Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Stefanie Deluca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist & Kathryn Edin: Coming of Age in the Other America

Michaela Soyer: Lost Childhoods: Poverty, Trauma, and Violent Crime in the Post-Welfare Era

Derisive Parenting Fosters Dysregulated Anger in Adolescent Children and Subsequent Difficulties with Peers Abstract Bullying and victimization are manifest in the peer social world, but have origins in the home. Uncertainty surrounds the mechanisms that convey problems between these settings. The present study describes the indirect transmission of hostility and coercion from parents to adolescent children through emotional dysregulation. In this model, derisive parenting—behaviors that demean or belittle children—fosters dysregulated anger, which precipitates peer difficulties. A total of 1409 participants (48% female; Mage = 13.4 years at the outset) were followed across secondary school (Grades 7–9) for three consecutive years. The results indicated that derisive parenting in Grade 7 was associated with increases in adolescent dysregulated anger from Grade 7 to 8, which, in turn, was associated with increases in bullying and victimization from Grade 8 to 9. The findings suggest that parents who are derisive, have children who struggle with emotional regulation and, ultimately, with constructive peer relationships.

The Longitudinal Association between Perceived Powerlessness and Sexual Risk Behaviors among Urban Youth: Mediating and Moderating Effects Abstract A distal psychosocial factor, perceived powerlessness, has been found to predict various sexual risk behaviors among youth, yet no studies have assessed mediators or moderators in this relationship. Using a demographically diverse, longitudinal sample of urban youth (N = 257), this study assessed whether the need for sexual validation mediates the relationship between perceived powerlessness and sexual risk behaviors and to assess whether this mediated pathway is moderated by socioeconomic status and gender. The mean age of the participants was 21 years old (range: 15–24) and the majority of the sample identified as Black (65%) and female (62%). The results of structural equation modeling showed that the need for sexual validation mediated perceived powerlessness and condomless sex at last sex among Black youth. The need for sexual validation mediated perceived powerlessness and concurrent sexual partnerships among White youth and depended on levels of socioeconomic status. Sexual risk behavior interventions should provide youth with increased opportunities that encourage feelings of validation from other personal achievements in addition to sex while simultaneously addressing the structural conditions that drive young people to feel powerless.

Change and Consistency of Self-Esteem in Early and Middle Adolescence in the Context of School Transition Abstract Self-esteem is continuous and has stable characteristics, but it may also change, e.g., during transitions from one educational level to the next. In a prospective cross-sectional study over a year and a half, 250 Polish early adolescents (N = 109, 54 girls; mean age at T1 = 12.68 years, SD = 0.49) and middle adolescents (N = 141, 107 girls; mean age at T1 = 15.80, SD = 0.44) were tested three times using Harter’s Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents, assessing both global self-esteem and self-evaluation in eight domains. The change and consistency of self-esteem were analyzed, at both group and individual levels. At the group level, the following results were found: (1) continuity of self-esteem in five domains (scholastic competence, athletic competence, physical appearance, close friendship, and romantic appeal) and in global self-esteem and discontinuity in only three domains (social acceptance, job competence, and behavioral conduct); (2) significant inter-individual variation in the change not explained by age; and (3) higher self-esteem (in five domains) in early adolescents. At the individual level, the stability in most domains was weak, but was restored over the second year at the new school. The complexity of the developmental change and consistency in self-esteem in adolescence was highlighted, emphasizing the need for analyzing both group and individual change.

Social Media Use Subgroups Differentially Predict Psychosocial Well-Being During Early Adolescence Abstract Despite the salience of the social media context to psychosocial development, little is known about social media use patterns and how they relate to psychological and social functioning over time during early adolescence. This longitudinal study, therefore, identified subgroups of early adolescents based on their social media use and examined whether these subgroups predicted psychosocial functioning. Adolescents (N = 1205; 11–14 years; 51% female; 51% white) completed surveys at baseline and a six-month follow-up. There were three social media use subgroups at baseline: high overall social media use (8%); high Instagram/Snapchat use (53%); and low overall social media use (39%). The high social media use subgroup predicted higher depressive symptoms, panic disorder symptoms, delinquent behaviors, family conflict, as well as lower family and friend support, than the High-Instagram/Snapchat and low social media use subgroups. The high Instagram/Snapchat use subgroup predicted higher delinquent behaviors and school avoidance than the low social media use subgroup, but also higher close friendship competence and friend support as compared to both the high social media use and low social media use subgroups. Social media use patterns appear to differentially predict psychosocial adjustment during early adolescence, with high social media use being the most problematic and patterns of high Instagram/Snapchat use and low social media use having distinct developmental tradeoffs.

Profiles of Future Orientation among Assault-injured Adolescents: Correlates and Concurrent Outcomes Abstract Future orientation has been established as having positive associations with health and educational outcomes for adolescents exposed to violence. However, conceptualizations of future orientation have been inconsistent. This study uses latent profile analysis to understand the interrelationships between measures of future orientation (e.g., commitment to learning, goal orientation, hope, expectancies, fatalism). Participants were 188 primarily African American male early adolescents ranging from 10 to 15 years old (60.6% male; Mage = 12.87, SDage = 1.52). Adolescents in the high- and low-future orientation profiles differed on academic behaviors and aggressive behavior. A discordant profile emerged with adolescents moderate on all measures of future orientation except expectancies. Relational aspects of parenting were associated with higher likelihood of adolescents being assigned to the high- and low-future orientation profiles. These findings suggest the importance of parental warmth in promoting future orientation for adolescents in risky environments, as improving future orientation might mitigate risk for future negative academic comes or engagement in violent behavior.

Coping and Culture: The Protective Effects of Shift-&-Persist and Ethnic-Racial Identity on Depressive Symptoms in Latinx Youth Abstract Shift-&-persist is a coping strategy that has been shown to lead to positive health outcomes in low-SES youth but has not yet been examined with respect to psychological health. This study tests whether the shift-&-persist coping strategy works in tandem with ethnic-racial identity to protect against depressive symptoms in the face of two uncontrollable stressors: economic hardship and peer discrimination. In a sample of 175 Latinx youth (51.4% female; Mage = 12.9), shift-&-persist buffered the positive relation between economic hardship and depressive symptoms. In terms of peer discrimination, among youth who reported little use of shift and persist, discrimination was related to higher depressive symptoms, whereas youth who reported higher amounts of shift and persist (at and above the mean) were protected and did not evidence this association. However, among youth with high ethnic-racial identity, shift-&-persist failed to protect against the deleterious association between peer discrimination and depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that shift-&-persist is protective for Latinx youth, although the context in which it is protective changes based on the racialized/non-racialized nature of the stressor.

Socioeconomic Status, Vocational Aspirations, School Tracks, and Occupational Attainment in South Korea Abstract Adults’ career choice is not an abrupt event, but an outcome of continuous development throughout childhood and adolescence. In the developmental process of one’s career, personal characteristics and contextual resources come into play. The goal of the present study is to examine how family socioeconomic status, adolescents’ vocational aspirations, and high school contexts affect their occupational attainment in young adulthood, using two cohorts of data from the Korean Education and Employment Panel. Cohort 1 consisted of 1535 individuals (49.3% female), and cohort 2 consisted of 1473 individuals (53.5% female). Both cohorts were surveyed during their senior year of high school (Time 1; Mage = 17.8) and followed up until young adulthood (Time 2; Mage = 25.8). The results reveal that having high vocational aspirations and attending academic high school predict attaining higher-status occupations for both cohorts. Family background has positive direct and indirect effects on occupational attainment for cohort 2, while it only has an indirect effect on occupational attainment via types of high school for cohort 1. Implications in the context of constructing social systems to support adolescents’ career development are discussed.

Social Ties Cut Both Ways: Self-Harm and Adolescent Peer Networks Abstract Peers play an important role in adolescence, a time when self-harm arises as a major health risk, but little is known about the social networks of adolescents who cut. Peer network positions can affect mental distress related to cutting or provide direct social motivations for self-harm. This study uses PROSPER survey data from U.S. high school students (n = 11,160, 48% male, grades 11 and 12), finding that social networks predict self-cutting net of demographics and depressive symptoms. In final models, bridging peers predicts higher self-cutting, while claiming more friends predicts lower cutting for boys. The findings suggest that researchers and practitioners should consider peer networks both a beneficial resource and source of risk associated with cutting for teens and recognize the sociostructural contexts of self-harm for adolescents more broadly.