Effects of Autonomy-Relatedness and Stress Response on Adolescent Risk Behavior (2012 - Present)

Investigator:  Emily Cook, Rhode Island College
Mentor:  Laura Stroud, Brown University 

Abstract: Risk behavior including delinquent behavior, aggressive behavior, and substance use, is a major health concern and costly to society.  Risk behavior during adolescence places youth at increased risk for concurrent problems and sets the stage for adverse mental and physical health outcomes in adulthood (e.g., higher risk of psychological disorders, mortality, sexually transmitted diseases).  Rates of adolescent risk behavior have not declined substantially, despite investment in prevention efforts.  Thus, understanding individual differences in risk behavior continues to be a priority.  An important factor that may account for differences in risk behavior is adolescents' stress response brought on or exaggerated by developmental tasks, specifically developing autonomy that youth must accomplish to have a healthy transition into adulthood.  Although developing autonomy while maintaining relatedness with parents is a normative developmental task, feelings of conflict and ambiguity are often experienced within the parent-adolescent relationship and as such adolescents may find this process stressful, particularly when parents are not supportive. Despite the importance of identifying factors that account for risk behavior and the known relationship of a dysregulated stress response to impairments in functioning, research has not characterized how adolescents' stress response affects the relationship between autonomy-relatedness and risk behavior.  Thus, the specific aims of this project are to (1) examine the effect of autonomy-relatedness on adolescents' stress response, (2) examine the effect of autonomy-relatedness on an increase in adolescents' risk behavior, and (3) characterize the  role of adolescents' stress response in the relationship between autonomy-relatedness and risk behavior by examining stress response as a mediator and moderator.  The proposed study will address these aims in a correlational study by utilizing a developmentally valid interaction task with 100 parents and adolescents (14-16) to examine the role of the stress response, as measured by heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol.  This study will help to identify vulnerabilities during adolescence that change the course of risk behaviors and will inform more targeted prevention efforts by identifying the level at which to intervene and for which youth intervention is needed.