to-medium (|ρ| = .18–.39, explaining 38.5% of personality variance); (c) 20 linguistic categories (out of 260; 5 Personality Traits × 52 LIWC Categories) correlated both with self- and observer-reported personality traits (the “kernel of truth” in linguistic markers of personality); and (d) 10 study, sample, and task characteristics significantly moderated the correlations of the linguistic categories with personality traits, showing that the effect sizes were mainly stronger for longer texts and older LIWC versions, among others.