The Science of Adolescent Risk-Taking Workshop Report (2011) / Chapter Skim
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5 The Influence of Environment
5 The Influence of Environment
Pages 58-89
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From page 58... ...
Gonzales described the relation ship between family influences and particular risk behaviors, as well as interventions that have been developed to alter these influences. Effects of Economic Distress The social causation model, Conger explained, provides a framework for considering the way in which economic disadvantage and social con ditions affect family functioning and the ways that children develop.
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From page 59... ...
However, although the downward spiral can occur very quickly, such interven 1 Conger noted that family income is not a reliable measure of hardship because even families with high incomes may face severe economic challenges, for example, if a medical calamity occurs in a family with inadequate health insurance. Thus, researchers consider other factors, such as negative financial events, sudden economic demands, or sudden changes in income.
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From page 60... ...
Impaired competence FIGURE 5-1 The family stress model of economic hardship. Fig 5-1.eps SOURCE: Conger and Conger, 2008.
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From page 61... ...
• Parental monitoring and positive parental relationships have been linked with later sexual debut, fewer sexual partners, and increased condom use. Many social risk factors have been shown to increase the likelihood that adolescents will engage in risk behaviors as well as to disrupt parenting and family processes.
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From page 62... ...
Families vary, for example, in the extent to which they encourage and support education, monitor and manage peer activities, Ecological Niche Public Policy Mass Media Family Peers School Families monitor Families suppor t and and manage peers promote education Adolescent Economic Neighborhood Context Families protect from Cultural neighborhood risk Context Fig 5-2.eps FIGURE 5-2 Ecological transactional framework. SOURCE: Gonzales, 2009.
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From page 63... ...
Many middle school interventions are designed around this idea, Gonzales noted. This is an important stage, Gonzales said, because it is when many risk behaviors are initiated and adolescents face many new challenges, including puberty and the growing importance of peer groups.
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From page 64... ...
Dodge demonstrated. Influences and Interventions Prinstein began by explaining that, in general, the research literature on peer influence and the interventions related to it are less mature than those on families.
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From page 65... ...
Prinstein noted the important distinction between adolescents who are well liked and those who are identified as popular, the latter signifying those who are at the top of a dominance hierarchy. It is the dominant individuals who seem to be the most influential, particularly with regard to high-risk behaviors.
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From page 66... ...
Youth who have already engaged in a particular behavior also tend to assume that they are in the majority and that others are engaging in similar risk behaviors. Another possible mechanism for negative peer influence is a process called deviancy training, in which specific types of interactions within friendship dyads may reinforce talk about deviant behaviors.
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From page 67... ...
Poor family relationships make adolescents more likely to attract and affiliate with deviant peers and to adopt their attitudes. This is another area in which further research is needed, Prinstein observed.
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From page 68... ...
0.8 0.6 Mean Individual Effect 0.4 Mixed Group Size Deviant Group 0.2 0 Immediately Directly Follow Post Up Observed Treatment Behavior FIGURE 5-4 All-deviant peer groups worsen outcomes beyond mixed peer Fig 5-4.eps groups: Meta-analysis of social skills training interventions. SOURCE: Dodge, 2009.
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From page 69... ...
Similarly, participants who are in early adolescence and are already moderately deviant but are not yet committed to deviant behavior are the most susceptible to deviant peer influence. However, moderators that minimize deviant peer influence include experienced and well-trained leaders and constant monitoring; use of behavioral approaches, such as positive reward structures; highly structured time; the promotion of a cultural norm of nondeviance; and a short duration.
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From page 70... ...
, job corps and individual skills training, and efforts to disperse gangs. When deviant peers are treated together, a number of measures can minimize the negative peer influence.
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From page 71... ...
At present, the field lacks reliable and valid measures of settings, and theoretical modeling of the school environment has not been firmly established.5 Racial and Ethnic Composition Noting that there are innumerable ways in which school may influence adolescents' risk-taking, Graham focused on the role of racial and ethnic diversity as a contextual influence on psychosocial risk. This is an important topic, she noted, in part because the demographic composi tion of the K-12 population has changed and is continuing to change so rapidly, as shown in Table 5-2.
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From page 72... ...
Young people ages 8 to 15 report that they are more concerned about emotional maltreatment and social cruelty than they are about anything else, including their academic achievement. It is in part for these reasons that the American Medical Association has designated peer victimization as a public health concern, Graham explained.7 As part of the Peer Relations Project, researchers investigated the hypothesis that peer victimization may be reduced in schools that are racially and ethnically diverse, because there is more likely to be a balance 6 See http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/graham/peerproject/pvp-index.htm.
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From page 73... ...
They classified the diversity of 99 classrooms in 11 middle schools using the Simpson Index (a tool used by sociologists, demographers, and ethologists to measure the relative representation of different groups)
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From page 74... ...
Here again, the Peer Relations Project researchers examined whether school diversity affects this experience. Looking at Los Angeles schools, they examined the experiences of students who moved to high schools that were either significantly more or less diverse than their middle schools.
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From page 75... ...
She advocates reframing the question to ask how, rather than whether, school diversity promotes healthy development and researching both the benefits and the challenges of diversity. Sexual Behavior and Schools Kirby focused on the ways in which school experiences affect adolescents' sexual behavior, drawing on analysis of the research regarding risk and protective factors and the effectiveness of various interventions (Kirby, 2008, 2007; Kirby et al., 2005)
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From page 76... ...
noted modest evidence that abstinence-only programs may have limited beneficial effect, as well as evidence that programs designed to encourage condom use and avoid other risks can be successful. More than two-thirds of the programs had a positive effect on one or more of the risk behaviors, which Kirby characterized as remarkable success.
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From page 77... ...
Gorman-Smith noted that much of the research on neighborhood effects has focused not on individual development, but on the neigh borhood characteristics that are associated with crime or other negative phenomena. Leventhal described some of the nonexperimental research on links between the sociodemographic character of the neighborhoods where young people live and their engagement in risk behaviors, which
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From page 78... ...
Looking across these sorts of studies, Leventhal noted that even with controls for child and family background characteristics and other fac tors, there is significant evidence for a connection between socioeconomic status and risk behavior. Living in an affluent neighborhood where the residents are college-educated professionals is associated with advantages for adolescents' academic achievement, although more so for adolescent boys than for girls.
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From page 79... ...
First, she suggested, it is likely that neighborhood structure could have both direct and indirect effects on adolescent risk behavior, but it is also likely that there are specific intermediary mechanisms, such as social processes. Thus, one model for linking neigh borhood structure to adolescent outcomes is the institutional resources model, or the hypothesis that young people are influenced by the qual ity, quantity, diversity, and affordability of neighborhood resources (e.g., schools, health and social services, recreational and social programs, employment opportunities)
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From page 80... ...
The most compel ling evidence currently available is for the social norms and collective efficacy model. These factors seem to play a strong role in the link between neighborhood poverty and adolescent delinquency and sexual risk behavior.
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From page 81... ...
These data may include information about crime, community businesses and organizations, social factors such as perceptions of fear, or adult monitoring. In addition, Leventhal noted, it may be necessary to exam ine mediating factors that may help explain neighborhood effects and moderating effects that neighborhoods may have to either exacerbate the negative effects of other risks or enhance the positive effects of adolescent assets and resources.
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From page 82... ...
Among programs directed at teenagers, 82 percent included sexual talk and twothirds included sexual behavior (4 percent portrayed sexual intercourse) (Farrar et al., 2003)
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From page 83... ...
They can be used to do great good or, used thoughtlessly, they can harm," he suggested. Johnson focused on the value of applying contemporary persuasion theory to the use of media strategies to influence adolescent behavior.
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From page 84... ...
. Johnson added, however, that the meta-analysis also showed that effect sizes for health promotion efforts (looking not just at media cam paigns)
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From page 85... ...
12 14 0.044 Pregnancy rates (DiCenso, 2002) 30 14.79 0.050 Pregnancy rates, sexual behavior, birth control use (Guyatt et al., 2000)
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From page 86... ...
. Interventions Brown picked up on the potential for media to be used as a positive force in young people's lives, focusing on three media-based strategies.14 Perhaps the most familiar to many people is the use of social marketing approaches for media campaigns.
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From page 87... ...
Examples include providing public health messages or answers to individual ado lescents' questions via text messaging, interactive CD-ROMs, and DVDs providing information about sexually transmitted diseases, HIV preven tion, and the like, which are available in pediatricians' offices, schools, and websites designed as peer communities that can provide information. Most media campaigns are expensive, Brown noted, and researchers have not perfected the art of devising effective messages.
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From page 88... ...
Challenges to this approach include identifying sympathetic media producers willing to produce such messages, the difficulty of controlling messages once a celebrity takes on the role, and sustaining the message over time. Moreover, as with media campaigns, Brown explained, it is very difficult to evaluate the effective ness of these messages.
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From page 89... ...
Communities also may have structural characteristics that are supportive of positive ado lescent development -- such as social networks and resources for young people -- but research has not yet answered specific questions about how schools and communities can develop more favorable structures and cultures. Finally, the rapidly expanding universe of media devices and venues is having a profound influence on the experience of adolescence, with effects that include evolving norms for many behaviors -- and particularly a loosening of sexual attitudes and an increase in sexual activity.
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