Journal of Adolescence最新文献

Introduction: Working to reach school goals during adolescence and rise in the socioeconomic hierarchy can have unexpected negative consequences for physical health, which are often linked to inflammation. However, certain forms of academic motivation, like finding meaning in difficulty, can benefit health and well-being. The current study tests whether socioeconomic resources explain this paradox and moderate the relationship between motivational processes and indicators of inflammation among adolescents. Having greater socioeconomic resources may provide the circumstances necessary to experience a beneficial connection between higher school motivation and lower indicators of inflammation.

Method: Seventy-nine adolescents in the United States from diverse backgrounds completed a survey and health screening (59.6% girls, M_age = 14). The survey included a key measure of motivation indicating how students respond to experiences of academic difficulty. The health screening produced assays of C-reactive protein and interleukin 6 from antecubital blood samples, which provided an indicator of low-grade inflammation.

Results: Multiple linear regression analyses demonstrated the expected pattern of moderation, such that students with high (but not low) socioeconomic resources experienced a positive connection between motivation and indicators of inflammatory regulation, especially C-reactive protein.

Conclusions: The findings provide an important contribution to understanding the complex links between achievement and health. Future research on the health costs of mobility should consider the health benefits of motivation that may be observed uniquely among the socioeconomically advantaged. Further, education institutions should promote motivation in ways that are connected to health sustaining forms of support for all students.

Introduction: Civic engagement (CE) in adolescence is associated with a higher level of engagement in adulthood and is reported to be beneficial to youth's development and societal well-being. Parents are among the most influential factors in adolescents' lives. This study examined the associations between parents' own civic participation, their negative beliefs toward youth CE and their child's future CE. While prior research documented positive associations between parental civic behaviors and youth CE, the role of parental negative beliefs has remained unexplored and could act as an additional barrier to adolescents' CE.

Methods: A total of 234 adolescents (65% girls; mean age = 13.77) and their parents (79% mothers; mean age = 44.20), residing in the Canadian province of Quebec from 2016 to 2019, were recruited for this cross-sectional study. Parents completed measures of their civic activities and their negative beliefs regarding youth CE. Adolescents completed measures of future civic attitudes and behaviors.

Results: Hierarchical regressions revealed significant positive cross-sectional associations between parental civic behaviors and their child's future civic attitudes and behaviors. However, parental negative beliefs toward youth CE were negatively associated with youths' future civic attitudes and behaviors, even after considering parental civic behaviors and family socioeconomic status. Adolescents' age did not moderate these relationships.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the significant role that parents could play in shaping CE of future generations. Interventions promoting youth CE should thus target both adolescents and their parents.

Introduction: Caffeine is a psychostimulant possessing arousal, motor activation, and reinforcing properties, which is consumed daily by most adolescents aged 12-19 years. Although current understanding of the implications of adolescent caffeine consumption for school behaviors remains incomplete, studies have shown that in addition to acute effects of the drug, in common with other habit-forming psychoactive substances, regular use leads to physical dependence, evidenced by recurring negative withdrawal symptoms.

Methods: Employing two waves of longitudinal data, we tested the prospective association between daily caffeine use and homeroom teacher-observed self-control and problem behavior in a sample of middle-school students in 20 schools in West Virginia in the United States. Caffeine was operationalized with two dichotomized variables, daily consumption of <100 mg, and daily consumption of >100 mg, versus no daily use. Gender, mother's education, family financial status, social support by primary caregiver and adults in school, and school climate, were applied as covariates in linear mixed models.

Results: Daily caffeine use of >100 mg was robustly and inversely associated with self-control and positively associated with problem behavior.

Conclusions: Caffeine consumption and associated withdrawal symptoms may be an important factor in problematic school behavior among adolescents. Recent advent of highly concentrated caffeine products (e.g., caffeine "shots") commonly marketed directly at youth, should give rise to concerns including consideration about limiting caffeine consumption among children and youth.

Introduction: The supply of elite professionals is crucial for economic development, yet little is understood about the appeal and influencing factors of these careers among young people across different economies. It remains unclear whether adolescents in academically high-performing economies growingly expect emerging technological jobs in response to evolving workforce demands.

Methods: This research used the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000-2018 data in 24 high-performing educational systems to examine the two-decade trends in adolescents' expectations for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), medicine, law, business, and teaching careers. The popularity trend of these careers and the major impacts of gender, socioeconomic status, and academic ability were examined with multilevel logistic regression models.

Results: The findings indicated that developed economies such as Singapore, Canada, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom have successfully attracted a greater proportion of students to elite careers. In contrast, many high-performing Asian economies, such as Korea, Japan, and Taipei, have not. STEM and medical fields primarily drew students with high math abilities, whereas legal professions attracted those with superior reading skills. Although girls generally expected teaching and legal careers and boys expected STEM fields, social and gender differences have narrowed over the past decades.

Conclusions: Many Western developed economies effectively attract a larger share of adolescents to STEM careers than their Asian counterparts. Although gender and social disparities persist, their impact has diminished. Effective human resource planning should be based on each country's unique trends and influencing factors to promote greater equality and inclusion in the workforce.

Introduction: Despite previous research delving into the trajectories of delinquency during adolescence and their links to parental warmth, there remains a notable gap in understanding cultural differences in these trajectories and associated factors. This study sought to address this gap by examining and comparing the levels and trajectories of delinquency, along with their association with parental warmth, between the United States and South Korea.

Method: The study included American adolescents (N = 5,665) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) at Wave I (1995), II (1996), and III (2001) and Korean adolescents (N = 3,449) selected from the Korean Youth Panel Survey at Wave I (2003), II (2004), and VI (2008). The participants, including both adolescent boys and girls at the age of 14/15 at Wave I, completed surveys at each wave.

Results: Results from latent growth curves showed that delinquency levels peaked in middle adolescence and declined thereafter in both countries. The initial level of delinquency was higher for American adolescents than for Korean adolescents, however, the slope of delinquency declined faster for American adolescents than for Korean adolescents. Further, the protective effect of parental warmth on delinquency was stronger for Korean adolescents than for American adolescents.

Conclusion: The cultural differences in the levels and trajectories of delinquency, along with the different strengths of the protective effect of parental warmth, highlight the importance of considering cultural contexts in understanding delinquency trajectories and the protective role of parental warmth against delinquency.

Introduction: Parent-adolescent relationships and school connectedness are critical promotive factors for adolescent self-compassion. However, little is known about how the magnitude of the associations between these protective factors and self-compassion changes across continuous age groups and whether gender differences exist in the age-varying associations. This study aims to investigate (1) the age-varying associations of parent-adolescent relationships and school connectedness with self-compassion using time-varying effect modeling and (2) how their age-varying associations may differ by gender.

Methods: A total of 14,776 adolescents aged 10-18 (mean age = 13.53 ± 2.08, 52.3% males) from Shenzhen, China participated in this study. All adolescents completed the online questionnaires in the school computer rooms.

Results: The results showed that both parent-adolescent relationships and school connectedness were positively associated with adolescent self-compassion, and the magnitudes fluctuated with age. Specifically, the association between parent-adolescent relationships and self-compassion peaked for adolescents in early adolescence, with the key timing for girls (age group of 10 years old) being slightly earlier than boys (age group of 11 years old). The association between school connectedness and self-compassion was stronger for boys in the early years of adolescence (in the age group of 12.7 years), while stronger for girls during middle adolescence (in the age group of 14.0 years). Overall, girls were more sensitive to connections with parents and schools than boys during most age groups.

Conclusions: The findings demonstrated differential key timing for boys and girls regarding family- and school-based intervention to cultivate self-compassion and highlighted the importance of maintaining strong connections with families and schools for cultivating adolescent self-compassion, particularly for girls.

Introduction: Nonsuicidal selfinjury (NSSI) is an important problem in adolescence, which is thought to serve several reinforcement functions (positive vs. negative, automatic vs. social). While the psychological mechanisms involved in NSSI are relatively well known, there is an important gap in the knowledge regarding the underlying biological mechanisms. This study examined the role of testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) in the frequency and reinforcement functions of NSSI.

Methods: A total of 423 adolescents (age range = 13-17; 54.4% girls) from Basque Country (Spain) provided saliva samples to determine T and C levels and completed measures of NSSI 6 months later in 2017-2018.

Results: The results showed that T but not C was significantly associated with higher NSSI frequency and the four types of NSSI functions. In addition, C moderated the predictive association between T and NSSI for automatic negative reinforcement, such that this association was significant only when C was high. Participant sex did not moderate any association between hormones and NSSI.

Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that testosterone levels can affect NSSI behaviors in adolescence, thus helping to explain the increase in NSSI during this stage. Moreover, in situations in which NSSI serves to alleviate negative internal states, high levels of cortisol can be involved.

Introduction: In the fields of labor market and education research, there is a vast interest in mental health factors affecting unsuccessful school-to-work transitions, dropout from school and labor market disconnections for young people. Young people who are not in employment, education or training are conceived of as NEET.

Aim: To get an overview we conducted a systematic review of the present literature on the influence of mental health on the likelihood of becoming NEET in Europe.

Method: A Systematic literature search was conducted in four databases on February 21, 2023, with an update on January 15, 2024.

Results: 33,314 articles were screened whereas 41 studies involving 8,914,123 individuals were included. Poor mental health such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder, autism, depression, borderline, and psychosis during childhood and adolescence is strongly associated with becoming NEET.

Conclusion: Mental health issues, whether mild or severe, heighten significant the risk of adverse education and employment outcomes in early adulthood, extending to young individuals with personality disorders, borderline personality disorder, and psychoses. These observations inform early intervention strategies for children and young people grappling with mental health challenges. Timely treatment is essential. Future research should focus on the gap in research like specific disorders such as eating disorders and anxiety.

Introduction: We test the effects of positive affect and its arousal subscale components of calm, wellbeing, and vigor on asthma control and symptom severity in adolescents with moderate to severe asthma. Additionally, we test whether positive affect (and its arousal components) moderate how stress impacts asthma control and symptom severity.

Methods: Adolescents with asthma (N = 66, ages 12-17) completed brief surveys 4 times a day for 7 days reporting on their positive affect, stress, and asthma symptom severity and conducted a morning peak expiratory flow assessment each day. Asthma control and psychological asthma triggers were assessed at the end of the 7 days.

Results: Positive affect moderated the association between stress and asthma control (b = -0.33, p = 0.009) as well as the association between psychological triggers and asthma control (b = -0.74, p = 0.007). When assessing the positive affect arousal components, calm and wellbeing seemed to be driving these effects. Additionally, calm moderated the association between stress and asthma symptom severity (b = -0.33, p = 0.036) as well as the association between psychological triggers and asthma symptom severity (b = -0.75, p = 0.021).

Conclusions: When considering patient stress (e.g., general stress, psychological asthma triggers), positive affect and its arousal components of calm and wellbeing may be helpful for patients with higher levels of stress and/or for patients experiencing greater numbers of psychological triggers.

Introduction: Adolescents' academic achievement is closely associated with their future time perspective. However, the reciprocal nature of this relationship remains ambiguous due to a lack of longitudinal studies. This study investigated the developmental trajectories of future time perspective and academic achievement among adolescents, as well as reciprocal relations between future time perspective and academic achievement.

Methods: Between 2017 and 2019, we collected 373 adolescents' (baseline M_age = 14.48, SD = 1.90; 49% girls) future time perspective and academic achievement four times from Henan and Hunan Province, China. Each is separated by a 6-month interval.

Results: Chinese adolescents' future time perspective was relatively stable. Regarding academic achievement, two distinct developmental trajectories of academic achievement were identified (i.e., high positive growth class and low negative growth class). Those who excel tended to experience an upward trajectory, while those with poorer grades continued to experience a downward trajectory. In the high positive growth class, the intercept of future time perspective was positively correlated with the rate of academic achievement growth, whereas, in the low negative growth class, it negatively predicted the rate of academic achievement decline. More importantly, reciprocal relations existed between future time perspective and academic achievement.

Conclusions: Adolescents' future time perspective may serve as a protective factor for academic achievement, while high academic achievement may also benefit future time perspective. Interventions to enhance academic achievement should prioritize cultivating adolescents' future perspectives. Additionally, preventing the adverse consequences of subpar academic achievement on future time perspective is imperative.