Fear of Violence and Well-being: Mediating Versus Moderating Effects of Family Support

• In Event: Posters II

Abstract

Research shows that family support can help youth to cope with violence in their social environments. Our study examines the relationship between fear of violence, family support, and multiple well-being outcomes. Fear of violence is measured across multiple social environments, such as neighborhood, school, and home. Family support is measured with a Likert scale assessing the youth’s view of family reliability, confidence, and problem solving (alpha = .64). Our well-being outcomes include prosocial disposition, Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) Social Problems and Withdrawn subscales, and self-rated health. We test mediating versus moderating models to assess the relationships among these variables. We use data from Wave 1, Cohort 12 of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN; N=733). With family support in the model, fear of violence is significant only for the CBCL Social Problems measure. Our study lends support to the efficacy of family support as a protective factor with regard to all of our well-being outcomes. We discuss these findings in the context of adolescent resilience and positive youth development.

Authors

• Allyson Drinkard, Kent State University at Stark

• Christopher Schell, Kent State University

• Richard Adams, Kent State University