Social Contagion, Adolescent Sexual Behavior, and Pregnancy: A Nonlinear Dynamic EMOSA Model

Nonlinear dynamic modeling has useful developmental applications. The authors introduce this class of models and contrast them with traditional linear models. Epidemic models of the onset of social activities (EMOSA models) are a special case, motivated by J. L. Rodgers and D. C. Rowe's (1993)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 1998-09, Vol.34 (5), p.1096-1113
Main Authors: Rodgers, Joseph Lee, Rowe, David C, Buster, Maury
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior
Adolescent Development
Adolescent Pregnancy
Adolescents
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Child psychology
Comparative Analysis
Contagion
Developmental psychology
Female
Females
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Imitative Behavior
Incidence
Infant, Newborn
Likelihood Functions
Male
Models, Statistical
Nonlinear Models
Predictor Variables
Pregnancy
Pregnancy in Adolescence - psychology
Pregnancy in Adolescence - statistics & numerical data
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Sexual Behavior
Sexuality
Social Conformity
Social Influences
Teenage pregnancy
Teenagers
Theories
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Summary:Nonlinear dynamic modeling has useful developmental applications. The authors introduce this class of models and contrast them with traditional linear models. Epidemic models of the onset of social activities (EMOSA models) are a special case, motivated by J. L. Rodgers and D. C. Rowe's (1993) social contagion theory, which predict the spread of adolescent behaviors like smoking, drinking, delinquency, and sexuality. In this article, a biological outcome, pregnancy, is added to an earlier EMOSA sexuality model. Parameters quantify likelihood of pregnancy for girls of different sexuality statuses. Five different sexuality/pregnancy models compete to explain variance in national prevalence curves. One finding was that, in the context of the authors' simplified model, adolescent girls have an approximately constant probability of pregnancy across age and time since virginity.
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/0012-1649.34.5.1096