Journal of Early Adolescence最新文献

Inconsistencies exist regarding the relation between physical activity (PA) and internalizing symptomology in early adolescence, and there is need for investigation of potential moderators that may account for these discrepancies. The current study utilized a Self-Determination Theory Framework to investigate the main effects of five key motivations to exercise and their moderating effects between PA and internalizing problems in an underserved sample of adolescents (n = 167; mean age = 12.19 years; 73% African American). Analyses showed that intrinsic motivations were negatively related to internalizing problems and extrinsic motivations were positively related. PA was only protective against internalizing problems when intrinsic motivations were high and had iatrogenic effects when these were low. Exploratory analyses further delineated the unique effects of motivational orientations. Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Research has shown that sibling victimization may be as detrimental to adolescent outcomes as peer victimization. However, many questions remain unanswered with regard to potential protective parenting factors and consequences sibling victimization among adolescents. This study tested a mediation model of sibling victimization with parental monitoring, a positive parenting factor, as a predictor and parent and peer-adolescent attachment as mediated by adolescent self-perceptions as potential outcomes. A three path mediation from parental monitoring → sibling victimization → adolescent self-perceptions → peer/parent-adolescent attachment was also tested. Structural Equation Modeling revealed that parental monitoring was negatively associated with sibling victimization only for girls. Sibling victimization had negative direct and indirect effects on parent- and peer-adolescent attachment via adolescent self-perceptions of social competence and self-worth. Findings suggest that parental monitoring may be important in the prevention of sibling victimization and self-perceptions may be an important point of intervention adolescents experiencing sibling victimization.

This study focused on early adolescents' stress of language brokering and examined the moderating role of family cumulative risk in the relation of language brokering to adjustment problems. Data came from self-reports of 604 low-income Mexican American adolescent language brokers (54% female; ${\overline{X}}_{\text{age}}=12.4$ ; SD = 0.97; 75% born in the United States) and their parents (99% foreign-born) in central Texas. Path analyses revealed that brokering stress, but not frequency, was positively associated with adolescents' adjustment problems, including depressive symptoms, anxiety, and delinquency. We also found that the relation between stress of brokering for mothers and adolescents' depressive symptoms was stronger among families with a high cumulative risk. Further, with a high cumulative risk, adolescents exhibited delinquent behaviors regardless of the levels of stress from translating for fathers. Current findings underscore the importance of examining family contexts in assessing the consequences of language brokering for Mexican American early adolescents' well-being.

In line with family systems theory, we examined patterns of hostile interactions within families and their associations with externalizing problems among early-adolescent children. Using hostility scores based on observational data of six dyadic interactions during a triadic interaction (n = 462) (i.e., child-to-mother, mother-to-child, child-to-father, father-to-child, mother-to-father, father-to-mother)-Latent Profile Analysis supported three distinct profiles of hostility. The Low/Moderate Hostile profile included families with the lowest levels of hostility across dyads; families in the Mutual Parent-Child Hostile profile scored higher on parent-child hostility, but lower on interparental hostility; the Hostile Parent profile showed higher levels of parent-to-child and interparental hostility, but lower child-to-parent hostility. Concerning links to youth outcomes, youth in the Mutual Parent-Child Hostile profile reported the highest level of externalizing problems, both concurrently and longitudinally. These results point to the importance of examining larger family patterns of hostility to fully understand the association between family hostility and youth adjustment.

This study examined the mediating effect of friends' characteristics (problem behavior and academic achievement) in the association between students' background (family and individual factors) and later academic adjustment, as operationalized by problem behavior and academic achievement. We recruited 998 participants in three public middle schools and used three annual waves of data collection (Grades 6, 7, and 8). We found that students' own academic achievement and problem behavior are predictors of later adjustment. Friendship choices are identified as a mediation mechanism that contributes to consistent adjustment from the beginning to the end of middle school. Specifically, high-achieving students in Grade 6 tend to associate with high-achieving friends and are unlikely to associate with friends who exhibit problem behavior in Grade 7, which results in continued achievement in Grade 8. Associating with high-achieving friends in Grade 7 also mediated the link between adolescent problem behavior in Grade 6 and academic achievement by Grade 8. Friends' characteristics in Grade 7 did not mediate the effect of any family factor measured in Grade 6. In general, our results suggest friendship selection is central to sustained success throughout the middle school years.