Longitudinal links from attachment with mothers and fathers to adolescent substance use: Internalizing and externalizing pathways.

The present study examined whether internalizing and externalizing symptoms may mediate the association between adolescent-mother and adolescent-father attachment and substance use. The sample included 167 adolescents (47% girls) who were assessed at five time points with approximately 1 year between each assessment, beginning in middle adolescence (Mage = 14.07) and ending in the transition to young adulthood (Mage = 18.39). The adolescents reported their perceived attachment with both their mother and father during middle adolescence (Times 1 and 2), their internalizing and externalizing symptoms during late adolescence (Times 3 and 4), and their alcohol use during the transition to young adulthood (Time 5). The results showed that less secure adolescent-father attachment, but not adolescent-mother attachment, was predictive of heightened externalizing and internalizing symptoms. In turn, heightened externalizing symptoms were predictive of heightened alcohol use. Despite the nonsignificant direct association between adolescent-father attachment and alcohol use, less secure adolescent-father attachment was indirectly predictive of greater alcohol use, mediated through heightened externalizing symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of close and trusting father-adolescent relationships in the development of psychopathology and substance use behaviors. The developmental cascade from a less secure adolescent-father attachment to greater externalizing symptoms and heightened substance use, as well as implications for prevention and intervention of young adult substance use, are discussed. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: The differential pathways from adolescent-mother and adolescent-father attachment to substance use during the transition to young adulthood are not well known. Longitudinal data were used to test whether internalizing and externalizing symptoms may mediate the association between adolescent-mother and adolescent-father attachment and substance use. Less secure adolescent-father attachment predicted heightened internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and less secure adolescent-father attachment predicted greater alcohol use, mediated through heightened externalizing symptoms. The findings suggest that addressing insecure attachment with fathers during adolescence may reduce unhealthy substance use during the transition to young adulthood.

Longitudinal Associations Among Socioeconomic Status, Delay Discounting, and Substance Use in Adolescence.

It is unclear how delay discounting and substance use develop across adolescence and whether contextual factors alter their trajectories. The present study used a longitudinal design to examine whether socioeconomic status is related to developmental trajectories of delay discounting and substance use across adolescence. The sample included 167 adolescents (Mage = 14 at Time 1; 53% male) and their parents who participated annually across four years. Parents reported SES at Time 1 and adolescents completed delay discounting behavioral assessments and substance use questionnaires at Times 1 to 4. Bivariate latent growth curve modeling revealed that low SES was related to steeper increases in substance use from age 14 through 17, mediated through elevated delay discounting at age 14. The findings clarify the mediating role of delay discounting in linking family economic environment to the progression of substance use.

Think again: the role of reappraisal in reducing negative valence bias.

Stimuli such as surprised faces are ambiguous in that they are associated with both positive and negative outcomes. Interestingly, people differ reliably in whether they evaluate these and other ambiguous stimuli as positive or negative, and we have argued that a positive evaluation relies in part on a biasing of the appraisal processes via reappraisal. To further test this idea, we conducted two studies to evaluate whether increasing the cognitive accessibility of reappraisal through a brief emotion regulation task would lead to an increase in positive evaluations of ambiguity. Supporting this prediction, we demonstrated that cuing reappraisal, but not in three other forms of emotion regulation (Study 1a-d; n = 120), increased positive evaluations of ambiguous faces. In a sign of robustness, we also found that the effect of reappraisal generalised from ambiguous faces to ambiguous scenes (Study 2; n = 34). Collectively, these findings suggest that reappraisal may play a key role in determining responses to ambiguous stimuli. We discuss these findings in the context of affective flexibility, and suggest that valence bias (i.e. the tendency to evaluate ambiguity more positively or negatively) represents a novel approach to measuring implicit emotion regulation.

Longitudinal Associations Between Peer Victimization and Positive and Negative Social Risk Taking in Adolescence and Young Adulthood.

Adolescence is characterized by heightened risk taking, along with salient peer relationships. This study leveraged data from 167 adolescents across five years (M(SD)age = 15.05 (0.54) years at Time 1; 47% female) to examine how risk perception and peer victimization in adolescence interrelate and predict risk likelihood in young adulthood. Bivariate growth curve modeling revealed that higher initial levels of positive social risk perception predicted a slower decrease in relational victimization throughout adolescence. Higher initial levels of relational victimization in adolescence predicted higher negative social risk likelihood in young adulthood. Adolescents with heightened risk sensitivity to positive social risks may be vulnerable to relational victimization, and prevention efforts to reduce relational victimization may protect adolescents from future negative risk taking.

Proposing a model whereby negative valence bias increases the risk for more severe dysphoric posttraumatic stress disorder and depression symptomology.

Experiencing trauma increases risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, and individuals who experience psychopathology after a traumatic event often experience symptoms from both disorders. Because a tendency to view events in a more negative light and a propensity toward threat appraisals are risk factors for both PTSD and depression, negative valence bias-a tendency to appraise emotional ambiguity as having a more negative (less positive) meaning-may be a transdiagnostic risk factor. In other words, we expect individuals with a negative valence bias experience greater PTSD and depression symptoms. We measured valence bias and self-reported PTSD and depression symptoms in a sample of college students in 2021 (n = 287; 72.5% reported experiencing trauma). Although valence bias was not associated with PTSD symptoms as a whole, we found in our exploratory model that more negative bias was associated with greater dysphoria-related PTSD symptoms and greater depression symptoms (indirect effect p = .03). Thus, we propose a model whereby a more negative valence bias contributes to increased susceptibility for maladaptive stress responses, which may be associated with greater likelihood of symptoms of dysphoria-related PTSD and depression. These findings suggest that valence bias represents a transdiagnostic affective risk factor, warranting future research examining the impacts of bias-altering interventions (e.g., mindfulness-based treatments) as a means for managing symptoms in individuals with heightened dysphoria-related PTSD and/or depression symptoms. Additionally, in post hoc analyses it emerged that Latinx participants displayed a more negative valence bias, indicating the need for more research in diverse samples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Brain Similarity as a Protective Factor in the Longitudinal Pathway Linking Household Chaos, Parenting, and Substance Use.

BACKGROUND: Socioecological factors such as family environment and parenting behaviors contribute to the development of substance use. While biobehavioral synchrony has been suggested as the foundation for resilience that can modulate environmental effects on development, the role of brain similarity that attenuates deleterious effects of environmental contexts has not been clearly understood. We tested whether parent-adolescent neural similarity-the level of pattern similarity between parent-adolescent functional brain connectivity representing the level of attunement within each dyad-moderates the longitudinal pathways in which household chaos (a stressor) predicts adolescent substance use directly and indirectly via parental monitoring. METHODS: In a sample of 70 parent-adolescent dyads, similarity in resting-state brain activity was identified using multipattern connectivity similarity estimation. Adolescents and parents reported on household chaos and parental monitoring, and adolescent substance use was assessed at a 1-year follow-up. RESULTS: The moderated mediation model indicated that for adolescents with low neural similarity, but not high neural similarity, greater household chaos predicted higher substance use over time directly and indirectly via lower parental monitoring. Our data also indicated differential susceptibility in the overall association between household chaos and substance use: Adolescents with low neural similarity exhibited high substance use under high household chaos but low substance use under low household chaos. CONCLUSIONS: Neural similarity acts as a protective factor such that the detrimental effects of suboptimal family environment and parenting behaviors on the development of adolescent health risk behaviors may be attenuated by neural similarity within parent-adolescent bonds.

Family socioeconomic status and adolescent substance use: The role of parent-adolescent brain similarity and parental monitoring.

Greater neural similarity between parents and adolescents may reduce adolescent substance use. Among 70 parent-adolescent dyads, we tested a longitudinal path model in which family economic environment is related to adolescent substance use, directly and indirectly through parent-adolescent neural similarity and parental monitoring. Neural similarity was measured as parent-adolescent pattern similarity in functional brain connectivity at Time 1. Parents reported socioeconomic status and parental monitoring at Time 1. Adolescents reported parental monitoring at Time 1 and substance use at Time 2. Higher family socioeconomic status was associated with greater neural similarity. Greater neural similarity was associated with lower adolescent substance use, mediated through greater adolescent-perceived parental monitoring. Parent-adolescent neural similarity may attenuate adolescent substance use by bolstering parental monitoring. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Differential Associations of Adversity Profiles with Adolescent Cognitive Control and Psychopathology.

Adverse childhood experiences are common and have long-term consequences for biological and psychosocial adjustment. We used a person-centered approach to characterize distinct profiles of adversity in early adolescence and examined associations with later cognitive control and psychopathology. The sample included 167 adolescents (47% female) and their primary caregivers who participated in a longitudinal study across four time points (approximately one year between assessments). At Time 1 (Mage = 14 years), we measured seven indicators of adversity: socioeconomic disadvantage, abuse, neglect, household chaos, parent substance use, parent depression, and negative life events. At Times 2-4, adolescents' behavioral performance and functional activation during a cognitive control task were measured. At Time 5, adolescents and their caregiver reported on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Using latent profile analysis, we identified four distinct adversity subgroups: a low exposure group, a neglect group, a household instability group, and a poly-adversity group. These groups significantly differed on subsequent levels of psychopathology, but not cognitive control. Specifically, the poly-adversity group reported significantly higher levels of both internalizing and externalizing symptomatology relative to the low exposure group, and the household instability group demonstrated elevated risk for externalizing symptomatology. When using a cumulative risk approach, higher levels of adversity exposure were associated with significantly worse cognitive control performance (but not neural activation). These results suggest that psychopathology outcomes may be differentially predicted by distinct patterns of risk, and that cognitive control impairment may be more strongly predicted by cumulative risk.