Longitudinal Bi-directional Relationships Between Sleep and Youth Substance Use

Despite the known deficits in sleep that occur during adolescence and the high prevalence of substance use behaviors among this group, relatively little research has explored how sleep and substance use may be causally related. The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal bi-directional relationships between sleep duration, sleep patterns and youth substance use behaviors. Participants included 704 mostly white (86.4?%) youth, 51?% female, with a baseline mean age of 14.7?years. Self-reported substance use behaviors included past month alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use. Sleep measures included sleep duration on weekends and weekdays, total sleep, weekend oversleep, and weekend sleep delay. Cross-lagged structural equation models, accounting for clustering at the school level, were run to determine the longitudinal association between sleep and substance use adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics, pubertal status, body mass index z-score, and depressive symptoms. Cigarette use and weekend sleep were bi-directionally related as were marijuana use and total sleep. No other bi-directional associations were identified. However, alcohol use predicted shorter weekend oversleep and marijuana use predicted increased weekend sleep and weekend oversleep. Sleep patterns and duration also predicted adolescents' cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use. Sleep, both patterns and duration, and substance use among youth are intertwined. Future research is needed to explore these bi-directional relationships, as well as other important contextual factors that may moderate these associations.     

Peer Group Similarity in Perceptions of Pubertal Timing

Self-report measures of perceived pubertal timing correspond only weakly with clinical measures of “objective” physical development. Peer and school contexts shape adolescents’ self-perceptions of pubertal timing. The current study examined associations between perceived pubertal timing and the pubertal timing reported by nominated friends and schoolmates. Participants included 2817 adolescents (M_age = 16.6; 49 % female; 16 % Black; 20 % Hispanic) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Three measures of pubertal timing were included: age-standardized ratings of body changes, comparisons of development relative to peers (relative timing), and, in females, age at menarche. It was hypothesized that relative timing, which explicitly asks adolescents to compare themselves to their peers, would be related to the age-standardized pubertal timing of nominated friends and schoolmates. Surprisingly, there were no associations between relative timing and age-standardized pubertal timing reported by peers, suggesting that pubertal self-perceptions do not fluctuate in response to the average level of development in a friend group. Instead, males were similar to nominated friends and schoolmates in age-standardized ratings of body changes, and females were similar to nominated friends in relative timing, controlling for race, ethnicity, and age. Different self-report measures of pubertal timing index different underlying constructs, and the social processes that influence adolescents’ perceptions of pubertal maturation may differ between genders.     

Welfare Reform, Mississippi Style: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Search for Accountability

Through an examination of the implementation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in the state of Mississippi, we explore the adequacy of traditional two-actor principal-agent theory. Using this as our lens, we suggest that the choices made by Mississippi in the area of welfare reform to privatize much of the work and to add several layers to the existing principal-agent relationship substantially reduced accountability and the effectiveness of the monitoring systems. We conclude that not only is traditional principal-agent theory an insufficient tool for understanding the complex interrelationship between democratic actors in this particular case, the decisions of the state of Mississippi to complicate the principal-actor relationship through privatization also undermined the reform effort itself in ways that may have general implications for other like-minded efforts in other policy areas.
There are those who are undermining what we are trying to achieve ...
—Bud Henry, Director of Economic Assistance, Mississippi Department of Human Services     

Book reviews

R. Bahro: Die Alternative. Koln‐Frankfurt, 1977, 542 pp. 34.00DM.

R. Bahro: The alternative in Eastern Europe, New Left Books, 1978. 463 pp. £9.50.

Bergson, Abram, Productivity and the Social System—The USSR and the West, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. xi+256 pp. £12.25.

Alec Nove; Political Economy and Soviet Socialism, London, Boston, Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1979. 249 pp. £10.00.

Gail Warshofsky Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development and Social Change. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1978. x + 381 pp. £12.25.

Nationalism in the USSR & Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin. Papers and Proceedings of the Symposium held at University of Detroit on 3–4 October, 1975. Edited by George W. Simmonds. Detroit, Mich.: University of Detroit Press, 1977. 534 pp. $6.95 soft bound, $12.00 hard bound.

Alexander Yanov, The Russian New Right: Right‐ Wing Ideologies in the Contemporary USSR. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1978. 185 pp. $3.95.

John J. Stephan, The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile, 1925–1945. New York: Harper and Row, 1978. 450 pp. $15.00.

Michael A. Newcity, Copyright Law in the Soviet Union. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978. x + 212 pp. Appendix and selected bibliography.

Robin Higham and Jacob W. Kipp, Soviet Aviation and Air Power. A Historical View. London: Brasseys’, 1978; Boulder Co.: Westview Press, 1977. xii + 328 pp. $25.

James Riordan (ed.), Sport Under Communism. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1978. x +177 pp. £6.95.

Vahan D. Barooshian, Brik and Mayakovsky, Slavistic Printings and Reprintings 301. The Hague: Mouton, 1978. 154 pp. + index. Paperback.

Vladimir FiSera (ed.), Workers’ Councils in Czechoslovakia: Documents and Essays 1968–69. London: Motive, 1978. 200 pp. £8.50.

Richard F. Starr (ed.), Yearbook on International Communist Affairs 1978, Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1978. 497 pp. $35.00.

G. E. Skorov (ed.), Science, Technology and Economic Growth in Developing Countries. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1978. (tranlated by J. Warren).     

Significance of Family Risk Factors in Development of Childhood Animal Cruelty in Adolescent Boys with Conduct Problems

The literature suggests that physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, paternal alcoholism, paternal unavailability, and domestic violence may be significant in development of childhood animal cruelty. Two groups of early- to late adolescent boys (CTA and N-CTA) in residential treatment for conduct disorder were compared in the current study on histories of these family risk factors. The adolescents in Group 1 were comprised of boys who had conduct problems with documented histories of animal cruelty (n = 50; CTA). Group 2 consisted of adolescent boys (n = 50; N-CTA) with conduct problems, but without documented histories of animal cruelty. Results showed that children in the CTA group had significantly greater histories of physical and/or sexual child abuse and domestic violence in comparison to children in the N-CTA group. These results suggest that physical and/or sexual abuse to a child, and exposure to domestic violence, may be significant in the development of childhood animal cruelty.