Objective: The aim of this study was to identify patterns of dating aggression and victimization in urban early adolescents and their relations to mental health symptoms. Method: Participants were students in 3 urban public middle schools who reported having a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past 3 months (n = 938). The sample (M = 13.3 years old) was 52% female, 73% African American, 15% multiracial, 4% White, and 8% other races; 13% were also Hispanic or Latino. Participants reported their frequency of experiencing and perpetrating 10 dating aggression behaviors. Results: Latent class analysis identified typologies of dating aggression and victimization. The best fitting model was a 5-class model that classified youth as uninvolved (54.6%), victims (8.3%), aggressors (9.7%), psychologically aggressive victims (22.0%), and aggressive victims (5.4%). Groups also differed on measures of trauma-related distress and problem behaviors, specifically physical aggression, even after consideration of exposure to community violence. Conclusions: These findings suggest that subtypes of dating aggression exist in middle school that are characterized by differing levels and types of involvement and relations to mental health symptoms. These results support the need for prevention and intervention programs focusing on early adolescent dating aggression, particularly to also prevent trauma-related distress and problem behaviors.
Dating violence occurs frequently among adolescents and is associated with negative physical and psychosocial outcomes. Because of the variety of peer risk factors, methodologies, and the evolving literature in adolescent dating violence, a meta-analytic review of these peer influences is needed. Three peer risk factors that appear to be particularly important for adolescent involvement in dating violence include peers' violent dating behaviors, peers' aggressive and/or antisocial behavior, and being victimized by peers. Method: Three separate meta-analyses were conducted to synthesize the literature on each of the 3 peer risk factors for adolescent dating violence, incorporating 27 articles and data from 28,491 adolescents. Results: Meta analyses illustrated that peer dating violence (r ϭ .30), peers' aggressive and/or antisocial behavior (r ϭ .20) and being victimized by peers (r ϭ .22) were all significantly related to adolescent dating violence perpetration and victimization. Moderation analyses showed differential results depending on how sex was analyzed, sampling techniques, and type of peer behaviors. Conclusion: The current study provided a necessary fusion of the literature on 3 distinct peer risk factors for adolescent dating violence. The findings inform current theoretical perspectives that address peer risk factors for adolescent dating violence, inform existing dating violence prevention programs, and provide future research directions for examining relations between peer behaviors and dating violence.
High prevalence rates of depression and anxiety among adolescents underscore the importance of identifying parental and adolescent behaviors that may lessen the risk for these outcomes. Previous research has shown that parental acceptance, parental knowledge, and child disclosure are negatively associated with internalizing behaviors. It is also important to explore the impact of internalizing behaviors on these parental and child constructs. The current study examined longitudinal relationships between parental acceptance, parental knowledge, child disclosure, and internalizing symptoms across a one-year time period. Participants were 358 adolescents (54 % female) and their primary caregivers, who were primarily African American (92 %). Parents and adolescents provided data through face-to-face interviews. Results showed that parental knowledge and parental acceptance predicted child disclosure, and child disclosure predicted parental knowledge one year later. Higher levels of parental acceptance predicted lower levels of adolescent-reported depressive symptoms, while higher levels of parental report of adolescents’ internalizing symptoms predicted lower levels of parental knowledge. No differences in the strength of these relationships were found across grade or gender. These findings highlight the role of the adolescent’s perceived acceptance by parents in promoting children’s disclosure, and the benefits of parental acceptance in decreasing depressive symptoms over time. Overall, these results show the impact that both adolescent and parental behaviors and internalizing behaviors have on each other across time.
We present two intervention studies designed to promote humility and other virtues. In Study 1, we compared the PROVE Humility workbook (Lavelock, Worthington, & Davis, 2012/2013) to alternative workbooks, each designed to promote a particular virtue (e.g., forgiveness, patience, self-control) or mood state (positivity). Participants who completed the PROVE Humility workbook reported greater increases in humility and other virtues when compared to participants in the other conditions. In Study 2, we revised the workbook and tested it against a test-retest control condition. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1, such that participants who completed the PROVE Humility workbook reported improvements in humility and other virtues (e.g., forgivingness and patience), as well as reductions in negative affect. These findings support the idea of humility being a master virtue, and we recommend future directions for the clinical application of humility.
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