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Although stress is often related to substance use, it remains unclear whether substance use is related to individual differences in how adolescents respond to stress. Therefore the present study examined associations between substance use and daily emotional reactivity to stress within a year across adolescence. Adolescents (N = 330; Mage = 16.40, SD = 0.74 at study entry; n = 186 female; n = 138 Latine; n = 101 European American; n = 72 Asian American; n = 19 identifying as another ethnicity including African American and Middle Eastern) completed a longitudinal study, including three assessments between the 10th grade and 3‐years post‐high school. At each assessment, participants reported frequency of alcohol and cannabis use and the number of substances they had ever used. They also completed 15 daily checklists, in which they reported the number of daily arguments and their daily emotion. Multilevel models suggested that more frequent alcohol and cannabis use were related to attenuated positive emotional reactivity to daily stress (i.e., smaller declines in positive emotion on days when they experienced more arguments) for both male and female adolescents. Associations for negative emotional reactivity to stress varied by sex; more frequent alcohol use and use of more substances in one's lifetime were related to greater anxious emotional reactivity to stress among female adolescents, whereas more frequent alcohol and cannabis use and higher lifetime substance use were related to attenuated depressive emotional reactivity to stress among male adolescents. Taken together, substance use was related to emotional reactivity to daily stress within the same year during adolescence, although associations differed by valence and adolescent sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescents, especially female youth, who have more family meals tend to be at lower risk for substance use. The present study tested whether family meals relate to substance use count and frequency during high school, whether associations differ by gender, and whether other family‐related variables explain these associations. A community sample of 316 adolescents (Mage = 16.40, SD = 0.74; 56.96% female; 41.77% Latine, 23.10% Asian American, 29.11% European American, 6.01% from other ethnic backgrounds including Middle Eastern and African American) reported the number of substances they have ever used and how often they used alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes, and completed measures of parental support and family cohesion. Across 15 days, they reported whether they had a family meal, got along with parents, and spent leisure time with their family each day. Regression models tested associations between frequency of family meals and substance use, whether associations differed by gender, and whether associations were explained by other family‐related variables. Results indicated that more frequent family meals were associated with lower substance use count and less frequent alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use among female adolescents but not male adolescents. Other daily family experiences were unrelated to substance use, and family meal frequency was independently related to lower substance use after accounting for parental support and family cohesion. Taken together, more frequent family meals in high school may reduce substance use risk for female adolescents, and interventions could consider promoting family meals in addition to other positive family values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion reactivity refers to the intensity of changes in positive and negative emotion following a stimulus, typically studied with respect to daily stressors (e.g., arguments, demands) or laboratory stressors, including the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Yet, it is unclear whether emotion reactivity to daily and to laboratory stressors are related. The present study examined whether greater emotion reactivity to daily stressors (i.e., arguments, demands) is associated with greater reactivity to the TSST. Late adolescents (N = 82; Mage = 18.35, SD = 0.51, range 17–19; 56.1% female; 65.9% Latine, 34.2% European American) reported whether they experienced arguments and demands with friends, family, and individuals at school and their negative and positive emotion nightly for 15 days. They also completed the TSST, a validated paradigm for eliciting social‐evaluative threat, and reported their emotion at baseline and immediately post‐TSST. Multilevel models examined whether daily and laboratory emotion reactivity were related by testing whether the daily associations between arguments and demands with emotion differed by emotion reactivity to the TSST. Individuals with greater positive emotion reactivity (i.e., greater reductions in positive emotion) and greater negative emotion reactivity to the TSST showed greater positive emotion reactivity to daily demands. Emotion reactivity to the TSST was not significantly related to emotion reactivity to arguments. Findings provide preliminary evidence that emotion reactivity to the TSST relates to some aspects of daily emotion reactivity, with relations differing depending on type of daily stressor and valence of emotion. Results contextualise the implications of emotion reactivity to the TSST for daily stress processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined whether everyday discrimination relates to the frequency of adolescents' positive and negative daily social interactions and whether these associations are driven by anger and positive emotion. Adolescents (N = 334) participated in a three‐wave longitudinal study, in which they completed surveys regarding everyday discrimination, anger, and positive emotion, as well as 15 daily reports of conflict and getting along with friends and family. Higher everyday discrimination was related to more daily conflicts and fewer experiences of getting along with other people. Longitudinal models also provided preliminary evidence that everyday discrimination was associated with daily conflicts 4 years later indirectly through anger. Overall, results suggest everyday discrimination relates to adolescents' daily experiences, potentially through differences in emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated whether parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) responses to social‐evaluative threat at age 14 were related to the number of substances used between ages 14 and 16 among Mexican‐origin adolescents (N = 243; 70.4% had never used substances by 14). Participants completed the Trier Social Stress Test, while cardiac measures of parasympathetic and SNS activity were measured continuously using respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and pre‐ejection period (PEP), respectively. Participants reported whether they had ever used alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes, and had ever vaped nicotine in their lifetime at ages 14 and 16. Multilevel models were used to test associations between RSA and PEP responses at age 14 and substance use at 16. Among youth who had not used substances by 14, dampened RSA and PEP responses, and profiles of greater coinhibition and lower reciprocal SNS activation between RSA and PEP, at age 14 were associated with using substances by 16. Among youth who used by 14, exaggerated PEP responses were associated with using more substances by age 16. Taken together, dampened autonomic responses to social‐evaluative threat predicted initiation of substance use over two years, and difficulties with coordination of physiological responses may confer risk for substance use in adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigates whether prepregnancy maternal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, and stress predict children's cortisol diurnal slopes and cortisol awakening responses (CARs) adjusting for relevant variables. Mothers were enrolled after delivering a baby and followed through their subsequent pregnancy with 5 years of longitudinal data on their subsequent child. This prospective design allowed assessment of PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, and perceived stress prior to pregnancy. Children provided three saliva samples per day on three consecutive days at two timepoints in early childhood (M age = 3.7 years, SD = 0.38; M age = 5.04 years, SD = 0.43). Mothers' PTSD symptoms prior to pregnancy were significantly associated with flatter child diurnal cortisol slopes at 4 and 5 years, but not with child CAR. Findings at the age of 4 years, but not 5 years, remained statistically significant after adjustment for maternal socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, child age, and other covariates. In contrast, maternal prepregnancy depressive symptoms and perceived stress did not significantly predict cortisol slopes or CAR. Results suggest that maternal prepregnancy PTSD symptoms may contribute to variation in early childhood physiology. This study extends earlier work demonstrating risk of adverse outcomes among children whose mothers experienced trauma but associations cannot be disentangled from effects of prenatal mental health of mothers on children's early childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many emerging adults feel lonely and struggle to gain status during the college transition, it remains unclear whether certain personality traits facilitate this transition. Using a longitudinal design, we investigated whether status‐related traits—namely, entitlement, intrasexual competitiveness, and dominance—related to the development of status in 91 first‐year college students (Mage = 18.15, SD = 0.44) transitioning to a novel college environment. We also examined whether status‐related personality traits moderated the degree to which status related to loneliness. As hypothesized, only students high in intrasexual competitiveness experienced increases in subjective dorm status across the year. In addition, students exhibiting average or low entitlement experienced decreases in loneliness over time, whereas high entitlement was related to consistently low loneliness. Finally, higher subjective dorm status was related to lower loneliness only for less dominant students, as assessed by both self‐ratings of trait dominance and raters' judgments of facial dominance from photographs. Using a real‐world context of status development, these results suggest that status‐related personality traits may influence students' ability to experience higher status and modulate the relation between subjective status and loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]