Margit Wiesner

Trajectories of marijuana use from adolescence to young adulthood: Predictors and outcomes

Semiparametric group-based mixture modeling was used with data from an adolescent school sample (N = 1205) for three purposes. First, five trajectory groups were identified to characterize different patterns of change in the frequency of marijuana use across four waves of assessment during adolescence. These trajectory groups were labeled Abstainers, Experimental Users, Decreasers, Increasers, and High Chronics. Second, trajectory group comparisons were made across eight adolescent risk factors to determine distinctive predictors of the trajectory groups. Findings indicated, for example, that the High Chronic group, relative to the other trajectory groups, had higher levels of delinquency, lower academic performance, more drug using friends, and more stressful life events. Third, adolescent trajectory group comparisons were made across 10 risk behaviors in young adulthood (average subject age = 23.5 years) and the occurrence of psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. Findings indicated some consistency across adolescence to young adulthood with regard to risk factors, and specificity with regard to the prediction of disorders. Adolescent trajectory group membership was significantly associated in young adulthood with cannabis and alcohol disorders but not with major depressive disorders or anxiety disorders.

Acculturative Stress Among Documented and Undocumented Latino Immigrants in the United States

The purpose of the study was to examine differences between documented and undocumented Latino immigrants in the prevalence of three immigration-related challenges (separation from family, traditionality, and language difficulties), which were made more severe after the passage of restrictive immigration legislation in 1996. Specifically, the study sought to determine the combined and unique associations of legal status, the three immigration-related challenges listed above, and fear of deportation to acculturative stress related to family and other social contexts. Participants in the study consisted of 416 documented and undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants living in two major cities in Texas. The Hispanic Stress Inventory—Immigrant form was used to assess acculturative stress in the sample. Results indicated that although undocumented immigrants reported higher levels of the immigration challenges of separation from family, traditionality, and language difficulties than documented immigrants, both groups reported similar levels of fear of deportation. Results also indicated that the immigration challenges and undocumented status were uniquely associated with extrafamilial acculturative stress but not with intrafamilial acculturative stress. Only fear of deportation emerged as a unique predictor of both extrafamililal and intrafamilial acculturative stress.

Developmental trajectories of offending: Validation and prediction to young adult alcohol use, drug use, and depressive symptoms

This longitudinal study extended previous work of Wiesner and Capaldi by examining the validity of differing offending pathways and the prediction from the pathways to substance use and depressive symptoms for 204 young men. Findings from this study indicated good external validity of the offending trajectories. Further, substance use and depressive symptoms in young adulthood (i.e., ages 23-24 through 25-26 years) varied depending on different trajectories of offending from early adolescence to young adulthood (i.e., ages 12-13 through 23-24 years), even after controlling for antisocial propensity, parental criminality, demographic factors, and prior levels of each outcome. Specifically, chronic high-level offenders had higher levels of depressive symptoms and engaged more often in drug use compared with very rare, decreasing low-level, and decreasing high-level offenders. Chronic low-level offenders, in contrast, displayed fewer systematic differences compared with the two decreasing offender groups and the chronic high-level offenders. The findings supported the contention that varying courses of offending may have plausible causal effects on young adult outcomes beyond the effects of an underlying propensity for crime.

Relations of Childhood and Adolescent Factors to Offending Trajectories of Young Men

Previous research has emphasized the importance of heterogeneity in offense trajectories. Using data from the Oregon Youth Study, a longitudinal study of at-risk boys interviewed annually from ages 9 to 10 years to ages 23 to 24 years, this study examined childhood and adolescent covariates of observed offending trajectory classes. Six trajectory classes were identified using the latent growth mixture modeling approach: chronic high-level, chronic low-level, decreasing high-level, decreasing low-level, rare, and nonoffenders. Multinomial logistic regressions revealed that nonoffenders, rare offenders, and chronic high-level offenders were distinguished by individual, family, and peer factors measured in childhood and adolescence. Only adolescent covariates (deviant peers, various problem behaviors) distinguished among trajectories of adolescents who engaged in substantive amounts of offending behavior. Overall, there was more specificity than commonality in correlates of distinctive offending trajectories.

Assessing covariates of adolescent delinquency trajectories: A latent growth mixture modeling approach

Using data from a community sample of 1218 boys and girls (mean age at the first wave was 15.5 years), this longitudinal study examined several covariates—adjustment problems, poor academic achievement, negative life events, and unsupportive family environments—of distinctive trajectories of juvenile delinquency. Latent growth mixture modeling analysis revealed 6 trajectory groups: rare offenders, moderate late peakers, high late peakers, decreasers, moderate-level chronics, and high-level chronics. Several factors discriminated between more normative groups and high-level chronic offenders, including poor academic achievement, unsupportive family environments, life events, and substance use, whereas almost no differences were found between groups with more serious offending trajectories. Overall, there was more specificity in correlates of distinctive offending trajectories than expected by general theories of crime (e.g., Gottfredson, M. R., and Hirschi, T., 1990, A General Theory of Crime. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA).

Co-occurring delinquency and depressive symptoms of adolescent boys and girls: A dual trajectory modeling approach.

Co-occurring trajectories of delinquent behavior and depressive symptoms and their correlates were examined in a longitudinal sample of 985 middle-adolescent boys and girls (mean age = 15.54 years at Time 1). Dual trajectory analysis was used to identify the co-occurring trajectories. For boys (n = 472), 4 delinquency and 4 depression trajectory groups were found. For girls (n = 513), 3 delinquency and 3 depression trajectory groups were identified. The linkage between co-occurring trajectories was higher for girls than for boys. Stressful life events and childhood precursors of the outcomes predicted trajectory group membership for both genders fairly consistently. Findings suggest heterogeneity in developmental courses of delinquent behavior and depressive symptoms across adolescent boys and girls.

Work stress, substance use, and depression among young adult workers: an examination of main and moderator effect model.

In this cross-sectional study, main and moderated relationships between 5 job stressors and alcohol consumption, drug use, and depression were examined using data from a community sample of 583 young adults (mean age = 23.68 years). Analyses revealed a few direct associations between high job boredom, low skill variety, and low autonomy and depression measures and heavy alcohol use. There were no direct relationships between job stress and binge drinking, alcohol consumption, drug use, or heavy drug use. In a few cases, job stress-outcome relationships were moderated by intrinsic job motivation or gender. The findings supported a specificity-of-effects hypothesis and underscored the need for examining the processes linking occupational stress to substance use and depression.

Childhood and adolescent predictors of early adult career pathways

Abstract Individual and contextual factors in childhood and adolescence that were hypothesized to contribute to career pathways were examined in a prospective study. Four career pathway groups were distinguished in a sample of 202 at-risk men (23–24 years of age); namely, young men with long-term unemployment, short-term unemployment, full employment, or a college education. Measures of educational attainment, family and peer characteristics, and personal adjustment during childhood and adolescence were used to determine if they would predict early adult career pathways. Findings indicated that the long-term unemployed young men, overall, showed the poorest levels of educational attainment, family and peer characteristics, and personal adjustment during childhood and adolescence.The most important predictors of differing career pathways were educational attainment, arrests, and mental health problems. Implications of the findings for conceptualizing the school-to-work transition within an integrative framework are discussed.

Vocational Preferences of Early Adolescents Their Development in Social Context

The timing of early vocational preferences was compared in a sample of young adolescents from former East Germany and from West Germany. Because of German unification in 1990, and the attendant massive sociocultural changes, such a sample offers a unique opportunity to examine the joint influence of development and context on key transitions and on the accomplishment of developmental tasks. Results suggested that, as the memory of the restrictive Communist system fades and as younger adolescents have had less exposure to it in the first place, differences between East and West tend to disappear. Separately, the present findings, obtained through the use of survival analysis, indicated that the formation of early vocational preferences among the 10- to 13-year-old respondents appeared to be associated with more advanced identity development. Moreover, these young adolescents appeared to be remarkably “tuned in” to the world of occupations, suggesting greater realism than might be predicted on the basis of conventional career development theory.

Trajectories of alcohol use among adolescent boys and girls : Identification, validation, and sociodemographic characteristics

This longitudinal study used data from a secondary data archive of 1,619 East German adolescents (mean age, 14.05 years at the initial wave). Latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify distinctive developmental trajectories of alcohol consumption from ages 14 through 18 years. Four groups were found for both boys (rare users, late escalators, early peakers, regular users) and girls (rare users, increasers, decreasers, regular users). Further analyses showed reasonably good external validity of the identified alcohol consumption trajectories. Finally, female alcohol use trajectory groups differed in terms of financial resources (socioeconomic backgrounds), whereas male trajectory groups did not differ at all in terms of sociodemographic characteristics. Overall, evidence for gender-specific alcohol use trajectories was mixed.