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Department of Human Development and Family Studies

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100455
These digital collections include theses, dissertations, and faculty publications from the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. Due to departmental name changes, materials from the following historical departments are also included here: Child Development and Family Relationships.

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Browsing Department of Human Development and Family Studies by Author "Aloise-Young, Patricia, committee member"

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    Protective factors for teen mothers: relations among social support, psychological resources, and child rearing practices
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) VanDenBerg, Maggie P., author; MacPhee, David, advisor; Youngblade, Lise, committee member; Aloise-Young, Patricia, committee member
    Teen mothers face increased challenges when rearing children, largely influenced by development as an adolescent and the support networks they have available to them. Based on two theories of parental and adolescent development, measures of well-being including self-efficacy, depression, and future orientation are mechanisms that can be altered by support networks, and function as protective factors for functional parenting. This study of 344 teen mothers tests the hypotheses that teen mothers who have more supportive primary social networks have greater confidence in parenting abilities, less propensity towards depression, and a more optimistic sense of the future. Results indicate that relations of support functions (intimacy and support satisfaction) and nurturant child rearing practices are partially mediated by self-efficacy and fully mediated by depression. These findings emphasize the importance of supportive characteristics in support networks for teen mothers and parental well-being, both of which may foster the development of non-coercive parenting.
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    Self-esteem and future orientation predict risk engagement among adolescents
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Jackman, Danielle M., author; MacPhee, David, advisor; Le, Thao, committee member; Aloise-Young, Patricia, committee member
    Risky behaviors have been defined as the balance between behaviors that have negative consequences with behaviors that have perceived positive consequences (Gullone & Moore, 2000). These risky behaviors include but are not limited to: unsafe sex, delinquency, substance abuse, and impulsive or sensation- seeking (Gullone & Moore, 2000). Research has shown that having a positive outlook on one's future has an inverse relation to adolescents' risk behaviors (Nurmi, 1990; Steinberg, 2004, 2009). Similarly, studies on self-esteem have also shown a complex but mostly inverse relation with adolescent risk taking (Salazar et al., 2005). However, there is a paucity of research studies focused on the possible effects of self-esteem as a mediator between future orientation and adolescents' risk orientation and or the possible effects of future orientation as a mediator between self-esteem and risk orientation. The premise of this study was to assess the relations among future orientation, self-esteem, and adolescents' risk behaviors. To that end the first hypothesis was that there is an inverse relation between future orientation and adolescents' risk orientation. The second hypothesis was that there is an inverse relation between self-esteem and adolescents' risk orientation. The third hypothesis was that a more optimistic sense of future among young adolescents is associated with higher self-esteem. Two mediational models were also compared. Participants (N = 438) were youth who took part in a sex prevention program called Care To Wait. Controlling for social desirability, results showed that future orientation fully mediated the relation between self-esteem and risk orientation, and self-esteem partially mediated the relation between future orientation and risk orientation. Implications and proposed future directions discussed.
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    Sensation seeking and impulsivity in relation to youth decision making about risk behavior: mindfulness training to improve self-regulatory skills
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Johansen, Samantha van Limbeek, author; Youngblade, Lise M., advisor; Rambo-Hernandez, Karen, committee member; MacPhee, David, committee member; Haddock, Shelley, committee member; Aloise-Young, Patricia, committee member
    The goal of this study is to examine the effects of a mindfulness intervention on at-risk adolescents' decision-making about risk behavior. Significant research shows that during adolescence individuals are at higher risk for morbidities and co-morbidities resulting from risk-taking behavior than at other points in the lifespan. Further, research shows that although adolescents are cognitively similar to adults in appraising risk in hypothetical situations, they are still over-represented in health-compromising risk-taking behavior, suggesting that there are other factors contributing to their decision-making about risk. Sensation seeking and impulsivity have been shown to lead to a proclivity for risk behavior and decisions that involve reward-seeking, susceptibility to peer pressure and increased risk-taking. Furthermore, developmental research demonstrates that youth are still developing self-regulatory skills that can down regulate impulsive or sensation-seeking behavior. Interestingly, there is also beginning evidence that self-regulation can be practiced and fostered during adolescence, suggesting that self-regulation is an important intervention target. Thus, this study tests the hypothesis that a mindfulness intervention will improve self-regulation as a way reducing the link between impulsivity, sensation-seeking and decision-making that leads to risk-taking behavior. The sample for this study includes 178 diverse (63% Male; 50% White, 33% Hispanic, 6% Native American, 4% Black), at-risk, youth between the ages of 10-18 (mean age = 13.6) who are participating in a university-based therapeutic mentorship program, Campus Corps. Youth were referred to the mentoring program by the juvenile court magistrate, the district attorney's office, probation officers, and school counselors. Campus Corps pairs at-risk youth with university students and takes place once per week for four hours over a 12-week period. Youth engage in tutoring and prosocial activities with their mentors. This program is led by marriage and family therapy graduate students. Youth were randomly assigned to a control (Campus Corps as usual) or an intervention (Campus Corps with mindfulness) condition. The mindfulness intervention (Learning to Breathe; Broderick, 2009) is implemented for one hour during the Campus Corps evening over a six week period. The intervention includes specific lessons in mindfulness surrounding decision making, self-awareness, and regulation. Results indicate that mindfulness does not significantly moderate the process of self-regulation as a moderating factor with respect to impulsivity and various decision making bases, as well as with respect to sensation seeking and various decision making bases. However, secondary data analyses reveal that the mindfulness intervention did have a significant moderating effect on self-regulation as a moderating variable between impulsivity and risk behavior count (number of risks taken during the past three weeks) over time, as well as between sensation seeking and risk behavior count over time. Speculations regarding the results of this study include the notion that the interaction between self-regulation and mindfulness more strongly affects the "in the moment," gratification-seeking, and/or emotional drive to engage in a particular behavior than the reflective cognitive process measured by decision making bases.