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Family Financial Stress and Adolescent Sexual Risk-Taking: The Role of Self-Regulation

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Abstract

The ability to control one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors is known as self-regulation. Family stress and low adolescent self-regulation have been linked with increased engagement in risky sexual behaviors, which peak in late adolescence and early adulthood. The purpose of this study was to assess whether adolescent self-regulation, measured by parent and adolescent self-report and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, mediates or moderates the relationship between family financial stress and risky sexual behaviors. We assessed these relationships in a 4-year longitudinal sample of 450 adolescents (52 % female; 70 % white) and their parents using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that high family financial stress predicts engagement in risky sexual behaviors as mediated, but not moderated, by adolescent self-regulation. The results suggest that adolescent self-regulatory capacities are a mechanism through which proximal external forces influence adolescent risk-taking. Promoting adolescent self-regulation, especially in the face of external stressors, may be an important method to reduce risk-taking behaviors as adolescents transition to adulthood.

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Notes

  1. Executive functioning and self-regulation are often used interchangeably, though executive functioning is thought to be subservient to self-regulation (Hofmann et al. 2012). Self-regulation includes both neurocognitive and socioemotional dimensions (Hughes et al. 2009; Rueda et al. 2005).

  2. The current survey included these five items from the Sexual Risk Survey, items 8, 16, 17, 19 and 22.

  3. We tested a model that also controlled for prior wave (wave 6) of risky sexual behavior. Because engagement in first sex was low in wave 6, the data was more heavily skewed and resulted in model instability. Thus, we decided not to include prior wave of risky sexual behaviors in the final models reported in this paper. However, model results with and without prior wave of risky sexual behavior were substantively similar.

  4. Sex with a stranger, sex with somebody they were not in a relationship with, sex with a new partner before discussing sexual histories, and sex with a partner they didn’t trust.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the College of Family, Home, and Social Science, and the many donors and supporters of the Family Studies Center at Brigham Young University who provided generous financial assistance for this project for many years.

Authors’ Contributions

AC conceived of the study and the analytical design, performed statistical analyses and interpretation, and drafted the manuscript. WJD was a principal investigator for the Flourishing Families Project and helped with the statistical analysis, theory, and interpretation of results. BMM and MLBN helped with the conceptualization and design of the study and interpretation of results. LKBN helped with the theoretical basis for the study and drafting of the Background section. All authors helped draft the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

The Flourishing Families Project was funded by Brigham Young University (U.S.) College of Family, Home, and Social Science (Principal Investigator: Randal D. Day).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Science, Brigham Young University, 4103 LSB, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    AliceAnn Crandall, Brianna M. Magnusson, M. Lelinneth B. Novilla & Lynneth Kirsten B. Novilla

  2. Department of Religious Education, Brigham Young University, 270 N JSB, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    W. Justin Dyer

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  1. AliceAnn Crandall
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  2. Brianna M. Magnusson
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  3. M. Lelinneth B. Novilla
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Correspondence to AliceAnn Crandall.

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Ethical Approval

The Brigham Young University Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the Flourishing Families Project. The Flourishing Families Project involved human participants who provided informed consent in accordance with the procedures established with the institutional ethics committee. This current study was a secondary data analysis using the Flourishing Families Project data.

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Table 2 Item response categories and distributions
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Crandall, A., Magnusson, B.M., Novilla, M.L.B. et al. Family Financial Stress and Adolescent Sexual Risk-Taking: The Role of Self-Regulation. J Youth Adolescence 46, 45–62 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0543-x

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