Multiple Risk Factors in the Family Environment and Youth Problem Behaviors

Abstract

We test three risk models (independent-additive, interactive, and exponential) to examine how multiple risk factors in the family environment-overt interparental conflict, poor parenting, and economic hardship-operate conjointly to predict youth problem behaviors. The sample includes 335 preadolescent and early adolescent youth. Findings from this study support the pattern of independent, additive effects of individual family stressors. We found no support for the idea that the effects of poor parenting, overt interparental conflict, and family economic hardship exacerbate one another, nor did the converse serve as buffers. The independent, additive model explains more variance in externalizing problem behavior for youth in nondivorced, two-parent households. Poor parenting is the strongest risk factor. Economic hardship is the only significant risk factor for youth internalizing problem behavior Key Words: economic hardship, interparental conflict, parenting, risk, youth problem behavior. Using a sample of 407 families living in rural areas of North Central Iowa, this study examines religious transmission between same-sex and cross-sex parent-child groups. The analyses focus on the mechanisms through which adolescents' perceptions of parental acceptance moderate the transmission of religious beliefs and practices. Results show that both fathers and mothers played important roles in transmitting religious beliefs and practices to their sons and daughters. Mothers' influence was stronger than fathers ' when the adolescents perceived the parent as accepting. This effect was especially strong for sons. Key Words: adolescents, perceived parental acceptance, intergenerational religious transmission. The identification of specific factors that place youth at risk for behavioral and emotional problems has concerned social scientists for years. Research efforts have culminated in findings that underscore the importance of particular life events and circumstances that predispose youth to adjustment problems. For the most part, this research focuses on the potential effects of a single life stressor (e.g., parental divorce). However, a number of researchers have broadened their outlook by exploring how multiple risk factors affect youth (e.g., Farrington, 1991; Masten et al., 1988; Rutter, 1979; Shaw & Emery, 1988; Werner & Smith, 1992; Williams, Anderson, McGee, & Silva, 1990). From this research, it is evident that multiple, stressful life events pose a greater threat to children's long-term psychological well-being than does a single life stressor. Although the study of multiple risk factors enhances our understanding of the etiological roots of youth maladjustment, this line of research suffers limitations with respect to issues of conceptualization, measurement, and modeling. Assuming that many recent stressful experiences generally are unfavorable for a child's psychological well-being, risk often is conceptualized in terms of the amount or number of stressful events recently encountered by youth (Johnson, 1982). Risk frequently is assessed using the life-events method, an approach that involves summing the number of self-reported stressful life experiences recently encountered to obtain an overall index of cumulative life stress. As useful as this approach is in determining the amount of stress children experience at a given time, it has several shortcomings. First, inventories of life events yield little information about the relative importance of discrete events. Second, when stressors are summed, interactions among specific stressor events cannot be examined. Third, as a function of the way they are constructed, life-event inventories assume that negative life stressors operate in a linear, additive fashion to increase youths' risk of maladjustment. Although this assumption may not be correct, few researchers have tested for nonlinear effects. (See Masten et al. …