Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe present study examined whether internalizing and externalizing symptoms may mediate the association between adolescent–mother and adolescent–father attachment and substance use. The sample included 167 adolescents (47% girls) who were assessed at five time points with approximately 1 year between each assessment, beginning in middle adolescence (Mage = 14.07) and ending in the transition to young adulthood (Mage = 18.39). The adolescents reported their perceived attachment with both their mother and father during middle adolescence (Times 1 and 2), their internalizing and externalizing symptoms during late adolescence (Times 3 and 4), and their alcohol use during the transition to young adulthood (Time 5). The results showed that less secure adolescent–father attachment, but not adolescent–mother attachment, was predictive of heightened externalizing and internalizing symptoms. In turn, heightened externalizing symptoms were predictive of heightened alcohol use. Despite the nonsignificant direct association between adolescent–father attachment and alcohol use, less secure adolescent–father attachment was indirectly predictive of greater alcohol use, mediated through heightened externalizing symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of close and trusting father–adolescent relationships in the development of psychopathology and substance use behaviors. The developmental cascade from a less secure adolescent–father attachment to greater externalizing symptoms and heightened substance use, as well as implications for prevention and intervention of young adult substance use, are discussed.Research Highlights
The differential pathways from adolescent–mother and adolescent–father attachment to substance use during the transition to young adulthood are not well known.
Longitudinal data were used to test whether internalizing and externalizing symptoms may mediate the association between adolescent–mother and adolescent–father attachment and substance use.
Less secure adolescent–father attachment predicted heightened internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and less secure adolescent–father attachment predicted greater alcohol use, mediated through heightened externalizing symptoms.
The findings suggest that addressing insecure attachment with fathers during adolescence may reduce unhealthy substance use during the transition to young adulthood.

Existing literature has demonstrated an association between higher adolescent religiousness and lower risk‐taking via higher self‐regulation. This study sought to elucidate the roles of emotion regulation and executive function as parallel mediators in the link between religiousness and risk‐taking in a sample of 167 adolescents (mean age = 14.13 years, 52% male, 82% White at Time 1). Longitudinal results across three waves utilizing structural equation modeling indicated higher religiousness was associated with higher emotion regulation, whereas religiousness was not associated with executive function. Subsequently, higher emotion regulation and executive function were associated with lower risk‐taking. Emotion regulation mediated the association between religiousness and risk‐taking. The findings highlight religiousness as a contextual protective factor for adolescents.

AbstractIt is unclear how delay discounting and substance use develop across adolescence and whether contextual factors alter their trajectories. The present study used a longitudinal design to examine whether socioeconomic status is related to developmental trajectories of delay discounting and substance use across adolescence. The sample included 167 adolescents (Mage = 14 at Time 1; 53% male) and their parents who participated annually across four years. Parents reported SES at Time 1 and adolescents completed delay discounting behavioral assessments and substance use questionnaires at Times 1 to 4. Bivariate latent growth curve modeling revealed that low SES was related to steeper increases in substance use from age 14 through 17, mediated through elevated delay discounting at age 14. The findings clarify the mediating role of delay discounting in linking family economic environment to the progression of substance use.

This study examined whether cognitive control mediated the association between socioeconomic status (SES; composite of income‐to‐needs ratio and parent education) and changes in risk‐taking behaviors. The sample included 167 dyads of adolescents (53% male; Mage = 14.07 years at Time 1) and their parents, assessed annually across 4 years. Parents reported socioeconomic variables at Time 1. Adolescents reported risk‐taking behaviors at Times 1 and 4, and completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging cognitive control task at Times 2 and 3. Lower SES was associated with lower behavioral (but not neural) cognitive control, which was associated with increases in risk‐taking behaviors. The findings suggest that elevated socioeconomic risk may compromise cognitive control which can cascade into maladaptive behaviors in adolescence.

We used a social developmental perspective to identify how prominent social contexts influence substance use during adolescence. Longitudinal data were collected annually from 167 parent–adolescent dyads over four years. We investigated whether parent substance use was related to adolescent substance use directly and indirectly via peer substance use and whether these associations were moderated by religious social support. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated significant moderated mediation: Greater parent substance use predicted increases in adolescent substance use indirectly via increased peer substance use when adolescent religious social support was low or average, but not high. These results suggest religious social support may protect adolescents against prominent social risks for intergenerational substance use.

AbstractThis study used longitudinal data to elucidate how trajectories of negative parenting across adolescence are associated with young adult health risk behaviors (HRBs) by testing difficulties with emotion regulation and externalizing symptomatology as sequential underlying mediators. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males, Mage = 14 at Time 1 and Mage = 18 at Time 5) who were assessed five times. Adolescents self‐reported on negative parenting, emotion regulation, externalizing symptomatology, and engagement in HRBs. Results suggest that increasingly negative parenting across adolescence has adverse consequences for emotion regulation development and in turn, externalizing symptomatology, which confers risk for young adult HRBs. Results offer insights towards mechanisms for prevention and intervention and public health policy aimed at reducing the prevalence and consequences of engagement in HRBs.

Prior research indicates that religiousness is related negatively to adolescent health risk behaviors, yet how such protective effects operate is not well understood. This study examined the longitudinal associations among organizational and personal religiousness, delay discounting, and substance use initiation (alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use). The sample was comprised of 106 early adolescents (10–13 years of age, 52% female) who were not using substances at Time 1. Path analyses suggested that high levels of personal religiousness at Time 1 were related to low levels of substance use at Time 2 (2.4 years later), mediated by low levels of delay discounting. Delay discounting appears to be an important contributor to the protective effect of religiousness on the development of substance use among adolescents.

AbstractThis study provides the first analyses connecting individual differences in infant attention to reading achievement through the development of executive functioning (EF) in infancy and early childhood. Five‐month‐old infants observed a video, and peak look duration and shift rate were video coded and assessed. At 10 months, as well as 3, 4, and 6 years, children completed age‐appropriate EF tasks (A‐not‐B task, hand game, forward digit span, backwards digit span, and number Stroop). Children also completed a standardized reading assessment and a measure of verbal intelligence (IQ) at age 6. Path analyses on 157 participants showed that infant attention had a direct statistical predictive effect on EF at 10 months, with EF showing a continuous pattern of development from 10 months to 6 years. EF and verbal IQ at 6 years had a direct effect on reading achievement. Furthermore, EF at all time points mediated the relation between 5‐month attention and reading achievement. These findings may inform reading interventions by suggesting earlier intervention time points and specific cognitive processes (i.e. 5‐month attention).

AbstractExecutive functions (EFs; e.g. working memory, inhibitory control) are mediated by the prefrontal cortex and associated with optimal cognitive and socio‐emotional development. This study provides the first concurrent analysis of the relative contributions of maternal EF and caregiving to child EF. A group of children and their mothers (n = 62) completed age‐appropriate interaction (10, 24, 36 months) and EF tasks (child: 24, 36, and 48 months). Regression analyses revealed that by 36 months of age, maternal EF and negative caregiving behaviors accounted for unique variance in child EF, above and beyond maternal education and child verbal ability. These findings were confirmed when using an early child EF composite‐our most reliable measure of EF – and a similar pattern was found when controlling for stability in child EF. Furthermore, there was evidence that maternal EF had significant indirect effects on changes in child EF through maternal caregiving. At 24 months, EF was associated with maternal EF, but not negative caregiving behaviors. Taken together, these findings suggest that links between negative caregiving and child EF are increasingly manifested during early childhood. Although maternal EF and negative caregiving are related, they provide unique information about the development of child EF.A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPKXFbbrkps

AbstractIt is unknown how the Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment markers—negative affect, sensation seeking, and executive function—contribute to substance use development. This study examined whether associations of negative affect and sensation seeking with substance use vary by executive function. Participants were 167 adolescents (47% female) who participated annually for four years (Mage = 14.07, SDage = 0.54 at Time 1). There were within-person bidirectional associations between higher negative affect and higher substance use for adolescents with lower executive function. Adolescents with higher sensation seeking at age 14 exhibited increasing substance use trajectories from age 14 to 17, regardless of executive function level. Negative affect and substance use influence each other within individuals, whereas sensation seeking predicts substance use between individuals.

We examined whether cognitive control moderates the effects of emotion on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology in a longitudinal study of 138 adolescents. Self‐reported positive affect (PA) and negative affect and behavioral and neural indicators of cognitive control, indexed by performance and prefrontal hemodynamic response during a cognitive interference task, were collected at Time 1. Self‐reported internalizing and externalizing symptomatology were collected at Time 1 and Time 2 (1 year later). Results indicated that higher PA predicted decreases in externalizing symptomatology, but only for adolescents with poor neural cognitive control. No moderation effects were found for behavioral cognitive control. Findings imply the beneficial effects of PA on the development of externalizing problems among adolescents with poor prefrontal functioning.

Adolescence is a period of increased risk-taking behavior where individual differences in risk taking may relate to both adverse and positive experiences with peers. Yet, knowledge on how risk processing develops in the adolescent brain and whether this development is related to peer attachment is limited. In this longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we collected data from 167 adolescents (53% male) followed for four annual assessments across ages 13-17 years. At each assessment, participants completed a lottery choice task to assess neural risk processing and reported on their perceived attachment to peers and parents. Behaviorally, risk-preference on the lottery choice task decreased linearly with age. Neural activation during risk processing was consistently found in the insula and dACC across the four assessments and increased linearly from ages 13-17 years. Furthermore, higher peer attachment was related to greater right insula risk processing for males but not for females, even after controlling for parental attachment. The magnitudes of this association did not change with age. Findings demonstrate that neural risk processing shows maturation across adolescence and high peer attachment may be associated with low risk taking by heightening neural sensitivity to potential risks for male adolescents. ; National Institute on Drug AbuseUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USANIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) [R01 DA036017, F31 DA042594]; European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeEuropean Research Council (ERC) [646594] ; This research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded to Jungmeen Kim-Spoon and Brooks King-Casas (R01 DA036017) and to Nina Lauharatanahirun (F31 DA042594), and by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme awarded to Pol A.C. van Lier (646594). We thank the former and current members of the JK Lifespan Development Lab at Virginia Tech for their help with data collection. We are grateful to the adolescents and parents who participated in this study.