A measure of risk taking for young adolescents: Reliability and validity assessments

Abstract

Researchers often define adolescent risk taking in terms of individual behaviors such as alcohol and drug use, early sexual activity, and reckless driving. It is not clear whether these behaviors defined by adults as "risky" have the same meaning for adolescents. This paper describes the development and preliminary testing of an instrument to assess risk taking among young adolescents. The six item scale was constructed by asking small groups of eighth grade boys and girls to describe "things that teenagers your age do for excitement or thrills." The measure was then used in a longitudinal study of 758 young adolescents from three rural counties in Maryland. The scale shows good reliability, as indicated by coefficient alpha and factor analyses. Eighth-grade scores on the scale are associated with the initiation of sexual activity and substance use in ninth grade among virgins and nonusers of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and pills in eighth grade.

A Brief Screening Measure of Adolescent Risk Behavior

“…In general, histories of self-injury or suicidal behavior are not measured in the briefer surveys that focus on sexuality and sexual risk attitudes [30]. Other measures emphasize attitudes rather than behaviors [31] or aim to identify adolescents with thrill-seeking personality style [29,[32][33][34] and thus do not provide a profile of diverse risk behaviors. Many measures have been validated in samples of adolescents with low levels of risk.…”

Gender and Ethnic Differences in the Co-occurrence of Adolescent Risk Behaviors

“…Following from this work, numerous studies have considered the co-occurrence of sexual initiation, substance use, school discontinuation, and aggressive behaviors. Measurement of the interrelationships between these behaviors, typically conducted using factor analysis or structural equation modeling, has produced a two-dimensional latent construct of 'problem behavior' or 'unconventionality' (Jessor & Jessor 1977;Donovan & Jessor 1985;Donovan et al 1988;Farrell et al 1992;McGee & Newcomb 1992;Jessor et al 1995;Fortenberry et al 1997), in addition to more specifically health-related constructs of 'health risk behavior' and 'risk taking' (Alexander et al 1990;Brenner & Collins 1998;Zweig et al 2001;Kulbok & Cox 2002). Most recently Zweig and colleagues (2002) have argued that research on co-occurrence should develop a better understanding of the precursors underlying the combined emergence of these behaviors in adolescence.…”

Effectiveness of participation as a defendant: the attorney–juvenile client relationship

“…Existing developmental research supports the idea that there may be differences between youths and adults on these psychosocial factors that could affect decision making in legally relevant contexts. For example, research suggests that adolescents engage in more risk taking behaviors than do adults, not necessarily because they are unaware of the risks they take (Alexander et al, 1990), but because they differ from adults in their attitude toward and perception of risk (Scott, 2000). Adolescents focus more on opportunities for gains than on protection against losses, and may view as benefits what adults perceive as costs (Benthin, Slovic, & Severson, 1993;Finn & Bragg, 1986;Gardner & Herman, 1990;Lavery, Siegel, Cousins, & Rubovits, 1992;Lopes, 1987;Scott et al, 1995).…”