Family Instability and Locus of Control in Adolescence

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: Investigating the impact of family instability is important as more and more children experience different family changes in many industrialized countries. In this paper we examine the dynamics of family structure, looking at the potential effect of yearly maternal partnership transitions on adolescents' locus of control. We aim at combining research on family instability with research on noncognitive skill formation. We use rich and nationwide German data to identify the relationship between family instability and adolescent locus of control. Combining entropy balancing with a novel econometric method to assess potential bias from omitted variables, we find that experiencing maternal partnership transitions is negatively associated with adolescents' belief in self-determination and that internal locus of control is reduced by about a fifth of a standard deviation among those affected, even after conditioning on a large number of covariates. This is particularly true if the transitions take place during "middle childhood." Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

Biased by Success and Failure: How Unemployment Shapes Stated Locus of Control

“…Arising from genetic disposition and experience from early childhood to adolescence (see e.g. Specht et al, 2013;Dahmann and Anger, 2014;Soto and Tackett, 2015;Peter and Spiess, 2016), personality is defined as "the relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reflect the tendency to respond in certain ways under certain circumstances" (Roberts, 2009, p.140). But, the extent to which these patterns change during adulthood is still discussed controversially.…”