Cigarette smoking is a major health concern, especially among college students. Research suggests a number of individual difference variables may be useful for identifying people at risk of becoming smokers and their likelihood of successfully quitting. The current study focuses on individual differences relating to Behavioral Inhibition System sensitivity (BIS) and the fun seeking, reward responsiveness, and drive aspects of Behavioral Approach System sensitivity (BAS). The former relates to mitigation of potential threat, whereas the latter three relate to different motivations for approach. Noting that existing literature suggests the considerations influencing whether a person experiments with cigarettes differ from those influencing who becomes a habitual smoker which in turn differ from those influencing whether a person quits smoking, we hypothesized that never smokers, experimenters, smokers, and former smokers would differ from each other on BIS, fun seeking, reward responsiveness, and drive in predictable ways. Moreover, we predicted these groups would differ from each other in terms of member profiles across these four variables. We assessed these predictions in a sample of college students from geographically diverse institutions within the United States (N = 1840). Results indicate the profile for never smokers was characterized by high BIS and low fun seeking, that of experimenters by moderately high BIS, high fun seeking, and moderate reward responsiveness, and of former smokers by moderate BIS, high fun seeking, high reward responsiveness, and high drive. Contrary to expectations, current smokers were low on all four of these characteristics.

Objective: Clinical phenomena often feature skewed distributions with an overabundance of zeros. Unfortunately, empirical methods for dealing with this violation of distributional assumptions underlying regression are typically discussed in statistical journals with limited translation to applied researchers. Therefore, this investigation compared statistical approaches for addressing highly skewed data as applied to the evaluation of relations between child maltreatment and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Method: College students (N = 2,651; 64.2% female; 85.2% nonwhite) completed the Child Abuse and Trauma Scale and the Functional Assessment of Self-Mutilation. Statistical models were applied to cross-sectional data to provide illustrative comparisons across predictions to a) raw, highly skewed NSSI outcomes, b) natural log, square-root, and inverse NSSI transformations to reduce skew, c) zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) and negativebinomial zero-inflated (NBZI) regression models to account for both disproportionate zeros and skewness in the NSSI data, and d) the skew-t distribution to model NSSI skewness. Results: Child maltreatment was significantly and positively related to NSSI frequency in the raw, transformation, and zero-inflated models, but this relation was negative in the skew-t model. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of using zero-inflated models rather than transformation approaches to address data skew. Moreover, whereas the skew-t distribution has been used to model skewed non-clinical data, this study suggests that the skew-t approach may not be well-suited to address skewed clinical data.

Foster youth evidence shows elevated rates of risk behaviors, including sexual risk-taking (e.g., unprotected sex). Some studies have identified child maltreatment, particularly sexual abuse, as a risk for later sexual risk-taking, but none have examined how child welfare placement experiences relate to youth's sexual risk-taking. This study investigated relations among child maltreatment, child welfare placements, and sexual risk-taking among 114 recently emancipated female foster youth. Sexual abuse and failed reunifications with parents were associated with greater sexual risk-taking. Moreover, dissociative symptoms exacerbated the relation between sexual abuse and sexual risk-taking. These findings highlight the need for greater consideration of risks associated with emancipated youth's sexual risk-taking and for more research to understand how youth experience unsuccessful family reunifications.

The present study examined the role of individualism-collectivism (IC) and acculturation in smoking prevention programs for Hispanic preadolescents. The sixth graders received a collectivist or individualist curriculum. Both programs contained knowledge-based facts about smoking. The collectivist condition included an interdependent (group-oriented) perspective of smoking, while the individualist condition had an independent (individual-oriented) perspective. Measurements assessing attitudes and behaviors were taken before and after the implementation. Compared to the individualist program, Hispanic youth in the collectivist condition reported greater awareness about the dangers of smoking, revealed more accurate and healthier perceptions, and expressed restraint in engaging in unhealthy behaviors. Acculturation effects depended on participants' IC characteristic. This research showed the utility of cultural dimensions in health programs for Hispanic youth. It also blends basic and applied research in furthering the prevention of smoking among minority youth.

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