Interparental Conflict and Delinquency Among Chinese Adolescents: Parental Knowledge as a Mediator and Deviant Peer Affiliation as a Moderator

The application of artificial intelligence technology in education influences Chinese adolescent's emotional perception

Humans need to accurately infer the intentions and feelings of others to engage in successful social interaction. However, the application of artificial intelligence technology in Education (AIEd) forms a human-machine collaborative environment which changed the interaction relationship of individuals, it may have an affect on them. This study aimed to explore whether AIEd affects adolescents' emotional perception. Combined with the actual teaching situation and the result of the questionnaire, 1332 students recruited through random sampling from AI Curriculum Reform Demonstration Schools in Guangzhou participated in this study. Different emotional priming stimulative materials (sentences and situational pictures) were used in the experiments. The task was designed to investigate adolescents' reaction time to emotional faces (positive, negative). After eliminating blank data and invalid data with response time greater than 150 ms, 977 and 962 valid data were included in the statistical analysis in experiment 1 and experiment 2 respectively. Results show that AIEd has a negative effect on adolescents' emotional perception. Prior research has focused on theory to the exclusion of practical applications and the psychological impact of AIEd, thus this study makes an innovative contribution in exploring the impact of the application of artificial intelligence technology in education on adolescents' physical and mental development by using empirical research methods.

Peer Communication about Antisocial Activities as a Mediator of Interparental Conflict in Mid-Adolescence and Externalizing Problems in Late Adolescence

The current study investigated whether adolescent peer communication about antisocial activities mediates the association between interparental conflict within the family system in mid-adolescence and externalizing problems in late adolescence. Participants were 115 families in which an adolescent and caregiver participated in a longitudinal study. Adolescents (53 girls, 62 boys) completed measures of interparental conflict and externalizing problems in 8th grade (age 14). Afterward, adolescents received a BlackBerry device configured to capture all text messages sent and received. During the 9th grade, four days of text messages were coded for peer communication about antisocial topics. Adolescents again completed a measure of externalizing problems in 11th grade (age 17). Results indicated that interparental conflict in 8th grade correlated positively with adolescents' externalizing problems in 11th grade, but only for girls. In addition, the frequency of communication about antisocial activities mediated the link between interparental conflict and girls' externalizing problems. The findings support the idea that adolescent girls' communications about antisocial activities with their peers may contribute to the link between interparental conflict and girls' externalizing problems.

Rejection sensitivity mediates the interparental conflict and adolescent Internet addiction: School connectedness as a moderator

Internet addiction (IA) is a growing social problem with negative mental and social outcomes; the present study examined whether rejection sensitivity mediates the relationship between interparental conflict and adolescent IA and the moderating role of school connectedness. One thousand and seven adolescents (51.84% females; Mean_age = 13.17; SD = 0.69) anonymously completed questionnaires to assess interparental conflict, school connectedness, rejection sensitivity, IA, and demographic information. The model results showed that: (1) the positive association between interparental conflict and adolescent IA was partially mediated by rejection sensitivity; (2) this indirect link was moderated by the school connectedness and was stronger for adolescents with high school connectedness. The results provide support for the attachment theory that high interparental conflict could increase adolescents’ rejection sensitivity, and high school connectedness plays a double-edged role that adolescents show more rejection sensitivity while reporting high interparental conflict and high school connectedness.

Influence of Artificial Intelligence in Education on Adolescents’ Social Adaptability: A Machine Learning Study

This study aimed to investigate the influence of artificial intelligence in education (AIEd) on adolescents’ social adaptability, as well as to identify the relevant psychosocial factors that can predict adolescents’ social adaptability. A total of 1328 participants (meanage = 13.89, SD = 2.22) completed the survey. A machine-learning algorithm was used to find out whether AIEd may influence adolescents’ social adaptability as well as the relevant psychosocial variables, such as teacher–student relations, peer relations, interparental relations, and loneliness that may be significantly related to social adaptability. Results showed that it has a positive influence of AIEd on adolescents’ social adaptability. In addition, the four most important factors in the prediction of social adaptability among AI group students are interpersonal relationships, peer relations, academic emotion, and loneliness. A high level of interpersonal relationships and peer relations can predict a high level of social adaptability among the AI group students, while a high level of academic emotion and loneliness can predict a low level of social adaptability. Overall, the findings highlight the need to focus interventions according to the relation between these psychosocial factors and social adaptability in order to increase the positive influence of AIEd and promote the development of social adaptability.

Family Functioning and Adolescent Delinquency in Mainland China: Positive Youth Development Attributes as a Mediator

According to the positive youth development (PYD) approach, PYD attributes such as psychosocial competencies are developmental assets which can promote the holistic development of adolescents, such as increase in thriving and decrease in risk behavior. Although there are research findings supporting this theoretical proposition, there are several weaknesses in this literature. These include a lack of studies examining family antecedents of PYD attributes and the mediating role of PYD attributes in the relationship between family functioning and adolescent delinquency. There are also few longitudinal studies utilizing large samples and validated measures of family functioning and PYD attributes in the scientific literature. In this study, we examined the predictive effect of family functioning on adolescent delinquency and the mediating role of PYD attributes. Using a short-term longitudinal study in Sichuan, China, we collected two waves of data from 4,981 adolescents aged 11 and above, with 6 months between the two waves. Analyses using structural equation modeling showed that family functioning at Wave 1 negatively predicted the level of and change in delinquent behavior at Wave 2, with PYD attributes at Wave 2 as a mediating factor. The present study enriches the conceptual framework on the role of family functioning and PYD attributes in adolescent delinquent behavior. The findings also suggest that strengthening family functioning and PYD attributes would protect adolescents from engaging in delinquent acts.

Adolescent Deviance and Cyber-Deviance. A Systematic Literature Review

Deviance is a complex phenomenon that influences aspects both at the macro and micro levels, extensively studied by social scientists The main objective of this article was to conduct a systematic literature review for clustering the topics on adolescent deviance and online deviance. Grounded in Pickering's and Byrne's guidelines and PRISMA protocol, we identified the most recurrent themes, theories and predictors in the 61 most-cited articles related to the concept of deviance from the database of Web of Science, as well as in 488 abstracts of representative papers. The results emphasized four main clusters of topics, namely, predictors of deviance, online deviance, socio-constructivist theories, and research based theories of deviant behavior. The findings highlighted that researchers frequently use strain theory, social learning, self-control, and social control theories in their studies. Our systematic literature review revealed also the most encountered predictors of deviance, which we have classified into five main categories: family patterns, socio-demographic aspects, socialization, victimization, and school and individual factors. For online deviance, family patterns, socio-demographic aspects, victimization, school and individual factors, and Internet and computer use have been determined to be the main groups of predictors. The present systematic literature review makes an important contribution to the understanding of deviance by presenting an overview of the phenomenon.

The multidimensionality of inter-parental conflict on aggression and mental health among adolescents

The research sets out to reveal that multidimensionality of inter-parental conflict is a limitation in the direction of research which suggests that inter-parental conflict is a risk factor to poor mental health and aggression in adolescents. To validate the above assertion, 394 adolescents (227 males; mean age = 15.6, SD = 1.74) were purposively sampled for the study. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested and data were analyzed using the multiple regression analysis and Multivariate Analysis of Variance/Analysis of Variance (MANOVA/ANOVA) statistics. Results indicated that all dimensions of inter-parental conflict and its full scale had a significantly positive correlation with aggression while all dimensions of inter-parental conflict had a significant negative correlation with adolescents' mental health. Results further showed that all dimensions of inter-parental conflict jointly associated with aggression but only the dimensions of frequency and intensity independently related with aggression. All dimensions of inter-parental conflict jointly related with mental health while intensity, resolution, coping efficacy and self-blame dimensions independently associated with mental health of adolescents. Based on the above, the researchers recommended that the dimensionality of inter-parental conflict should be considered in further research and that intervention programs should aim at promoting positive family relationship, reducing family stress and promoting positive mental health as adolescents grow and develop in the course of time.

Quality over quantity? Using sibling comparisons to examine relations between sleep quality, sleep duration, and delinquency

RATIONALE

A growing body of research suggests that adolescents with problematic sleep patterns are more likely to engage in externalizing and delinquent behaviors. Few studies, however, have examined the role of between- and within-family effects on this association to establish whether poor sleep is related to delinquency after controlling for familial confounding.

OBJECTIVE

The current study examines the relationship between self-reported restless sleep, sleep duration, and delinquency from ages 16-19 in a population-based sample of U.S. youth.

METHODS

Data from full siblings from the Children and Young Adult sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979) (CNLSY) are analyzed. Negative binomial regression models and sibling comparisons are estimated to assess between- and within-family effects of sleep on delinquency during ages 16-17. Sibling comparison cross-lagged models are then fitted to the data to examine whether sibling differences in sleep are related to sibling differences in changes in delinquency from ages 16-19.

RESULTS

Siblings with higher levels of self-reported restless sleep were more likely to report higher levels of delinquency at ages 16-17, net of observable covariates and unobservable familial confounders. Sibling differences in restless sleep at ages 16-17 were also associated with increases in delinquency at ages 18-19 after controlling for familial confounding and temporal stability in both sleep and delinquent behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that perhaps sleep quality, rather than sleep duration, should be the primary target for intervention/prevention programming efforts for adolescent delinquency.