Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Adolescent Girls Face Alarming Rates of Intimate Partner Violence

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Among adolescent girls who have been in a relationship, nearly a quarter (24%)—close to 19 million—will have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence by the time they turn 20 years old, as highlighted by a new analysis from the World Health Organization (WHO) published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. Almost one in six (16%) experienced such violence in the past year.

"Intimate partner violence is starting alarmingly early for millions of young women around the world," said Dr. Pascale Allotey, Director of WHO's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research Department. "Given that violence during these critical formative years can cause profound and lasting harm, it needs to be taken more seriously as a public health issue—with a focus on prevention and targeted support."

This study draws on existing data to provide, for the first time, a detailed analysis of the prevalence of physical and/or sexual partner violence experienced by 15–19 year-old girls who have been in intimate relationships. It also identifies broader social, economic and cultural factors that increase their risks.

While violence against adolescent girls occurs everywhere, the authors highlight significant differences in prevalence.

Based on WHO's estimates, the worst affected regions are Oceania (47%) and central sub-Saharan Africa (40%), for instance, while the lowest rates are in central Europe (10%) and central Asia (11%). Between countries, there is also a substantive range: from an estimated 6% of adolescent girls subjected to such violence in the least affected countries, to 49% in those with the highest rates.

The study highlights the urgent need to strengthen support services and early prevention measures tailored for adolescents, alongside actions to advance women's and girls' agency and rights—from school-based programs that educate both boys and girls on healthy relationships and violence prevention, to legal protections, and economic empowerment.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-adolescent-girls-alarming-intimate-partner.html

Having Stronger Friendships as a Teen Can Protect Against Trauma Years Later

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

Whether you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert, humans are wired to be social creatures. People are not meant to be isolated for long periods of time, and a new study shows how much of an effect having good-quality friendships as a teenager has on a person’s psyche when they reach adulthood.

Researchers in the United Kingdom found that having strong friendships during adolescence can help people cope with social exclusion up to 10 years later, during early adulthood. More specifically, adults with healthy friendships as teenagers grew to become more resilient. The study authors define resilience as an individual’s social, emotional, and behavioral functioning in the face of a traumatic experience or stressor.

Study authors, publishing their work in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, enrolled a group of 14-year-olds who experienced childhood trauma and filled out the Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed four times, starting when each participant was 14 and ending a decade later when they were 24 years-old. Originally, 1,238 people completed the initial survey. However, 436 people remained to complete the final assessment at age 24. From this group, 62 agreed to have their brains imaged for the study.

At age 24, people who volunteered for brain imaging underwent a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan and were asked to complete a virtual activity that simulated social exclusion. The researchers tracked brain activity as participants took part in a ball-throwing game with two avatars.

Brain scans during the social exclusion simulation showed activation of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which is involved in creating and regulating emotions. People who reported having good friendships when they were 14 and better resilient functioning at age 24 appeared to have more positive responses to social inclusion and, in turn, better resilience towards stressful events. However, the results were less clear on how much brain activity involved in resilience was altered by social exclusion.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/friendships-teen-protect-trauma/

Strong Friendships in Adolescence Could Offer a Long-Term Measure of Resilience

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Good quality friendship has a significant impact on how young people affected by childhood trauma respond to social exclusion.

In a study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, researchers at the University of Birmingham showed that the quality of friendship among a cohort of 14-year-olds has a strong association with their ability to deal positively with social exclusion ten years later in early adulthood.

While social exclusion was the stressor to test resilient functioning—a long-term marker of resilience—used in the study, the research team argue that friendship is a strong indicator of a person's overall resilient functioning, which they defined as an individual's social, emotional and behavioral functioning in relation to the trauma that they have experienced.

Dr. Maria Dauvermann of the University's School of Psychology and Institute for Mental Health said, "We would expect that everyone will have some problems with their mental health after any kind of stressful experience, at least in the short term. By using the definition of resilient functioning, we are taking a more sophisticated and dynamic approach that takes into account a whole range of different behavioral measures at different time points and in relation to the particular trauma severity that has been experienced.

In this longitudinal study, the researchers worked with a group of people aged 24 who had previously experienced childhood trauma and who also completed the Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire.

The questionnaire was completed by a cohort of 14-year-olds across 4 time points, with 1,238 participants completing the initial survey, and 436 remaining to complete the final survey at aged 24. Of this group, 62 people volunteered to take part in the brain imaging part of the study.

The results showed clearly that better friendship quality as reported in the Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire at age 14 and better resilient functioning at age 24, was strongly linked to a positive response to social inclusion, and therefore to better resilient functioning.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-strong-friendships-adolescence-term-resilience.html

Today’s Teens Are more Content Being Single

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

Maybe romance really is just for adults after all. A new study suggests that teenagers today are not only more likely to be single, but also happier about it compared to previous generations. It’s an interesting shift in attitudes towards romantic relationships among young people considering rising levels of loneliness across the world today.

The research, conducted by a team of psychologists in Germany and published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, examines how satisfaction with being single has changed over time for different age groups. Their most striking finding was that adolescents born between 2001 and 2003 reported significantly higher satisfaction with singlehood compared to those born just a decade earlier.

This trend appears to be unique to teenagers, as the study found no similar increases in singlehood satisfaction among adults in their 20s and 30s. The results suggest that broader societal changes in how relationships and individual autonomy are viewed may be having a particularly strong impact on the youngest generation.

“Adolescents nowadays may be postponing entering relationships, prioritizing personal autonomy and individual fulfillment over romantic involvement, and embracing singlehood more openly,” the researchers speculate. However, they caution that more investigation is needed to understand the exact reasons behind this shift.

The study utilized data from a large, nationally representative longitudinal survey in Germany called the Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam). This ongoing project has been collecting annual data on romantic relationships and family dynamics since 2008.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/are-todays-teens-more-content-being-single-study-reveals-surprising-trends/

New Psychology Research Sheds Light on the Link Between Romance and Friendships During Adolescence

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by PsyPost.

Have you ever wondered how teenage romances influence friendships? A recent study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships delved into this topic. Researchers found that teenagers in romantic relationships are less likely to form new friendships, yet these relationships don’t necessarily spell the end for existing ones. Understanding these dynamics can offer valuable insights into adolescent development and help educators, parents, and teenagers themselves foster healthier social environments.

Adolescence is a crucial period for social development, where friendships serve as the main stage for learning social and emotional skills. Yet, the fragile nature of these relationships, combined with the burgeoning world of romantic involvement, presents a puzzle: how do these romantic engagements shape the broader social landscape of adolescence?

Researchers embarked on this study to unravel this mystery. The researchers harnessed data from the Teenage Friends and Lifestyle Study, which tracked adolescent friendships in Glasgow, Scotland, between 1995 and 1997.

“We were drawn to this topic because of the intricate association between romantic relationships and adolescent social networks,” said lead author Haoyang Zhang, a PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Data Analytics at Pennsylvania State University.

Participants were asked to name up to six friends, providing a clear picture of their social networks. Additionally, they reported their romantic relationship status, enabling the researchers to explore the dynamics of friendship formation and dissolution against the backdrop of teenage romance.

The study’s findings paint a fascinating picture of teenage social life, where those dating tended to befriend other daters, while single teens gravitated towards one another. This trend held even when controlling for other factors, such as gender and shared activities, underscoring the significant role of romantic relationships in shaping social circles.

“The key takeaway from our study for the average person is that adolescents’ involvement in a romantic relationship can significantly change their friendship patterns,” Zhang told PsyPost. “First, our findings reveal that teenagers in romantic relationships tend to befriend others who are also in romantic relationships, while those who are not in such a relationship often form friendships with other singles. Second, our results show that young people who are in a romantic relationship are significantly less likely to make new friends over time than those who are single.”

However, the study revealed a twist in the tale of teenage romance and friendship. While being in a romantic relationship made teenagers less likely to forge new friendships, it did not lead to an increased likelihood of existing friendships ending. This suggests that while love might limit the expansion of a teenager’s social horizons, it doesn’t necessarily undermine the friendships they already have.

Source: PsyPost
https://www.psypost.org/new-psychology-research-sheds-light-on-the-link-between-romance-and-friendships-during-adolescence/

When Some Adolescent Girls Internalize Rejection, It Really Is In Their Head

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Everyone ruminates about the bad things that happen to them. Whether it's a nasty breakup, an embarrassing failure or simply when someone is mean, it can be hard to stop thinking about what happened and why. For people who ruminate too much, this negative thought pattern can cause lasting problems with mental health.

A research team led from the University of California, Davis, Center for Mind and Brain found that adolescent girls who have a stronger tendency to ruminate show different patterns of brain activity when faced with social rejection. The study was published in December in the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

"Everyone experiences rejection, but not everyone experiences it in the same way," said Amanda Guyer, associate director of the Center for Mind and Brain and professor of human ecology at UC Davis. "By identifying what brain processes cause differences in the tendency to ruminate, we can provide people better ways to avoid long-term harm."

The immediate experience of social rejection leaves distinct fingerprints on the brain that can be measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. This type of scanning can spot minute changes in blood flow and electrical activity in different parts of the brain. The wide range of what one feels and thinks is visible on an fMRI scan in real time.

In this study, 116 girls ranging in age from 16 to 19 took part in two tasks to measure how their brains responded to social rejection. During the first visit, the participants were shown photos of 60 teens their age and asked to select 30 they would want to chat with.

For the second visit, the participants were placed in the fMRI scanner and told which of the teens in the photos wanted to chat with them—and which teens didn't. While in the fMRI scanner, the girls were also asked how these responses—and how being rejected by someone they chose during the first visit—made them feel. The data was collected from 2012 to 2014 and analyzed in 2023 when researchers applied new test methods.

The fMRI showed that rejection increased activity in the parts of the brain that are known to play a role in how we define who we are.

Being told a peer didn't want to chat with them was a form of social rejection, and this rejection showed up in the brain scans to varying degrees for every girl. However, girls who self-reported a tendency to ruminate had the highest activity in their brain scans.

"Our results suggest that girls who tend to ruminate are experiencing more than just momentary sadness after rejection," said Guyer. "They are deeply internalizing this negative feedback into their self-concept."

"Our study suggests that it can make a difference to reframe their negative experiences in a way that makes them feel better afterward instead of worse," said Guyer.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-adolescent-girls-internalize.html

Positive Childhood Relationships Linked to Improved Adult Mental Health

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

A Columbia University study found that positive relationships with parents and other adults during childhood are associated with better mental health in adulthood, regardless of exposure to adverse childhood experiences.

The findings, published in JAMA Psychiatry, suggest that interventions promoting supportive adult connections during childhood could pay dividends in young adult population health, reducing the sociocultural risk of mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety.

"For kids, an extremely important resilience factor is a warm, nurturing relationship with a parent, caregiver, or other adult," said lead study author Sara VanBronkhorst, MD, MPH, voluntary faculty in psychiatry at Columbia. "Our study demonstrates that children who have at least one positive, committed adult-child relationship are less likely to experience depression, anxiety, and perceived stress later in life."

To identify markers of resilience, the investigators examined data from 2,000 participants in the Boricua Youth Study (BYS), a longitudinal study following three generations of families for 20 years, led by Cristiane Duarte, senior author of the JAMA Psychiatry paper. All participants in BYS are of Puerto Rican descent, about half originally residing in the island of Puerto Rico and others residing in the South Bronx, New York.

The researchers assessed for adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, at three points during childhood. These experiences can include things like physical or emotional abuse, neglect, caregiver mental illness, death or incarceration, and household violence.

They also measured seven sociocultural factors associated with resilience, which included social relationships (maternal warmth and friendships) and sources of meaning (familism and family religiosity). Mental health outcomes were measured during young adulthood and included generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, substance use disorder, and perceived stress.

As hypothesized, they found that the measures of social relationships, apart from peer relationships, were associated with less depression and anxiety and less perceived stress in young adulthood.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-positive-childhood-relationships-linked-adult.html

Shy Teens with Shy Best Friends Might Be More Prone to Depression

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by PsyPost.

A study examining best-friend pairs of young adolescents discovered that shy individuals, especially those whose best friend was also shy, exhibited more depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the research revealed that self-silencing acts as a mediator between shyness and symptoms of anxiety. The findings were published in Personality and Individual Differences.

Shyness is a personality trait characterized by feelings of apprehension, discomfort, or nervousness in social situations or when interacting with unfamiliar people. Individuals who are shy often experience heightened self-consciousness and may have difficulty initiating or maintaining conversations. During childhood and adolescence, shyness is one of the most important components of indicators of psychopathology (such as depressive or anxiety symptoms or loneliness).

Participants of the study were 178 adolescents organized into 89 same-sex bestfriend pairs. They were 14 years old on average. Participants completed assessments of shyness (the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale), self-silencing (the Expressing My Thoughts and Feelings Measure), loneliness (the Loneliness and Social Dissatisfaction Questionnaire), depressive symptoms and anxiety (descriptive items e.g., “I cry a lot” or “I am nervous or tense”), and friend support (the Network of Relationships Inventory).

The results indicated that shy participants were more inclined to self-silence, felt lonelier, and reported increased depressive and anxiety symptoms. There was no discernible link between perceived friend support and shyness. Those who often self-silenced felt more isolated and perceived diminished friend support.

“Findings suggest that friend shyness may foster depressive symptoms in highly shy youth, and that the tendency for shy youth, and to some extent, their friends, to self-silence may hurt the relationship, but help the self (at least in the short-term and in terms of anxiety),” the study authors concluded.

Source: PsyPost
https://www.psypost.org/2023/10/shy-teens-with-shy-best-friends-might-be-more-prone-to-depression-study-finds-213872

Social Misfit or Normal Development? Students Who Do Not Date

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by the Journal of School Health.

OBJECTIVE

Prior research identified 4 distinct dating trajectories from 6th to 12th grade: Low, Increasing, High Middle, and Frequent. The purpose of this study was to examine whether 10th graders in the Low dating group differed in emotional, interpersonal, and adaptive skills from youth in the other trajectories.

METHODS

The sample consisted of 594 10th graders. Four dating groups were compared using teacher ratings (social skills, leadership, depression) and student self-reports (positive relationships with friends, at home, and at school; depression, suicidal ideation).

RESULTS

Students in the Low dating group had significantly higher teacher ratings of social skills and leadership and lower ratings of depression compared to the other groups. Self-reports of positive relationships did not differ by dating groups. Self-reported depression was significantly lower in the Low dating group, but suicidal ideations did not differ.

CONCLUSION

Adolescents who were not in a romantic relationship had good social skills and low depression and fared better or equal to peers who dated. These results refute the notion that non-daters are maladjusted. Health promotion interventions in schools should include non-dating as one option for healthy development.

Source: Journal of School Health
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/josh.12818

How Having Five Friends Boosts the Adolescent Brain and Educational Performance

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

As most parents of teenagers are acutely aware, there comes a time when children start prioritizing their friends over their parents. While young children rely on their parents for social interactions and influences, there's a notable switch during adolescence, where the influence from peers and friends becomes more important.

Research backs up the idea that friendships are particularly important during adolescent years. They seem to protect against some problems with emotions and behavior. Amazingly, it appears that our brains can even become synchronized with our friends'.

And in a new study published in eLife, researchers show that having roughly five friends during the beginning of adolescence is beneficial for cognition, mental health, and educational performance.

Too few friends means that you have no one to interact with if some of them are busy or unavailable and too many friends means that they are probably not very closely connected to you. There is therefore a trade-off between the quantity and quality of friendships.

In addition, spending too much time on social activities may lead to insufficient time for study and thereby may lower academic performance.

The results are based on a large amount of data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study cohort, which included 7,512 participants aged 9–11 years. The same cohort was followed-up two years later in early adolescence, with data from 4,290 of the participants available. All data was quality controlled.

They found relationships between the number of close friends and mental health, social problems and cognitive measures, including memory, reading, and vocabulary. Approximately five close friends were the optimal number—and these associations remained consistent two years later.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-07-friends-boosts-adolescent-brain.html