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Long-term studies evaluating threat appraisals as an intervening variable linking interparental conflict (IPC) and internalizing problems are lacking, as are longitudinal studies evaluating the role of the broader family context in these models. Guided by the cognitive-contextual framework, this study followed 225 adolescents (53% females) and their families from age 11 into young adulthood (age 19.6) to evaluate the long-term implications of IPC and threat appraisals for young adult internalizing symptoms. First, a long-term mediation model revealed that increases in IPC from age 11 to 14 (but not initial levels) best accounted for adolescent threat appraisals at age 14. In turn, threat appraisals mediated the association between IPC and young adult (age 19.6) internalizing problems. Second, the family climate—defined as high levels of cohesion and organization—moderated the relation between IPC and threat appraisals. Adolescents in families that experienced declines in positive family climate and increasing IPC had the highest threat appraisals; however, families that maintained (or increased in) positive family climate were protective against increasing IPC. Interestingly, the combination of decreasing IPC and decreasing positive family climate corresponded with the lowest threat appraisals in the sample, contrary to expectations. This finding seems consistent with a family disengagement perspective which may be less threatening to adolescents but may confer risk for other problem outcomes. This study underscores the importance of IPC and threat appraisals during adolescence, and offers new insights into the role of the family climate in protecting against escalating IPC for young adult internalizing risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of nicotine vaping is increasing among adolescents and emerging evidence suggests weight concerns may promote risk for vaping. The aims of this study were to investigate whether there is an association between attempting to lose weight and nicotine vaping during adolescence, when this association emerges and is strongest, and whether there are sex differences in this link. This study used time-varying effect modeling, an analytic method that estimates regression coefficients as a continuous function of age, to model dynamic associations between weight loss behavior and nicotine vaping across adolescence and sex differences in these links. Data were from 13,677 adolescents (aged 14–18 years, 49.4% female) who participated in the 2019 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative U.S. sample. Results revealed an age-varying association that differed by sex. Girls who were trying to lose weight were at a higher risk for past 30-day vaping from ages 14.2–15.9 years, with the strongest association at 14.8 years (odds ratio [OR] = 1.92, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.25, 2.95]). For boys, this association was nonsignificant across age (OR = 1.76, 95% CI [0.91, 3.41] at age 14.0 years). Girls who were trying to lose weight were at a higher risk for frequent vaping (vaping on 20–30 of the past 30 days) from ages 15.2–17.1 years, with the strongest association at 16.1 years (OR = 2.59, 95% CI [1.45, 4.62]). This link was not meaningfully significant at any age for boys (OR = 3.26, 95% CI [0.86, 12.33] at age 14.0 years). Girls, but not boys, who are trying to lose weight appear vulnerable to nicotine vaping during adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescents who are triangulated into interparental conflict are at increased risk for psychological maladjustment. However, little is known about factors that may predict family risk for triangulating adolescents, or protective factors that can off‐set this risk. In this study, we conducted longitudinal tests of family, parent, and adolescent factors that might predict increases in triangulation over time. The sample included 174 adolescents and their mother figures from two‐parent families (58% female; Mage = 14.75 years) who provided data on two occasions, six months apart. Hierarchical linear regression models evaluated family, parent, and adolescent risk factors for triangulation into interparental conflict, and subsequently parent's emotion coaching and adolescent gender as potential moderators of risk for triangulation. Findings revealed that low family cohesion, parent depression, and adolescent difficulties with emotion regulation represented risks for triangulation. Parent emotion coaching moderated the association between low interparental love and triangulation differentially based on adolescent gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aims to investigate the association between family relationship constellations and adolescent friendship quality in a more holistic way and disentangle gender differences on their associations. Background: Family relationships are important for adolescent friendship, but little is known about how mother–adolescent and father–adolescent relationships work in the context of each other. Method: Latent profile analysis was conducted in a sample of 326 ethnically diverse high schoolers (ages: 14–19 years; 60.4% female) to identify different combinations of mother– and father–adolescent closeness and their associations with friendships for adolescent boys and girls. Results: Findings revealed five family relationship patterns: Cohesive (22%; high closeness with both parents), Alliance With Mother (9%; high mother–adolescent closeness only), Alliance With Father (10%; high father–adolescent closeness only), Disengaged (22%; low closeness with both parents), and Average (36%; average closeness with both parents) profiles. Adolescents in Cohesive families had high conflict resolution, and adolescents in alliance families had high companionship, whereas adolescents in Disengaged and Average families had the worst friendships. Adolescent boys in Disengaged families had the poorest friendships in all four domains when compared to adolescent girls in Disengaged families and adolescent boys in other family types; mother–adolescent closeness was important for adolescent boys' validation and intimate exchange. Adolescent girls' friendship quality generally was highest in Cohesive families. Conclusion: Findings highlight the importance of simultaneously accounting for relationships with both parents from the family systems perspective. Implications: Being close to at least one parent is critical for adolescent social–emotional and friendship development, and this is especially important for adolescent boys' friendship quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to provide a novel evaluation of adolescent sensitization to interparental conflict (IPC), which is thought to be a critical factor in understanding multifinality in risk outcomes. Background: Adolescentsʼ threat and self‐blame appraisals of IPC are mechanisms of risk for subsequent maladjustment. Youth who are exposed to high levels of frequent, intense, and unresolved interparental conflict are thought to become more reactive to future conflicts, a process labeled sensitization. We hypothesized that adolescents with more extensive histories of IPC would exhibit sensitization operationalized as greater intraindividual responsiveness to daily IPC. Sensitization may explain why some youth are more adversely affected by IPC than others. Method: A 21‐day daily diary study was conducted with 150 adolescents (61.3% girls) in 9th and 10th grade (Mage = 14.61) who resided in two‐caregiver families. Adolescents provided global and daily reports of IPC and threat and self‐blame appraisals. Results: Results from multilevel models support a sensitization hypothesis for threat appraisals: Adolescents with greater histories of IPC exhibited stronger tendencies to appraise daily IPC as threatening. No support for sensitization was found for self‐blaming attributions. Conclusion: Findings suggest a specific underlying process to sensitization in which accumulated exposure to IPC may lead adolescents to perceive subsequent conflicts as more threatening to them or the well‐being of the family. Implications: Sensitization to IPC may involve the interaction of multiple timescales, including daily instances of conflict. Understanding historical exposure to IPC may guide interventionistsʼ efforts when working with adolescents coping with IPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to illuminate developmental changes and gender differences in the link between weight concerns and cigarette use across adolescence. Specifically, we examined whether and how the strength of the association between weight concerns and cigarette use changed across adolescence, and whether patterns of association differed between boys and girls. Method: Participants were 397 predominately White adolescents ages 11–18 years (50.5% female) from a longitudinal observational study conducted in the United States. Results: Time‐varying effect modeling revealed that even after adjusting for BMI, the association between weight concerns and cigarette use was positive and significant for girls from age 11.3 to 15.9, with the strongest association at 12.7 years. For boys, this association was non‐significant throughout adolescence. Discussion: Results suggest a sensitive period in early‐ to mid‐adolescence during which girls with weight concerns may be at heightened risk for cigarette use. Findings have implications for the developmental timing of interventions to prevent cigarette use and weight concerns and suggest that tailored interventions for girls may be warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supportive relationships with parents and friends reduce adolescent risk for depression; however, whether and how the strength of these associations changes across adolescence remains less clear. Age‐varying associations of mother–adolescent and father–adolescent closeness and friend support with depressive symptoms were examined across ages 12.5–19.5 using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 4,819). Positive relationships with mothers, fathers, and friends were associated with lower depressive symptoms across adolescence, and the associations were generally stable across age. The association between father–adolescent closeness and depressive symptoms was stronger for girls than for boys during mid‐adolescence. Mother–adolescent closeness was more strongly negatively associated with depressive symptoms in the context of higher friend support during mid‐adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Parents' comments about their adolescents' weight have been linked with adolescents' disordered eating, but we know little about the personal and contextual conditions that promote or mitigate the effects of parents' perceptions on adolescents' weight concerns. This study examined whether the prospective association between parents' perceptions of adolescents' weight and adolescents' weight concerns differed as a function of exposure to interparental conflict or adolescent gender. Method: Participants were 386 adolescents (52% female; ages 11–18 years; predominately Caucasian/European American) from 197 families (i.e., up to two adolescents per family) and their parents. Two‐parent families with a firstborn child in 8th, 9th, or 10th grade and a secondborn child 1–4 years younger were recruited to participate in a short‐term longitudinal study of adolescent development and family relationships. Annual home interviews were conducted with adolescents and parents. Multilevel models tested whether parents' perceptions of adolescents' weight predicted adolescents' weight concerns one year later and whether interparental conflict and youth gender moderated this prospective association. Results: A significant three‐way interaction revealed that when interparental conflict was low, increases in fathers' but not mothers' perceptions of daughters' overweight predicted increases in daughters' weight concerns the following year. In contrast, females exposed to high interparental conflict reported elevated weight concerns the following year regardless of parents' perceptions. Results for males were not significant. Discussion: Findings highlight the role of personal and family context characteristics in the development of weight concerns and the value of addressing family processes within preventive interventions for adolescent females' weight concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to broaden the developmental understanding of the implications of interpa- rental conflict (IPC) and threat appraisals of conflict for adolescents' relationships with peers. Guided by the cognitive contextual framework and evolutionary perspectives, we evaluated a developmental model in which adolescents who are exposed to IPC perceive these conflicts as threatening to their well-being or that of their family. In turn, threat appraisals of IPC increase risk that adolescents experience worries and fears about the peer context (i.e., social anxiety), leading to decreased support from friends and increased feelings of loneliness and engagement with antisocial peers. Autoregressive analyses were conducted with a sample of 768 two-parent families across four measurement occasions. Exposure to IPC was related to increases in youths' perceived threat, which increased their risk for social anxiety symptoms. Consistent with our hypothesis, heightened social anxiety symptoms undermined youths' subsequent functioning in the peer context. Specifically, youth with greater adolescent social anxiety symptoms experienced increased feelings of loneliness and decreased perceptions of friendship support. Significant indirect effects were substantiated for adolescent loneliness and friendship support. Findings did not vary as a function of adolescent gender. The findings highlight the enduring implications of IPC and threat appraisals of IPC for youths' functioning, which can be expanded beyond broad measures of youth psychopathology, and the critical role of social anxiety symptoms as an explanatory mechanism in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary family, which is increasingly shaped by multicultural influences, parents rarely are the sole caretakers of their children. To improve understanding of family dynamics, researchers must redefine caregiving networks to include multiple caregivers, such as extended family members. This study explored the influences of caregiving networks on youth depression by examining who youths perceived as caretakers, how many caretakers were in their networks, the youths’ connectedness with adults in their network, and harmony of relationships among adults within the network. Data from an ethnically diverse, urban sample of 180 middle school youths revealed participation of multiple caregivers for all groups, but ethnic differences existed in network composition. These differences in network composition are discussed within a sociocultural context, considering how positive relationships with specific caregivers may buffer future depression. Longitudinal analyses confirmed the importance of positive relationships with caregiving networks for youth of color when predicting future depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effortful control has been proposed as a set of neurocognitive competencies that is relevant to self-regulation and educational attainment (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). This study tested the hypothesis that a multiagent report of adolescents' effortful control (age 17) would be predictive of academic persistence and educational attainment (age 23-25), after controlling for other established predictors (family factors, problem behavior, grade-point average, and substance use). Participants were 997 students recruited in 6th grade from 3 urban public middle schools (53% males; 42.4% European American; 29.2% African American). Consistent with the hypothesis, the unique association of effortful control with future educational attainment was comparable in strength to that of parental education and students' past grade-point average, suggesting that effortful control contributes to this outcome above and beyond well-established predictors. Path coefficients were equivalent across gender and ethnicity (European Americans and African Americans). Effortful control appears to be a core feature of the self-regulatory competencies associated with achievement of educational success in early adulthood. These findings suggest that the promotion of self-regulation in general and effortful control in particular may be an important focus not only for resilience to stress and avoidance of problem behavior but also for growth in academic competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The focus of this study was social (i.e., family and peer) influences on substance use from early adolescence to early adulthood. A large, ethnically diverse sample of early adolescents (N =998) was followed from age 12 to age 23. We tested direct and indirect effects of parental monitoring, family relationship quality, and association with deviant peers on change in substance use across time. Outcomes for tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use were analyzed as separate pathways within the same overall model. The results suggest that a significant shift in the nature of family influence occurred across adolescence and into early adulthood, but deviant peer influence was relatively consistent across this period. Specifically, parental monitoring and deviant peer association were predictive of substance use in early adolescence, but family relationship quality was a significant predictor across the transition to high school and generally continued to predict use into later adolescence, as did association with deviant peers. Deviant peers were the only significant predictor in early adulthood. Our results also suggested that parental monitoring and family relationship quality indirectly predicted later substance use by way of deviant peers, implying that an important aspect of the family context is its influence on choice of friends and peer group composition. Implications for family-based prevention and intervention are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Weight concerns are common among adolescents and are associated with a range of negative psychological and physical health outcomes. Self-esteem is one correlate of weight concerns, yet prospective research has not yet documented the direction of this association over the course of adolescence or whether this association differs by gender. This study sought to clarify the role of self-esteem in the development of adolescents' weight concerns and investigate the potentially protective role of father and mother responsiveness, another documented correlate of weight concerns. Participants were 392 predominately Caucasian/European American adolescents, ages 11-18, and their parents. Time-lagged mixed-effects models revealed bidirectional associations between self-esteem and weight concerns at the within-individual level over the course of adolescence. Results also confirmed the moderating roles of youth gender and father responsiveness in the prospective link between self-esteem and weight concerns such that father responsiveness buffered the effects of low self-esteem on weight concerns for girls but not boys. Only gender moderated the prospective link between weight concerns and self-esteem: On occasions when youth reported higher self-esteem than usual (compared to their own cross-time average), they reported fewer weight concerns the next year, but this effect was slightly larger for boys. Findings suggest that self-esteem and weight concerns are reciprocally related in adolescence and highlight the importance of examining interactions between family processes and individual characteristics to predict adolescent psychological adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research has documented the positive effects of family-based prevention programs, the field lacks specific information regarding why these programs are effective. The current study summarized the effects of family-based programs on adolescent substance use using a component-based approach to meta-analysis in which we decomposed programs into a set of key topics or components that were specifically addressed by program curricula (e.g., parental monitoring/behavior management,problem solving, positive family relations, etc.). Components were coded according to the amount of time spent on program services that targeted youth, parents, and the whole family; we also coded effect sizes across studies for each substance-related outcome. Given the nested nature of the data, we used hierarchical linear modeling to link program components (Level 2) with effect sizes (Level 1). The overall effect size across programs was .31, which did not differ by type of substance. Youth-focused components designed to encourage more positive family relationships and a positive orientation toward the future emerged as key factors predicting larger than average effect sizes. Our results suggest that, within the universe of family-based prevention, where components such as parental monitoring/behavior management are almost universal, adding or expanding certain youth-focused components may be able to enhance program efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triangulation is a process in which a child is drawn into conflict between two parents, and is linked to adolescent psychological maladjustment. Although harmful, families may engage in triangulation due to its promotion of diverging realities in which youth become more attuned to interparental conflict (IPC), yet parents are distracted from tension within their interparental relationship. Although central to theoretical depictions of triangulation and carrying robust implications for family science and prevention, the phenomenon of diverging realities in triangulating families has received inadequate empirical evaluation. This study utilized data collected from 150 families in which 1 parent and 1 adolescent completed baseline surveys and 21 daily diary questionnaires on triangulation, IPC, and family cohesion. Multilevel models were applied, nesting days within families, to evaluate within-family associations between triangulation and divergent perspectives of family functioning. Results from multilevel models indicated that on days when adolescents experienced elevated triangulation, discrepancies between adolescent and parent reports of IPC and family cohesion increased, with adolescents reporting significantly higher levels of IPC and lower levels of family cohesion relative to their parents. Further probing of the trends driving these discrepancies yielded a distinct pattern of results for IPC and family cohesion. Adolescent involvement in IPC is associated with more negative perspectives of family functioning relative to parents. These findings imply a mechanism through which triangulation confers risk to adolescents, and highlight that divergence in parent and adolescent perspectives of family functioning fluctuates depending on daily processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antisocial peer behavior and low parental knowledge of adolescents' activities are key interpersonal risk factors for adolescent substance use. However, how the magnitude of associations between these risk factors and substance use may vary across adolescence remains less well understood. The present study examined the age-varying associations of parental knowledge and antisocial peer behavior with adolescents' substance use (i.e., cigarette use, drunkenness, and marijuana use) using time-varying effect modeling. Using data from the Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) study, the final sample consists of 8,222 adolescents, followed from Grade 6 to Grade 12 (age 11 to age 18.9), including those who newly joined the schools at the targeted grade levels. Results showed that low parental knowledge and antisocial peer behavior were significantly associated with the use of each of the three substances across the majority of adolescence. The magnitude of the associations between substance use and both risk factors decreased across age, except between peer risk and marijuana use. Further, there was a significant interaction between parent and peer risk factors such that low parental knowledge was less strongly associated with substance use at higher levels of antisocial peer behavior. Findings highlighted early adolescence as an important period to target parent and peer prevention and interventions for reducing early substance use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Recent work has sought to understand how family-specific risk, such as exposure to interparental conflict, may generalize to developmentally-salient processes in adolescence. A cascade model has been identified in which conflict-specific threat appraisals may erode adolescents' self-efficacy over time, and in turn, undermine their psychological well-being. The goal of this study was to integrate success in the school and peer contexts as potential contextual protective factors that may mitigate the effects of interparental conflict on self-efficacy.Methods: We tested the additive and interactive effects of success in school and peer contexts on adolescent self-efficacy to better understand these ecological contextual factors for a family risk model. Analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling with a sample of 768 two-parent U.S. families across three measurement occasions. Interparental conflict, threat appraisals, self-efficacy, and school success and peer support were measured using multiple, established scales.Results: Results supported the additive effects model, in that school success and peer support significantly contributed to general self-efficacy above and beyond the effects of threat appraisals of interparental conflict, but did not moderate the association between threat appraisals and self-efficacy.Conclusions: Findings indicate that strengths in school and peer contexts have potential to compensate for, but do not appear to buffer, the negative effects of threat appraisals of interparental conflict and underscore the importance of these contexts for understanding multifinality in outcomes of adolescents exposed to interparental conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]