Depressive Symptoms Anticipate Changes in the Frequency of Alcohol Intoxication Among Low-Accepted Adolescents

The Perils of Not Being Attractive or Athletic: Pathways to Adolescent Adjustment Difficulties Through Escalating Unpopularity

Adolescents who lack traits valued by peers are at risk for adjustment difficulties but the mechanisms responsible for deteriorating well-being have yet to be identified. The present study examines processes whereby low athleticism and low attractiveness give rise to adolescent adjustment difficulties. Participants were public middle school students (ages 10 to 13 years, Mage = 11.54, SDage = 1.00) in the USA and Lithuania (300 girls, 280 boys; 52.7% girls). Self-reports of alcohol misuse and loneliness were collected three times during an academic year (M = 12.3 week intervals). Athleticism, attractiveness, unpopularity, and peer rejection were assessed through peer nominations. Full longitudinal mediation analyses examined direct and indirect pathways from stigmatized traits (i.e., low athleticism, low attractiveness) to adjustment difficulties (i.e., alcohol misuse, loneliness) through two indices of low peer status: unpopularity and rejection. The results indicated that the possession of stigmatized traits predicted escalating unpopularity, which, in turn, predicted increasing adjustment difficulties. Similar indirect associations did not emerge with rejection as a mediator, underscoring the unique role of power and prominence (and the lack thereof) in socioemotional development. The findings underscore the adjustment risks and interpersonal challenges that confront children and adolescents who lack traits valued by peers.

Assessing Peer Influence and Susceptibility to Peer Influence Using Individual and Dyadic Moderators in a Social Network Context: The Case of Adolescent Alcohol Misuse

Higher accepted friends are known to influence the alcohol misuse of lower accepted friends, but not the reverse. The present study was designed to address the origins of this influence: Are higher accepted friends particularly influential or are lower accepted friends particularly susceptible to influence? To address this question, we introduce an innovative application of longitudinal social network techniques (RSIENA) designed to distinguish being influential from being susceptible to influence. The results revealed that influence was a product of heightened susceptibility among low accepted adolescents, rather than heightened influence among high accepted adolescents. The findings are consistent with claims that low accepted youth fear the consequences of nonconformity and adjust their behavior to more closely resemble their affiliates.

Toward understanding the functions of peer influence: A summary and synthesis of recent empirical research

Compelling evidence demonstrates that peer influence is a pervasive force during adolescence, one that shapes adaptive and maladaptive attitudes and behaviors. This literature review focuses on factors that make adolescence a period of special vulnerability to peer influence. Herein, we advance the Influence-Compatibility Model, which integrates converging views about early adolescence as a period of increased conformity with evidence that peer influence functions to increase affiliate similarity. Together, these developmental forces smooth the establishment of friendships and integration into the peer group, promote interpersonal and intragroup compatibility, and eliminate differences that might result in social exclusion.

Teen Social Networks and Depressive Symptoms-Substance Use Associations: Developmental and Demographic Variation

OBJECTIVE

The current study examined whether an adolescent's standing within a school-bounded social network moderated the association between depressive symptoms and substance use across adolescence as a function of developmental and demographic factors (gender, parental education, and race/ethnicity).

METHOD

The sample of 6,776 adolescents participated in up to seven waves of data collection spanning 6th to 12th grade.

RESULTS

Results of latent growth models showed that lower integration into the social network exacerbates risk for depression-related substance use in youth, particularly around the high school transition, but social status acted as both a risk factor and a protective factor at different points in development for different youth. Findings also varied as a function of youth gender and parental education status.

CONCLUSIONS

Together these findings suggest that lower integration into the social network exacerbates risk for depression-related substance use in youth, particularly around the high school transition in general as well as just before the high school transition in those with lower parental education or just after the high school transition in males. Thus, the risky impact of social isolation appears more consistent across this period. Social status, however, showed a more varied pattern and further study is needed to understand the sometimes risky and sometimes protective effects of social status on depression-related substance use.

Problematic alcohol use and depression in secondary school students in Miri, Malaysia

BACKGROUND

Alcohol consumption in the under-aged is one of the main concerns regarding Malaysian adolescents. There is no previous study on problematic alcohol use (PAU) in adolescents in Sarawak. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of PAU, its associated variables and its relationship with depression.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional study. A total of 327 secondary school students completed the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test and Children's Depression Inventory, and a sociodemographic questionnaire. Binary and multivariable logistic regression were used to examine the relationship between the different variables.

RESULTS

A total of 42.2% of adolescents had PAU. Urban adolescents had a higher prevalence compared with rural adolescents (OR, 1.612; 95% CI: 1.036-2.508 P = 0.034). Female adolescents (56.8%) and Bumiputera Sarawak adolescents (76.8%) comprised a large proportion of the respondents with PAU. Cultural norm (78.3%) and curiosity (68.1%) were the two main reasons for PAU. Only family history of alcohol use (OR, 2.273; 95% CI: 1.013-5.107; P = 0.047), ever consumed alcohol (OR, 57.585; 95% CI: 21.885-151.525; P < 0.001) and ever consumed beer (OR, 2.564; 95% CI: 1.032-6.372; P = 0.043) were significantly associated with PAU. The prevalence of depression was 21.4%. A significant relationship between PAU and depression was seen (OR, 2.557; 95% CI: 1.479-4.420; P = 0.001).

CONCLUSION

There is a high prevalence of PAU in adolescents in Miri, Malaysia. More effort is needed to implement policies for this vulnerable group, with collaboration between agencies to ensure their mental and physical wellbeing and prevent a negative impact later. Clinicians should be more vigilant in detecting depression in adolescents with PAU to enable early intervention.

Gender differences in the trends and correlates of major depressive episodes among juvenile offenders in the United States

PURPOSE

Although it is well-established that juvenile offenders are at an elevated risk for depression and that, within this group, females have the highest risk, little is known regarding the trends in the prevalence of depression among juvenile offenders in the United States. In the present study, we systematically examine secular trends in major depressive episodes (MDE) and their correlates among male and female juvenile offenders and non-offenders in the United States.

METHODS

Data were collected between 2005 and 2014 as part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The NSDUH uses multistage area probability sampling methods to select a representative sample of the civilian, non-institutionalized population in the United States. Participants included 171,118 youth aged 12-17 (159,449 non-offenders and 11,669 offenders). The primary variable of interest was self-reported past year MDE. Logistic regression assessed whether sociodemographic factors and psychosocial and behavioral correlates affected the risk of MDE.

RESULTS

Between 2005 and 2014, the prevalence of MDE among female youth increased for both offender and non-offender groups: from 24.4% to 33.0% for the offenders and from 12.4% to 16.7% for the non-offenders. No significant trend changes were observed among male youth. In both male and female juvenile offenders, MDEs were associated with increased risk of illicit drug use (males OR=1.61, 95% CI=1.18-2.18; females OR=1.83, 95% CI=1.45-2.31). Additional correlates include alcohol use among male offenders (OR=1.36, 95% CI=1.01-1.83), and binge drinking in female offenders (OR=1.24, 95% CI=1.02-1.49).

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of past year major depressive episodes is increasing for female juvenile offenders, highlighting a need for improved efforts to target these populations for prevention and treatment.

Environmental and temperamental correlates of alcohol user patterns in grade 7 students

Aims

We examined the effects of temperamental dispositions, friends using alcohol and parental monitoring on grade 7 students' alcohol use patterns.

Design

The analyses were drawn from a cross-sectional survey of 3710 grade 7 students (mean age =12.53) that participated in a large Norwegian school-based intervention study. Alcohol user patterns were measured through combining self-reported lifetime alcohol experience, heavy episodic drinking and any alcohol involvement in the previous 30 days. Behavioural inhibition/activation sensitivity (BIS/BAS), parental monitoring and the number of friends using alcohol were measured through the adolescents' self-report.

Results

As many as 68.8% of boys and 83.3% of girls were non-users of alcohol, whereas 9.1% of boys and 3.9% of girls reported use of alcohol last month. Heavy episodic drinking last month was reported by 3.1% of the boys and by 0.8 % of the girls. A multinomial regression analysis revealed strong associations between the number of friends using alcohol and alcohol user patterns, moderate inverse associations between parental monitoring and alcohol user patterns, and a weak association between BIS/BAS components and alcohol user patterns.

Conclusion

The results demonstrate the importance of socio-environmental factors in a period in which alcohol use is predictive of later negative outcomes.

Parental Supervision and Alcohol Abuse Among Adolescent Girls

OBJECTIVE

Inadequate parent supervision during the early adolescent years forecasts a host of conduct problems, including illicit alcohol consumption. Early pubertal maturation may exacerbate problems, because girls alienated from same-age peers seek the company of older, more mature youth. The current study examines overtime associations between parent autonomy granting and adolescent alcohol abuse during a developmental period when alcohol consumption becomes increasingly normative, to determine if early maturing girls are at special risk for problems arising from a lack of parent supervision.

METHODS

At annual intervals for 4 consecutive years, a community sample of 957 Swedish girls completed surveys beginning in the first year of secondary school (approximate age: 13 years) describing rates of alcohol intoxication and perceptions of parent autonomy granting. Participants also reported age at menarche.

RESULTS

Multiple-group parallel process growth curve models revealed that early pubertal maturation exacerbated the risk associated with premature autonomy granting: Alcohol intoxication rates increased 3 times faster for early maturing girls with the greatest autonomy than they did for early maturing girls with the least autonomy. Child-driven effects were also found such that higher initial levels of alcohol abuse predicted greater increases in autonomy granting as parent supervision over children engaged in illicit drinking waned.

CONCLUSIONS

Early maturing girls are at elevated risk for physical and psychological adjustment difficulties. The etiology of escalating problems with alcohol can be traced, in part, to a relative absence of parent supervision during a time when peer interactions assume special significance.