Psychological Distress amid Change: Role Disruption in Girls during the Adolescent Transition

Social Cognition, Self-Perceptions, and Social Withdrawal in Adolescents

“…Perceptions of Self-Competencies Scale (PSCS; Harter, 1985). Drawing on past studies that assessed adolescents' self-knowledge (Koch et al, 2020), the present study used three subscales from Harter's (1985) perceived self-competencies scale, participants' self-views regarding moral behaviour or behavioural conduct, physical appearance, and an overall global sense of self or personal happiness (each subscale included six items). This measure is frequently used in social-cognitive research among youth (Corsano et al, 2020), with internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) for the three subscales ranging from .71 to .86, with test-retest reliability ranges from .69 to .87 (Harter, 1985).…”

“…Similar to the first growth spurt of self-consciousness and social awareness (toddlerhood) (Dunn, 2005), the second wave of psychosocial growth in social and self-understanding and social relations occurs in early adolescence (Koch et al, 2020;Vanhalst et al, 2015). This second 'growth spurt' includes advanced mentalisation skills, such as emotion recognition and perspective-taking, crucial components of social cognition that enable individuals to discriminate effectively between social cues, interact with others, and constitute social groups (Doherty & Perner, 2020).…”

“…Further-more, it has been shown that during later childhood and adolescence, girls and boys may use their ToM skills differently in terms of their social skills and behaviour (Banerjee et al, 2006;Kuhnert et al, 2017). For example, past research shows compared to males, adolescent females with higher levels of social-cognitive abilities report more negative self-evaluations and social experiences (Hyde et al, 2008;Devine & Hughes, 2013), higher levels of self-consciousness, especially regarding physical appearance (Bowker et al, 2019), and internalising challenges such as social anxiety and anxious solitude (Rudolph et al, 2020), depression, and self-harmful behaviours (Calandri et al, 2020;Hyde et al, 2008;Koch et al, 2020).…”

“…Studies on social withdrawal show that shy boys are at greater risk of socioemotional problems than shy girls (Coplan & Armer, 2007;Ruble & Martin, 1998), and run against gender-role stereotypical masculine or 'laddish' behaviours (assertiveness, initiative, etc.) (Heyder et al, 2020;Koch et al, 2020). Studies on social preferences (shyness, unsociability, regulated withdrawal) also show that due to societal expectations, shyness and unsociability may hold more negative psychological psychosocial implications for boys than for girls (Bowker et al, 2019;Rubin et al, 2002).…”

“…In contrast, for boys, some adults may perceive shyness and unsociability as a negative personality characteristic, and shyness and unsociability may be more likely to be discouraged among boys as compared to girls (Coplan & Weeks, 2010;Doey et al, 2014). Despite the claims that suggest adolescent girls possess a less coherent and positive self-theory than boys (Koch et al, 2020;Heyder et al, 2020;Maccoby, 1998), and studies that show girls use more frequent mental state talk than boys (Hughes & Dunn, 1999;Pequet & Warnell, 2020), differential gender links between social-cognitive skills and self-perceptions, especially in connection with social withdrawal during adolescence require further study. Thus, this study examines the complex web of correlates among preferences for social withdrawal, self-perceptions, and emotion recognition in adolescents.…”