This competing continuation aims to understand how risk-taking develops across adolescence as a function of biological maturation (puberty and age) and socialization (parenting and culture). We have started the largest known prospective study of these processes by recruiting a sample of 1,417 8-year-olds and their mothers and fathers from 13 cultures (Jinan and Shanghai, China;Colombia;Naples and Rome, Italy;Jordan;Kenya;Philippines;Sweden;Thailand;and African, European, and Hispanic Americans in the United States). We have assessed families annually through interviews with mothers, fathers, and children about the parent-child relationship;the child's adjustment;attitudes and beliefs;and cultural values and are currently assessing self- regulation among the children, who are now age 10. During the next period, we will conduct interviews annually with mothers, fathers, and adolescents to assess their relationships and adolescents'risk-taking. We will also assess adolescents'reward-seeking, self-regulation, social information processing, and risk-taking via a computerized battery administered at ages 12, 14, and 16.
Our first aim i s to test hypotheses regarding the roles of biological maturation and socialization in the development of risk-taking. To the extent that changes in risk-taking during adolescence are biologically driven, one would expect to find comparable developmental trajectories of risk-taking across all cultures. In contrast, to the extent that changes are shaped by parenting and culture, we would expect to find variations in the development of risk-taking that are linked to specific features of parent-child relationships and cultural contexts.
Our second aim i s to understand psychological mechanisms through which biological maturation, parenting, and culture alter the development of risk-taking. We will test hypotheses that adolescents'reward-seeking, self-regulation, and acquired social information processing patterns mediate the impact of puberty, parenting, and culture on adolescents'risk-taking.
Our third aim i s to test the hypothesis that formativeness of parenting behaviors and culturally shaped opportunity for risk-taking moderate the relation between parenting and adolescents'risk-taking. We hypothesize that individual differences in adolescent behavior will be predicted by differences in parenting, but also that addictiveness of parenting depends on its cultural formativeness. In addition, we hypothesize that the relation between parenting and any particular form of adolescent risk-taking will be weaker in cultural contexts in which there are few opportunities to engage in that form of risk-taking. This study wil utilize the most culturally diverse and largest sample of young people and their parents ever assembled as an unprecedented opportunity to understand biological, parenting, and cultural processes in the development of adolescent risk-taking. It will inform theories of the nature of adolescent development and will shape interventions to prevent health-compromising and illegal risky behaviors.

Public Health Relevance

It is widely agreed among experts in the study of adolescent health and development that the greatest threats to the well-being of young people in industrialized societies come from preventable and often self-inflicted causes, including automobile and other accidents, violence, drug and alcohol use, and sexual risk-taking. Although considerable progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of disease and chronic illness among this age group, similar gains have not been made with respect to reducing the morbidity and mortality that result from risky and reckless behavior. This study utilizes the most culturally diverse sample ever assembled to provide an unprecedented opportunity to understand biological, familial, and cultural processes in the development of self-regulation and risk-taking. It will alter theories of adolescent development and will shape interventions to prevent substance use and other risky behaviors.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD054805-08
Application #
8697073
Study Section
Psychosocial Development, Risk and Prevention Study Section (PDRP)
Program Officer
Esposito, Layla E
Project Start
2006-12-01
Project End
2017-06-30
Budget Start
2014-07-01
Budget End
2015-06-30
Support Year
8
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
$934,743
Indirect Cost
$188,404
Name
Duke University
Department
Type
Organized Research Units
DUNS #
044387793
City
Durham
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27705
Chang, Lei; Lu, Hui Jing; Lansford, Jennifer E et al. (2018) Environmental harshness and unpredictability, life history, and social and academic behavior of adolescents in nine countries. Dev Psychol :
Deater-Deckard, Kirby; Godwin, Jennifer; Lansford, Jennifer E et al. (2018) Within- and between-person and group variance in behavior and beliefs in cross-cultural longitudinal data. J Adolesc 62:207-217
Schenck-Fontaine, Anika; Lansford, Jennifer E; Skinner, Ann T et al. (2018) Associations Between Perceived Material Deprivation, Parents' Discipline Practices, and Children's Behavior Problems: An International Perspective. Child Dev :
Gassman-Pines, Anna; Skinner, Ann T (2018) Psychological Acculturation and Parenting Behaviors in Mexican Immigrant Families. J Fam Issues 39:1139-1164
Di Giunta, Laura; Iselin, Anne-Marie R; Lansford, Jennifer E et al. (2018) Parents' and early adolescents' self-efficacy about anger regulation and early adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems: A longitudinal study in three countries. J Adolesc 64:124-135
Duell, Natasha; Steinberg, Laurence; Icenogle, Grace et al. (2018) Age Patterns in Risk Taking Across the World. J Youth Adolesc 47:1052-1072
Lansford, Jennifer E; Godwin, Jennifer; Al-Hassan, Suha M et al. (2018) Longitudinal associations between parenting and youth adjustment in twelve cultural groups: Cultural normativeness of parenting as a moderator. Dev Psychol 54:362-377
Putnick, Diane L; Bornstein, Marc H; Lansford, Jennifer E et al. (2018) Parental acceptance-rejection and child prosocial behavior: Developmental transactions across the transition to adolescence in nine countries, mothers and fathers, and girls and boys. Dev Psychol 54:1881-1890
Di Giunta, Laura; Iselin, Anne-Marie R; Lansford, Jennifer E et al. (2018) Corrigendum to ""Parents' and early adolescents' self-efficacy about anger regulation and early adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems: A longitudinal study in three countries"" [Journal of Adolescence 64 (2018) 124-135]. J Adolesc 66:19-20
Lansford, Jennifer E; Rothenberg, W Andrew; Jensen, Todd M et al. (2018) Bidirectional Relations Between Parenting and Behavior Problems From Age 8 to 13 in Nine Countries. J Res Adolesc 28:571-590

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