Combining empirical evidence with indices to measure mattering, Family Matters: The Importance of Mattering to Family in Adolescence explores the inverse relationship between mattering and dysfunctional behavior in adolescence.

• Defines mattering and distinguishes among the three ways that people can matter to others: awareness, importance, and reliance
• Utilizes empirical evidence from a quantitative analyses of data from a nationwide survey 2,004 adolescents to support author’s assertions
• Explores the impact of structural and demographic factors such as family structure in developing of a sense of mattering in adolescents.
• Includes helpful indices, including his Mattering Index and Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Index
• Suggests how parents, teachers, and other significant people in the lives of adolescents can work to instill a sense of mattering in those under their care

Gregory C. Elliott is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University. A social psychologist, his research focuses on the self and its relation to social systems. He teaches courses in social psychology, the self and society, and methods and statistics. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. He has also been a Consultant for the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. He has published numerous articles on mattering and the self in leading social psychology journals such as Social Psychology Quarterly and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.