Jocelyn Jarvis, “Association Between Perceived and Objective Neighborhood Safety on Behavioral Inhibition Among Youth”
Mentors: Krista Lisdahl and Ryan Sullivan, Psychology

Behavioral inhibition in young children is a temperament characterized by heightened sensitivity to novelty, social withdrawal, and anxious behaviors. Persistent elevated behavioral inhibition from infancy to early childhood is a risk for adult anxiety disorder and is further moderated by less adolescent social involvement. The present study aims to analyze the impact of self-perceived neighborhood safety, parental perceived neighborhood safety, and objective neighborhood safety upon behavioral inhibition behaviors in emerging adolescents. As part of the national multi-site Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, 11,875 participants (aged 9-10) and accompanying caregivers participated in baseline visits. Information was collected from caregivers on demographic information (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, household income, parental education). The youth completed Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Approach System (BIS/BAS) Scales and the Neighborhood Safety/Crime Survey reporting perceptions of safety in their neighborhood. We also utilized crime report data based upon the home addresses of the participants as a proxy for our objective neighborhood safety variable. Generalized additive mixed models demonstrated significant associations with behavioral inhibition scores across youth perception (p<0.001), objective measure (p<0.001), and parental perception (p<0.05) of neighborhood safety. Interestingly, Our findings were that increased neighborhood safety was related to increased behavioral inhibition, yet increased neighborhood crime reports were related to decreased behavioral inhibition. Our results suggest that during pre-adolescence, self-perceived neighborhood safety is the greatest predictor of the association neighborhood safety has on behavioral inhibition. Additionally, our results demonstrated that emerging adolescents who live in areas that reported more criminal activity had lessened behavioral inhibition scores. Locally, further examination on the protective factors of adolescents who showed lower behavioral inhibition scores in higher crime areas could aid in mitigating the effects of heightened behavioral inhibition of emerging adolescents in the Greater Milwaukee Area.

Synchronous Presentation April 16th at 1:00pm

Phone Conference ID: 327 496 283#