Cannabis use is prevalent among Canadian postsecondary students, who may be particularly susceptible to associated harms due to ongoing neurodevelopment. The current study explored emerging adult postsecondary students’ motivations and experiences regarding cannabis use. Participants ( N = 14) were postsecondary students living in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, who used cannabis at least once weekly. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Students reported diverse reasons for using cannabis, including experimentation, socialization, relaxation, productivity, and therapeutic (i.e., health management) motives. Students described a pattern in which their cannabis motives became less social and more therapeutic over time. Participants also noted adverse impacts of cannabis use on relationships, motivation, and mental and physical health. These findings further knowledge of the motivations underlying emerging adult postsecondary students’ cannabis use, which may help prevent, identify and treat problematic cannabis use patterns in this population.
Despite growing attention to youth disconnection, most research has relied on narrow indicators such as school enrollment or employment. Yet, disconnection emerges from distinct combinations of psychological, social, and institutional challenges that shape young people’s psychosocial adjustment. Using data from 2,157 U.S. emerging adults (51% female; age range 21–25) from Wave 7 of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this study applies latent class analysis, with multiple imputation and full-information maximum likelihood, to identify distinct subgroups of disconnection across psychological, social, and institutional domains. Five classes emerged: (1) Institutionally disconnected with stronger family connection, (2) Institutionally disconnected with lower family connection, (3) Psychologically disconnected, (4) School connected, and (5) Employment connected. Findings demonstrate the heterogeneous nature of disconnection in emerging adulthood and highlight the limitations of relying solely on institutional indicators. Recognizing this heterogeneity can guide approaches that better reflect the diverse realities of disconnection among emerging adults.
Positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) are related but distinct dimensions of affective experience during the transition to college. Examining their joint trajectories and the factors associated with these patterns may clarify heterogeneity in affective change during the college transition. This three-wave longitudinal study followed first-year students from two universities in northwestern China over six months (baseline N = 583, initial M age = 18.04, SD = 0.76; 69.6% female). PA and NA were assessed at each wave, whereas internet addiction (IA) and self-concept clarity (SCC) were assessed only at baseline. Parallel-process latent class growth analysis with full-information maximum likelihood identified four joint trajectory classes: Moderate PA–Decreasing NA (47.86%), High PA–Low NA (25.04%), Increasing PA–Decreasing NA (10.63%), and Moderate PA–Increasing NA (16.47%). Relative to the High PA–Low NA class, higher IA was associated with greater odds of membership in each of the other three classes, whereas higher SCC was associated with lower odds of membership in those classes. Contrary to expectation, the association between IA and membership in the Moderate PA–Decreasing NA and Increasing PA–Decreasing NA classes was stronger at higher levels of SCC. These findings reveal heterogeneous affective trajectories during the college transition and underscore the value of considering PA and NA jointly in understanding affective change.
Filial piety is valued in many collectivist contexts worldwide, and may become increasingly relevant to emerging adults as they take on more familial roles and responsibilities. These expectations can be considered a source of meaning or pressure and thus affect emerging adults’ flourishing in divergent ways. In this study, we examine how ethical values of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity may provide meaning frames that moderate this relationship between filial piety expectations and flourishing. Analysis of responses from 218 Filipinos aged 18-29 revealed nonsignificant moderation effects. Instead, filial piety expectations, and endorsement of the ethics of Autonomy and Divinity directly predicted flourishing; the ethic of Community was nonsignificant. Exploratory mediation analysis additionally showed indirect effects of Autonomy on the relationship between filial piety expectations and flourishing. We discuss limitations in measuring the three ethics in the Filipino context, implications of these results, and recommendations for future research.
This article introduces the special section on research that used the Ethical Values Assessment (EVA). The EVA measures endorsement of numerous values based on the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity (on a Likert scale), and prioritization of values (rank ordering one’s top three values). While the EVA may be used with diverse age groups, the present articles focused on emerging adults. Exploring values pertaining to ideology, love, and work are necessary tasks in emerging adulthood as is deciding upon priorities. The present articles, which included diverse socio-economic samples from the Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand, and the U.S., show that the aspiration for Autonomy is remarkably widespread. Autonomy is the ethic of globalization, but Divinity is also boosted by globalization in some cultures. Depending on culture, Autonomy together with either Community or Divinity predicts flourishing and narrating a reflective worldview. The methods employed were quantitative and mixed-methods, and cross-sectional as well as longitudinal.
