Adolescence is a life stage defined by significant biological and social changes. Youth with underlying risk for substance use involvement may experience difficulty navigating these changes, increasing the likelihood of maladjustment.
Alongside the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on people’s lives and livelihoods, academia has had to adjust to a new world where in-person research may not be possible in the near future. Social media — where 45% of teenagers spend time “almost constantly” (Anderson & Jiang, 2018) — is a promising option for research with adolescents. However, this type of research presents special ethical considerations.
Just Because We Can, Doesn’t Mean We Should
On June 17th, a White PhD student tweeted that he had scraped 10,000 tweets containing the hashtag #BlackinIvory. This hashtag was originally created for Black scholars to share personal stories of racism and discrimination in academia. Within minutes, dozens of scholars commented to discourage the PhD student from conducting this research without obtaining consent. The PhD student deleted the post and apologized.
Meditation can help adolescents reduce stress and self-regulate (thoughts, emotions, behaviors), but they may need help creating the time and space to practice this behavior.
Some teens show resilience despite adverse conditions, but the individual, social, and community factors supporting resilience vary around the globe.
The Society for Research on Adolescence is a non-partisan organization that promotes the scientific study of adolescence. Any political views reflected in this blog represent the perception of adolescent research participants.
New research reveals how different parenting “styles” foster the development of different sets of values among teens.
Parenting is known to influence adolescents’ academic adjustment. What happens when cultural norms related to parenting change?
Some ethnic and demographic groups are difficult to recruit for research studies. Mobile devices and other new technologies can eliminate some barriers, especially when used mindfully.
Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a term used to describe the collection of data in real time while subjects remain in their natural environments. Many adolescence researchers are familiar with contemporary beginnings in social science research, such as when Reed Larson and Claudia Lampman-Petraitis signaled adolescents to record their emotional state using electronic pagers. However, with the growing ubiquity of smart phone use and ownership among adolescents, EMA has become more common and more feasible.
Assessing change in mental health, such as depressive symptoms, across development is particularly challenging for two related reasons. First, the symptoms of depression look different at different ages; for example, in childhood, depression often manifests as angry mood, but as youth age, depression manifests as sadness and suicidal ideation. Second, and accordingly, the way clinicians and researchers measure mental health symptoms also changes across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. To examine depressive symptoms, children are often assessed using tools like the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI; validated for use with children age 8-17 years), while adults are assessed using measures like the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II; validated for use with adolescents and adults age 13 and older). Although both tools are reliable, valid, and age-appropriate, they include different items and response options. This makes it challenging to track how individuals’ level of depression changes with age. If different measures are used at different times, it is not possible to know whether the observed changes in depression are indicative of an individual’s symptoms changing over time or if they are a by-product of change in the measurement instrument. Tracking and answering questions about changes in depressive symptoms when different measurement tools are used requires some creative linking of the different tools.
Over the past four decades, the incarceration rate in the United States has skyrocketed, resulting in nearly one in every hundred American adults being incarcerated at a given time. The majority of adult prisoners are parents, often to multiple children and teenagers. As a result, approximately 3 million minors in the U.S. have at least one parent currently behind bars, and up to 8 million–approximately 1 in 14–will experience parental incarceration at some point in their childhood or adolescence. Extensive research has shown that parental incarceration puts youth at risk of a range of negative developmental outcomes, leading some researchers to call them the “invisible victims” of the criminal justice system.
By: Tara Kuther
By Elizabeth McConnell, Michelle Birkett, & Brian Mustanski
By Margarita Azmitia
By Margarita Azmitia
By Mandi L. Burnette
By Sybil Geldart & Stephanie Burgoyne
How do adolescents learn to form high quality romantic relationships? There are no doubt many factors, but friends may be a particularly important influence as interactions with friends provide a “training ground” for the development of skills that adolescents will need for romantic relationships. An exploration of the influence of friendships on romantic relationships is especially important because the quality of adolescents’ romantic relationships have been associated with a sense of self-worth, mental health status, and well-being (see here, here, here, and here), for better or for worse.
By Sara Douglass
By Margarita Azmitia
