Youth Aggression and Peer Victimization as Predictors of Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Use: A Longitudinal Analysis of Youth with Aggressive Behavior Problems.

Youth who are behaviorally aggressive and victimized by their peers comprise a significant population with specific risks and vulnerabilities relative to substance use. The goals of the current study were to examine the roles that youth aggression and peer victimization play in determining the timing of alcohol and marijuana use initiation and the frequency of use 5-years later in a sample of at-risk, aggressive youth. 360 youth (Mage= 10.17 years; 65% boys, 35% girls; 78.1% African American, 20.3% Caucasian, 1.4% Hispanic, and 0.3% other) recruited for a prevention program for at-risk youth were followed for 5 years (4th - 9th grade). Cox PH regressions were conducted to predict timing of alcohol and marijuana use initiation. Zero-inflated negative binomial regressions were used to predict frequency of alcohol and marijuana use 5 years later. Results showed that peer victimization inferred decreased risk of alcohol use initiation. However, this effect was only observed for youth with relatively moderate, and low levels of aggression. Findings suggest that differences in youth aggression and victimization interact to predict distinct outcomes, suggesting the need for a more comprehensive approach when working with aggressive youth who have experienced peer victimization.

Coping strategies in response to peer victimization: Comparing adolescents in the United States and Korea.

We examined cultural specificity in how adolescents' coping strategies in response to peer victimization are associated with adjustment with a sample of 7th-8th graders from the United States (n = 292, 60% female, Mage = 13.6, SD = 0.65) and South Korea (n = 462, 50.2% female, Mage = 13.7, SD = 0.58). Participants read scenarios describing victimization and rated the likelihood of utilizing different coping strategies. US adolescents rated conflict resolution, cognitive distancing, and revenge higher than Korean adolescents, while Korean adolescents endorsed social support seeking more than US adolescents. Social support seeking was positively associated with global self-worth in both countries; however, social support seeking was negatively related to depression and social anxiety only for Korean youth.

A Prospective Study of Co-Rumination in Parent-Adolescent Conversations Several Years After a Devastating Tornado.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the association between youth post-disaster stress responses and co-rumination in conversations with a parent several years after a devastating tornado. METHOD: Adolescents (N = 200) drawn from an ongoing study for aggressive youth (ages 13 to 17; 80% African American) and their parents experienced an EF-4 tornado in 2011 and then provided joint recollections about their tornado experiences approximately 5 years later. Recollections were coded for the four components of co-rumination: rehashing problems, dwelling on negative affect, mutual encouragement of problem talk, and speculating about problems. Parent-rated post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and youth resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were measured approximately 6-months and 1-year post-tornado, respectively. RESULTS: Results indicated that co-rumination could be identified, and reliably measured, in the tornado conversations. Resting RSA moderated the association between post-disaster PTSS and the co-rumination component dwelling on negative affect, such that youth PTSS was associated with higher levels of dwelling on negative affect but only at lower levels of resting RSA (an index of physiological dysregulation). There was no association between youth PTSS and dwelling on negative affect at high resting RSA (an index of better physiological regulation). Youth PTSS and resting RSA were unrelated to the other three co-rumination components. No gender differences were found. CONCLUSIONS: Results provide preliminary evidence establishing the co-rumination coding scheme in a sample of disaster-exposed parents and adolescents. Results also indicated that PTSS and resting RSA are important youth-level factors that relate to how parents and adolescents discuss their disaster experiences even years post-exposure.

Disaster Exposure and Temperament as Predictors of Adolescent Substance Use.

OBJECTIVE: Children who have been exposed to a natural disaster in their lifetime comprise a significant population with specific risks and vulnerabilities, particularly for at-risk youth. The goal of the current study was to examine the role that severity of disaster exposure plays in determining the timing of alcohol and marijuana use initiation and the frequency of use four years later in a sample of at-risk, aggressive youth exposed to a devastating tornado. Of further interest was the examination of the moderating effect of temperamental fear and inhibitory control. METHOD: Three hundred and forty-six youth (Mage = 11.33; 65% boys; 77.5% African-Americans, 18.3% Caucasian, 1.7% Hispanic) initially recruited for a prevention program for at-risk youth were followed for 4 years after a tornado. Cox PH regressions were conducted to predict timing of alcohol and marijuana use initiation. Zero-inflated negative binomial regressions were used to predict frequency of alcohol and marijuana use 4 years after the tornado. RESULTS: Disaster exposure severity was predictive of frequency of marijuana use four years after the tornado, but exposure alone was not predictive of initiation. Exposure severity predicted increases in risk for alcohol use initiation only for youth high in fear. Additionally, greater levels of inhibitory control protected youth from earlier alcohol use initiation. CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight a need to research the initiation and frequency of use for substances individually, while also assessing the needs of youth exposed to natural disasters with both their degree of disaster exposure and specific temperamental characteristics in mind.

Attributions about Peer Victimization in US and Korean Adolescents and Associations with Internalizing Problems.

Although there is cultural variability in how individuals make attributions for their own and others' behaviors, cultural variation in youth's attributions about peer victimization and their relation with internalizing problems has gone unexamined. To address this issue, adolescents from the U.S. (n = 292, 60% female, 79.5% White, Mage = 13.6, SD = 0.65) and Korea (n = 462, 50.2% female, Mage = 13.7, SD = 0.58) reported on their peer victimization, depressive symptoms, social anxiety, self-worth, and rated their attributions to vignettes about peer victimization. Multigroup confirmatory analyses found that Korean and American youth conceptualized characterological self-blame, behavioral self-blame, and externalization of blame similarly. However, Korean youth differentially endorsed each of the three types of attributions, while U.S. adolescents endorsed characterological self-blame and behavioral self-blame at similar levels. Attributions had unique relations with internalizing problems (depression, social anxiety, global self-worth) in each culture. In multigroup SEM analyses, characterological self-blame predicted all internalizing problems for U.S. adolescents, while behavioral self-blame was not uniquely related to internalizing problems. For Korean adolescents, behavioral self-blame significantly predicted all internalizing problems, whereas characterological self-blame predicted global self-worth only. The results suggest that attributions about victimization have different adjustment implications in Korea than in the U.S.

Interpretations and revenge goals in response to peer provocations: Comparing adolescents in the United States and Pakistan.

This study examined cultural specificity in how interpretations about peer provocation are associated with revenge goals and aggression. The sample consisted of young adolescents from the United States (369 seventh-graders; 54.7% male; 77.2% identified as White) and from Pakistan (358 seventh-graders; 39.2% male). Participants rated their interpretations and revenge goals in response to six peer provocation vignettes and completed peer nominations of aggressive behavior. Multi-group SEM models indicated cultural specificity in how interpretations were related to revenge goals. Interpretations that a friendship with the provocateur was unlikely were uniquely related to revenge goals for Pakistani adolescents. For U.S adolescents positive interpretations were negatively related to revenge but self-blame interpretations were positively related to vengeance goals. Revenge goals were related to aggression similarly across groups.

"I Felt Like a Hero:" Adolescents' Understanding of Resolution-Promoting and Vengeful Actions on Behalf of Their Peers.

Bystander intervention on behalf of victims of peer aggression is credited with reducing victimization, yet little is known about how bystanders evaluate their intervention efforts. African-, European-, Mexican-, and Native-American adolescents (N = 266) between 13 and 18 years (Mage = 15.0, 54% female) recounted vengeful and peaceful responses to a peer's victimization. For comparison, they also described acts of personal revenge. Youth's explanations of how they evaluated each action were coded for goals and outcomes. Befitting its moral complexity, self-evaluative rationales for third-party revenge cited more goals than the other two conditions. References to benevolence and lack thereof were more frequent after third-party revenge compared to personal revenge. Concerns that security was compromised and that actions contradicted self-direction were high after both types of revenge. Third-party resolution promoted benevolence, competence, self-direction, and security more than third-party revenge. Epistemic network analyses and thematic excerpts revealed the centrality of benevolence goals in adolescents' self-evaluative thinking. Self-focused and identity-relevant goals were cited in concert with benevolence after third-party intervention.

Co-reminiscing with a caregiver about a devastating tornado: Association with adolescent anxiety symptoms.

This study explores the association between caregivers' style of co-reminiscing with their adolescents about an EF4 tornado and youth anxiety symptoms several years following the disaster. Caregiver reward of their children's emotional expression, defined as attending to and validating emotionally salient content, is generally associated with adaptive youth psychosocial outcomes. However, caregiver reward of youth recollections that are centered around the youth's negative emotional expression could be an indicator that both caregivers and adolescents are engaged in co-rumination regarding negative emotional experiences. This process may contribute to relatively higher levels of anxiety over time. Adolescents (N = 169) drawn from an ongoing study for aggressive youth (ages 12 to 17; 82% African American) provided individual recollections about their experiences during a devastating tornado 4 to 5 years following the disaster. Caregivers and youth then co-reminisced about their tornado-related experiences. Individual youth recollections were coded for negative personal impact and use of negative emotion words; caregiver-adolescent conversations were coded for caregiver reward of negative emotional expression. Youth who noted more negative personal impacts and used more negative emotion words were higher in parent-rated youth anxiety, and these associations were moderated by caregiver reward of negative emotional expression. The associations between youth recollection qualities and anxiety emerged only when caregivers exhibited high levels of reward of negative emotional expression. These patterns were generally stronger for girls compared to boys. Findings suggest that excessively discussing and rehashing negative experiences, especially several years after the disaster, may be a risk factor for anxiety among disaster-exposed adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Validation of the Arabic and Hebrew versions of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS).

INTRODUCTION: The Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS; Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008) is a self-report scale that can be applied to measure three identity processes (commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) in specific domains. The current study was aimed at testing the applicability of the U-MICS in two new languages: Arabic and Hebrew. Specifically, we (a) tested the fit of the three-factor structure; (b) examined measurement invariance of the Arabic and Hebrew versions; and (c) investigated convergent validity by relating the identity processes (commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) to multiple indicators of psychosocial adjustment (self-esteem, prosocial behaviors, and delinquency). METHODS: Participants were 314 Arab and 386 Jewish adolescents living in Israel (N = 770; 54.7% girls; Mage = 13.79, SDage = 0.51, age-range = 12-15). Assessments of identity processes, self-esteem, and delinquency were collected using self-report measures, while prosocial behaviors were measured through peer nominations. RESULTS: The results highlighted that (a) the three-factor model fit the data excellently in the total sample as well as in Arab and Jewish samples; (b) hierarchical levels of measurement invariance (configural, metric, and scalar), as well as invariance of covariances, could be clearly established; and (c) convergent validity was demonstrated by showing meaningful associations between identity processes and indicators of psychosocial functioning. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that the U-MICS is a reliable instrument for assessing identity processes in Arabic and Hebrew-speaking adolescents.

Caregiver-adolescent co-reminiscing and adolescents' individual recollections of a devastating tornado: Associations with enduring posttraumatic stress symptoms.

Although disaster-related posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) typically decrease in intensity over time, some youth continue to report elevated levels of PTSS many years after the disaster. The current study examines two processes that may help to explain the link between disaster exposure and enduring PTSS: caregiver emotion socialization and youth recollection qualities. One hundred and twenty-two youth (ages 12 to 17) and their female caregivers who experienced an EF-4 tornado co-reminisced about the event, and adolescents provided independent recollections between 3 and 4 years after the tornado. Adolescent individual transcripts were coded for coherence and negative personal impact, qualities that have been found to contribute to meaning making. Parent-adolescent conversations were coded for caregiver egocentrism, a construct derived from the emotion socialization literature to reflect the extent to which the caregiver centered the conversation on her own emotions and experiences. Egocentrism predicted higher youth PTSS, and this association was mediated by the coherence of adolescents' narratives. The association between coherence and PTSS was stronger for youth who focused more on the negative personal impacts of the tornado event during their recollections. Results suggest that enduring tornado-related PTSS may be influenced in part by the interplay of caregiver emotion socialization practices and youth recollection qualities.

Peer Victimization and Communication Skills in Adolescents with Down Syndrome: Preliminary Findings.

In this preliminary study, we examined peer victimization in adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and how it relates to language and communication skills. We modified the Childrens' Social Experience Questionnaire (Crick and Grotpeter in Dev Psychopathol 8:367-380, 1996) to better suit adolescents with DS by simplifying vocabulary and syntax, using two step interview response format. Internal reliability was adequate, and all peer victimization measures were significantly elevated compared to a typically developing sample. Further, peer victimization (especially relational victimization) correlated with speech intelligibility, pragmatic judgment, conversational behavior, and receptive vocabulary. These preliminary data suggest that having DS may put adolescents at risk for peer victimization, but having relatively good language/communication skills may be a protective factor. Further research is warranted on this topic.

Trajectories of tornado-related posttraumatic stress symptoms and pre-exposure predictors in a sample of at-risk youth.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined how severity of disaster exposure and predisaster individual and family characteristics predicted trajectories of disaster-related posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in children over 4 years following a devastating EF-4 tornado. METHOD: Participants (n = 346; 65% male; 77.5% African American) were 4th-6th-graders and their caregivers, from predominantly low-income households, who were already participating in a longitudinal study of indicated prevention effects for externalizing outcomes when the tornado occurred in 2011. Latent class trajectory analyses were used to identify disaster-related PTSS trajectory groups across the 4-year postdisaster period. RESULTS: Three groups were identified: (1) a group that declined (recovery) in PTSS over time (15.90%); (2) a group that was stable and low in PTSS over time (76.87%); and (3) a group that was stable and high (chronic) in PTSS over time (7.23%). Multinomial logistic regression analyses revealed that greater tornado exposure predicted membership in the declining trajectory group relative to the low-stable group. Positive parenting and pretornado caregiver trauma exposure also moderated how disaster exposure, particularly perceived life threat, predicted PTSS trajectories. CONCLUSIONS: Some youth reported elevated disaster-related PTSS repeatedly for 4 years following a devastating tornado. Consistent with the concept of equifinality, results suggest that there are several pre-exposure risk factors that may increase risk for a chronic PTSS trajectory following disaster exposure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Pacifists and Revenge-Seekers in Response to Unambiguous Peer Provocation.

In order to better understand why some children retaliate when they feel provoked and others do not, the present study identified "pacifistically-oriented" children who made negative interpretations in response to unambiguous provocations, yet did not endorse revenge goals, and compared them to "revenge-seeking" children who also made negative interpretations but did endorse revenge goals. Groups were identified based on seventh graders' (N = 367; 54.77% male; 22.89% racial/ethnic minority) responses to hypothetical situations in which a peer excluded and insulted them. Comparing these groups revealed that Pacifists endorsed relationship-maintaining goals and emotion regulation goals more highly than Revenge-Seekers. Revenge-Seekers reported more anger and endorsed beliefs about negative reciprocity and aggression being legitimate more highly than Pacifists. Additionally, Revenge-Seekers were more disrespect sensitive than were Pacifists, based on a measure of vigilance for signs of disrespect and expectations that others would disrespect them. Together these findings point to social-cognitive and emotion-related processes that may inhibit revenge-seeking in unambiguous provocation situations, even when children interpret the peer's behavior quite negatively.

Identifying and Distinguishing Value Profiles in American and Israeli Adolescents.

Although research has examined how values are correlated with behavior, little has examined how the system of values predicts behavior. In a cross-cultural sample of American (109 European American; 216 African American) and Israeli (318 Arab Israeli; 216 Jewish Israeli) adolescents, the present study used latent profile analysis to identify groups which reflected the theoretical structure of values across both cultures. Four profiles were found: self-focused, anxiety-free, other-focused, and undifferentiated. Results indicated that Self-Focused adolescents were the most aggressive and viewed as leaders by their peers compared to the other groups. Self-Focused and anxiety-free youth reported more delinquency than their peers. Few differences between cultural groups emerged, suggesting that this approach is a promising avenue for understanding heterogeneity in behavior.

Attention Problems as a Mediator of the Relation between Executive Function and Social Problems in a Child and Adolescent Outpatient Sample.

Social functioning is critical for the successful navigation of everyday life for children, adolescents, and adults. Recent theories have postulated a neuropsychological basis for social functioning with particularly strong links with the executive functioning (EF) system. The current study examined attention problems as a mediator between EF (e.g., working memory, planning, and response inhibition) and social functioning in a child and adolescent outpatient sample. Participants were 218 children ages 6-16 (M = 10.23; SD = 2.52; 68.8 % males) who were referred to an outpatient clinic for psychoeducational assessment. Bias-corrected bootstrapping mediation analyses were used to examine the hypothesized models. The effects of working memory and planning (but not response inhibition) on social problems were mediated by attention problems in both teacher- and mother-reported models. These findings also held up in cross-source models (e.g., mother-reported attention problems as a mediator in a model predicting teacher-reported social problems). These findings have implications for dimensional models of social functioning and conceptual models for specific clinical populations (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).

Sources and Implications of Maternal Accuracy About Young Adolescents' Vulnerability to Friendship Jealousy.

To assist effectively with social difficulties, parents must accurately understand the peer situations that are difficult for their child. Mothers' insight into their young adolescent's vulnerability to friendship jealousy was assessed by posing identical vignettes to 72 young adolescents and their mothers and matching their responses. Mothers and children also completed questionnaires on their relationship and the child's adjustment. Mothers as a group were poor judges of their child's jealousy, but considerable variability existed. Accuracy was greater when mother-child pairs were closer. Polynomial regression and response surface analyses indicated that maternal accuracy could dampen the friendship and aggression risks otherwise associated with being vulnerable to jealousy.

The Social Values of Aggressive-Prosocial Youth.

Recent research has identified youth who utilize both aggressive and prosocial behavior with peers. Although the social values and motivations associated with aggression and prosocial behavior have been well studied, the values of youth who utilize both aggression and prosocial behavior are unknown. The current study identified groups of adolescents based on peer nominations of aggression and prosocial behavior from both Israel (n = 569; 56.94% Arab, 43.06% Jewish; 53.78% female) and the United States (n = 342; 67.54% African-American; 32.46% European-American; 50.88% female). Self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness-to-change, and conservation values predicted behavioral group membership. Power values predicted membership in the aggressive group relative to the aggressive-prosocial, prosocial, and low-both groups. For Israeli boys, openness-to-change values predicted membership in the aggressive-prosocial group relative to the prosocial group. The values of aggressive-prosocial youth were more similar to the values of prosocial peers than to aggressive peers, suggesting that motivational interventions for aggressive-prosocial youth should differ in important ways than those for aggressive youth.

Best friends' discussions of social dilemmas.

Peer relationships, particularly friendships, have been theorized to contribute to how children and adolescents think about social and moral issues. The current study examined how young adolescent best friends (191 dyads; 53.4% female) reason together about multifaceted social dilemmas and how their reasoning is related to friendship quality. Mutually-recognized friendship dyads were videotaped discussing dilemmas entailing moral, social-conventional and prudential/pragmatic issues. Both dyad members completed a self-report measure of friendship quality. Dyadic data analyses guided by the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model indicated that adolescent and friend reports of friendship qualities were related to the forms of reasoning used during discussion. Friends who both reported that they could resolve conflicts in a constructive way were more likely to use moral reasoning than friends who reported that their conflict resolution was poor or disagreed on the quality of their conflict resolution. The findings provide evidence for the important role that friendship interaction may play in adolescents' social and moral development.

Racially diverse classrooms: effects of classroom racial composition on interracial peer relationships.

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects that a child's race and the racial composition of a classroom have on a variety of sociometric measures. Sociometric nominations were collected from 872 fifth-grade students (48% male, 48% Black) who were in classrooms that ranged from nearly all Black to nearly all White students. Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses indicated that the race of the child, the race of the rater, and the classroom race composition each impacted sociometric nominations. Results suggest that schools that are more balanced in the distribution of Black and White students might promote more positive interracial peer relationships. However, opportunities to be highly liked and to be perceived as a leader might be greatest in a school in which the child is in the clear racial majority.

College Students' Revenge Goals Across Friend, Romantic Partner, and Roommate Contexts: The Role of Interpretations and Emotions.

Residential college environments provide young people with distinctive relationship opportunities and challenges. A major purpose of the present study was to learn whether college students respond differently to conflict-of-interest vignettes in three different relationship contexts. Students were more likely to make negative interpretations about their romantic partner's behavior than they did about their friend's or roommate's behavior. They were also more likely to feel angry and hurt and to endorse hostile goals and strategies with romantic partners. A second major purpose was to learn about the types of interpretations and emotions associated with revenge goals in conflict-of-interest situations. Results indicated that interpreting the other person's actions as disrespectful and as rejecting was related to revenge goals and also predicted to revenge goals beyond the contributions of anger and hurt feelings.