Predicting Adolescent Risky Behavior Engagement: The Role of Cognitive Vulnerability and Anxiety

To date, the relation between anxiety and risky behavior engagement among adolescents is unclear. While some research has shown a positive association, other research has indicated that anxious symptoms and such engagement are inversely related. In the current multi-wave, longitudinal study, the prospective relationship between stress, anxiety symptom clusters, and risky behavior engagement is explored among a sample of adolescents (N = 151). Moreover, the study also examined the role of stress-reactive rumination as a potential moderator between the stress and anxiety mediational pathway. Preliminary analyses indicated that whereas boys’ anxiety predicted subsequent risky behavior engagement, this relationship was not significant among girls. Additionally, results of time-lagged, idiographic multilevel models indicate that in boys, but not girls, total, physical, and social anxiety symptoms mediate the relationship between stress and risky behavior engagement. Further, stress-reactive rumination moderated the mediational pathway between stress and anxiety for the total and physical anxiety symptom scales. These findings suggest that among boys anxious symptoms may be the path through which stress predicts risky behavior engagement, particularly in total and physical symptoms, and moreover, stress-reactive rumination moderates the mediational pathway between stress and anxiety.