Risk-Taking and Adolescent Dating Outcomes: A Test of the Social Reinforcement Hypothesis

• In Event: Peers and Deviant Behavior

Abstract

The present study draws on an evolutionary perspective to devise and test a series of predictions concerning the ways in which risk-taking preferences among adolescents may be related to adolescent dating outcomes. Using data from the multiple waves of the New Hampshire Youth Study, we present a series of longitudinal regression models and structural equation models exploring the degree to which the association between time one risk-taking preference and time two dating outcomes varies across gender and age group. Results suggest that risk-taking tendencies are positively associated with dating outcomes among study participants, that this positive association more likely reflects the influence of risk-taking preference on dating outcomes than vice-versa, and that the relationship is stronger in early adolescence than later adolescence and stronger among males than among females. We interpret results as being consistent with the predictions of evolutionary theory as well as learning theory, and suggest that efforts to understand and control risk-taking behavior among adolescents are best served by understanding the salient social rewards that adolescents may perceive to be associated with risk-taking, particularly among the young adolescent males who are disproportionately prone to engage in high levels of risk-taking behavior.

Authors

• Cesar Rebellon, George Mason University

• Michelle Manasse, Towson University

• Karen T. Van Gundy, University of New Hampshire

• Ellen Cohn, University of New Hampshire