Family Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risks of Financial Insecurity and Coping.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have experienced unprecedented financial and social disruptions. We studied the impact of preexisting psychosocial factors and pandemic-related financial and social disruptions in relation to family well-being among N = 4091 adolescents and parents during early summer 2020, participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study. Poorer family well-being was linked to prepandemic psychosocial and financial adversity and was associated with pandemic-related material hardship and social disruptions to routines. Parental alcohol use increased risk for worsening of family relationships, while a greater endorsement of coping strategies was mainly associated with overall better family well-being. Financial and mental health support may be critical for family well-being during and after a widespread crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attachment styles, social behavior, and personality functioning in romantic relationships.

Personality disorders (PDs) are commonly associated with romantic relationship disturbance. However, research has seldom evaluated who people with high PD severity partner with, and what explains the link between PD severity and romantic relationship disturbance. First, we examined the degree to which people match with partners with similar levels of personality and interpersonal problems. Second, we evaluated whether the relationship between PD severity and romantic relationship satisfaction would be explained by attachment styles and demand/withdraw behavior. Couples selected for high PD severity (n = 130; 260 participants) engaged in a conflict task, were assessed for PDs and attachment using semi-structured interviews, and self-reported their relationship satisfaction. Dyad members were not similar in terms of PD severity but evidenced a small degree of similarity on specific attachment styles and were moderately similar on attachment insecurity and interpersonal problems. PD severity also moderated the degree to which one person's attachment anxiety was associated with their partner's attachment avoidance. In addition, using a dyadic analytic approach, we found attachment anxiety and actor and partner withdrawal explained some of the relationship between PD severity and relationship satisfaction. Our results indicate people often have romantic partners with similar levels of attachment disturbance and interpersonal problems and that attachment styles and related behavior explains some of the association between PD severity and relationship satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Police contacts, arrests and decreasing self-control and personal responsibility among female adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Female involvement in the juvenile justice system (JJS) has increased rapidly in recent years. Although deficits in self-control and responsibility are associated with delinquency and higher rates of police contacts and arrests, much of this research has focused on males and/or selected samples of youth who already have a history of JJS involvement. Furthermore, little is known about the extent to which police contacts and arrests may disrupt normative psychosocial maturation. METHODS: Police contacts, arrests, levels of self-control and personal responsibility were assessed annually between 12 and 17 years in a population-based sample of 2,450 adolescent females. Fixed-effects regression models, which control for stable individual characteristics, were used to examine whether within-adolescent changes in self-control, and responsibility were associated concurrently and prospectively with police contacts and arrests, and vice versa. RESULTS: Across adolescence, 5%-12% participants reported police contacts and 1%-4% were arrested. After adjusting for covariates, within-person increases in self-control and responsibility were associated concurrently with decreased odds of police contact. Increasing responsibility also predicted lower likelihood of police contact in the following year. When testing reverse causation, results showed that police contact predicted next year decreases in personal responsibility, and that being arrested predicted decreasing levels of self-control and responsibility in the following year. CONCLUSIONS: The study shows more clearly than previous work that increasing levels of responsibility precede decreased police contact in nonselected adolescent females, and that contacts with the justice system during adolescence may delay or undermine normative psychosocial maturation, highlighting important targets for intervention.