Longitudinal effects of Youth Empowerment Solutions: Preventing youth aggression and increasing prosocial behavior

Psychological Empowerment and Adolescent Health

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Psychological empowerment, referring to one's agency, self-efficacy, and meaningful participation in society, supports positive social and behavioral outcomes in adolescence; however, research examining psychological empowerment in the context of health remains limited. We sought to describe relationships between psychological empowerment and aspects of adolescents' mental and physical health.

METHODS

School-based surveys were administered across 17 high schools in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. We measured psychological empowerment with items adapted from a validated instrument. Health-related measures included past-year depressive symptoms, lifetime substance use, and measures of overall health and receipt of health care. Multilevel regression models examined associations between psychological empowerment and each health-related measure.

RESULTS

Among 3685 youth, the majority (n = 3391; 92.0%) were aged 14 to 17 years. Most were white (n = 1737; 47.1%) or Black/African American (n = 1166; 31.6%). Many identified as gender/sexual diverse (n = 1397; 37.9%). Youth with high psychological empowerment were less likely to report hopelessness (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.61; 95% CI, 0.50-0.75), nonsuicidal self-injury (aOR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.44-0.73), and suicidal ideation (aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.42-0.75). Psychological empowerment was inversely associated with lifetime use of e-cigarettes (aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.56-0.86), alcohol (aOR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.61-0.92), and marijuana (aOR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.62-0.94). Psychological empowerment was additionally linked to positive perception of health (aOR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.29-2.31), receipt of preventive care (aOR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.02-1.55), and less foregone care (aOR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.61-0.94).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings underscore the importance of psychological empowerment as a modifiable protective factor in adolescence, particularly in youth-facing interventions focused on health and well-being.

Cracking the Code of Cyberbullying Effects: The Spectator Sports Solution for Emotion Management and Well-Being Among Economically Disadvantaged Adolescents

This study explores the relationships among cyberbullying, emotion management, and well-being, with a focus on economically disadvantaged students. Employing a reflective factor model, we disentangle emotion management into four dimensions and explore how cyberbullying impacts these facets, influencing academic success and well-being. We also investigate the moderating role of sport spectatorship. Using survey data collected from 846 economically disadvantaged students in grades 7 to 12, within a racially diverse Texas school district (USA), we employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine relationships among the measured variables. The students were in grades 7 to 12, categorizing participants into spectatorship-adherent and non-spectatorship groups based on their sports-watching habits. Our findings emphasize the importance of addressing cyberbullying's impact on emotion management and underline the potential for sport spectatorship to mitigate these effects. Our findings reveal that cyberbullying victimization significantly impairs adolescents' emotion management (β = -0.33, p < 0.01), contributing to increased school absences (β = 0.41, p < 0.001) and offenses (β = 0.19, p = 0.02). Notably, sports spectatorship appears to buffer these negative outcomes for economically disadvantaged youth, enhancing overall well-being (β = 0.29, p < 0.01). This study ventures into the unexplored territory of sport viewership as a cost-effective intervention strategy, offering valuable implications in supporting adolescent well-being.

Can you See What We See? African American Parents' Views of the Strengths and Challenges of Children and Youth Living with Adversity

A premise of positive youth development is that social competencies can develop in adversity and co-exist with problem behaviors. This research tested whether African American youth ages 9-17 who had experienced significant family stressors would form groups that displayed combinations of adversity, problem behavior, and strengths. Parents of a nationally representative sample of African Americans children were interviewed on child difficulties and strengths as part of the CDC's 2019 National Health Interview Survey. About 15% of the national sample of African American youth had experienced violence or parental incarceration, depression, or drug abuse. Latent class analysis (LCA) using indicators of adversity and strengths identified four distinct classes. Class 1 included youth who experienced multiple adversities, exhibited few strengths, and were high in behavior problems. Members of both classes 2 and 3 were more likely to experience parental incarceration but exhibited altruism. Class 3 also experienced parental mental health problems. Members of class 4 had the highest exposure to violence but were comparatively high in altruism and affability. Regression analysis revealed that the groups differed from one another on emotional health but not on physical health controlling for age and gender. These findings support a focus by mental health prevention programs on building on the strengths of children growing up in adversity.

Psychological empowerment and future orientation among adolescents in a youth participatory action research program

Youth participatory action research (YPAR) empowers youth to address challenges in their environment. Empowerment is associated with prosocial behaviors; however, understanding of how empowerment may serve as a protective factor and promote emotional health remains limited. We sought to characterize protective factors (future orientation and resilience) and emotional health (difficulties regulating emotion and psychological distress) among youth engaged in YPAR and examine associations with psychological empowerment. We administered cross-sectional surveys to 63 youth in YPAR programming. Multivariable linear regression examined relationships between psychological empowerment, protective factors, and emotional health. Participants had high future orientation and resilience with high psychological distress. Empowerment was significantly associated with higher future orientation. There was no significant relationship between empowerment and measures of emotional health. We demonstrate the importance of evaluating protective factors and emotional health constructs in empowerment frameworks, calling for strategies that incorporate such protective factors and more directly address emotional health.

Can Translational Social Neuroscience Research Offer Insights to Mitigate Structural Racism in the United States?

Social isolation and conflict due to structural racism may result in human suffering and loneliness across the life span. Given the rising prevalence of these problems in the United States, combined with disruptions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the neurobiology of affiliative behaviors may offer practical solutions to the pressing challenges associated with structural racism. Controlled experiments across species demonstrate that social connections are critical to survival, although strengthening individual resilience is insufficient to address the magnitude and impact of structural racism. In contrast, the multilevel construct of social resilience, defined by the power of groups to cultivate, engage in, and sustain positive relationships that endure and recuperate from social adversities, offers unique insights that may have greater impact, reach, and durability than individual-level interventions. Here, we review putative social resilience-enhancing interventions and, when available, their biological mediators, with the hope to stimulate discovery of novel approaches to mitigate structural racism. We first explore the social neuroscience principles underlying psychotherapy and other psychiatric interventions. Then, we explore translational efforts across species to tailor treatments that increase social resilience, with context and cultural sensitivity in mind. Finally, we conclude with some practical future directions for understudied areas that may be essential for progress in biological psychiatry, including ethical ways to increase representation in research and developing social paradigms that inform dynamics toward or away from socially resilient outcomes.

Prosocial cascades: Understanding and nurturing the potential for positive developmental trajectories

Understanding the developmental cycles and mechanisms that nurture prosocial behavior can support our potential to build a kinder and more peaceful society. The current chapter explores positive developmental cascades, with a focus on the chain reactions that explain how prosocial behaviors manifest and evolve throughout childhood and adolescence. Specifically, we review the main issues, theories, and findings related to the study of children's prosocial trajectories. We focus on various socialization environments that span typical and adverse (e.g., trauma, poverty, maltreatment, exposure to violence) contexts. Furthermore, we highlight the evidence behind efforts and initiatives that aim to nurture prosociality in children and families. We conclude with future directions for how research on positive cascades can inform research-practice alliances work that aims to break harmful cycles and promote prosocial mechanisms of change.