Nearly one third of all Americans believe religion to be the most important part of their life. Nearly two thirds of Americans believe religion to be an important part of their life. The majority of Americans (94%) claim to have a belief in a supreme deity or God. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between spirituality and religion and selected risk taking behaviors in college underclassmen. Presently in the published literature, there are no studies that examined the relationship between levels of spirituality and religion and their interaction with select risk-taking behaviors, while delineating these variables to the college underclassmen. The risk-taking behaviors that were of interest to the researcher in this study were episodic and heavy drinking and sexual behaviors. This research effort employed a non-experimental, descriptive study design. The study population consisted of college underclassmen enrolled in an introductory wellness course in a teaching-intensive institution in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Results indicated a significant interaction between religion and all of the sexual risk behaviors under analysis. Results also indicated a significant interaction between spirituality and three of the four sexual risk behaviors under analysis. A significant interaction was found between frequency of church attendance and all of the sexual risk behaviors under analysis. Finally, when cross tabulated with all measures of spirituality and religion, risk behaviors related to alcohol usage reported statistically insignificant on all data indices. / Ph. D.

Adolescent risk-taking behaviors, both negative and positive, continue to be a point of interest for researchers and of concern for society. Negative risk-taking behaviors threaten healthy adolescent development and may have deleterious effects on the remainder of the adolescent's life. Positive risk-taking behaviors promote healthy development and can aid in pro-social outcomes. Mentoring has been an established means of assisting adolescents through this sometimes difficult stage of life. Researchers have identified those elements which tend to make the greatest impact in mentoring programs. Among those known elements are adults who are found in "naturally" occurring settings. Teachers in schools, religious leaders in church, coaches from athletic teams, rather than programmed or structured mentoring organizations, are most effective at having a lasting impact on adolescent risk-taking behaviors. This study examined grandparents as potential adolescent mentors who could be utilized to make significant and important differences in adolescent risk-taking behaviors. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study compared adolescents who self-reported not having any adult mentors in their life against adolescents who self-reported having a grandparent mentor in their life on various negative (i.e., sexual attitudes and behaviors, cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol use) and positive (i.e., popularity and educational issues) risk-taking behaviors. Differences between male and female adolescents were also explored as well as differences observed when looking at maternal and paternal grandparents. Results indicated that overall, adolescents with a grandparent mentor had better mean scores on risk-taking outcomes than adolescents without any mentors. Several differences were observed between males and females when comparing those without mentors to those with a grandparent. Few differences were observed in outcomes between males and females when comparing maternal and paternal grandparents. Discussion addressed results, theoretical implications, study limitations, and directions for future research related to grandparents as mentors of adolescents.

The home is supposed to provide support and safety for children but can also be the place where children suffer abuse and other adverse treatment by their parents. Violence against children in homes has been banned in Sweden for more than 30 years but it is still a considerable problem in the society and a threat to public health. The overall aim of this thesis was to create comprehensive knowledge of the phenomenon Child Physical Abuse (CPA) in Sweden after the ban on corporal punishment. The focus has been on examining the characteristics of cases reported to the police as well as self-reported CPA, prevalence of CPA and finally associations between CPA and health-problems/risk-taking behaviors among adolescents. Two samples are used in this thesis. The first comprises cases reported to the police during 11 years (n=142) in a Swedish police-district and the second is a population-based youth survey of the total number of pupils in three different school grades (13, 15 and 17 years old) in Södermanland County, Sweden. Cases of severe abuse constituted 14 % of the total number of cases reported to the police. The main difference between the group of severe cases and the remaining was the higher occurrence of convictions in court in the severe cases and the pattern of reporting to the police. The severe cases were reported by agencies to a greater degree than minor cases. Cases of severe abuse were characterized by an accumulation of risk factors in different areas as perpetrator factors, stress- and strain factors, factors of insufficient social network and finally child-related factors. In the cross-sectional study a prevalence of 15 % was found for self-reported CPA (n=8 494). There were associations between risk factors in different areas and abuse and there was a dos-response relationship between risks and reported abuse. It was shown that children who reported parental intimate-partner violence were at considerably higher risk for CPA than other children and that only 7 % of the children exposed to violence had disclosed this to authorities. The study of associations between health and risk-taking behaviors, were performed among the 15 and 17 years old pupils (n=5 933). Associations with health-problems and risk-taking behaviors were shown and the associations became stronger when the pupils reported repeated abuse. Finally there was a cumulative effect of multiple abuse in the form of being exposed to child physical abuse plus other types of abuse (parental intimate partner violence, bullying and being forced to engage in sexual acts) and the associations increased with the number of concurrent abuse.

Sebbene lo sviluppo di relazioni sentimentali sia un esperienza normativa dell’adolescenza, diversi fattori di rischio connessi ad essa possono sfociare in problemi per l’adattamento e la salute dell’adolescente. L’esperienza sentimentale in adolescenza non può essere considerata come un percorso lineare, ma dovrebbe essere studiata come un percorso dove diversi di fattori interagiscono l’un l’altro, comportando esiti diversi in base a variabili individuali e contestuali. Inoltre, lo sviluppo di relazioni sentimentali è un processo “in divenire”, pertanto possono emergere e coesistere aspetti di incoerenza. La tesi parte da queste riflessioni, considerando aspetti normativi e atipici dell’esperienza sentimentale in adolescenza. Il lavoro è diviso in due studi principali. Il primo tratta di due esperienze non normative: l’Adolescent Dating Violence (capitolo I) e il Sexting (capitolo II), con l’obiettivo di identificarne i fattori associati. Il secondo studio si focalizza sul costrutto di Competenza Romantica. Il modello skill-based di Competenza Romantica può fornire una cornice teorica utile per la concettualizzazione e la valutazione dell’esperienza romantica considerandone la complessità. Inoltre, una misura specifica di tale costrutto viene descritta e valutata (capitoli III e IV). Infine l’associazione tra Competenza Romantica, Adolescent Dating Violence e Sexting viene indagata preliminarmente (capitolo V). / Despite the development of romantic relationships is a normative experience of adolescence, several risk factors connected to the this experience may lead to problems for adolescents’ adjustment and health. The adolescent romantic experience cannot be considered as a linear way, rather it should be studied as a path where an interplay of factors leads to several different outcomes basing on personal and contextual characteristics. Also, the development of the romantic experience is an “in-progress path”, thus inconsistencies may emerge and coexist. The dissertation starts from this reflection, considering both normative and non-normative aspects of the adolescent romantic experience. The work is divided in two main studies. The first one, is focused on two non-normative experiences: Adolescent Dating Violence (chapter I) and Sexting (chapter II). The main aim is to identify factors that can be associated to those phenomena. The second study deals with the construct of Romantic competence and a specific measure to assess it is evaluated. The skill-based model of Romantic competence is a theoretical framework useful to both conceptualize and evaluate the romantic experience considering its complexity (chapter III and IV). Finally the association between Romantic competence, Adolescent Dating Violence and Sexting is preliminarily explored (chapter V).