Implicit Measures of Risky Behaviors in Adolescence
A special issue of Adolescents (ISSN 2673-7051). This special issue belongs to the section "Adolescent Health Behaviors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 April 2025) | Viewed by 6709
Special Issue Editors
Interests: communication psychology; cognitive interfaces; psychometrics; data analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: developmental psychopathology; trauma; eating disorders; internalizing/externalizing symptoms
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: developmental psychopathology; eating disorders; parent-child interactions; trauma; psychoanalysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The exploration of adolescence as a pivotal developmental stage reveals a complex interplay of psychological, social, and biological transformations. This period is marked by a heightened inclination towards risk-taking behaviors, which bear significant consequences for adolescents’ future health and well-being. Traditionally, the understanding of these behaviors has been largely based on explicit measures and self-reporting techniques. However, a shift in research paradigms has come to emphasize the substantial influence of implicit processes on adolescent behavior.
Implicit processes operate beneath the conscious level of awareness, influencing decision-making and actions without deliberate intention or control, and these unconscious mechanisms have been increasingly recognized for their role in guiding risk-related behaviors among adolescents beyond the consolidated notion of the imbalance between the maturation of prefrontal cortex, responsible for decision-making and impulse control, and the limbic system, which regulates emotion and reward processing.
Research on the implicit theories of adolescents, such as beliefs about the malleability of personal traits, revealed that these cognitive frameworks can predict responses to peer conflicts and desires for vengeance, thereby influencing risk-related behaviors. Additionally, the role of implicit processes in the context of substance use has been explored, with studies indicating that automatic behavioral tendencies toward alcohol-related stimuli and weak inhibition skills are associated with higher levels of alcohol use among adolescents. This highlights the interplay between implicit processes and individual differences in response inhibition, further elucidating the mechanisms underlying risk-taking behaviors in adolescence.
Dr. Ileana Di Pomponio
Dr. Luca Cerniglia
Dr. Silvia Cimino
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Adolescents is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- adolescence
- risk factors
- risky behaviors
- risk-taking
- implicit measure
- IAT
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