A Dyadic Approach to Understanding the Relationship of Maternal Knowledge of Youths' Activities to Youths' Problem Behavior Among Rural Adolescents

Most studies that explore parental knowledge of youths' activities utilize parents' and youths' reports separately. Using a sample of 938 rural early adolescents (53% female; 84% White), we explore congruence between mothers' and youths' perceptions of maternal knowledge and its association with youth problem behaviors (delinquency, substance use, and attitudes towards substances). Maternal overestimation of knowledge (compared to youths' ratings) was positively associated with delinquency and negatively associated with healthy drug attitudes. Significant differences in problem behaviors were found between four groups created based on mothers' and youths' level of knowledge (High Youth and Mother, High Youth/Low Mother, Low Youth/High Mother, and Low Youth and Mother). The High Youth and Mother group demonstrated less substance use and healthier drug attitudes than the Low Youth and Mother group. The Low Youth/High Mother group had significantly higher levels of substance use and delinquency than the High Youth and Mother group. Intervention implications are discussed

A Developmental Perspective on Young Adult Romantic Relationships: Examining Family and Individual Factors in Adolescence

The ability to develop and maintain healthy romantic relationships is a key developmental task in young adulthood. The present study investigated how adolescent interpersonal skills (assertiveness, positive engagement) and family processes (family climate, parenting practices) influence the development of young adult romantic relationship functioning. We evaluated cross-lag structural equation models with a sample of 974 early adolescents living in rural and semi-rural communities in Pennsylvania and Iowa, starting in sixth grade (mean age = 12.4, 62.1% female) and followed into young adulthood (mean age = 19.5). Findings revealed that adolescents who had experienced a more positive family climate and more competent parenting reported more effective problem-solving skills and less violent behavior in their young adult romantic relationships. Adolescent assertiveness was consistently positively associated with relationship problem-solving skills, and adolescents’ positive engagement with their family was associated with feeling more love in young adult romantic relationships. In addition, family functioning and adolescent interpersonal skills exhibited some reciprocal relations over the adolescent years. In summary, family processes and interpersonal skills are mutually influenced by each other across adolescence, and both have unique predictive implications to specific facets of young adult romantic relationship functioning

Parental Perceived Control and Social Support: Linkages to Change in Parenting Behaviors During Early Adolescence

Prior studies have found that parents' perceptions of control over their lives and their social support may both be important for parenting behaviors. Yet, few studies have examined their unique and interacting influence on parenting behaviors during early adolescence. This longitudinal study of rural parents in two-parent families (N = 636) investigated (a) whether perceived control and social support when their youth were in sixth grade were independently or interactively associated with changes in parenting behaviors (discipline, standard setting) and parent-child warmth and hostility 6 months later and (b) if these linkages differed by parent gender. We also investigated the interactive links between perceived control, social support, and parenting. Specifically, we tested if parents' perceived control moderated the linkages between social support and parenting and if these linkages differed by parent gender. Greater perceived control predicted more increases in parents' consistent discipline and standard setting, whereas greater social support predicted increases in parent-child warmth and decreases in parent-child hostility. Parental perceived control moderated the effect of social support on parental warmth: For mothers only, social support was significantly linked to parent-child warmth only when mothers had low (but not high) perceived self-control. The discussion focuses on reasons why perceived control and social support may have associations with different aspects of parenting and why these might differ for mothers and fathers

Unpacking the Effect of Parental Monitoring on Early Adolescent Problem Behavior: Mediation by Parental Knowledge and Moderation by Parent–Youth Warmth

This study explores the monitoring process longitudinally among a sample of rural early adolescents and addresses two research questions: (a) Does maternal knowledge mediate the relationship between three aspects of the parental monitoring process and adolescent problem behavior: active parent monitoring efforts, youth disclosure, and parental supervision? (b) Are these meditational pathways moderated by the affective quality of the parent–child relationship? Parent efforts to monitor youth and youth disclosure in the Fall of Grade 6 predicted substance use and delinquency in Grade 8. These relations were mediated by increases in maternal knowledge assessed in the Spring of Grade 6, suggesting that the protective effects of these constructs are partially indirect. Supervision was not significantly related to maternal knowledge or problem behavior. Parent efforts to monitor were more strongly related to maternal knowledge in families with high levels of positive affect than in families with low levels of positive affect

Longitudinal Discrepancy in Adolescent Aggressive Behavior Problems: Differences by Reporter and Contextual Factors

Little is known about the developmental course of informant discrepancies in adolescent aggressive behavior problems, though whether aggression increases or decreases over time depends on reporter. Evaluating discrepancies longitudinally can uncover patterns of agreement/disagreement between reporters across time and determine contexts that give rise to these differences. This study addresses longitudinal informant discrepancies by examining parent-report and adolescent report of adolescent aggressive behavior problems over time and further investigates possible contextual factors related to the longitudinal discrepancy. Five-waves (from age 11.5 to 15) of multi-informant data from the PROSPER project (N = 977; 52% female; 87% Caucasian) were used to test longitudinal change in informant discrepancies between mother-, father-, and adolescent-reported aggressive behavior problems. Results showed that parents reported more aggression than their adolescents at age 11.5 and that the discrepancy at first converged over time before diverging. By age 15, adolescents reported more aggression than their parents. Parental hostility, family status, and adolescent gender predicted change in informant discrepancies. Practical and developmental implications are discussed for assessing and determining accurate change in adolescent aggressive behavior problems

The Timing of School Transitions and Early Adolescent Problem Behavior

This longitudinal study investigates whether rural adolescents who transition to a new school in sixth grade have higher levels of risky behavior than adolescents who transition in seventh grade. Our findings indicate that later school transitions had little effect on problem behavior between sixth and ninth grades. Cross-sectional analyses found a small number of temporary effects of transition timing on problem behavior: Spending an additional year in elementary school was associated with higher levels of deviant behavior in the Fall of Grade 6 and higher levels of antisocial peer associations in Grade 8. However, transition effects were not consistent across waves and latent growth curve models found no effects of transition timing on the trajectory of problem behavior. We discuss policy implications and compare our findings with other research on transition timing

Exploring Triadic Family Relationship Profiles and Their Implications for Adolescents’ Early Substance Initiation

This study examined combinations of warmth and hostility in mother-father-adolescent triadic relationships when adolescents were in 6th grade and associations with adolescent middle school substance initiation. We conducted a latent profile analysis with a sample of 687 two-parent families (52.4% of adolescents were female, mean age = 11.27 at 6th grade). These analyses revealed five profiles of triadic relationships, labeled as: cohesive families (46%, high warmth and low hostility in all three dyads), compensatory families (24%, low interparental warmth but high parent-adolescent warmth), disengaged families (13%, average to low warmth and hostility in three dyads), distressed families (9%, high hostility and low warmth in all three dyads), and conflictual families (8%, high hostility and average warmth in all three dyads). There were significant differences across triadic relationship profiles in rate of alcohol initiation during middle school. Specifically, adolescents in distressed families and conflictual families initiated alcohol at higher rates than adolescents in other types of families. Cohesive families and compensatory families initiated alcohol at the lowest rates among all five types of families. Similar patterns appeared for drunkenness and cigarettes. Implications for family-based interventions to decrease adolescent substance use and future research directions are discussed

Out-of-equilibrium electromagnetic radiation

We derive general formulas for photon and dilepton production rates from an arbitrary non-equilibrated medium from first principles in quantum field theory. At lowest order in the electromagnetic coupling constant, these relate the rates to the unequal-time in-medium photon polarization tensor and generalize the corresponding expressions for a system in thermodynamic equilibrium. We formulate the question of electromagnetic radiation in real time as an initial value problem and consistently describe the virtual electromagnetic dressing of the initial state. In the limit of slowly evolving systems, we recover known expressions for the emission rates and work out the first correction to the static formulas in a systematic gradient expansion. Finally, we discuss the possible application of recently developed techniques in non-equilibrium quantum field theory to the problem of electromagnetic radiation. We argue, in particular, that the two-particle-irreducible (2PI) effective action formalism provides a powerful resummation scheme for the description of multiple scattering effects, such as the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal suppression recently discussed in the context of equilibrium QCD.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures, uses JHEP3.cl

Localizability of Tachyonic Particles and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

The quantum field theory of superluminal (tachyonic) particles is plagued with a number of problems, which include the Lorentz non-invariance of the vacuum state, the ambiguous separation of the field operator into creation and annihilation operators under Lorentz transformations, and the necessity of a complex reinterpretation principle for quantum processes. Another unsolved question concerns the treatment of subluminal components of a tachyonic wave packets in the field-theoretical formalism, and the calculation of the time-ordered propagator. After a brief discussion on related problems, we conclude that rather painful choices have to be made in order to incorporate tachyonic spin-1/2 particles into field theory. We argue that the field theory needs to be formulated such as to allow for localizable tachyonic particles, even if that means that a slight unitarity violation is introduced into the S matrix, and we write down field operators with unrestricted momenta. We find that once these choices have been made, the propagator for the neutrino field can be given in a compact form, and the left-handedness of the neutrino as well as the right-handedness of the antineutrino follow naturally. Consequences for neutrinoless double beta decay and superluminal propagation of neutrinos are briefly discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Annual Research Review: interparental conflict and youth psychopathology: an evidence review and practice focused update

The quality of the interparental relationship is recognized as an important influence on child and adolescent psychopathology. Historically, clinically-oriented research on this topic has focused on the impacts of parental divorce and domestic violence as primary interparental relationship influences on child outcomes, to the relative neglect of dimensional or qualitative features of the couple/interparental relationship for youth (child and adolescent) psychopathology. Recent research has highlighted that children are affected by attributes of interparental conflict, specifically how parents express and manage conflicts in their relationship, across a continuum of expressed severity and negativity – ranging from silence to violence. Further, new evidence highlights that children’s emotional, behavioral, social, academic outcomes and future interpersonal relationships are adversely affected by conflict between parents/carers whether adults are living together or not (i.e. married or separated), or where children are or are not genetically related to their rearing parents (e.g. adoption). We review evidence and present an integrated theoretical model, highlighting how children are affected by interparental conflict and what this evidence base means for effective intervention and prevention program development, as well as the development of possible cost-benefit models. Additionally, we review policy implications of this research and highlight some very recent examples of UK-based policy focusing on addressing the interparental relationship and its impact on youth psychopathology