Peer-influence on risk-taking in male adolescents with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities and/or behavior disorders

This study aimed to disentangle the effects of Mild-to-Borderline Intellectual Disability (MBID) and Behavior Disorders (BD)on risk taking in circumstances where peer influence was absent or present. We studied 319 adolescents in four groups: MBID-only, MBID+BD, BD-only, and typically developing controls. The Balloon Analogue Risk-Task (BART), in a solo or peer condition, was used as a proxy of real-life risk-taking. Results show a significant main effect of BART condition. Post-hoc tests indicated higher risk-taking in the peer compared to the solo condition in all groups except BD-only. Moreover, risk taking was increased in adolescents with MBID compared to adolescents without MBID, but only under peer-influence. No main or interaction effects with BD were observed. Model based decomposition of BART performance in underlying processes showed that the MBID related increase in risk-taking under peer-influence was mainly related to increased risk-taking propensity, and in the MBID-only group also to increased safety estimates and increased confidence in these safety estimates. The present study shows that risk-taking in MBID may be better explained by low intellectual functioning than by comorbid BD, and may not originate in increased risk taking per se, but may rather be related to risk-taking under peer-influence, which is a complex, multifaceted risk-taking context. Therefore, interventions to decrease risk-taking by adolescents with MBID that specifically target peer-influence may be successful.Pathways through Adolescenc

Visualizing belonging : Deliberation and identification in the Vestavia Hills mascot controversy

Symbols play an important role in fostering identification and unification within communities. However, when different members of a community interpret those symbols differently, the process of identification can be interrupted or even reversed. When this happens, the communities must deliberate over how to move forward, whether through reaffirming or redefining their communal identity. This thesis analyzes the controversy over the identifying symbols of Vestavia Hills High School, in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. It examines the communal power of symbols such as mascots, logos, and flags, and identifies competing processes by which those symbols are imbued with meaning. It finds that polysmous interpretations of these symbols can lead to disidentification, in which residents of the town who criticized the identifying symbols were marked as outsiders and thus marginalized from contributing to the ongoing deliberation. In contrast to past scholarship on school board deliberation, which focuses primarily on debates over policy, this essay explores how argument over communal identity functions in the local deliberative spaces of school board meetings. It also analyzes the inherent obstacles in advocating for changes to communal identity, finding that those who seek change are held to higher burdens of evidence and at risk of being discursively written out of belonging in the community