Maternal risk taking on the balloon analogue risk task as a prospective predictor of youth alcohol use escalation

Abstract

The transition from late childhood through middle adolescence represents a critical developmental period during which there is a rapid increase in the initiation and escalation of alcohol use. Alcohol use is part of a constellation of risk taking behaviors that increase during this developmental transition, which can be explained by environmental and genetic factors. Social learning theory (SLT) implicates observations of parental drinking in the development of alcohol use in youth. Parental risk taking more broadly has not previously been examined as a factor predictive of alcohol use escalation in youth across adolescence. The current study examined the relative contributions of maternal risk taking on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and maternal alcohol use in the prediction of alcohol escalation among youth over three years. Participants were a sample of 245 youth (55.0% male, 49.6% Caucasian) who participated annually between Grades 8 and 10, drawn from a larger study of adolescent risk-taking. Within our sample, maternal risk taking, as measured by the BART, predicted increases in alcohol use. Interestingly, maternal alcohol use and other youth factors were not predictive of escalations in youth alcohol use. Our findings suggest the importance of considering maternal riskiness more broadly, rather than solely focusing on maternal alcohol use when attempting to understand youth alcohol use across adolescence. These findings emphasize the relevance of maternal risk taking as measured by a behavioral task and suggest a general level of riskiness displayed by mothers might encourage youth to behave in a riskier manner themselves.

High sensation seeking is associated with behavioral and neural insensitivity to increased negative outcomes during decision-making under uncertainty

“…The average number of pumps in the BART has been shown to correlate with self-reported risk-taking behaviors (Banducci et al, 2015). Previous studies have suggested that decision-making behavior on the BART was modulated by sensation seeking levels (Mishra, Lalumiere, & Williams, 2010;Bornovalova et al, 2009;Xu et al, 2013).…”

Positive alcohol use expectancies moderate the association between anxiety sensitivity and alcohol use across adolescence

“…Alcohol use was assessed via a modified version of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001; Banducci et al, 2015). Adolescents self-reported the approximate total number of alcoholic beverages consumed in the previous year, including both alcohol use with and without parental permission.…”

Bursting balloons - comparison of risk taking between extreme sports, esports, and the general public

“…It helped gather evidence for research questions addressing whether wearing a bicycle helmet may increase risk-taking behavior (Gamble & Walker, 2016) or whether people before and after deciding in favor of a goal differ in their risk appetite (Keller & Gollwitzer, 2017). In addition, adolescents' BART-performances predicted their real-world risk-taking behaviors (Lejuez et al, 2003), maternal BART-performance predicted their offsprings' alcohol use escalation (Banducci et al, 2015), and inner-city drug users were classified more accurately when taking their BART scores into account (Hopko et al, 2006), attesting to its construct validity (see also Hunt et al, 2005).…”