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Past research shows that higher well-being is reported by adolescents who live in individualistic rather than collectivistic nations. Such cross-national differences may be due to the amount of autonomy support adolescents receive from authority figures. To examine this hypothesis, in the current study, 322 adolescents from Denmark, South Korea, and the United States completed self-report surveys that assessed adolescents' school and life satisfaction and their experience of autonomy support from parents and teachers. Results showed that Danish adolescents reported highest school satisfaction, life satisfaction, and perceived autonomy support, followed by American and Korean adolescents, respectively. Furthermore, cross-national differences in school and life satisfaction were partially mediated by adolescents' perceptions of autonomy support from authority figures. These findings support self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) and the ecological model of child development (Bronfenbrenner, 1986).In their analysis of the factors predicting variations in the subjective well-being of adults from dozens of nations, Diener, Diener, and Diener (1995) concluded that living in a more individualistic (vs. collectivistic) nation was the single most powerful positive predictor of citizens' happiness and satisfaction. Since this ground-breaking study, research with college students (e.g., Kim, Kasser, & Lee, 2003) and adolescents (e.g., Gilman et al., 2008;Park & Huebner, 2005) has similarly found well-being benefits of living in a traditionally individualistic versus collectivistic country. Despite these consistent findings, research has yet to clearly explicate the processes through which broad national dimensions such as individualism and collectivism influence the wellbeing of adolescents. In the present study, we address this gap by applying insights from ecological approaches to the development of youth (Bronfenbrenner, 1979(Bronfenbrenner, , 1986) and from self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000 to explore the possibility that cultural differences in adolescents' well-being are due, at least in part, to the quality of interpersonal interactions that adolescents have with authority figures in those countries. THE MACROSYSTEM AND INTERACTIONS WITH AUTHORITY FIGURESBronfenbrenner's (1979, 1986) well-known ecological model of child development specifies that children's health and well-being are influenced by an array of mutually interacting environmental settings and dynamics. The most distal environmental influence is at the macrosystem level, where broad ideological and institutional features of the nation or country set the context for the decisions and interactions that occur at lower-level systems. For example, Bronfenbrenner notes that a culture's ideas and institutions regarding marriage, education, and politics all influence the manner in which individuals ultimately behave and interact with each other. These influences ripple all the way down to the microsystem level, the most proximal level of ...

We examined affective forecasting errors as a possible explanation of the perennial appeal of extrinsic values and goals. Study 1 found that although people relatively higher in extrinsic (money, fame, image) compared to intrinsic (growth, intimacy, community) value orientation (REVO) are less happy, they nevertheless believe that attaining extrinsic goals offers a strong potential route to happiness. Study 2's longitudinal experimental design randomly assigned participants to pursue either 3 extrinsic or 3 intrinsic goals over 4 weeks, and REVO again predicted stronger forecasts regarding extrinsic goals. However, not even extrinsically oriented participants gained well-being benefits from attaining extrinsic goals, whereas all participants tended to gain in happiness from attaining intrinsic goals. Study 3 showed that the effect of REVO on forecasts is mediated by extrinsic individuals' belief that extrinsic goals will satisfy autonomy and competence needs. It appears that some people overestimate the emotional benefits of achieving extrinsic goals, to their potential detriment.

This paper examines the measurement of childhood materialism using Schor's (2004) Consumer Involvement Scale. Schor treated consumer involvement empirically as a unidimensional construct, though she suggested that conceptually it may be multidimensional. Using confirmatory factor analysis procedures on data collected from children in the U.S. and U.K., the psychometric superiority of a threefactor structure is established, comprising dissatisfaction, consumer orientation, and brand awareness components. Additional analyses demonstrate distinct associations between each of these components and other constructs, including self-esteem, outside school activities, and child-parent relations. The scale's generalizability across boys

One impact of globalisation is that adolescents today are frequently exposed to the values, attitudes and norms of other nations without leaving their own backyards. This may lead to remote acculturation-cultural and psychological changes experienced by non-migrant individuals having indirect and/or intermittent contact with a geographically separate culture. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we examined multidimensional remote acculturation among 83 urban Zambian adolescents who are routinely exposed to U.S., U.K. and South African cultures through traditional and social media and materials/goods. Cluster analyses showed 2 distinct groups of adolescents. "Traditional Zambians, TZs" (55.4%) were significantly more oriented towards Zambian culture and reported a higher level of obligation to their families and greater interdependent self-construal compared with "Westernised Multicultural Zambians, WMZs" (44.6%), who were more oriented towards U.S., U.K. and South African cultures. Furthermore, remote acculturation predicted somewhat lower life satisfaction among WMZs. These results demonstrate that individuals' behaviours, values and identity may be influenced by multiple geographically distant cultures simultaneously and may be associated with psychological costs.