The Multiple-Family Group Intervention (MFGI) was developed to address the need for an effective and yet affordable treatment for reducing recidivism for incarcerated adolescents and altering the families' coercive interactional patterns from an affect regulation and attachment perspective. The 8-week MFGI program was conducted in two Indiana juvenile correctional institutions. The research stu...

OBJECTIVE To examine potential pathways between childhood depressive symptoms and adolescent cigarette use, controlling for potential "third variable" causes. DESIGN Participants included 250 youth (60% girls) who were in Grades 4 to 6 at study outset and in Grades 10 to 12 (M age = 16.78) at a 6-year follow-up. At Time 1, children completed measures of depressive symptoms, as well as peer no...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to examine the parental physical illness' effect on behavioral problems among adolescents, and the effects of being an only child, family cohesion, and family conflict on behavioral problems among adolescents with physically ill parents in Liaoning province, China. METHODS This cross-sectional study was performed in 2009. A questionnaire including two dimensions of...

BACKGROUND Since the stress and coping are the most reported problems by adolescents, this study aims to apprise the stressors, coping strategies and influential factors among male adolescents. METHODS The effect of stressors, coping strategies and some demographics variables were studied in 402 male adolescents in Tehran, Iran. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. ...

In adolescence, such matters as substance use and impulsiveness may give rise to problematic behavior repertoires. This study was therefore done to analyze the predictive value of sensation-seeking and impulsiveness dimensions related to the functions of aggression (reactive/proactive) and types of expression (physical/relational). A total of 822 high school students in Almeria (Spain) aged 13-...

While there are a number of social theories for increased risk-taking in adolescence, certain biological theories suggest an evolutionary component for adolescent risk-taking. It has been suggested that biological brain changes associated with puberty may play a role in such increases (Spear, 2000), as well as decreases in fear levels. The current study examines whether adolescent pubertal stat...

This paper describes the different forms of egocentrism characteristic of each of the major stages of cognitive growth outlined by Piaget. Particular attention is paid to the egocentrism of adolescence which is }iere described as the failure to differentiate between the cognitive concerns of others and those of the self. This adolescent egocentrism is said to give rise to 2 mental constructions...

There is substantial literature documenting the negative association between secure parental attachment and lower adolescent delinquency, but little is known about the mediating mechanisms (i.e., how does parental attachment relate to delinquency?) underlying this relation. The present study examined whether secure parental attachment would be indirectly related to lower adolescent delinquency ...

BACKGROUND Understanding the etiology of adolescent problem behavior has been of enduring interest. Only relatively recently, however, has this issue been examined within a normal personality trait framework. Research suggests that problem behaviors in adolescence and beyond may be adequately explained by the taxonomy provided by the basic dimensions of normal personality: Such problem behavior...

This article proposes an evolutionary model of risky behavior in adolescence and contrasts it with the prevailing developmental psychopathology model. The evolutionary model contends that understanding the evolutionary functions of adolescence is critical to explaining why adolescents engage in risky behavior and that successful intervention depends on working with, instead of against, adolesce...