Protective factors in adolescent health behavior

The role of psychosocial protective factors in adolescent health-enhancing behaviors--healthy diet, regular exercise, adequate sleep, good dental hygiene, and seatbelt use--was investigated among 1,493 Hispanic, White, and Black high school students in a large, urban school district. Both proximal (health-related) and distal (conventionality-related) protective factors have significant positive relations with health-enhancing behavior and with the development of health-enhancing behavior. In addition, in cross-sectional analyses, protection was shown to moderate risk. Key proximal protective factors are value on health, perceived effects of health-compromising behavior, and parents who model health behavior. Key distal protective factors are positive orientation to school, friends who model conventional behavior, involvement in prosocial activities, and church attendance. The findings suggest the importance of individual differences on a dimension of conventionality-unconventionality. Strengthening both proximal and distal protective factors may help to promote healthful behaviors in adolescence.     

Protective and risk factors in health-enhancing behavior among adolescents in china and the United States: Does social context matter?

An explanatory model of adolescent health-enhancing behavior based on protective and risk factors at the individual level and in 4 social contexts was used in a study of school-based samples from the People's Republic of China (n = 1,739) and the United States (n = 1,596). A substantial account of variation in health-enhancing behavior--and of its developmental change over time--was provided by the model for boys and girls, and for the 3 grade cohorts, in both samples. In both samples, social context protective and risk factors accounted for more unique variance than did individual-level protective and risk factors, and context protection moderated both contextual and individual-level risk. Models protection and controls protection were of particular importance in the explanatory account. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time of first intercourse: A prospective study.

Longitudinal psychosocial data were used to predict the transition from virginity to nonvirginity among 430 7th–9th graders, all of whom were virgins at the initial testing in 1970. By the most recent follow-up in 1979, 93% reported having had sexual intercourse. Variation in time of onset of initial intercourse was categorized into 6 time periods and served as the main criterion variable in the study. Bivariate and multivariate analyses showed that antecedent measures of personality, the perceived environment, and behavior were predictive of variation in time of onset and, taken together, accounted for approximately 30% of the criterion variance. Results support the utility of the problem-behavior-theory framework and show onset of sexual intercourse to be a systematic aspect of psychosocial development in adolescence. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transition from virginity to nonvirginity among youth: A social-psychological study over time.

A social psychology of behavior was employed to account for variation in an aspect of development-the transition from virginity to nonvirginity. Personality, perceived environment, and behavioral measures were collected by questionnaires administered annually to 186 male and 242 female high school students during 1969-1972, and to 78 male and 102 female undergraduates during 1970-1973. In cross-sectional comparisons, nonvirgins differed from virgins in the theoretically expected transition-prone direction on variables, including higher value on independence, lower value on achievement, greater social criticism and tolerance of deviance, and greater friends' models for deviance. In longitudinal comparisons, virgins who were to become nonvirgins in the subsequent year were already significantly more transition-prone on these antecedent measures than virgins who were to remain virgins. The results were stronger at the high school than at the college level, and for females than for males. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarianism, punitiveness, and perceived social status.

Ss were 101 introductory psychology students, 48 of whom were high scorers and 53 of whom were low scorers on an authoritarianism scale. A series of 24 separate stimulus cards of a semiprojective nature similar to the Rosenzweig pictures studied some of the interrelationships among authoritarianism, punitiveness, and status. The data indicate that low authoritarians respond to frustrators independently of their status. "… punitiveness is a function of both the personality of the individual and the particular stimulus environment that elicits the behavior." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting time of onset of marijuana use: A developmental study of high school youth.

Conducted a longitudinal study of 589 7th-9th graders to predict time of onset of marihuana use. Measures of 19 personality, perceived environment, and behavioral variables given in 1970 accounted for a significant amount of the variance in time of onset of use over the subsequent 2-yr period (R = .61 for males and .44 for females). "Growth curves" of the measures plotted over the study years show that the trajectory of social-psychological development varied depending on whether and on when onset of marihuana use occurred. Findings support the importance of the concept of deviance or transition proneness in the social-psychological framework as identifying a disposition toward development and change among adolescents. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structure of health-enhancing behavior in adolescence: a latent-variable approach

The structure of the interrelations among a variety of health-enhancing behaviors was examined using structural equation modeling analyses of questionnaire data from 1,280 middle school students and 2,219 high school students. The health-enhancing behaviors included seat belt use, adequate hours of sleep, attention to healthy diet, adequate exercise, low sedentary behavior, and regular toothbrushing. In the middle school sample, all of the health-enhancing behaviors correlated significantly but modestly with each other, except for sleep with toothbrushing. In the high school sample, all but three of the 15 correlations among the behaviors were significant. The results further show that a single underlying factor can account for the modest correlations among these health-enhancing behaviors in both samples. The generality of the single-factor model was also established for male, female, White, Hispanic, and Black students at each school level. These findings provide some support for the existence of health-related lifestyles in adolescence.     

Protective factors in adolescent problem behavior: Moderator effects and developmental change.

The relation of psychosocial protective factors to involvement in problem behavior (alcohol and drug abuse, delinquency, and sexual precocity) was investigated in a longitudinal study of 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-grade adolescents in a large, urban school district. Protective factors were drawn from the personality, the perceived environment, and the behavior systems of problem-behavior theory. The findings show a significant inverse relation between protection and problem-behavior involvement. There is a significant interaction between protection and risk in the prediction of problem behavior: Protection is shown to moderate the relation of risk to problem behavior. Protective factors are also significant predictors of change in adolescent problem behavior over time. Direct effects of protection are consistent across all gender and racial/ethnic subgroups; moderator effects are evident for female, White, and Hispanic subgroups only. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Successful adolescent development among youth in high-risk settings.

A new, interdisciplinary paradigm is emerging in developmental psychology. It includes contextual as well as individual variation and is more consonant with the complexity of adolescent behavior and development than traditional research paradigms. Social problems, such as poverty and racial discrimination, and the ways that young people negotiate adolescence successfully, are objects of research. A research program sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, that embodies the new paradigm, is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal ideology and adolescent problem behavior.

Assessed the relationship of maternal traditional ideology to adolescent problem behavior in a correlational study. Mothers of 184 junior and senior high school students were interviewed about their beliefs about society and morality and about their child-rearing practices; their sons and daughters responded separately to questionnaires that included reports of their own behavior with respect to alcohol and marihuana use, sex, and political activism. Results of the correlational analyses supported the main hypothesis that the more traditional the mother's ideology, the less the adolescent's involvement in problem behavior. A 2nd hypothesis, that maternal affectional interaction and controls, taken in conjunction with ideological beliefs, would account for more of the variation in adolescent problem behavior, was partially supported. In general, the associations between mother's ideology and adolescent behavior were stronger for daughters than for sons. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)