Organized Activity Participation and Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms: Reciprocal Relations during Adolescence

The aim of this prospective study was to examine the relations between organized activity involvement and internalizing and externalizing symptoms across four years of high school. Participants were 240 adolescents who varied in their risk for psychopathology. Information about adolescents’ activity involvement and internalizing and externalizing symptoms were provided by both self- and mother-reports. Structural equation modeling revealed that the prospective models fit the data well. In addition to showing that activity involvement and psychopathology were quite stable over the high school years, we found reciprocal effects for activity involvement and internalizing symptoms at some, although not all, time points. Specifically, controlling for prior symptoms and risk (i.e., maternal depression history), more activity involvement in tenth grade predicted fewer internalizing symptoms in eleventh grade, which then predicted more activity involvement in twelfth grade. No reciprocal relations were found for externalizing problems. These findings highlight the importance of examining internalizing symptoms as both a predictor and outcome of activity involvement during adolescence.

Amy M. BohnertEmail:

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Amy M. Bohnert   Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on predictors and outcomes of involvement in various after-school contexts, especially organized extracurricular activities. Peter Kane   Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. His research interests include developmental sequelae of high-risk offspring of depressed parents and the role of interpersonal conflict in adolescent psychopathology. Judy Garber   Ph.D. is a professor in Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on the etiology, course, outcome, treatment, and prevention of depression in children and adolescents.