Influence of sensation-seeking and parental and peer influences in early adolescence on risk involvement through middle adolescence: A structural equation modeling analysis

Background: Understanding the relationships between individual factors including sensation-seeking, family, and social factors that influence adolescent risk involvement will inform the development of more effective adolescent risk reduction interventions. Methods: Using longitudinal data from 543 grade-six students followed over three years, we simultaneously examined the relationships between youth and parental sensation seeking, peer influence, parental monitoring and youth risk involvement in early and middle adolescence using structural equation modeling. Results: Youth sensation seeking in grade six contributed to risk involvement in early adolescence (grades six and seven) indirectly through increased peer risk influence and decreased parental monitoring but did not have a direct contribution. It contributed both directly and indirectly to risk involvement in middle adolescence (grades eight and nine). Parent sensation seeking at baseline was positively associated with peer risk influence and negatively associated with parental monitoring although it had no direct effect on adolescent risk involvement. Increased peer risk influence demonstrated relatively greater contribution to risk involvement than did decreased parental monitoring. In addition, parental monitoring buffers negative peer influence on adolescent risk involvement. Conclusion: The present study provides a more complete understanding of the interplay between individual and social factors influencing risk behavior. Future adolescent risk reduction interventions should teach parents effective monitoring skills and provide adolescent normative feedbacks about adolescent risk behaviors in addition to teaching them refusal skills for resisting peer pressure. Intervention approaches may need to vary among families in which parents and/or youth have high propensities towards sensation seeking.