This study assessed early adolescents' sexual communication with dating partners, parents, and best friends about six sexual health topics: condoms, birth control, STDs, HIV/AIDS, pregnancy, and abstinence/waiting. Using a school-based sample of 603 youth (ages = 12–15; 57% female; 46% Caucasian), we examined communication differences across demographic and developmental factors, tested whether communication with parents and best friends was associated with greater communication with partners, and examined associations between communication and condom use. Over half of participants had not discussed any sexual topics with their dating partners (54%), and many had not communicated with parents (29%) or best friends (25%). On average, communication was more frequent among adolescents who were female, African American, older, and sexually active, despite some variation in subgroups across partner, parent, and friend communication. Importantly, communication with parents and friends – and the interaction between parent and friend communication – was associated with increased communication with dating partners. Further, among sexually active youth, increased sexual communication with partners was associated with more frequent condom use. Results highlight the importance of understanding the broader family and peer context surrounding adolescent sexual decision-making and suggest a possible need to tailor sexual communication interventions.

This study examined associations between self reports of sadness and anger regulation coping, reluctance to express emotion, and physical and relational aggression among two cohorts of predominantly African-American fifth (N = 191; 93 boys and 98 girls) and eighth (N = 167; 73 boys and 94 girls) graders. Multiple regression analyses indicated unique associations between relational aggression and expressive reluctance and sadness regulation coping. In contrast, physical aggression, but not relational aggression, was associated with anger regulation coping. These relations did not differ across gender, but, the strength of the association between anger regulation coping and physical aggression varied by grade. Sadness regulation coping moderated the association between expressive reluctance and relational aggression. Conversely, anger regulation coping moderated the relation between expressive reluctance and physical aggression, however, the strength of this relation differed by gender. These findings have important implications for intervention efforts.

Purpose One consistent predictor of adolescents’ engagement in sexual risk behavior is their belief that peers are engaging in similar behavior; however, not all youth are equally susceptible to these peer influence effects. Understanding individual differences in susceptibility to peer influence is critical to identifying adolescents at risk for negative health outcomes. The purpose of this project was to identify predictors of susceptibility to peer influence using a novel performance-based measure of sexual risk-taking. Methods Participants were 300 early adolescents (Mage=12.6; 53% female; 44% Caucasian) who completed 1) a pretest assessment of demographics, sexual attitudes, and hypothetical scenarios measuring the likelihood of engaging in sexual risk behavior, and 2) a subsequent experimental procedure that simulated an internet chat room in which youth believed they were communicating with peers regarding these same hypothetical scenarios. In reality, these “peers” were computer-programmed e-confederates. Changes in responses to the sexual scenarios in the private pretest versus during the public chat room provided a performance-based measure of peer influence susceptibility. Results In total, 78% of youth provided more risky responses in the chat room than in pretest. The most robust predictor of this change was gender, with boys significantly more susceptible to peer influence than girls. Significant interactions also were noted, with greater susceptibility among boys with later pubertal development and African American boys. Conclusion Results confirm that not all youth are equally susceptible to peer influence. Consistent with sexual script theory, boys evidence greater susceptibility to social pressure regarding sexual behavior than girls.

Most peer influence research examines socialization between adolescents and their best friends. Yet, adolescents also are influenced by popular peers, perhaps due to misperceptions of social norms. This research examined the extent to which out-group and in-group adolescents misperceive the frequencies of peers' deviant, health risk, and adaptive behaviors in different reputation-based peer crowds (Study 1) and the prospective associations between perceptions of high status peers' and adolescents' own substance use over 2.5 years (Study 2). Study 1 examined 235 adolescents' reported deviant (vandalism, theft), health risk (substance use, sexual risk), and adaptive (exercise, studying) behavior, and their perceptions of Jocks', Populars', Burnouts', and Brains' engagement in the same behaviors. Peer nominations identified adolescents in each peer crowd. Jocks and Populars were rated as higher status than Brains and Burnouts. Results indicated that peer crowd stereotypes are caricatures. Misperceptions of high status crowds were dramatic, but for many behaviors, no differences between Populars'/Jocks' and others' actual reported behaviors were revealed. Study 2 assessed 166 adolescents' substance use and their perceptions of popular peers' (i.e., peers high in peer perceived popularity) substance use. Parallel process latent growth analyses revealed that higher perceptions of popular peers' substance use in Grade 9 (intercept) significantly predicted steeper increases in adolescents' own substance use from Grade 9 to 11 (slope). Results from both studies, utilizing different methods, offer evidence to suggest that adolescents misperceive high status peers' risk behaviors, and these misperceptions may predict adolescents' own risk behavior engagement.

New theoretical models can be useful for understanding the complex manner in which health risk behaviors may be reinforced within the peer context.

Adolescents’ peer experiences may have significant associations with biological stress-response systems, adding to or reducing allostatic load. This study examined relational victimization as a unique contributor to reactive hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis responses as well as friendship quality and behavior as factors that may promote HPA recovery following a stressor. A total of 62 adolescents (ages 12–16; 73% female) presenting with a wide range of life stressors and adjustment difficulties completed survey measures of peer victimization and friendship quality. Cortisol samples were collected before and after a lab-based interpersonally themed social stressor task to provide measures of HPA baseline, reactivity, and recovery. Following the stressor task, adolescents discussed their performance with a close friend; observational coding yielded measures of friends’ responsiveness. Adolescents also reported positive and negative friendship qualities. Results suggested that higher levels of adolescents’ relational victimization were associated with blunted cortisol reactivity, even after controlling for physical forms of victimization and other known predictors of HPA functioning (i.e., life stress or depressive symptoms). Friendship qualities (i.e., low negative qualities) and specific friendship behaviors (i.e., high levels of responsiveness) contributed to greater HPA regulation; however, consistent with theories of rumination, high friend responsiveness in the context of high levels of positive friendship quality contributed to less cortisol recovery. Findings extend prior work on the importance of relational victimization and dyadic peer relations as unique and salient correlates of adaptation in adolescence.

Background: Depression rates increase markedly for girls across the adolescent transition, but the social-environmental and biological processes underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. To address this issue, we tested a key hypothesis from Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression, which posits that individuals who mount stronger inflammatory responses to social stress should exhibit greater increases in depressive symptoms following interpersonal life stress exposure than those who mount weaker inflammatory responses to such stress.Method: Participants were 116 adolescent girls (M age = 14.71) at risk for psychopathology, defined as having a history of mental health concerns (e.g., psychiatric treatment, significant symptoms) over the past 2 years. At baseline, we characterized their inflammatory reactivity to social stress by quantifying their salivary proinflammatory cytokine responses to a laboratory-based social stressor.Then, 9 months later, we assessed the interpersonal and noninterpersonal stressful life events that they experienced over the prior 9 months using an interview-based measure of life stress.Results: As hypothesized, greater interpersonal life stress exposure was associated with significant increases in depression over time, but only for girls exhibiting stronger salivary tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β reactivity to social stress. In contrast, noninterpersonal stress exposure was unrelated to changes in depression longitudinally, both alone and when combined with youths' cytokine reactivity scores.

This qualitative study focused on the identification of problem situations associated with adolescent dating experiences and relationships, including those that placed youth at risk for dating violence perpetration or victimization. Interviews were conducted with 44 African American middle and high school students in an urban school system. Qualitative analysis identified 18 individual themes representing six categories of problem situations: (a) approach and initiation; (b) conflict, conflict resolution, and break-ups; (c) communication, connection, and emotion; (d) aggression and victimization; (e) the role of others; and (f) media and technology. Identification of these problem situation themes has important implications for developing and evaluating prevention efforts designed to foster healthy adolescent dating relationships.