A content material analysis of early adolescent (compound use prevention treatment as its fresh curriculum for dissemination to 1 1. 2007 Increasing similar skills for episodes surrounding sexual behavior is definitely warranted given Rabbit Polyclonal to hCG beta. that nearly half of study participants also reported using BLU9931 resistance strategies such as aggression or including an authority number which are likely to elicit negative interpersonal effects from peers as the adolescent age groups. A second contribution is definitely highlighting the need for intervention programs that not only develop the interpersonal skills needed to competently resist peer pressure but also motivate early adolescents to resist situations that put them at risk. Exposure to older teens engaging in sexual behavior increases the risk that more youthful teens will initiate intercourse (O’Donnell et al. 2006 With this study nearly half of participants responded that they would accept an invitation to go to a party where the parents BLU9931 would not be home. Such parties produce an opportunity for early adolescents to mingle with middle and late adolescents (we.e. high school students) be exposed to alcohol and drugs observe other youth engaging in sexual behavior and receive gives to engage in sexual behavior. Intervention programs that develop BLU9931 the interpersonal skills needed to competently resist peer pressure may not be sufficient to delay initiation of intercourse unless they also create motivation to avoid interpersonal situations that put young adolescents at risk or successfully “immunize” adolescents against the persuasive influence that exposure to such situations brings. A third contribution is definitely identification of a need for communication competence training in discord resolution as part of dating violence prevention. With this study nearly a third of participants reported planning to use an aggressive response to a one-on-one present to engage in sexual behavior despite the context being defined as being in a situation with someone that they liked. Research on dating violence finds that interpersonally aggressive responses are more common among younger as compared to older adolescent girls (Messinger Rickert Fry Lessel & Davidson 2012 consistent with a skill deficit. A girl’s choice of an aggressive response as a resistance strategy is usually buoyed by greater acceptance of female-initiated violence in dating contexts by both young adolescent males and females (Price & Byers 1999 and the belief that girls are justified in their use of violence for self-protection (Sears et al. 2007 What youth fail to understand is usually that female-initiated aggression is usually more likely BLU9931 to be reciprocated by males and more likely to escalate to the point of injury (Capaldi Kim & Shortt 2007 It is possible that the aggressive strategies reported here reflect more fantasy than reality given that participants were providing responses for hypothetical situations. However interpersonal learning theory (Bandura 1986 would argue that fantasy responses provide an opportunity for a cognitive rehearsal of these less qualified and potentially problematic resistance strategies thereby increasing the likelihood of their future use. We propose that early adolescence is usually a critical time at which to intervene to stop a potential cycle of romantic partner violence from developing. Central to this effort is usually teaching qualified peer resistance strategies and increasing awareness of the risk of female-initiated aggression. A focus on substituting Avoid and Leave for verbal and actually aggression is usually important given Josephson and Proulx’s (2008) findings that constructive confrontation involving reasoning (e.g. Refuse and Explain) escalates interpersonal conflict. Thus it seems advisable to argue against an emphasis on Refuse and Explain in dating or romantic contexts unless future research more clearly differentiates them from constructive confrontation. There are three limitations to this study. First our open-ended questions assessed intended rather than actual resistance strategies. However the mapping of these intended strategies to actual behavior is usually supported by consistency between our findings and those obtained in studies of actual resistance strategies reported for material use related offer-response episodes (e.g. Pettigrew et al. 2011 Also resistance strategy intentions have been linked to decreased substance use behavior (Allen Chango Szwedo Schad & Marston 2012 Second interpersonal desirability concerns may have impacted participants’ responses leading to under- or over-reporting of particular responses. However participants used swear words in their responses which argues.