Anticipating Early Fatality: Friends’, Schoolmates’ and Individual Perceptions of Fatality on Adolescent Risk Behaviors

Abstract

Past research indicates that anticipating adverse outcomes, such as early death (fatalism), is associated positively with adolescents' likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors. Health researchers and criminologists have argued that fatalism influences present risk taking in part by informing individuals' motivation for delaying gratification for the promise of future benefits. While past findings highlight the association between the anticipation of early death and a number of developmental outcomes, no known research has assessed the impact of location in a context characterized by high perceptions of fatality. Using data from Add Health and a sample of 9,584 adolescents (51 % female and 71 % white) nested in 113 schools, our study builds upon prior research by examining the association between friends', school mates', and individual perceptions of early fatality and adolescent risk behaviors. We test whether friends' anticipation of being killed prior to age 21 or location in a school where a high proportion of the student body subscribes to attitudes of high fatality, is associated with risky behaviors. Results indicate that friends' fatalism is positively associated with engaging in violent delinquency, non-violent delinquency, and drug use after controlling for individual covariates and prior individual risk-taking. Although friends' delinquency accounts for much of the effect of friends' fatalism on violence, none of the potential intervening variables fully explain the effect of friends' fatalism on youth involvement in nonviolent delinquency and drug use. Our results underscore the importance of friendship contextual effects in shaping adolescent risk-taking behavior and the very serious consequences perceptions of fatality have for adolescents' involvement in delinquency and drug use.

Futurelessness, Risk Perceptions, and Commitment to Institutional Rules Among a Sample of Incarcerated Men and Women

“…These studies provide some evidence for the positive relationship between futurelessness and deviant behavior. Indeed, a handful of empirical studies have explored this link (Brezina et al, 2009; Clinkinbeard, 2014; Haynie, Soller, & Williams, 2014; Kruger et al, 2018; Piquero, Farrington, & Jennings, 2018; Wainwright, Nee, & Vrij, 2018). These studies have employed various operationalizations of futurelessness including the time discounting of money (Piquero et al, 2018), perceived age at death (Brezina et al, 2009; Clinkinbeard, 2014; Haynie et al, 2014; Piquero, 2016), hope for becoming who one wishes to be in the future (Wainwright et al, 2018), and having a present versus a future orientation (Kruger et al, 2018).…”

“…Indeed, a handful of empirical studies have explored this link (Brezina et al, 2009; Clinkinbeard, 2014; Haynie, Soller, & Williams, 2014; Kruger et al, 2018; Piquero, Farrington, & Jennings, 2018; Wainwright, Nee, & Vrij, 2018). These studies have employed various operationalizations of futurelessness including the time discounting of money (Piquero et al, 2018), perceived age at death (Brezina et al, 2009; Clinkinbeard, 2014; Haynie et al, 2014; Piquero, 2016), hope for becoming who one wishes to be in the future (Wainwright et al, 2018), and having a present versus a future orientation (Kruger et al, 2018). Most of these studies are correlational examining futurelessness and offending cross-sectionally (Brezina et al, 2009; Clinkinbeard, 2014; Kruger et al, 2018; Piquero, 2016; Piquero et al, 2018; Wainwright et al, 2018).…”

Adolescent Agentic Orientations: Contemporaneous Family Influence, Parental Biography and Intergenerational Development

“…These beliefs capture the extent to which people look ahead in their lives with more or less optimism (Peterson 2000), and predict beneficial life course outcomes, net of socioeconomic and demographic factors (Halleröd 2011; Hitlin and Johnson 2015). Related expectations about the future regarding schooling, as well as those about survival, are associated cross-sectionally with lower substance use and violent and nonviolent antisocial behavior (Brumley et al 2017; Haynie et al 2014) and longitudinally with reduced sexually risky and violent behavior (Brumley et al 2017; Sipsma et al 2015). …”

Understanding barriers to healthy behaviors in black college men

“…Similar to other research, findings from this study report that friends have an influence on the type of behavior college Black men engage in. 42 Research has reported that fatalism, belief that you will die at a young age, of one’s friends had a positive effect on risky behaviors adolescents engaged in. 42 Findings from this study also reported that college Black males want role models their age who are engaged in healthy behaviors so that they can emulate them.…”

“…42 Research has reported that fatalism, belief that you will die at a young age, of one’s friends had a positive effect on risky behaviors adolescents engaged in. 42 Findings from this study also reported that college Black males want role models their age who are engaged in healthy behaviors so that they can emulate them. This finding supports a larger concept that peer support, assistance given by non-professionals that includes emotional, social, and practical assistance to encourage healthy behaviors, may be a more effective way to engage hardly reached groups, based on individual, demographic, or cultural-environmental factors, and improve their health outcomes.…”