1. Are Your Parents Pushing You Toward a Cushier Future
Are Your Parents Pushing You Toward a Cushier Future? RVB as a Mediator between Parental Legitimacy and Future Aspirations in Adolescence Spencer Bardwell, Jenna Hannafin, Benjamin Desrochers Advisors: Donovan Kelley, Alexander G. Blandina, Ellen S. Cohn, Ph.D.
Introduction
Results
Discussion
Parental Legitimacy (PL)
Adolescents’ perception of morals, rules and behaviors, set by parents, as being legitimate, valuable, and worth listening to.
Adolescent’s who perceive their parents as legitimate figures of authority are more likely to adhere to rules in regards to rule violating behavior, education and future aspirations 2, 3.
Rule Violating behavior (RVB)
Any antisocial and or delinquent behaviors that violates laws, rules or social structure 1.
Behaviors exhibited by adolescents can effect views and attitudes related to parental legitimacy 2, 3.
Future Aspirations (FA)
Desired accomplishments and goals envisioned by adolescents’, relative to their future success.
Social Goals - Maintaining a healthy relationship
Occupational Goals - Obtaining a dream job
Educational Goals – Pursuing a graduate degree
Previous studies have shown a link between adolescents’ views of parental legitimacy and future aspirations 4, 5.
Implications
Results did not support the hypothesis.
Relationship between PL and FA were not found to be significant across all three models, contrary to previous research which has shown positive correlations between PL and teenager FA based on multiple factors including PL based on social class 5.
Relationships between PL and the three different RVB groups were found to be significant and showed inverse relationships, similar to previous research.
Previous research found this type of inverse relationship between PL and indicators of substance use and other RVB 3. 
Limitations
FA scale  - May not accurately measure future aspirations.
Significance between RVB and FA , but not PL and FA; this could be a result of RVB relating to all questions on FA scale, but PL only relating to the occupational/educational questions. 
Participants’ views of their parents and the behaviors their parents promote may not be universally standard; allowing for variation in what is considered to be ‘normal’ behavior.
Participants may answer the NHYS questionnaire in such a way, to fulfill social desirability.
Future Directions:
Utilize an improved Future Aspirations scale.
Conduct a study focusing on the relationship between PL and substance use specifically as this relationship was found to be most significant in our study. 
Figure 1.
RVB Assault
R2 = .03
F = 10.69
p = .001
R2 = .02
F = 5.77
p = .017
-.18**
-.13* PL FA
.06
Figure 2.
RVB Substance
Hypotheses
R2 = .10
F = 33.08
p = .000
R2 = .05
F = 15.11
p < .000
-.30***
-.21***
Hypothesis 1: Adolescent’s who view their parents as more legitimate will be less likely to engage in RVB, and in turn have higher future aspirations.
Method PL FA
Our data comes from the New Hampshire Youth Study (NHYS), a longitudinal study focusing on the reasons for adolescents rule violating behavior. The NHYS study included 10 waves; this study presented data from one wave of this multi-wave study.
Participants
This study focused on the younger group from one wave of the NHYS study (N = 315).
Measures
Parental Legitimacy
Asked participants to rate how much they agree with a statement on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree).
e.g. My parents are generally honest.
Mean = 2.88 (SD = .59)
Rule Violating Behavior
Asked participants to indicate how many times they had engaged in a variety of RVBs from times in the last six months.
e.g. Taking something from a store without paying for it.
Mean = .12 (SD = .13)
Future Aspirations
Asked participants how likely they thought they were to do various things in their future on a scale from 0 (very unlikely) to 6 (very likely).
e.g. Graduate from college.
Mean = 4.24 (SD = .78)
.06
Figure 3.
References
RVB Steal
R2 = .04
F = 11.62
p = .001
R2 = .09
F = 29.34
p = .000
1 Cohn, E. S., Bucolo, D., Rebellon, C. J., & Van Gundy, K. (2010). An integrated model of legal and moral reasoning and rule-violating behavior: The role of legal attitudes. Law And Human Behavior, 34(4), doi: /s
2 Cohn, E. S., Trinkner, R. J., Rebellon, C. J., Van Gundy, K. T., & Cole, L. M. (2012). Legal attitudes and legitimacy: Extending the integrated legal socialization model. Victims & Offenders, 7(4), doi: /
3 Jackson, C. (2002). Perceived legitimacy of parental authority and tobacco and alcohol use during early adolescence. Journal Of Adolescent Health, 31(5),
4 Rebellon, C. J., Manasse, M. E., Van Gundy, K. T., & Cohn, E. S. (2014). Rationalizing Delinquency: A Longitudinal Test of the Reciprocal Relationship Between Delinquent Attitudes and Behavior. American Sociological Association, 77(4),
5 Schoon, I., & Parsons, S. (2002). Teenage aspirations for future careers and occupational outcomes. Journal Of Vocational Behavior, 60(2), doi: /jvbe
-.29***
-.19** PL FA
.06
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