Connecting the Dots: How Connectedness to Multiple Contexts Influences the Psychological and Academic Adjustment of Urban Youth

Cluster analyses and hierarchical linear modeling were used to investigate the impact of perceptions of connectedness to family, school, and neighborhood contexts on academic and psycho-social outcomes for 437 urban ethnically diverse adolescents. Five profiles of connectedness to family, school, and neighborhood were identified. Two profiles were characterized by reports of either strong or weak connectedness to all contexts. The other three profiles were anchored by reports of low family connectedness, low neighborhood connectedness, or average connectedness. Race/ethnic differences were found in profiles and outcomes. Hierarchical linear models showed that each profile of connectedness was significantly associated with adolescents' self-report of grades, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms after adjusting for correlates, suggesting that the domain and number of contexts matter for positive youth development. These analyses underscore the importance of considering the independent and joint effects of family, schools, and neighborhoods on adolescent well-being. Implications for research and intervention are discussed.     

Urban Neighborhoods and Depressive Symptoms in Late Middle Age

This study examines associations between multiple urban neighborhood characteristics (socioeconomic disadvantage, affluence, and racial/ethnic composition) and depressive symptoms among late middle aged persons and compares findings to those previously obtained for persons age 70 years and older. Survey data are from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a U.S. national probability sample of noninstitutionalized persons aged 51 to 61 years in 1992. Neighborhoods are 1990 U.S. census tracts. Hierarchical linear regression is used to estimate multilevel models. Depressive symptoms vary significantly across urban neighborhoods among late middle age persons. Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is significantly associated with depressive symptoms, net of both individual-level sociodemographic and health variables. However, this association is contingent upon individual-level wealth in that persons with low wealth in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods report the most depressive symptoms. Unlike findings for older adults for whom neighborhood effects appear to be entirely compositional in nature, neighborhood context matters to subgroups of late middle age adults.     

Alcohol Use among Adolescent Youth: The Role of Friendship Networks and Family Factors in Multiple School Studies

To explore the co-evolution of friendship tie choice and alcohol use behavior among 1,284 adolescents from 12 small schools and 976 adolescents from one big school sampled in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (AddHealth), we apply a Stochastic Actor-Based (SAB) approach implemented in the R-based Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analysis (RSiena) package. Our results indicate the salience of both peer selection and peer influence effects for friendship tie choice and adolescent drinking behavior. Concurrently, the main effect models indicate that parental monitoring and the parental home drinking environment affected adolescent alcohol use in the small school sample, and that parental home drinking environment affected adolescent drinking in the large school sample. In the small school sample, we detect an interaction between the parental home drinking environment and choosing friends that drink as they multiplicatively affect friendship tie choice. Our findings suggest that future research should investigate the synergistic effects of both peer and parental influences for adolescent friendship tie choices and drinking behavior. And given the tendency of adolescents to form ties with their friends'' friends, and the evidence of local hierarchy in these networks, popular youth who do not drink may be uniquely positioned and uniquely salient as the highest rank of the hierarchy to cause anti-drinking peer influences to diffuse down the social hierarchy to less popular youth. As such, future interventions should harness prosocial peer influences simultaneously with strategies to increase parental support and monitoring among parents to promote affiliation with prosocial peers.     

The role of perceived well-being in the family,school and peer context in adolescents’ subjective health complaints: evidence from a Greek cross-sectional study

Background

During adolescence children are usually confronted with an expanding social arena. Apart from families, schools and neighbourhoods, peers, classmates, teachers, and other adult figures gain increasing importance for adolescent socio-emotional adjustment. The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which Greek adolescents’ perceived well-being in three main social contexts (family, school and peers) predicted self-reported Subjective Health Complaints.

Methods

Questionnaires were administered to a Greek nation-wide, random, school-based sample of children aged 12–18 years in 2003. Data from 1.087 adolescents were analyzed. A hierarchical regression model with Subjective Health Complaints as the outcome variable was employed in order to i) control for the effects of previously well-established demographic factors (sex, age and subjective economic status) and ii) to identify the unique proportion of variance attributed to each context. Bivariate correlations and multicollinearity were also explored.

Results

As hypothesized, adolescents’ perceived well-being in each of the three social contexts appeared to hold unique proportions of variance in self-reported Subjective Health Complaints, after controlling for the effects of sex, age and subjective economic status. In addition, our final model confirmed that the explained variance in SHC was accumulated from each social context studied. The regression models were statistically significant and explained a total of approximately 24% of the variance in Subjective Health Complaints.

Conclusions

Our study delineated the unique and cumulative contributions of adolescents’ perceived well-being in the family, school and peer setting in the explanation of Subjective Health Complaints. Apart from families, schools, teachers and peers appear to have a salient role in adolescent psychosomatic adjustment. A thorough understanding of the relationship between adolescents’ Subjective Health Complaints and perceived well-being in their social contexts could not only lead to more effective tailored initiatives, but also to promote a multi- and inter-disciplinary culture in adolescent psychosomatic health.

     

Alcohol consumption by youth: Peers,parents, or prices?

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, we estimate the effect of peers’ alcohol consumption and alcohol prices on the drinking habits of high-school-age youth. We use the two-stage residual inclusion method to account for the endogeneity of peer drinking in nonlinear models. For our sample of high school students, we find that peer effects are statistically and economically significant regarding the choice to participate in drinking but are not significant for the frequency of drinking, including binge drinking. Regarding alcohol prices, even though we have good price variation in our sample, alcohol prices are not found to be significant. The results are important for policymakers who are considering policies to reduce underage drinking, as we conclude that no significant impact on underage drinking will result from low-tax states’ increasing excise taxes on alcohol so they are similar to those of high-tax states. Policymakers may choose to focus instead on the influence of peers and changing the social norm behavior.     

Human prosociality from an evolutionary perspective: variation and correlations at a city-wide scale

Prosociality is a fundamental theme in all branches of the human behavioral sciences. Evolutionary theory sets an even broader stage by examining prosociality in all species, including the distinctive human capacity to cooperate in large groups of unrelated individuals. We use evolutionary theory to investigate human prosociality at the scale of a small city (Binghamton, NY), based on survey data and a direct measure of prosocial behavior. In a survey of public school students (Grades 6–12), individual prosociality correlates strongly with social support, which is a basic requirement for prosociality to succeed as a behavioral strategy in Darwinian terms. The most prosocial individuals receive social support from multiple sources (e.g., family, school, neighborhood, religion and extracurricular activities). Neighborhood social support is significant as a group-level variable in addition to an individual-level variable. The median income of a neighborhood does not directly influence individual prosociality, but only indirectly through forms of social support. Variation in neighborhood quality, as measured by the survey, corresponds to the likelihood that a stamped addressed letter dropped on the sidewalk of a given neighborhood will be mailed. We discuss the results in relation to evolutionary theory, the experimental economics literature and the social capital literature in an effort to integrate the study of human prosociality across disciplines.     

Predicting Emergency Response Intentions Among the Canadian Public in the Context of Terrorism Threats: Examining Sociodemographics and the Mediating Role of Risk Perception

Much research in emergency preparedness is dedicated to exploring differences in behavior based on sociodemographic attributes. It has been suggested that these differences may be partially explained by cognitive threat appraisals; however, this relationship is rarely tested empirically in the literature. This study investigates the mediational role of cognitive threat appraisals on the relationship between sociodemographic attributes and anticipated emergency response in a representative sample of the Canadian public (n = 1502). Findings reveal that a number of sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, age, education, and income were significantly related to anticipated emergency response. Cognitive threat appraisals—including two measures of risk perception for terrorism threats—were similarly found to differ significantly by sociodemographic attributes, and were significantly related to anticipated emergency response. However, with the exception of gender, these differences in risk perception did not significantly explain the sociodemographic differences in anticipated response. These results suggest that while individual-level differences in appraisal are important considerations in emergency preparedness and response, further research should consider the broader contextual factors relevant to at-risk demographic groups to better explain these relationships. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

Negative peer perceptions of obese children in the classroom environment

Objective: It is asserted that the more immediate and observable consequences of pediatric obesity are psychosocial in nature. This study examines the peer relations of clinically referred obese youth compared to demographically comparable nonoverweight peers within the classroom environment. Methods and Procedures: Peer‐, teacher‐, and self‐reports of behavioral reputation (Revised Class Play (RCP)), and peer reports of social acceptance, nonsocial attributes (attractiveness, athleticism, academic competence), and health interference (school absence, illness, fatigue) were obtained regarding 90 obese youth (BMI > 95th percentile; 8–16 years, 57% girls, 50% African American) and 76 nonoverweight demographically similar comparison classmates. Results: Relative to comparison peers, obese children were nominated significantly less often as a best friend and rated lower in peer acceptance, although the two groups did not differ in the number of reciprocated friendships. Obese youth were described by peer, teacher, and self‐report as more socially withdrawn and by peers as displaying less leadership and greater aggressive‐disruptive behavior. Peers also described obese youth as less physically attractive, less athletic, more sick, tired, and absent from school. Being seen as less attractive and less athletic by peers helped to explain differences in obese and nonoverweight youth's levels of peer acceptance. Discussion: Clinically referred obese youth are characterized by peer relations that differ from those of nonoverweight youth. The peer environment provides a rich context to understand the social consequences of pediatric obesity as well as factors that could be targeted in intervention to promote more positive health and psychosocial outcomes.     

Negative Life Events Vary by Neighborhood and Mediate the Relation between Neighborhood Context and Psychological Well-Being

Researchers have speculated that negative life events are more common in troubled neighborhoods, amplifying adverse effects on health. Using a clustered representative sample of Chicago residents (2001–03; n = 3,105) from the Chicago Community Adult Health Survey, we provide the first documentation that negative life events are highly geographically clustered compared to health outcomes. Associations between neighborhood context and negative life events were also found to vary by event type. We then demonstrate the power of a contextualized approach by testing path models in which life events mediate the relation between neighborhood characteristics and health outcomes, including self-rated health, anxiety, and depression. The indirect paths between neighborhood conditions and health through negative life event exposure are highly significant and large compared to the direct paths from neighborhood conditions to health. Our results indicate that neighborhood conditions can have acute as well as chronic effects on health, and that negative life events are a powerful mechanism by which context may influence health.     

The mediating role of classroom quality on peer effects and language gain in pre-kindergarten ECSE classrooms

The current study was designed to determine whether classroom quality (i.e., the quality of teacher–child interactions) served as a mediator of peer effects with respect to preschool children’s gain in language skills over an academic year. Participants were 670 preschool-age children (64.6% boys; M?=?4 years, 4 months, SD?=?7 months) enrolled in 83 inclusive early childhood special education (ECSE) classrooms in multiple school districts in a single Midwestern state. Measures included an index of classroom quality, average level of classmates’ language skills, and fall and spring language assessments for each child. Results showed that both classroom quality and peer effects contributed to children’s language gain over an academic year, showing that both instructional quality and peers are influential to language development. Results did not support a mediating role for classroom quality: that is, classroom quality did not mediate the effects of peers on children’s language gain.     

Residential Selection across the Life Course: Adolescent Contextual and Individual Determinants of Neighborhood Disadvantage in Mid-Adulthood

Background

Numerous cross-sectional studies have examined neighborhood effects on health. Residential selection in adulthood has been stressed as an important cause of selection bias but has received little empirical attention, particularly its determinants from the earlier life course. The present study aims to examine whether neighborhood, family, school, health behaviors and health in adolescence are related to socioeconomic disadvantage of one''s neighborhood of residence in adulthood.

Methods

Based on the prospective Northern Swedish Cohort (analytical N = 971, 90.6% retention rate), information was collected at age 16 years concerning family circumstances, school adjustment, health behaviors and mental and physical health. Neighborhood register data was linked to the cohort and used to operationalize aggregated measures of neighborhood disadvantage (ND) at age 16 and 42. Data was analyzed with linear mixed models, with ND in adulthood regressed on adolescent predictors and neighborhood of residence in adolescence as the level-2 unit.

Results

Neighborhood disadvantage in adulthood was clustered by neighborhood of residence in adolescence (ICC = 8.6%). The clustering was completely explained by ND in adolescence. Of the adolescent predictors, ND (b = .14 (95% credible interval = .07–.22)), final school marks (b = −.18 (−.26–−.10)), socioeconomic disadvantage (b = .07 (.01–.14)), and, with borderline significance, school peer problems (b = .07 (−.00–.13)), were independently related to adulthood ND in the final adjusted model. In sex-stratified analyses, the most important predictors were school marks (b = −.21 (−.32–−.09)) in women, and neighborhood of residence (ICC = 15.5%) and ND (b = .20 (.09–.31)) in men.

Conclusions

These findings show that factors from adolescence – which also may impact on adult health – could influence the neighborhood context in which one will live in adulthood. This indicates that residential selection bias in neighborhood effects on health research may have its sources in early life.     

Bridging Multiple Worlds: How African American and Latino Youth in Academic Outreach Programs Navigate Math Pathways to College

Universities have launched outreach programs to enhance their ethnic diversity, yet little developmental research examines students' pathways to college. This study compares capital models (highlighting family background) with challenge models (highlighting students' challenges and resources) in predicting pathways to college. The Bridging Multiple Worlds Model frames this longitudinal study of 120 African American and Latino youth in outreach programs. We examined students' family backgrounds; challenges and resources across family, school, peer, and community worlds; and high school math pathways as predictors of college eligibility and enrollment. African American students more typically had U. S. born, college-educated parents, and Latino students, immigrant parents with high school education or less. Second, students saw parents as greater resources than teachers, siblings, and themselves; peers and teachers were their greatest challenges. Youth distinguished resources and challenges more by their source than form. Third, high school math and English grades rose and fell together, with early math grades predicting college eligibility. Five math pathways emerged: steady, slowly declining, rapidly declining, increasing, and "back on track" toward college, but pathways did not always predict college choices. Fourth, although family background predicted few outcomes, parents' and teachers' help and siblings' challenges predicted grades, eligibility, and admission to prestigious colleges. Findings highlight both capital and challenge models for science, policy, and programs involving diversity and equity.     

Neighborhood context and ethnicity differences in body mass index: a multilevel analysis using the NHANES III survey (1988-1994).

A growing body of literature has documented a link between neighborhood context and health outcomes. However, little is known about the relationship between neighborhood context and body mass index (BMI) or whether the association between neighborhood context and BMI differs by ethnicity. This paper investigates several neighborhood characteristics as potential explanatory factors for the variation of BMI across the United States; further, this paper explores to what extent segregation and the concentration of disadvantage across neighborhoods help explain ethnic disparities in BMI. Using data geo-coded at the census tract-level and linked with individual-level data from the Third National Health and Examination Survey in the United States (U.S.), we find significant variation in BMI across U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, neighborhood characteristics have a significant association with body mass and partially explain ethnic disparities in BMI, net of individual-level adjustments. These data also reveal evidence that ethnic enclaves are not in fact advantageous for the body mass index of Hispanics-a relationship counter to what has been documented for other health outcomes.     

The assessment of peer selection and peer environmental influences on behavior using pairs of siblings or twins.

Many studies have found strong peer correlations for a variety of problem behaviors that begin in adolescence (e.g. substance use). Such correlations are commonly attributed to peer influences, but could also be explained by selective ('assortative') friendship: the tendency for those with similar patterns of behavior to become friends. Here we show how, under certain assumptions, cross-sectional data from pairs of siblings or twins and their peers may be used to resolve the contributions of peer selection and reciprocal peer environmental influences to peer resemblance. We performed power calculations to determine necessary sample sizes for rejecting with 80% power, at the 5% significance level, the hypothesis of only peer selection effects, or only reciprocal peer environmental effects. A false hypothesis of only selective friendship effects was always easier to reject than a false hypothesis of only reciprocal peer environmental influences. Limitations of these simulations, including uncertainty about the most appropriate way to model peer selection, are discussed.     

Impulsive Social Influence Increases Impulsive Choices on a Temporal Discounting Task in Young Adults

Adolescents and young adults who affiliate with friends who engage in impulsive behavior are more likely to engage in impulsive behaviors themselves, and those who associate with prosocial (i.e. more prudent, future oriented) peers are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior. However, it is difficult to disentangle the contribution of peer influence vs. peer selection (i.e., whether individuals choose friends with similar traits) when interpreting social behaviors. In this study, we combined a novel social manipulation with a well-validated delay discounting task assessing impulsive behavior to create a social influence delay discounting task, in which participants were exposed to both impulsive (smaller, sooner or SS payment) and non-impulsive (larger, later or LL payment) choices from their peers. Young adults in this sample, n = 51, aged 18–25 had a higher rate of SS choices after exposure to impulsive peer influence than after exposure to non-impulsive peer influence. Interestingly, in highly susceptible individuals, the rate of non-impulsive choices did not increase after exposure to non-impulsive influence. There was a positive correlation between self-reported suggestibility and degree of peer influence on SS choices. These results suggest that, in young adults, SS choices appear to be influenced by the choices of same-aged peers, especially for individuals who are highly susceptible to influence.     

不同背景的同伴强化及催产素处理对雌性棕色田鼠可卡因条件位置偏爱的影响

同伴间的社会互作是一种天然奖赏,能够影响成瘾药物使用的敏感性。催产素（Oxytocin,OT)能够调节社会行为,并提高社会互作的奖赏价值。然而不同背景的同伴互作以及与OT合并使用是否对可卡因的奖赏效应有不同的影响尚不清楚。棕色田鼠(Microtus mandarinus)是一种单配制田鼠,个体间具有较复杂的社会行为。利用雌性棕色田鼠,我们首先检测了可卡因(20 mg/kg)单独强化以及与不同背景关系的同伴（熟性雌性、陌生雌性和陌生雄性）同时强化诱导的条件位置偏爱（conditioned place preference, CPP）及持续时间;其次检测了实验鼠外周注射OT (1 mg /kg)并给予不同背景同伴强化对可卡因CPP的影响。结果表明,可卡因单独强化时,实验鼠能够形成可卡因CPP并能持续至3周;用熟悉的雌性同伴强化时,实验鼠对可卡因CPP的维持时间缩短;用陌生的雌性或雄性同伴强化时可抑制可卡因CPP的形成。实验鼠注射OT后,用熟悉雌性或陌生雄性同伴分别强化时会抑制或反转可卡因CPP。这些结果表明不同背景关系的同伴强化对可卡因奖赏效应的影响不同。OT可促进同伴强化的奖赏价值,降低动物对可卡因的偏爱,且该效应因强化同伴的背景而不同。     

Differences in Subadult Behaviors of Chimpanzees Living in Peer Groups and in a Family Group

In several primate species, peer-group rearing conditions affect the development of social behavior. We compared the social behavior of adolescent chimpanzees reared in peer groups and in a family group to see whether chimpanzees raised under different regimes show differences in sexual behavior, teasing behavior, and grooming behavior and in their ability to cope with support strategies. Surprisingly, the lack of opportunity to practice or to watch in peer groups had no measurable effect on the development of normal sexual behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Peer-group individuals groomed each other as much as peers did in the zoo. Sex differentiation in reaction to teasing and in conflict initiatives may indicate only an earlier sex differentiation in the zoo than in the peer group. This result may be attributed to the difference in demographic composition of the groups instead of some inherent difference in skill. Peer-group chimpanzees simply cannot find adult partners with which they may preferably test their position. However, there was a lack of sex differentiation in the reaction to teasing and in the number of conflicts started; both are indications of lesser sex-role development in the peer-group adolescents. Furthermore, the frequency of giving support to peers in conflicts differed, which suggests a greater ability in zoo adolescents to cope with support strategies. Accordingly, providing more natural conditions than is usual in laboratories may still add considerably to chimpanzee well-being.     

Decision-Making under Ambiguity Is Modulated by Visual Framing,but Not by Motor vs. Non-Motor Context. Experiments and an Information-Theoretic Ambiguity Model

A number of recent studies have investigated differences in human choice behavior depending on task framing, especially comparing economic decision-making to choice behavior in equivalent sensorimotor tasks. Here we test whether decision-making under ambiguity exhibits effects of task framing in motor vs. non-motor context. In a first experiment, we designed an experience-based urn task with varying degrees of ambiguity and an equivalent motor task where subjects chose between hitting partially occluded targets. In a second experiment, we controlled for the different stimulus design in the two tasks by introducing an urn task with bar stimuli matching those in the motor task. We found ambiguity attitudes to be mainly influenced by stimulus design. In particular, we found that the same subjects tended to be ambiguity-preferring when choosing between ambiguous bar stimuli, but ambiguity-avoiding when choosing between ambiguous urn sample stimuli. In contrast, subjects’ choice pattern was not affected by changing from a target hitting task to a non-motor context when keeping the stimulus design unchanged. In both tasks subjects’ choice behavior was continuously modulated by the degree of ambiguity. We show that this modulation of behavior can be explained by an information-theoretic model of ambiguity that generalizes Bayes-optimal decision-making by combining Bayesian inference with robust decision-making under model uncertainty. Our results demonstrate the benefits of information-theoretic models of decision-making under varying degrees of ambiguity for a given context, but also demonstrate the sensitivity of ambiguity attitudes across contexts that theoretical models struggle to explain.     

Resiliency factors protecting against teenage alcohol use and smoking: influences of religion, religious involvement and values, and ethnicity in the Missouri Adolescent Female Twin Study.

The objective of this study was to investigate the contribution of ethnicity (African American vs European/other ancestry), family religious affiliation, religious involvement, and religious values, to risk of alcohol and cigarette use in adolescent girls; and to estimate genetic and shared environmental effects on religious involvement and values. Telephone interviews were conducted with a sample of female like-sex twin pairs, aged 13-20 (n = 1687 pairs, including 220 minority pairs), as well as with one or both parents of twins aged 11-20 (n = 2111 families). These data, together with one-year follow-up twin questionnaire data, and two-year follow-up parent interview data, were used to compare ethnic differences. Proportional hazards regression models and genetic variance component models were fitted to the data. Despite higher levels of exposure to family, school and neighborhood environmental adversities, African American adolescents were less likely to become teenage drinkers or smokers. They showed greater religious involvement (frequency of attendance at religious services) and stronger religious values (eg belief in relying upon their religious beliefs to guide day-to-day living). Controlling for religious affiliation, involvement and values removed the ethnic difference in alcohol use, but had no effect on the difference in rates of smoking. Religious involvement and values exhibited high heritability in African Americans, but only modest heritability in EOAs. The strong protective effect of adolescent religious involvement and values, and its contribution to lower rates of African American alcohol use, was confirmed. We speculate about the possible association between high heritability of African American religious behavior and an accelerated maturation of religious values during adolescence.     

Do peer relations in adolescence influence health in adulthood? Peer problems in the school setting and the metabolic syndrome in middle-age

While the importance of social relations for health has been demonstrated in childhood, adolescence and adulthood, few studies have examined the prospective importance of peer relations for adult health. The aim of this study was to examine whether peer problems in the school setting in adolescence relates to the metabolic syndrome in middle-age. Participants came from the Northern Swedish Cohort, a 27-year cohort study of school leavers (effective n = 881, 82% of the original cohort). A score of peer problems was operationalized through form teachers' assessment of each student's isolation and popularity among school peers at age 16 years, and the metabolic syndrome was measured by clinical measures at age 43 according to established criteria. Additional information on health, health behaviors, achievement and social circumstances were collected from teacher interviews, school records, clinical measurements and self-administered questionnaires. Logistic regression was used as the main statistical method. Results showed a dose-response relationship between peer problems in adolescence and metabolic syndrome in middle-age, corresponding to 36% higher odds for the metabolic syndrome at age 43 for each SD higher peer problems score at age 16. The association remained significant after adjustment for health, health behaviors, school adjustment or family circumstances in adolescence, and for psychological distress, health behaviors or social circumstances in adulthood. In analyses stratified by sex, the results were significant only in women after adjustment for covariates. Peer problems were significantly related to all individual components of the metabolic syndrome. These results suggest that unsuccessful adaption to the school peer group can have enduring consequences for metabolic health.