A Comparative Study on Self-Monitoring: an Updated Perspective on Normative Versus At-risk Youth

This pioneering study focuses on differences in self-monitoring between normative youth and youth at-risk for deviant behavior. Self-monitoring is a personality trait for the ability to change behavior in response to different situations. Self-monitoring, and especially sensitivity to the expressive behavior of others (SEB), plays an important role in identity formation, in social adjustment of adolescents to normative or deviant peer groups, and in the development of deviant behavior. The participants included 328 normative and at-risk youth from three age groups. They completed the Juvenile Delinquency Self-Report Questionnaire and the Adolescence Self-Monitoring Scale. A significant difference was found in the level of deviant behavior, where at-risk youth reported higher participation in deviant behavior compared to normative youth. One of the factors of self-monitoring, SEB, was higher among normative than among at-risk youth. An increase in SEB was observed with increasing age. Furthermore, the females’ self-monitoring was higher than that of the males.