The current study examined developmentally informed pathways from peer victimization and exclusion to adolescent alcohol use. Using multiple informants (target and peer report of negative peer experiences) and a longitudinal sample of 387 adolescents, we examined 2 developmental pathways from these negative peer experiences to alcohol use, 1…

Antisocial peer behavior and low parental knowledge of adolescents' activities are key interpersonal risk factors for adolescent substance use. However, how the magnitude of associations between these risk factors and substance use may vary across adolescence remains less well understood. The present study examined the age-varying associations of…

Prior work suggests that substance-dependent mothers insensitively respond to their child's emotional needs, which can increase children's risk for psychopathology. However, the mechanisms and processes underlying these associations remain unclarified. Mothers' insensitivity to children's distress is an especially unique predictor of child…

This study tests the hypothesis that adolescents with romantic partners are less similar to their friends on rates of alcohol abuse than adolescents without romantic partners. Participants (662 girls, 574 boys) ranging in age from 12 to 19 years nominated friends and romantic partners, and completed a measure of alcohol abuse. In hierarchical…

The current study identified alcohol and cannabis use trajectories among a sample of Mexican-origin youth and examined cultural and familial correlates from childhood to adolescence. Mexican-origin youth (N = 674) from Northern California were assessed annually from ages 10 to 17 (8 waves). Latent class growth modeling examined variability in…

Prior research has demonstrated both socialization and selection effects for the relationship between antisocial peer affiliation and externalizing problems in adolescence. Less research has evaluated such effects postadolescence. In this study, a cross-lagged panel analysis was used to evaluate the extent of "socialization" (i.e., the…

This study examines historical variation in age 18 to 26 binge drinking trajectories, focusing on differences in both levels of use and rates of change (growth) across cohorts of young adults over 3 decades. As part of the national Monitoring the Future Study, over 64,000 youths from the high school classes of 1976 to 2004 were surveyed at…

Conscientiousness is an important trait for understanding healthy aging. The present article addresses how behavioral and molecular genetics methodologies can aid in furthering explicating the link between conscientiousness and aspects of health and well-being in later life. We review the etiology of conscientiousness documented by both…

The current study prospectively examined hypothesized short- and long-term reciprocal relations between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent heavy episodic drinking, marijuana use, and delinquency. Using the contextual model of parenting style (Darling & Steinberg, 1993), we examined the extent to which the bidirectional nature of…

This article examines associations between the Great Recession and 4 aspects of 9-year olds' behavior--aggression (externalizing), anxiety/depression (internalizing), alcohol and drug use, and vandalism-using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort drawn from 20 U.S. cities (21% White, 50% Black, 26% Hispanic,…

A developmental cascade model for adolescent substance use beginning in infancy was examined in a sample of children with alcoholic and nonalcoholic parents. The model examined the role of parents' alcohol diagnoses, depression and antisocial behavior in a cascading process of risk via 3 major hypothesized pathways: first, via parental…

Elevated levels of risky behavior in adolescence may signal developmental change in unconscious appraisal of risk. Yet, prior research examining adolescent risk judgment has used tasks that elicit conscious deliberation. The present study, in contrast, attempts to characterize age differences in (less conscious) intuitive impressions of risk.…

The movement from middle school to high school is a normative transition that is typically associated with increased stress and opportunity in social and academic domains. Theoretically, this transition may reflect a turning point in terms of initiating or sharply increasing heavy alcohol use, a notion that has received little attention in the…

Developmental changes in both alcohol use behaviors and self-reported reasons for alcohol use were investigated. Participants were surveyed every 2 years from ages 18 to 30 as part of the Monitoring the Future national study (analytic weighted sample size N = 9,308; 53% women, 40% college attenders). Latent growth models were used to examine…

Model-based cluster analysis is a new clustering procedure to investigate population heterogeneity utilizing finite mixture multivariate normal densities. It is an inferentially based, statistically principled procedure that allows comparison of nonnested models using the Bayesian information criterion to compare multiple models and identify the…