Warner Tara D, Swisher Raymond R
Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.
J Adolesc Health. 2014 Dec;55(6):817-22. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.06.019. Epub 2014 Sep 6.
Research finds that adolescents gravely overestimate their risk of death and that these pessimistic attitudes correlate with risky behaviors undermining health and well-being; however, it remains unclear why adolescents have negative expectations about their survival. Because youth are most likely to be exposed to violence (as victims and/or witnesses), perhaps these experiences are key in undermining expectations about the future. We explored the effect of direct and indirect exposures to violence-across various contexts-on adolescents' survival expectations.
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we tested the effect of violent experiences: individual direct and vicarious violence, familial and relational violence, school violence, and community violence on adolescents' expectations of surviving to 35 years of age.
Victims of childhood physical abuse were less likely to expect to survive to 35 years of age. Although not significant at the conventional p < .05 level, violent victimization (being jumped, cut/stabbed, shot, or threatened with a weapon) and intimate partner violence were marginally associated with decreased survival expectations (p < .10). School and community violence undermined expectations at the bivariate level, but became nonsignificant after adjustments for individual demographic characteristics.
Violent victimization in childhood and adolescence is a public health issue with both immediate and long-term consequences. Violence exposure severely compromises individuals' optimism about the future and places them at risk for behaviors that can further undermine well-being. Practitioners should be mindful of diminished survival expectations as a less overt consequence of exposure to violence.
研究发现，青少年严重高估自己的死亡风险，且这些消极态度与损害健康和幸福的危险行为相关；然而，尚不清楚青少年为何对自己的生存持有消极期望。由于青少年最有可能遭受暴力侵害（作为受害者和/或目击者），或许这些经历是破坏对未来期望的关键因素。我们探讨了在各种情境下直接和间接接触暴力对青少年生存期望的影响。
利用青少年健康全国纵向研究的数据，我们测试了暴力经历的影响：个人直接和替代性暴力、家庭和人际关系暴力、校园暴力及社区暴力对青少年活到35岁的期望的影响。
童年期遭受身体虐待的受害者活到35岁的期望较低。虽然在传统的p <.05水平上不显著，但暴力受害经历（被殴打、被切割/刺伤、被枪击或受到武器威胁）和亲密伴侣暴力与生存期望降低存在边缘关联（p <.10）。在双变量水平上，校园和社区暴力会破坏期望，但在对个人人口统计学特征进行调整后变得不显著。
童年期和青少年期的暴力受害是一个具有直接和长期后果的公共卫生问题。接触暴力严重损害了个体对未来的乐观态度，并使他们面临可能进一步损害幸福的行为风险。从业者应注意到生存期望降低是接触暴力的一个不太明显的后果。
