Counseling Psychology and Human Services Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Counseling Psychology and Human Services Theses and Dissertations by Subject "acting without thinking"

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    Examining Parental Knowledge and Involvement as Predictors of Adolescent Impulsivity and Alcohol Use Intentions and Frequency
    (University of Oregon, 2022-10-26) O'Brien, Kaitlin; Khurana, Atika
    Prior work has shown that parental knowledge and involvement can have protective effects on adolescent alcohol use; however, less is known about how different dimensions of impulsivity might mediate this association. Guided by the self-control theory and more recent brain network-based models of impulse control development, the present study analyzed data from 345 middle-schoolers to examine the direct effects of parental knowledge and parental involvement on adolescent alcohol use intentions and frequency, as well as their indirect effects through acting without thinking (AWT), delay discounting (DD), and attention control difficulties (AD). Consistent with prior evidence, results revealed direct protective effects of parental knowledge on adolescent alcohol use intentions and frequency as well as direct protective effects of parental involvement on adolescent alcohol use frequency. Of the three impulsivity dimensions, only AWT mediated the association between parental knowledge and adolescent alcohol use frequency. Accounting for the effect of AWT, DD and AD were not significantly associated with alcohol use intentions or frequency, and did not operate as significant mediators of parental effects. The present study advances our understanding of how parenting behaviors can impact adolescent alcohol use both directly as well as indirectly through associations with adolescent impulsivity, specifically AWT. Given that AWT may be sensitive to environmental inputs, such as parenting, findings from the current study provide support for parenting interventions that target AWT as an avenue for preventing adolescent alcohol use, in addition to existing approaches that focus on parental rule setting and supervision. Future research should further examine the mediating role of impulsivity with larger samples using longitudinal designs.