Browsing by Author "Lewis, M."

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Open Access
Adolescent risk-taking as a function of prenatal cocaine exposure and biological sex
(Elsevier Inc., 2014) Allen, J. W. P.; Bennett, D. S.; Carmody, D. P.; Wang Y.; Lewis, M.
Objective: To examine the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and biological sex on adolescent risk-taking while controlling for early environmental risk. Methods: Adolescents (n. = 114, mean age. = 16) were grouped according to high and low risk-taking propensity as measured by the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Prenatal cocaine exposure was assessed at birth, while environmental risk was assessed at three points during early childhood. Results: A binary regression analysis indicated that males were 3.5 times more likely than females to be high risk-takers. Biological sex and prenatal cocaine exposure interacted such that exposed males were most likely to be high risk-takers while exposed females were the least likely to be high risk-takers. This pattern held after controlling for prenatal alcohol exposure and early environmental risk. Early environmental risk did not predict adolescent risk-taking. Conclusions: These findings complement and extend earlier research demonstrating that prenatal cocaine exposure interacts with biological sex in domains related to inhibitory control, emotion regulation, antisocial behavior, and health risk behaviors during preadolescence.
Open Access
Who peeks: cognitive, emotional, behavioral, socialization, and child correlates of preschoolers’ resistance to temptation
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Allen, Jedediah W. P.; Lewis, M.
Research over several decades has demonstrated that children’s ability to wait and delay immediate gratification in preschool is related to a multitude of developmental outcomes throughout childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood. However, less research has focused on concurrent abilities, characteristics, and contexts related to the waiting behaviour itself. This study seeks to explore some of the cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and socialization correlates of an at-risk (poor inner city) group of preschoolers’ ability to wait. The study used a resistance to temptation paradigm in which children were instructed not to peek at a ‘forbidden toy’ while left alone. As predicted, 4-year-olds’ (M = 4.5; SD = 1.2 months) general IQ and emotion knowledge were related to their delay in peeking, with longer delays related to higher scores. Results also indicated an effect of gender such that girls waited longer than boys. Contrary to expectations, there were no effects related to harsh parenting practices or to general environmental risk. Of all the variables investigated, emotion knowledge seemed to be the most important.