Not Just Doing Time: Distinct Typologies of Attitudes and Emotions among Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth.

Adolescents' views of the legal system, just world beliefs, and moral emotions are interrelated and form an important frame of reference, particularly for young people involved in the juvenile justice system. Yet past scholarship has generally treated these as independent indices of youths' experience. This study took a person-centered, latent profile approach to attitudes and beliefs among 136 male youth incarcerated within secure US juvenile facilities. Three heterogeneous profiles were found (negative attitudes/low emotion, moderate attitudes/mixed emotions, and positive attitudes/positive emotion) which were differentially associated with antisocial behavior. Youth who belonged to historically marginalized populations had significantly lower odds of belonging to a protective profile characterized by positive legal attitudes, just world beliefs, and emotions (positive attitudes/positive emotion). Findings highlight our gaps in understanding young people's experiences with legal and judicial entities and illustrate significant heterogeneity in youth's frame of reference within the juvenile justice system.

The Practicalities and Perils of Ambulatory Assessment's Promise: Introduction to a Special Section.

Ambulatory assessment (AA) offers one of the most exciting approaches for opening the dynamic "black box" of adolescents' daily lives. In this introduction, we spotlight AA's surprisingly restricted market share within adolescent scholarship. We describe thorny challenges these intense methods can pose when conducting adolescent research "in situ" and underscore that capturing quality AA data means placing adolescents' developmental stage at the forefront. The novel research reported in this special section speaks to these challenges and underscores the promise of AA for conducting developmentally salient science. The nine articles included in the section span multiple disciplines (Sociology, Psychology, Public Health) and reflect diverse viewpoints, approaches, and theories. All provide multiple novel best-practice strategies for conducting AA scholarship with adolescents.

Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Adolescents with Elevated Externalizing Symptoms Show Heightened Emotion Reactivity to Daily Stress: An Experience Sampling Study.

Numerous theories assert that youth with externalizing symptomatology experience intensified emotion reactivity to stressful events; yet scant empirical research has assessed this notion. Using in-vivo data collected via experience sampling methodology, we assessed whether externalizing symptoms conditioned adolescents' emotion reactivity to daily stressors (i.e. change in emotion pre-post stressor) among 206 socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents. We also assessed whether higher externalizing symptomology was associated with experiencing more stressors overall, and whether adolescents' emotional upheavals resulted in experiencing a subsequent stressor. Hierarchical linear models showed that adolescents higher in externalizing symptoms experienced stronger emotion reactivity in sadness, anger, jealously, loneliness, and (dips in) excitement. Externalizing symptomatology was not associated with more stressful events, but a stress-preventative effect was found for recent upheavals in jealousy among youth low in externalizing. Findings pinpoint intense emotion reactivity to daily stress as a risk factor for youth with externalizing symptoms living in socioeconomic disadvantage.

Latent profiles of nonresidential father engagement six years after divorce predict long-term offspring outcomes.

This study examined profiles of nonresidential father engagement (i.e., support to the adolescent, contact frequency, remarriage, relocation, and interparental conflict) with their adolescent children (N = 156) 6 to 8 years following divorce and the prospective relation between these profiles and the psychosocial functioning of their offspring, 9 years later. Parental divorce occurred during late childhood to early adolescence; indicators of nonresidential father engagement were assessed during adolescence, and mental health problems and academic achievement of offspring were assessed 9 years later in young adulthood. Three profiles of father engagement were identified in our sample of mainly White, non-Hispanic divorced fathers: Moderate Involvement/Low Conflict, Low Involvement/Moderate Conflict, and High Involvement/High Conflict. Profiles differentially predicted offspring outcomes 9 years later when they were young adults, controlling for quality of the mother-adolescent relationship, mother's remarriage, mother's income, and gender, age, and offspring mental health problems in adolescence. Offspring of fathers characterized as Moderate Involvement/Low Conflict had the highest academic achievement and the lowest number of externalizing problems 9 years later compared to offspring whose fathers had profiles indicating either the highest or lowest levels of involvement but higher levels of conflict. Results indicate that greater paternal psychosocial support and more frequent father-adolescent contact do not outweigh the negative impact of interparental conflict on youth outcomes in the long term. Implications of findings for policy and intervention are discussed.

Binge drinking trajectories across adolescence: for early maturing youth, extra-curricular activities are protective.

PURPOSE: To describe adolescent binge drinking trajectories across grades 8-11 and examine their associations with pubertal timing, socioeconomic status (SES), and structured activity and sport involvement. METHODS: Longitudinal data were analyzed from the Youth Activity Participation Study (YAPS), an annual survey of youth in 39 schools across Western Australia (N = 1,342). RESULTS: Latent class growth analysis revealed four binge drinking trajectory groups: Accelerating (early onset, increased frequency), Steep Increase (delayed onset, rapid escalation), Slow Growth (delayed onset, gradual increase) and Stable Low (abstinence). Accelerating was characterized by early pubertal timing, low SES, and more sport involvement in grade 8, relative to Stable Low. The groups did not significantly differ in their grade 8 activity participation. However, for early maturers, greater grade 8 activity participation was associated with a decreased probability of belonging to Steep Increase relative to Stable Low. CONCLUSIONS: Early pubertal timing and sports participation increased the odds of belonging to a problematic binge drinking trajectory. For youth at-risk due to early pubertal timing, structured activities appear to be protective against a problematic developmental course of binge drinking.

"It's a rush": psychosocial content of antisocial decision making.

Changes in the juvenile justice system have led to more serious sanctioning of adolescents (Heilbrun, Goldstein, & Redding, 2005). A salient question for understanding whether such sanctions are appropriate pertains to whether adolescents are less mature than adults in making decisions that lead to antisocial activity. The current study codes for psychosocial content of antisocial decision making in adolescents (ages 12-17), young adults (18-23), and adults (ages 35-63). Results suggest that adolescents and young adults display increased psychosocial content in their antisocial decision making relative to adults. However, the unique effect of psychosocial content on self-report criminal behavior was significantly greater among adolescents than among adults, whereas for young adults this was not the case. Implications for legal policy are discussed.

Addressing gaps in the maturity of judgment literature: age differences and delinquency.

Over the past decade, a majority of states have legislated to expand their capacity to try adolescents as adults [Griffin (2003). Trying and sentencing juveniles as adults: An analysis of state transfer and blended sentencing laws. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice]. In response, researchers have investigated factors that may affect adolescent culpability [Steinberg and Scott (Am Psychol 58(12):1009-1018, 2003)]. Research on immature judgment posits that psychosocial influences on adolescent decision processes results in reduced criminal responsibility [Cauffman and Steinberg (Behav Sci Law 18(6):741-760, 2000); Scott, Reppucci, and Woolard (Law Hum Behav 19(3):221-244, 1995); Steinberg and Cauffman (Law Hum Behav 20(3):249-272, 1996)]. The current study utilizes hypothetical vignettes and standardized measures of maturity of judgment (responsibility, temperance, and perspective) to examine gaps in previous maturity of judgment findings (Cauffman and Steinberg 2000). This work suggests that adolescents (ages 14-17) display less responsibility and perspective relative to college students (ages 18-21), young-adults (ages 22-27), and adults (ages 28-40). Further, this research finds no maturity of judgment differences between delinquent and non-delinquent youth, but does find significant maturity of judgment differences between high and low delinquency male youth. Finally, results show that maturity of judgment predicts self-reported delinquency beyond the contributions of age, gender, race, education level, SES, and antisocial decision making. Implications for the juvenile justice system are discussed.