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Objective Recent studies have examined the extent to which alcohol dependence (AD) criteria prospectively predict the course of AD. Critically, these studies have lacked a developmental perspective. However, the differential performance of criteria by age might indicate overendorsement in younger individuals. The current study examined AD criteria in terms of persistence and prediction of AD course and alcohol use by age in order to identify criteria that are likely to be overly endorsed by younger individuals. Method The current study used longitudinal data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions to depict age differences in rates of new onset, recurrence, and persistence for each AD criterion, thereby showing how these three factors contribute to the overall age-prevalence curve of each criterion. Additionally, we tested age moderation of the predictive association between each criterion at baseline and new onset, recurrence, and persistence of syndromal AD. Results Some criteria (particularly, persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control drinking, and drinking despite physical/psychological problems) are both less persistent and less predictive of AD course among younger adults compared to older adults. Conclusions These findings raise the possibility of elevated rates of false-positive AD among younger adults and suggest ways to improve the assessment of AD criteria. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are among the most prevalent mental disorders in the United States and elsewhere. Controversy exists regarding optimal classification of AUDs. Although observed across the lifespan, many ‘mature out’ of AUDs in young adulthood as they experience adult roles and personality maturation. Among etiological pathways to AUDs, foremost is a deviance proneness pathway shared by other externalizing disorders, with other pathways involving internalizing and individual differences in alcohol effects. All pathways likely involve genetic and environmental determinants. Numerous effective AUD prevention and treatment approaches exist, and basic research continues to further advances in behavior and drug treatments.

The conceptualization of stress-responsive physiological systems as operating in an integrated manner is evident in several theoretical models of cross-system functioning. However, limited empirical research has modeled the complexity of multisystem activity. Moreover few studies have explored developmentally regulated changes in multisystem activity during early childhood when plasticity is particularly pronounced. The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to evaluate multisystem activity during fall and spring of children’s transition to kindergarten in three biological systems: the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Latent transition analysis (LTA) was then used to examine the stability of profile classification across time. Across both timepoints, three distinct profiles of multisystem activity emerged. One profile was characterized by heightened HPA axis activity (HPA Axis Responders), a second profile was characterized by moderate, typically adaptive patterns across the PNS, SNS, and HPA axis (Active Copers/Mobilizers), and a third profile was characterized by heightened baseline activity, particularly in the PNS and SNS (Anticipatory Arousal/ANS Responders). LTA of fall-to-spring profile classifications indicated higher probabilities that children remained in the same profile over time compared to probabilities of profile changes, suggesting stability in certain patterns of cross-system responsivity. Patterns of profile stability and change were associated with socioemotional outcomes at the end of the school year. Findings highlight the utility of LPA and LTA to detect meaningful patterns of complex multisystem physiological activity across three systems and their associations with early adjustment during an important developmental transition.

This chapter aims to characterize and explain pathological substance use from a developmental perspective. We first review key definitions (e.g., substance use disorder) and epidemiologic findings (e.g., age patterns). We then discuss etiology of problematic substance use with an organizational framework that distinguishes three key risk pathways emphasizing (1) deviance proneness, (2) stress and negative affect, and (3) pharmacological effects, respectively. We highlight components of these pathways that represent promising modifiable targets for prevention and treatment interventions. In addition to etiology, we also consider the normative trend toward “maturing out” of problematic substance use beginning in young adulthood. While most past literature on maturing out has emphasized young adult adoption of new roles and responsibilities, we also consider recent evidence for effects of young adult personality maturation. As possible mechanisms of naturally occurring desistance, these role- and personality-related processes could inform interventions aimed at goading similar changes in substance involvement. We also note that the normative trend toward maturing out in fact extends well beyond young adulthood, and we discuss factors that may be particularly salient to midlife and older adult desistance within a lifespan developmental framework (e.g., problem recognition, substance-related health concerns).

BACKGROUND: Delay discounting is a potential etiological factor in adolescents' alcohol use, making it important to understand its antecedents. Family disorganization might contribute to delay discounting, but few studies have tested this relation. Moreover, because delay discounting is heritable, the effects of family disorganization on delay discounting might be moderated by adolescents' genetic risk for delay discounting. Thus, the current study examined the role of family disorganization, in interaction with genetic risk, in predicting adolescents' delay discounting and subsequent alcohol use. METHODS: Adolescents participated in 4 waves of data collection. Adolescents self-reported their family disorganization at T1, completed a delay discounting questionnaire at T3, and self-reported their alcohol use both at T2 (covariate) and T4 (outcome). Using results from an independent sample, we created a polygenic risk score consisting of dopaminergic genes to index genetic risk for delay discounting. RESULTS: Greater family disorganization predicted adolescents' greater delay discounting, but only for adolescents with low levels of genetic risk for delay discounting. Adolescents with high and mean levels of genetic risk for delay discounting showed elevated delay discounting regardless of their family's disorganization. Greater delay discounting prospectively predicted adolescents' greater alcohol use. Finally, the effects of family disorganization on adolescents' alcohol use were mediated through delay discounting, but only for adolescents with low levels of genetic risk. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest multiple pathways to delay discounting. Although there are genetically influenced pathways to delay discounting, family disorganization might represent an environmental pathway to delay discounting (and subsequent alcohol use) for a subset of adolescents at low genetic risk. These findings reinforce the utility of family interventions for reducing adolescents' delay discounting and alcohol use, at least for a subgroup of adolescents. Because higher family organization did not buffer against delay discounting among adolescents with high genetic risk, future research should explore other early environmental influences that could protect these high-risk adolescents from developing these risky behaviors. Language: en

This chapter discusses relations between personality and alcohol use disorder (AUD). After reviewing basic terms and concepts in personality research, two major areas of contemporary research are discussed. The first area concerns how personality traits are implicated in etiologic pathways to AUD. This highlights the centrality of personality to conceptualizing AUD and related psychopathology. The second area is research emphasizing movement beyond a static view of personality, recognizing that personality traits are dynamic and change as a function of human development and life transitions. In particular, whereas past research on “maturing out” of AUD emphasized salutary effects of young adult role transitions, recent evidence reveals normative patterns of developmental personality maturation and supports these as additional influences on maturing out. The chapter discusses ways that contextual role effects and personality maturation can perhaps be integrated into a broader model of maturing out of AUD. Implications for future investigation are presented.

Key to an understanding of alcohol use disorder (AUD) are the drinking-related reductions that begin in young adulthood and continue throughout the adult lifespan. Research is needed to precisely characterize the form of these reductions, including possible developmental differences across the lifespan. Using U.S.-representative data, we estimated multiple-group Markov models characterizing longitudinal transitions among five drinking statuses and differences in transition patterns across six adult age periods. While past research indicates relative developmental stability in overall AUD-desistance rates, we found far higher rates of Severe AUD desistance in young adulthood relative to later ages. Especially considering the dramatic change reflected by Severe AUD desistance (from 6+ symptoms to 0–1 symptoms), this result indicates a substantial developmental shift, with Severe AUD desistance rates peaking at 43% to 50% across ages 25 to 34 and then dropping to 22% to 24% across ages 35 to 55. We discuss implications regarding practical significance of young-adult “maturing out” and predictions regarding lifespan variability in desistance mechanisms.

Research on Asian Americans’ experiences of racism has examined the impact of generation status and ethnicity. This study investigates how phenotypic and physical appearance characteristics are implicated in self-reports of racialization and social anxiety in Asian American college students (n 170) who completed measures of psychological distress, well-being, and racialization (e.g., Subtle and Blatant Racism Scale; Yoo, Steger, & Lee, 2010). Participants’ digital photographs were analyzed to test whether specific physical characteristics correlated with self-reported distress. Results suggest eyeglasses and darker skin tone are strongly associated with greater reports of racialization and psychological distress in Asian American college students.

The current study used two waves of data to investigate pathways through which adolescents’ response inhibition related to later externalizing problems. A polygenic risk score indexed genetic risk for poor response inhibition. Adolescents’ performance on a response inhibition task mediated the relation between adolescents’ polygenic risk scores and mother’s inconsistent parenting (i.e., evocative rGE), even after controlling for mothers’ genetic risk (i.e., passive rGE). Mothers’ inconsistent parenting subsequently prospectively predicted adolescents’ externalizing problems. Adolescents’ response inhibition also prospectively predicted later externalizing behaviors. These findings were subgroup-specific, with greater risk for non-Hispanic Caucasian boys with substance-disordered parents. Results suggest that poor response inhibition may increase risk for adolescents’ externalizing problems both directly and by evoking certain environmental conditions.

Research has shown a developmental process of “maturing out” of alcohol involvement beginning in young adulthood, but the precise nature of changes characterizing maturing out is unclear. We used latent transition analysis to investigate these changes in a high-risk sample from a longitudinal study of familial alcoholism (N = 844; 51% children of alcoholics; 53% male, 71% non-Hispanic Caucasian, 27% Hispanic). Analyses classified participants into latent drinking statuses during late adolescence (ages 17–22), young adulthood (ages 23–28), and adulthood (ages 29–40), and characterized transitions among these statuses over time. The resulting four statuses were abstainers, low-risk drinkers who typically drank less than weekly and rarely binged or showed drinking problems, moderate-risk drinkers who typically binged less than weekly and showed moderate risk for drinking problems, and high-risk drinkers who typically binged at least weekly and showed high risk for drinking problems. Maturing out between late adolescence and young adulthood was most common among initial high-risk drinkers, but they typically declined to moderate-risk drinking rather than to nonrisky drinking statuses. This suggests that the developmental phenomenon of maturing out pertains primarily to relatively high-risk initial drinkers and that many high-risk drinkers who mature out merely reduce rather than eliminate their risky drinking.

This study examined the interplay between the influence of peers who promote alcohol use and μ-opioid receptor M1 (OPRM1) genetic variation in the intergenerational transmission of alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms while separating the “traitlike” components of AUD symptoms from their age-specific manifestations at three ages from emerging adulthood (17–23 years) to adulthood (29–40 years). The results for males were consistent with genetically influenced peer selection mechanisms as mediators of parent alcoholism effects. Male children of alcoholics were less likely to be carriers of the G allele in single nucleotide polymorphism A118G (rs1799971), and those who were homozygous for the A allele were more likely to affiliate with alcohol use promoting peers who increased the risk for AUD symptoms at all ages. There was evidence for women of an interaction between OPRM1 variation and peer affiliations but only at the earliest age band. Peer influences had stronger effects among women who were G-carriers. These results illustrate the complex ways in which the interplay between influences at multiple levels of analysis can underlie the intergenerational transmission of alcohol disorders as well as the importance of considering age and gender differences in these pathways.

Research shows that those with greater social capital enjoy better physical and mental health. The current study illuminates a paradox of social capital which may afflict those involved in traumatic events. Several years of survey data reveal a dynamic picture of the link between social capital and stress following Hurricane Katrina. Results reveal that initially after Katrina, those who were more socially embedded carried the greatest load with respect to helping the displaced population, thus experiencing more stress. But over time, the most socially-involved then snapped back from their stressful experiences more rapidly than isolates. This confirms that over the course of stressful events, social involvement first exposes people to more stress, but as time passes, provides them a significant buffer against negative psychosocial experiences.

This study advances research on the mental health impacts of disasters by examining how a mainstay of the sociological literature, community attachment, influences negative affective states such as anxiety and fear stimulated by a technological disaster. Survey data were collected in three coastal Louisiana parishes (counties) geographically proximate to the BP oil spill of 2010 while the oil was still flowing. The data reveal that community attachment is associated with higher levels of negative affect. This finding holds for those tied to the fishing and seafood industry, those tied to the oil industry, and those having no immediate links to either industry. These results highlight that although community attachment is essential for community resilience, it can also be disruptive to individual well-being when technological disasters occur in communities dependent on renewable and natural resources.

This study tested the effect of marriage on young adult heavy drinking and tested whether this effect was mediated by involvement in social activities, religiosity, and self-control reasons for limiting drinking. The sample of 508 young adults was taken from an ongoing longitudinal study of familial alcoholism that over-sampled children of alcoholics (Chassin, Rogosch, & Barrera, 1991). In order to distinguish role socialization effects of marriage from confounding effects of role selection into marriage, analyses used both the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) method and the change score method of adjusting for pre-marriage levels of heavy drinking and the mediators. Results showed role socialization effects of marriage on post-marriage declines in heavy drinking. This effect was mediated by involvement in social activities such that marriage predicted decreased involvement in social activities, which in turn predicted decreased heavy drinking. There were no statistically significant mediated effects of religiosity. The mediated effect of self-control reasons for limiting drinking was supported by the ANCOVA method only, and further investigation suggested that this result was detected erroneously due to violation of an assumption of the ANCOVA method that is not shared by the change score method. Findings from this study offer an explanation for the maturing out of heavy drinking that takes place for some individuals over the course of young adulthood. Methodologically, results suggest that the ANCOVA method should be employed with caution, and that the change score method is a viable approach to confirming results from the ANCOVA method.

Against the backdrop of the precipitous decline in urban homicide clearance over the past several decades, this study examines factors that may be linked to within-city, over-time variation in homicide clearance rates from 1980 to 2000. Conceptual arguments focusing on case-level characteristics of homicides as well as the broader macrosocial context are delineated and empirically tested. Results from a fixed-effects regression analysis reveal that changes in clearance rates are linked to changes in the situational characteristics of murder incidents such as the percentage of cases involving strangers, firearms, other felonies, and arguments. In addition, within-city changes in immigration are found to be associated with lower clearance rates, whereas drug market arrests are associated with higher clearance rates. Contrary to politically popular assertions, clearance rates do not appear to be a function of changes in police personnel or workload.

When a serial killer is present, the media and local authorities often claim that public attitudes and behaviors change sharply, usually becoming more fearful and less outgoing. Unfortunately, much of the evidence on this score is either speculative or anecdotal. This study reports quantified results from a series of surveys conducted over the course of a serial killing spree in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The temporal trend in fear of crime is punctuated by a moderate increase during the serial killing spree, and a sharp decline after the apprehension of the serial killer. Moreover, post apprehension data reveal that nearly 56% of respondents report experiencing an increase in their fear of crime specifically in response to the serial killer. This was fairly evenly distributed across races and marital statuses, but, as expected, females and younger people were more likely to report increases in fear. Additionally, 46% of respondents took the extra step of implementing some sort of protective measure, with th...

BACKGROUND: Research has shown a developmental process of "maturing out" of problem drinking beginning in young adulthood. Perhaps surprisingly, past studies suggest that young adult drinking reductions may be particularly pronounced among those exhibiting relatively severe forms of problem drinking earlier in emerging adulthood. This may occur because more severe problem drinkers experience stronger ameliorative effects of normative young adult role transitions like marriage. METHODS: The hypothesis of stronger marriage effects among more severe problem drinkers was tested using 3 waves of data from a large ongoing study of familial alcohol disorder (N = 844; 51% children of alcoholics). RESULTS: Longitudinal growth models characterized (i) the curvilinear trajectory of drinking quantity from ages 17 to 40, (ii) effects of marriage on altering this age-related trajectory, and (iii) moderation of this effect by premarriage problem drinking levels (alcohol consequences and dependence symptoms). RESULTS confirmed the hypothesis that protective marriage effects on drinking quantity trajectories would be stronger among more severe premarriage problem drinkers. Supplemental analyses showed that results were robust to alternative construct operationalizations and modeling approaches. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with role incompatibility theory, findings support the view of role conflict as a key mechanism of role-driven behavior change, as greater problem drinking likely conflicts more with demands of roles like marriage. This is also consistent with the developmental psychopathology view of transitions and turning points. Role transitions among already low-severity drinkers may merely represent developmental continuity of a low-risk trajectory, whereas role transitions among higher-severity problem drinkers may represent developmentally discontinuous "turning points" that divert individuals from a higher- to a lower-risk trajectory. Practically, findings support the clinical relevance of role-related "maturing out processes" by suggesting that they often reflect natural recovery from clinically significant problem drinking. Thus, understanding these processes could help clarify the nature of pathological drinking and inform interventions. Language: en

Background “Maturing out” of problem drinking is associated with both role transitions (e.g., getting married) and personality development. However, little is known concerning how these 2 mechanisms jointly influence problem-drinking desistance. This study investigated whether salutary effects of role transitions and personality occur at different points in young-adult development and whether they mediate one another's effects. Methods Participants were initially recruited as first-year undergraduates, with family history of alcoholism overrepresented by design (N = 489). Using 4 waves of data at roughly ages 21, 25, 29, and 34, cross-lagged panel models estimated prospective relations among familial-role transitions (marriage or parenthood), personality (disinhibition, conscientiousness, and neuroticism), and problem drinking. Results Mixed support was found for the prediction of roles being more strongly associated with earlier maturing out of problem drinking and personality being more strongly associated with later maturing out. Regarding mediation, no evidence was found for the expectation that role effects would be mediated by personality. However, results did support mediation of personality effects by role transitions. Specifically, lower disinhibition and higher conscientiousness in emerging adulthood predicted role adoption, which, in turn, predicted later problem-drinking reductions. Family history of alcoholism also distally influenced these mediation processes. Conclusions The differential timing of role and personality effects is consistent with the notion of decreasing contextual influences and increasing intrapersonal influences across development. In light of role incompatibility theory, results suggest that, over the course of development, the association of familial roles with problem drinking may increasingly reflect problem-drinking effects on role entry (i.e., role selection) and decreasingly reflect role entry effects on problem drinking (i.e., role socialization). As emerging-adult disinhibition and conscientiousness were associated with an apparent developmental cascade of both direct and indirect effects, findings highlight their potential importance as etiologic mechanisms and intervention targets.

This analysis departs from prior macro-level homicide research by focusing on genderspecific homicide rates in rural areas, a completely neglected topic. Drawing on the resource deprivation and gender inequality perspectives, the authors analyze genderd is aggregated homicide offending rates in 1,678 rural counties. Negative binomial regression models provide evidence of the following: Gender-specific measures of unemployment and poverty and a measure of female-headed households exhibit no relationship with female homicide offending, whereas all three measures are associated with elevated levels of male homicide offending. Further, measures of both absolute and relative gender inequality have no association with female or male homicide offending in the rural context. Overall, female homicide offending in rural areas is strongly driven by levels of male offending, which are explained by many of the same factors typically cited in the literature on urban crime.

Prior research illustrates that community characteristics may be associated with the perceived risk of victimization. In our analysis, we suggest that cognitive evaluations of the risk of victimization within one's neighborhood may be shaped by cognitive assessments of the willingness of community members to help each other. We test this link using data for 11 countries from the 1992 wave of the International Crime Survey. The data provide substantial support for the hypothesis that individuals who perceive their communities to be cohesive express lower levels of perceived risk of criminal victimization in their neighborhoods.

In two experiments, primed subjects were exposed to violent and misogynistic rap music and control subjects were exposed to popular music. Experiment 1 showed that violent and misogynistic rap music increased the automatic associations underlying evaluative racial stereotypes in high and low prejudiced subjects alike. By contrast, explicit stereotyping was dependent on priming and subjects’ prejudice level. In Experiment 2, the priming manipulation was followed by a seemingly unrelated person perception task in which subjects rated Black or White targets described as behaving ambiguously. As expected, primed subjects judged a Black target less favorably than a White target. By contrast, control subjects rated Black and White targets similarly. Subjects’ level of prejudice did not moderate these findings, suggesting the robustness of priming effects on social judgments.

Recently, Zimring and Hawkins (1997) have suggested that drug markets are a “contingent cause” of the increase in homicide rates. That is, where structural conditions known to produce violence are already in place, the drug distribution-homicide link may be exacerbated. This analysis uses hierarchical linear modeling to investigate two key research questions: (1) Is within-city variation in illicit drug market activity positively associated with within-city variation in homicide rates during the 1984–1997 period? (2) Is the illicit drug market-homicide association contingent on preexisting violence conducive socioeconomic conditions? Using three measures of drug market activity, analyses provide affirmative evidence on both questions. Theoretical and research implications of these findings are discussed.

A low level of response to alcohol is considered a significant risk factor for alcohol use disorder. Survey measures of this construct assess the number of drinks required to experience various alcohol effects, so data will be missing for effects participants have not experienced. Furthermore, missingness will likely be more common for items with higher means, as more severe effects are likely experienced both less commonly and at higher consumption levels. We explored whether these atypical characteristics of response-to-alcohol survey data cause problems when using conventional person-mean imputation scoring. This scoring approach involves averaging across nonmissing items for each participant, implicitly assuming that missing items have similar distributional properties (e.g., means) as nonmissing items. Analyses used data from the most commonly utilized response-to-alcohol survey measure: The Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol Scale (SRE). Results (a) revealed a strong relationship between higher item means and greater item missingness, (b) established that this relation causes person-mean imputation to produce more downwardly biased response-to-alcohol summary scores for participants with more missing data, (c) established that this induced a spurious relationship between higher response-to-alcohol summary scores and higher alcohol-effect endorsement (i.e., the number of SRE alcohol effects experienced), and (d) found that these biases can be reduced with 2 alternative scoring approaches. We discuss these and other potential problems with person-mean imputation, and common and unique advantages of the 2 alternative approaches. We consider generalizability, including how the problems shown here may vary in practical significance across different populations and measures. (PsycINFO Database Record

This chapter reviews evidence concerning familial influences on the development of offspring substance use disorders (SUDs). Familial influences are diverse and operate on multiple levels, including heritable individual differences, parent–child relationships, parenting practices (both general and substance use-specific), sibling influences, and the effects of the broader family environment. Moreover, familial factors both influence and interact with other social contextual influences on offspring substance use outcomes, including peer groups, schools, and neighborhoods. Thus, familial influences operate across development, on multiple levels, and within complex, multivariate, mediated, and moderated pathways to influence offspring substance use outcomes from initial substance use onset to the remediation of clinical SUDs.

This study is designed to extend the sociological research on alcohol use and family relationships. We focus specifically on how heavy drinking by a sibling erodes the sibling relationship performance. Using survey data gathered from 339 college students attending a large Southern University, the results indicate that siblings who are heavy drinkers exhibit substantially poorer sibling relationship performance than nondrinking siblings. However, the data also indicate that there is an important factor mediating this link. Once a measure of disruptive behaviors often associated with heavy drinking is controlled, sibling drinking is no longer a significant predictor of sibling relationship performance. Hence, the inverse relationship between sibling drinking and sibling relationship performance is actually accounted for by an underlying association between disruptive behaviors associated with heavy drinking and poor sibling relationship performance. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations of the st...