The Developmental Significance of Parents and Peers for Individual Adjustment Across Adolescence
- Author
- Mak, Hio Wa
- Published
- [University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2019.
- Physical Description
- 1 electronic document
- Additional Creators
- Fosco, Gregory M.
Access Online
- etda.libraries.psu.edu , Connect to this object online.
- Graduate Program
- Restrictions on Access
- Open Access.
- Summary
- Adolescents interact with their parents and peers on a regular basis and they exert extensive influences on adolescent adjustment. Although past research underscores the important role of parents and peers for adolescent adjustment, less is known about how the strength of these influences may vary across adolescence. The overarching goal of this dissertation is to examine age-varying associations of parent and peer processes with adolescent adjustment, particularly substance use and depressive symptoms. This dissertation consists of two studies.Past research has identified low child monitoring and antisocial peer behavior as key risk factors for adolescent substance use. However, less is known about how the associations between these risk factors and substance use may vary across adolescence. Study 1 examines the age-varying associations of child monitoring and antisocial peer behavior with adolescent substance use (i.e., cigarette use, drunkenness, and marijuana use) across ages 11 to 18.9 using time-varying effect modeling (TVEM). Data were from the Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) intervention delivery system; 8222 adolescents provided data for eight waves of longitudinal assessments from Grade 6 through Grade 12. Results indicated that antisocial peer behavior and low child monitoring were significantly associated with the use of all three substances across the majority of adolescence. The magnitude of the associations between substance use and both risk factors decreased across age, except between peer risk and marijuana use. Further, there was a significant interaction between parent and peer risk factors such that low child monitoring was less strongly associated with substance use at higher levels of antisocial peer behavior. Prior work has shown that parent-adolescent closeness and friend support are important protective factors for adolescent depression. However, it is less clear how the strength of associations between these protective factors and depressive symptoms may vary across adolescence. Study 2 examines the age-varying associations of parent-adolescent closeness and friend support with adolescent depressive symptoms using TVEM. Data were from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) Waves 1 and 2; participants were 4819 adolescents from age 12.5 to age 19.5. Results revealed that adolescent depressive symptoms increased curvilinearly with age across adolescence, with adolescent girls reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms than adolescent boys between ages 13.3 to 18.9. Parent-adolescent closeness was negatively associated with depressive symptoms across the entire period and friend support was negatively associated with depressive symptoms across almost the entire adolescence (ages 12.9 to 19.1). The strength of associations between interpersonal protective factors and depressive symptoms was generally stable across adolescence. Gender significantly moderated the age-varying association between parent-adolescent closeness and depressive symptoms such that the association was stronger for adolescent girls than for adolescent boys during middle adolescence.Overall, consistent with prior work, this dissertation highlights the importance of parents and peers for adolescent adjustment. In addition, it extends our understanding on the potentially changing magnitude of these influences for adjustment across adolescence. Individuals seem to demonstrate increasing behavioral autonomy in substance use across adolescence but remain equally psychologically influenced by the quality of their relationships with parents and friends across adolescence. TVEM has the potential to broaden our understanding on developmental theories regarding what influences are important, how important they are, for whom, and at what ages they are important, thereby also informing the timing and targeting of prevention and interventions.
- Other Subject(s)
- Genre(s)
- Dissertation Note
- Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University 2019.
- Reproduction Note
- Microfilm (positive). 1 reel ; 35 mm. (University Microfilms 28929376)
- Technical Details
- The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.
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