Stress Coping Strategies as Mediators: Toward a Better Understanding of Sexual, Substance, and Delinquent Behavior-Related Risk-Taking among Transition-Aged Youth

ABSTRACT

Transitional aged youth (18–24) report increasing and peaking risk-taking (sexual, substance, and delinquent behavior). Stressful life events (SLE) are associated with these risk-taking behaviors. Little is known regarding what mediates these relationships. This study tests whether various coping strategies mediate the relationship between SLE and risky behavior in three domains among 18–24 year olds (N = 126; M age = 21.3, SD = 1.9; 52% Black; 56% female). After adjusting for covariates and simultaneously modeling two stress variables, only stressful life events, but not perceived stress, was uniquely associated with risk-taking behaviors at moderate to high levels. Significant indirect effects of SLE via avoidance coping were found for illicit drug use both concurrently and prospectively and for risky sex concurrently. For participants reporting greater stressful life experiences, substance use and risky sex behaviors become greater as avoidance coping increases. Avoidance coping was a partial mediator for the concurrent relationship between stressful life events and substance use/risky sex, but a full mediator for the prospective relationship between stressful life event and substance use. None of the coping strategies mediate the relationship between stressful life events and delinquency. Prevention and intervention strategy implications for reducing avoidance coping and promoting alternative coping styles are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the research assistants and project coordinator who helped with the collection of these data: Carolyn Anderson, Kathleen Cardona, Devon Cross, and Nicole Lee. We thank all participants for their time and willingness to participate in this study. Some of this work was conducted while Dr. Dariotis was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Cincinnati.

Notes

¹ Source: https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/Local/RunCrimeOneYearofDataLarge.cfm

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no conflicts of interest or financial disclosures to report. This work was supported by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse [grant number K01DA029571]. The opinions and conclusions expressed are solely the authors’ and should not be construed as representing the opinions of NIH or any agency of the Federal Government. NIH did not have a role in study design; data collection, analysis, and interpretation; writing or submission for publication.

Notes on contributors

Jacinda K. Dariotis

Jacinda K. Dariotis is a Professor, the Pampered Chef Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency, and Director of the Family Resiliency Center in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies and M.A.S. in Statistics from Penn State University and M.A. concentrating in Developmental Psychopathology from Columbia University. Her work examines psychological, social, biological, and environmental determinants to understand risk-taking, risk-avoidance, and resiliency (e.g., sexual, substance use, violent, and delinquent behaviors) and inform how to tailor prevention and intervention strategies to determinants, contexts, and mechanisms to promote healthier outcomes. She has a particular research focus on programs that foster emotional regulation and executive cognitive functioning like mindfulness-based programs. Her research has been recently published in Prevention Science, Criminal Justice Policy Review, Lancet HIV, and Psychoneuroendocrinology. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3217-0392

Frances R. Chen

Frances R. Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University. Her research is focused on biosocial bases of antisocial behavior and related personality constructs such as impulsivity and callous unemotional traits. She received her Ph.D. in Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania and her M.S. in Clinical Psychology at the Peking University, China. Her quantitative works examine how life events and turning points in life (e.g., marriage) shape antisocial behavior, and how environment interplays with individuals’ biological characteristics (e.g., emotion regulation, reward sensitivity) to exacerbate or limit antisocial behavior throughout the life-course. Her current research on psychobiological characteristics of active offenders is an endeavor to advance our knowledge of the persistence in offending. Her research has been recently published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, Personality and Individual Differences, Development and Psychopathology, Aggressive Behavior, Pediatrics, and Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5292-2486