Firearm Experiences, Behaviors, and Norms Among Rural Adolescents.

Importance: Rural adolescents are at high risk for firearm-related injury, yet most existing prevention efforts are informed by research conducted in urban areas. Despite the need to account for rural perspectives, few studies have investigated the unique social ecological context of firearms for rural adolescents or have directly engaged with rural adolescents to understand their views on firearm use.

Objective: To describe rural adolescents' firearm behaviors and perceptions of firearm-related social norms within their communities, peer groups, and families.

Conceptualization of Firearm-Related Terms Among Rural Adolescents: Definitions Matter.

Rural adolescents are at risk for firearm-related injury and death. In response, professional organizations have called for communication between adolescents, parents, and providers about firearms. A shared understanding of firearms between providers and families can facilitate effectiveness of health interventions.

The association of alcohol use and heavy drinking with subsequent handgun carrying among youth from rural areas.

Purpose: Alcohol use and handgun carrying are more prevalent among youth in rural than urban areas and their association may be stronger among rural adolescents. Alcohol use may be modifiable with implications for reducing handgun carrying and firearm-related harm. We examined the association between lagged alcohol use and subsequent handgun carrying in rural areas and examined variation in the association by developmental stages, hypothesizing that it would be stronger among adolescents than youth adults.

Older and Wiser? Age-related Change in State and Trait Boredom During Adolescence and Associations with Neural Correlates of Self-regulation.

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to examine age-related change in state and trait boredom in 12- to 17-year-old adolescents and test whether neurophysiological correlates of self-regulation relate to boredom during adolescence in the same way that has been found in adults.

Methods: Eighty-nine 12- to 17-year-old adolescents participated. Three types of trait boredom were measured: boredom proneness, leisure boredom, and boredom susceptibility.

Effect of the Communities That Care Prevention System on Adolescent Handgun Carrying: A Cluster-Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: There is little information on upstream community-based interventions that reduce the prevalence of handgun carrying among adolescents, especially those growing up in rural areas.

Objective: To test whether Communities That Care (CTC), a community-based prevention system focusing on risk and protective factors for behavioral problems early in life, reduces handgun carrying prevalence among adolescents growing up in rural areas.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Community-randomized trial of 24 small towns in 7 states assigned randomly to the CTC or control group with outcomes assessed from 2003 to 2011.

Bullying and physical violence and their association with handgun carrying among youth growing up in rural areas.

Objectives: This study builds on prior research showing a strong relationship between handgun carrying and delinquent behaviors among urban youth by examining the association between handgun carrying trajectories and various types of violence in a rural sample.

Methods: This study uses data from a longitudinal cohort study of 2002 public school students in the United States from 12 rural communities across 7 states from ages 12-26 (2005-2019). We used logistic regressions to assess associations of various bullying and physical violence behaviors with latent trajectories of handgun carrying from adolescence through young adulthood.

School Handgun Carrying Among Youth Growing Up in Rural Communities.

Purpose: To characterize school handgun carrying and violence risk factors among rural youth.

Methods: Using a sample of rural youth (n = 1995), we quantified the proportion who carried a handgun to school, carried but not to school, and did not carry across grades 7-12 and endorsed risk factors for violence in individual, peer, school, and community domains.

Results: Overall, 3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2%-4%) of youth ever carried to school; 15% (95% CI: 14%-16%) carried but not to school; and 82% (95% CI: 80%-84%) never carried.

Difficulties with Emotion Regulation during COVID-19 and Associations with Boredom in College Students.

COVID-19 related restrictions resulted in a significant lifestyle change for many young adults in the United States. Although boredom and emotional self-regulation are clearly connected in empirical research, the question remains of what this association looks like in unique circumstances, such as early in COVID-19 pandemic at the height of restrictions. The purpose of the current study is to identify the association between boredom proneness and emotion regulation in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sound and Silence: The Effects of Environmental Conditions on State Boredom in an Online Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Boredom is a negative emotion commonly experienced in mundane situations. Boredom is thought to arise from a mismatch between individuals and their expectation for environmental stimulation. People attempt to reduce boredom by increasing the stimulation in their environment (e.

Profiles of Adolescent Leisure Motivation and Substance Use in the HealthWise South Africa Research Trial: A Person-Centered Approach.

Engaging in intrinsically motivated behaviors, both within and outside of the leisure context, is associated with well-being. However, individuals can be driven by multiple types of motivation simultaneously, and the impact of constellations of leisure motivation is relatively unknown. The current study uses South African adolescents in the HealthWise South Africa efficacy trial (=2,204; =14.

It is all relative: Contextual influences on boredom and neural correlates of regulatory processes.

Interest in the influences on and strategies to mitigate boredom has grown immensely. Boredom emerges in contexts in which people have difficulty paying attention, such as underchallenging relative to optimally challenging conditions. The current study probed contextual influences on peoples' experience of boredom by manipulating the order with which people performed easy and optimally challenging conditions of a task (N = 113).

Parenting Practice, Leisure Experience, and Substance Use Among South African Adolescents.

There is limited understanding of parents' role in positive youth/adolescent development through leisure in developing countries. Using a sample of 6626 8 grade students in South Africa, this study examined the interrelationships among parenting practice, adolescents' leisure experience, and substance use. Results of structural equation modeling showed that parental leisure involvement was associated with less substance use, while parental leisure over-control was associated with greater substance use.

Exploring the associations between middle adolescent romantic activity and positive youth development.

Introduction: Although prior research has demonstrated romantic involvement can negatively impact adolescent well-being, it may also provide a context for developing characteristics of positive youth development (PYD). The present study explored the associations between adolescent romantic involvement and PYD. Study aim-1 determined if participation in different romantic activities was associated with PYD.

More Bored Today Than Yesterday? National Trends in Adolescent Boredom From 2008 to 2017.

Purpose: Boredom is an accepted part of adolescence. Developmental and contextual factors are likely to conspire to increase boredom during adolescence, which, in turn, relates to health risk behaviors. However, literature is lacking in the developmental course of boredom across adolescence as well as historical variation in boredom.

Over and over again: Changes in frontal EEG asymmetry across a boring task.

Boredom is an aversive emotional state. People high in trait boredom are less able to effectively cope with and resolve boredom than people low in trait boredom. Trait boredom is characterized by proneness and susceptibility, which are associated with avoidance and approach behavioral dispositions, respectively.

With a little help from my friends? A longitudinal look at the role of peers versus friends on adolescent alcohol use.

Introduction: Alcohol is the most commonly used substance by South African adolescents. Social norms play a key role in alcohol use, although distinctions are not always made between descriptive and injunctive norms and peer proximity. Additionally, little research identifies factors attenuating social norms, peer proximity, and alcohol use, such as one's ability to resist peer influence.

Predicting secondary school dropout among South African adolescents: A survival analysis approach.

Education is one of the strongest predictors of health worldwide. In South Africa, school dropout is a crisis where by Grade 12, only 52% of the age appropriate population remain enrolled. Survival analysis was used to identify the risk of dropping out of secondary school for male and female adolescents and examine the influence of substance use and leisure experience predictors while controlling for demographic and known predictors using secondary, longitudinal data.

Perceived Parental Control, Restructuring Ability, and Leisure Motivation: A Cross-Cultural Comparison.

Leisure is viewed worldwide as an important developmental context for adolescents. As leisure research and programs are shared across nations, it is crucial to examine the cultural equivalence of leisure-related constructs and how they are related. Grounded in self-determination theory, this study explored the influence of perceived parental control and leisure restructuring ability on leisure motivation (amotivation and autonomous motivation) using samples of eighth grade adolescents in the United States and South Africa.

Moving Beyond Drinking to Have a Good Time: a Person-Centered Approach to Identifying Reason Typologies in Legal-Aged College Student Drinkers.

Alcohol use, reasons for use, and consequences of use continue to be a major concern in college student populations. This is especially true for students of legal drinking age who may experience different reasons for and greater negative consequences of alcohol use than students under 21 years old. Although multiple studies have used person-centered approaches to understand motivations for and ultimately prevent alcohol use, few have identified multiple typologies of reasons for alcohol use.

Trajectories of adolescent substance use development and the influence of healthy leisure: A growth mixture modeling approach.

Considerable heterogeneity exists in adolescent substance use development. To most effectively prevent use, distinct trajectories of use must be identified as well as differential associations with predictors of use, such as leisure experience. The current study used a person-centered approach to identify distinct substance use trajectories and how leisure is associated with trajectory classes.

Perceptions of alcohol use by friends compared to peers: Associations with middle adolescents' own use.

Background: In this study, the authors (a) distinguished between adolescents' perceptions of their peers' and friends' alcohol use to examine the unique associations these perceptions have on adolescents' own alcohol use and (b) tested if the ability to resist peer influence moderated those associations.

Methods: Data were from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 876, all aged 15). Adolescents reported (a) perceptions of alcohol use by their peers, (b) perceptions of alcohol use by their friends, (c) their own alcohol use in the last year, and (d) a measure of their ability to resist peer influence.

Boredom Prone or Nothing to Do? Distinguishing Between State and Trait Leisure Boredom and its Association with Substance Use in South African Adolescents.

Reducing adolescent substance use is important in South Africa, a developing nation with increasing adolescent substance use, lack of leisure/recreation opportunities, and high rates of adolescent discretionary time. Previous research suggests leisure boredom and adolescent substance use co-occur in this setting. Using longitudinal data from 2,580 SA adolescents as they progressed from the 8 to 11 grade, the current study disentangles the associations of trait and state leisure boredom with substance use, and examines how ability to restructure boring situations moderates those associations.

Was Bob Seger Right? Relation Between Boredom in Leisure and [Risky] Sex.

This article examines the association between boredom in leisure and risky sexual behaviors among South African youth (N = 1695) using longitudinal data. We hypothesized that youth who were higher on boredom in leisure at the end of ninth grade would be more likely to report engaging in risky sexual behaviors at the beginning of tenth grade. Chi-square results indicate youth, especially male youth who experience high levels of leisure boredom in ninth grade, are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors in tenth grade.

The Dynamic Association between Healthy Leisure and Substance Use in South African Adolescents: A State and Trait Perspective.

South Africa has an increasing adolescent substance use problem, lack of leisure opportunities and resources, and high adolescent discretionary time. How aspects of leisure relate to adolescent substance use is not well understood. Little research has been conducted on the leisure behaviors and experiences of South African adolescents, if and how those behaviors are associated with substance use, and ecological influences on those associations.