Overview
As a period of socialization and transition, adolescence can be understood as society’s efforts to structure limitations placed on youth and the need for adolescents to place appropriate limitations on themselves. As a result, abstention, the ability to deprive oneself, is an important consideration. Abstention during adolescence, however, tends to be understood by studying other phenomena, most notably behaviors that place adolescents at risk for negative outcomes. After providing a broad overview of abstention, the discussion provides two examples to highlight important aspects of abstention as it relates to adolescents.
Abstention
Abstention refers to a deliberate act of self-denial. The period of adolescence involves considerable abstention, especially as a result of social and legal efforts to encourage adolescents to abstain from engaging in numerous types of behaviors. Included among the most frequent behaviors that adolescents abstain from are smoking (Jacobsen et al. 2005...
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Levesque, R.J.R. (2016). Abstention. In: Levesque, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32132-5_353-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32132-5_353-2
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