Abstract
This study aimed at assessing developmental trajectories of risk behaviors from adolescence into young adulthood and their associations with outcomes in young adulthood (i.e. education, employment). Data of the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) including 2,149 participants (mean age = 13.6, SD = 0.5, 51% girls) were used to examine the development of alcohol, cannabis, smoking, and externalizing behavior. The results showed that the associations between these risk behaviors varied with age, and revealed varying developmental patterns throughout adolescence. Most notably alcohol use did not covary strongly with the other risk behaviors. The often assumed peak in risk behavior in adolescence was only found in a small group, and only for alcohol (7.4%) and cannabis use (3.4%), but not for smoking or externalizing behavior. Most adolescents revealed only low involvement in risk behavior, with the largest differences between low and high trajectories emerging in late adolescence (> 19 years). Clustering of risk behavior throughout adolescence is rather the exception than the rule and depends on age and type of risk behavior. Differences in risk behavior between individuals become the largest in late adolescence, possibly influencing successful transition into adulthood visible in educational attainment and employment.
Highlights
Risk behavior has been defined as reckless behavior [1] and as behavior that could lead to negative consequences [2]
We investigated the development of four different risk behaviors, namely alcohol use, cannabis use, smoking behavior, aggression and minor delinquency, from early adolescence to young adulthood
We examined the developmental trajectories of five kinds of risk behavior in the course of adolescence and young adulthood
Summary
Risk behavior has been defined as reckless behavior [1] and as behavior that could lead to negative consequences [2]. Several researchers have investigated the clustering of risk behaviors during adolescence [6,7,8,9,10,11] These researchers have identified covariance between risk behaviors during certain periods of adolescence, involvement in risk behavior, and the clustering of these behaviors, might still differ over the course of adolescence [12,13]. Some risk behaviors, such as aggression and minor delinquency, are more common in early adolescence whereas other risk.
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