Is Family Structure Associated with Deviance Propensity during Adolescence? The Role of Family Climate and Anger Dysregulation

The Measurement Model of Family Strengths for Generation Alpha in the Thai Context

The concept of the Thai family has shifted from the traditional family to families of various forms, such as single-parent families, same-sex families, skipped-generation families, and one-person households, which affects not only mental health, but future relationships of the children. This research aimed to analyze the factors that contribute to family strengths in the context of Generation Alpha and develop a measurement model tailored to a Thai context. The sample consisted of parents and caregivers of Generation Alpha, divided into two sections, with 521 participants for exploratory factor analysis and 508 participants for confirmatory factor analysis. Using stratified random sampling, data were collected via questionnaires distributed across four regions of Thailand. The discrimination index ranged from 0.280-0.896, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.952. The results revealed a measurement model consisting of five key factors contributing to family strengths. The factor with the highest score was positive relationships, with a factor loading of 0.92. Additional factors included technology and media literacy, parental roles, good attributes, and mental immunity, with a factor loading of 0.80, 0.74, 0.55, and 0.44, respectively. The measurement model of family strengths for Generation Alpha in the Thai context was found to be consistent with the empirical data. These findings suggest that understanding these family strengths can significantly enhance the well-being of both Generation Alpha and their family members.

Family religiosity and climate: the protective role of personal interiorized religiosity in deviance propensity among justice-involved juveniles

According to the literature, religious commitment could be a protective factor against dangerous behaviors, such as criminal offending, unsafe sex, and substance use. Our study aims to investigate the influence of Family Religiosity and climate on anger dysregulation and deviance propensity in a sample of 214 justice-involved boys from Italian Youth Detention Centers (range 14-25). The sample was divided into religious (n = 102) and non-religious (n = 112) justice-involved juveniles. Participants filled in the following questionnaires: Deviant Behavior Questionnaire, Aggression Questionnaire, Family Communication Scale, Moral Disengagement Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. We used a partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS_SEM) method to build our model and we found that Family Religiosity was positively associated with Family Climate which was negatively associated with Anger Dysregulation and Deviance Propensity, and Anger Dysregulation was positively related to Deviance Propensity. The multigroup analysis confirmed that for justice-involved juveniles who interiorized religious discipline and beliefs, Family Religiosity showed a positive association with Family Climate, which had a negative relationship with Anger Dysregulation, which strongly predicted Deviance Propensity. This result could be useful to promote new development goals and preventive activities and interventions based on positive religiosity values in juveniles' behavior.

Moral Disengagement in Adolescent Offenders: Its Relationship with Antisocial Behavior and Its Presence in Offenders of the Law and School Norms

This study focuses on understanding the relationship between moral disengagement mechanisms in adolescents who engage in law-breaking activities and those who violate school norms. To do so, we administered the Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Scale (MMDS), which evaluates moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, deflection of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distortion of consequences, dehumanization, and attribution of blame, to 366 adolescents (60.1% males (n = 220) and 39.9% females (n = 146)). Our results confirmed the hypothesis that law-breaking adolescents presented a higher degree of moral disengagement than those adolescents who violate school norms. Additionally, we found that adolescents who violated school norms displayed significantly higher levels of dehumanization than the controls, and law-breaking adolescents obtained the highest score in this domain. Our findings allow us to suggest that the presence of the dehumanization mechanism in adolescents who violate school norms could be used as an early indicator of the emergence of antisocial behaviors, since this was the only component of moral disengagement that significantly differentiated this group from the controls in the study.

Sexting, Self-esteem, and Social Media: A Comparison among Frequent, Occasional, and Non-sexting Italian Adolescent Girls

Background

The phenomenon of sexting consists of sending and sharing sexual images, videos, or messages using smartphones and social networks. Sexting is spreading dangerously among adolescents who share private and explicit sexual content, ignoring the negative and risky consequences associated with this behavior. According to recent literature, sexting behavior is strongly related to the participants' level of self-esteem and social media's influence on them.

Objective

Our study was a descriptive community-based study focused on the central-south Italian context, which aimed to investigate sexually risky behavior and the main motivations for sexting, and to compare differences in self-esteem and social media's influence among three groups of Italian girls: non-sexters, occasional sexters, and frequent sexters.

Design

Our research involved 569 Italian girls (14-19 years old) who completed the following questionnaires: the Health and Sexual Behavior Questionnaire; the Sexting Behavior Scale; the Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale; and the Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire-3.

Results

Our results showed that most participants sexted with their partner, and had a responsible attitude toward sexuality and kept sexual risk low. Moreover, frequent sexters had higher scores on social media's influence relative to the internalization of the body image and model for beauty and athleticism, as well as lower levels of global, academic, and competence self-esteem.

Conclusion

Our results could promote interventions in the school context in order to: a) improve awareness among youth about social media use, sexting, and safe sexuality; b) reduce the risk associated with sexting and the influence of social networks; and c) stimulate reflections by teachers and parents on adolescents' sense of identity and self-esteem.

Family Attachment, Sexuality, and Sexual Recidivism in a Sample of Italian Sexual Offenders: Preliminary Results

OBJECTIVE

The research aims to investigate family communication regarding sexuality and the possible link between insecure attachment, violence in relationships, and the tendency toward sexual sensation-seeking in a sample of Italian sexual offenders.

DESIGN AND METHOD

We evaluated 29 male sexual offenders in two correctional facilities of Southern Lazio (Italy) (mean age = 40.76; SD = 11.16). The participants completed general questions about their family and sexual education and fulfilled the following questionnaires: Compulsive Sexual Behavior Inventory (CSBI), Sexual Sensation-seeking Scale (SSSS), and the High-Risk Situation Checklist, adapted in Italian, as well as the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ), validated in Italian.

RESULTS

Most of the participants had never talked about sex within their family and perceived a severe or abusive education during childhood. In addition, positive correlations emerged between SSSS and the two scales of the CSBI, as well as between insecure attachment style, CSBI, and sexual sensation-seeking. The participants also reported some critical issues regarding the personal perception of high-risk situations linked to sexual relapse.

CONCLUSIONS

The data suggest factors to investigate, such as family education and relationships and the personal perception of sexual recidivism. The results might be effective in treatment and prevention programs among sex offenders.

Family Structure and Family Climate in Relation to Health and Socioeconomic Status for Older Adults: A Longitudinal Moderated Mediation Analysis

Family characteristics are associated with individuals' health and wellbeing. However, the link between family structure (e.g., operationalized via marital status) and health outcomes is ambiguous, and whether family climate mediates the relationship is unclear. This study uses the Biobehavioral Family Model (BBFM) to investigate the association of older adults' family structure with later health, the mediating role of family climate and mental health and how these links vary by socioeconomic status (SES). Using data from n = 29,457 respondents aged over 50 in Waves 4, 5 and 6 (2011, 2013 and 2015) of the Survey of Health, Retirement and Ageing in Europe (SHARE), the BBFM was applied in a longitudinal mediation analysis of family structure and health, including both indicators of mental and physical health. Structural equation modeling was applied, and a multigroup analysis was performed to test the role of SES in a moderated mediation. Family climate and mental health mediated the relationship between family structure and subsequent physical health. Good levels of family climate were found to be consistently associated with improved mental and physical health. These relationships were significantly moderated by SES, showing that the association of family climate and health was weaker for those in low SES positions. Family climate and mental health should be considered as potential mechanisms linking family structure to later physical health outcomes across time; however, these associations are diminished for those with low SES.

Social predictors of the transition from anomie to deviance in adolescence

Adolescence is a complicated, full of challenges and explorations period in life on the way to adulthood. The behaviour of adolescents is considerably re-configuring under the pressure of biological, psychological, and social transformations, and the internalization of community rules and values, as well as the adoption of desirable behaviours, is not always easy or successful. During adolescence, anomie can easily become an attractive status quo, but it can also evolve, however, relatively easy, to delinquency. This exploratory study, part of the Planet Youth project, is based on an analysis of 17 items from a questionnaire applied to a sample of 2,694 young people in Bucharest, Romania, in 2018, high schoolers in grades 9-11. The main objective of this approach was to assess the impact of some socio-cultural factors regarding school, family, peer group, and neighbourhood on the adoption of deviant and delinquent behaviours among Bucharest teenagers. For data analysis, two dependent variables were built by aggregating items in the questionnaire: the level of anomie (composed of 8 items) and deviant behaviour (composed of 17 items). As independent variables, 17 predictors composed from 67 questions from the questionnaire were used. The main results reflect a high level of anomie among the adolescents of Bucharest and a low level of deviance, and a weak link between these two variables. On the other hand, adolescent anomie and deviance are favoured by anger management, perceived peer attitudes to substance use and digital leisure, together with low parental surveillance.

Neuroscience, Empathy, and Violent Crime in an Incarcerated Population: A Narrative Review

Empathy is a fundamental construct that allows individuals to perceive and understand the cognitive and emotional state of others. Empathy is not only a psychological and sociological concept; it also heavily impacts our daily lives by affecting our decisions and actions. Empathy is connected to and involves specific parts of the brain which, if damaged or of reduced volume, can lead to actions that are morally unjust, aggressive, or simply denoting a lack of understanding and sensitivity. The literature affirms that the low level of empathy, guilt, embarrassment, and moral reasoning displayed by violent and psychopathic criminals is strongly associated with empathy-linked brain regions that are smaller in size or less developed. The aim of this review is to show empirical data over the last 5 years on the connection between empathy and neuroscience among violent and psychopathic offenders, reflecting on future research on the topic.

The Vicious Cycle: Problematic Family Relations, Substance Abuse, and Crime in Adolescence: A Narrative Review

Despite the copiousness of studies on the risky behaviors of adolescents, we cannot establish with certainty the leading aspects involved in teens' substance abuse and criminal actions. This review aims to explore the interplay among the family system, substance abuse, and criminal behavior. An analysis of the main results of the 61 articles published between 2010 and 2020 shows that adolescents whose parents are justice-involved and often absent from home are more likely to perceive lower cohesion, support, and poor family communication. These factors can involve them in criminal acts and substance abuse. Moreover, these conducts are often linked to a form of uneasiness and a search of autonomy. Indeed, risky behaviors could have more than one meaning. Our findings also suggest that the most diffused drug-related crimes in adolescence are economic crimes, weapon carrying, robberies, dealing, and drug possession. Considering these results, future clinical implications might be based on multidimensional approaches, focusing more on the family context to promote interventions for at-risk adolescents.

The Relationship between Peer Attachment and Aggressive Behavior among Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Effect of Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy

This study aimed to test the association between peer attachment and aggressive behavior, as well as the mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy on this relationship. A total of 1171 (582 male, 589 female) Chinese adolescents completed self-reported questionnaires that assessed peer attachment, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and aggressive behavior. Path analysis showed that the negative association between peer attachment and adolescent aggressive behavior was mediated by self-efficacy in managing negative emotions. However, the mediating effect of self-efficacy in expressing positive emotions was nonsignificant. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the indirect paths mentioned above between male and female respondents. These findings highlight self-efficacy in managing negative emotions as a potential mechanism linking peer attachment to adolescent aggressive behavior.