419541 HPQXXX10.

1177/1359105311419541Windlin and KuntscheJournal of Health Psychology

Article

Journal of Health Psychology

Differences in the impact of the

17(4) 509­–519
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DOI: 10.1177/1359105311419541
family activities on adolescent hpq.sagepub.com

substance use and violence

Béat Windlin1 and Emmanuel Kuntsche1,2

Abstract
Previous research has concentrated exclusively on the association between the frequency of joint family
activities (JFA) and adolescent problem behaviours. In this study, multiple linear regressions based on a
national sample of 3467 13– to 16–year-olds in Switzerland revealed that JFA enjoyment rather than JFA
frequency is consistently related to low adolescent substance use and violence. By choosing JFA that their
children enjoy, parents might provide opportunities for disclosure, strengthen family bonds and reduce the
likelihood of adolescent problem behaviours. In terms of prevention, a shift in focus towards the quality
rather than the quantity of JFA could prove more effective.

Keywords
adolescents, family activities, problem behaviour, substance use, violence

Introduction
Previous research has shown that time spent
together as a family in general and joint family
activities (JFA) in particular are associated with
healthy child development. Among adolescents,
inverse relationships have been found between
JFA and a variety of problem behaviours such
as substance use (Garmiene, Zemaitiene, &
Zaborskis, 2006; Granado Alcon & Pedersen,
2001) and delinquency (Robertson, 1999).
However, the mechanism involved is still only
partially understood. In the present study, we
investigate whether the ‘protective’ effect of
JFA is mainly due to the time spent with parents
or whether it is the adolescents’ enjoyment of
JFA that is responsible for the negative link to
problem behaviours.
Primary socialization theory may offer an
explanation for the protective effect of JFA
on adolescent problem behaviours (Oetting,
Deffenbacher, & Donnermeyer, 1998; Oetting
& Donnermeyer, 1998). It posits that the family,
rather than school and peers, is the main primary
socialization agent and tends to promote pre-
dominantly prosocial values which may ‘arm’
1AddictionInfo Switzerland, Lausanne, Switzerland
2Behavioural
Science Institute (BSI), Radboud University
Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Corresponding author:
Béat Windlin, Addiction Info Switzerland, Research
Institute, PO Box 870, 1001 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: bwindlin@addiction-info.ch
510 Journal of Health Psychology 17(4)
the adolescent against other social influences.
Peer groups, in contrast, are regarded as a source
for the promotion of deviant norms, leading to
problem behaviours such as substance use.
From this theory, we can derive two possible
explanations for the inverse relationship
between JFA and adolescent problem behav-
iours. The first is that JFA may simply restrict
the time adolescents spend with peers, thereby
offering them fewer opportunities to use sub-
stances and to indulge in other problem behav-
iours (Crawford & Novak, 2002). Studies have
shown that adolescents who spend less time in
structured activities with adults (e.g. playing
sports in a supervised team or attending meet-
ings of a hobby association) have more oppor-
tunities to participate in delinquency and
non-normative activities such as stealing or get-
ting drunk (Mahoney & Stattin, 2000; Persson,
Kerr, & Stattin, 2007). Similarly, investigating
the exposure opportunity hypothesis, Anthony
and colleagues have demonstrated that being
exposed to substance use in peer groups and
other social environments creates the opportu-
nity for personal use which, in turn, results in
higher substance use levels (e.g. Van Etten,
Neumark, & Anthony, 1997). For example, in
31 countries, the frequency of evenings out
with friends was a particularly strong and con-
sistent predictor of adolescent cannabis use
(Kuntsche, Simons-Morton, Fotiou, ter Bogt, &
Kokkevi, 2009).
Yet, in their reconceptualization of ‘parental
monitoring’, Stattin and Kerr (2000) demon-
strated that the protective effect was primarily
due to the children’s spontaneous disclosure
and readiness to tell their parents what they did
in their leisure time rather than any form of
active parental control, tracking or surveillance.
However, such disclosure is only likely when
parents are motivated to involve themselves in
their children’s lives and to guide and influence
them (Dishion, Nelson, & Bullock, 2004).
This brings us to the second explanation of
how JFA might contribute to lower levels of
adolescent problem behaviours: by spending
time with their children, parents may contribute
to the transmission of prosocial values, life
skills, trust, and self-confidence. Empirical
studies have shown that JFA often strengthen
family relationships and improve the quality of
communication, negotiation and conflict reso-
lution skills (Baldwin, Ellis, & Baldwin, 1999;
Fiese, 2006; Orthner, 1998; Smith, 1997).
In his attachment theory, Bowlby (1982) con-
jectures that children who do not build secure
attachments to their caregivers early in life are
likely to develop problem behaviours later on
(Cooper, Shaver, & Collins, 1998). In contrast,
when adolescents have a good relationship with
their parents and feel close to them, they are
more open to their influence (Hahm, Lahiff, &
Guterman, 2003; Kuntsche & Kuendig, 2006)
and consequently less prone to such behaviours
(Rose, Dick, Viken, Pulkkinen, & Kaprio, 2001).
Social control theory (Hirschi, 1969) also holds
that parental attachment—defined as a child’s
emotional bond to his or her parents—prevents
the child from doing anything that could com-
promise the relationship and thus from engaging
in deviant or delinquent behaviours.
The two processes—restricted opportunities
and transmission of prosocial values—are the
background for the hypotheses we want to test
here. We consider both processes to be concur-
rent but not mutually exclusive. We assume that
evidence of a strong association between JFA
frequency and lower levels of problem behav-
iour supports the hypothesis of restricted oppor-
tunities. When an adolescent greatly enjoys the
JFA in which he or she participates, we take this
as a sign of mutual trust, secure attachment, and
a condition that favours the transmission of
prosocial values, all of which are associated
with lower levels of problem behaviours.
We hypothesize that there are lower levels of
adolescent problem behaviours in families that
do a variety of JFA, at least from time to time
(labelled ‘active families’), compared to those
families who largely do not. For ‘active fami-
lies’, we use JFA frequency and enjoyment
indices, as well as an interaction variable to
determine whether the protective effect of JFA
on different forms of problem behaviours is
Windlin and Kuntsche 511
primarily due to restricted opportunities or to
the parent-child transmission of personal val-
ues, confidence and trust.
Methods
Study design
The Swiss contribution to the international
survey ‘Health Behaviour in School-Aged
Children’ (HBSC) (Currie et al., 2008) was
used as the database for the present study. The
HBSC survey has been conducted every four
years in more than 40, mostly European, coun-
tries since 1982 under the aegis of the World
Health Organization (WHO).
The data were collected anonymously with a
self-completed standardized questionnaire
between January and April 2006. Teachers
administered the questionnaires in the class-
room. The students completed the question-
naires independently during one school period
(about 45 minutes).
Permission to conduct the study was obtained
from the educational authorities of each partici-
pating canton and from the principals of the
selected schools. The survey procedures were
also approved by the Human Research Ethics
Committee of the University of Lausanne.
Students were free to choose whether to partici-
pate or not, and confidentiality was guaranteed
at all stages of the study.
Sample
Based on a list of all public school classes in
Switzerland, 8th and 9th grade classes were ran-
domly sampled and a response rate of 85.7%
was achieved. In total, the sample comprises
3968 13– to 16–year-old students. 16 partici-
pants (0.4%) who did not indicate their gender
were excluded, as were the 110 (2.8%) partici-
pants who had one or more missing values in the
outcome variables. The 83 participants (2.1%)
with more than three missing values in either the
eight JFA frequency items or the eight JFA
enjoyment items were excluded too, as were
eight participants (0.2%) with unrealistic values
(indicating a daily frequency for all JFA). The
final sample consisted of 3751 13– to 16–year-
old students (94.5% of the raw sample).
Measures
Dependent variables
To measure weekly tobacco use, the students
were asked “How many cigarettes did you
smoke over the last seven days?”, with response
categories ‘none’, ‘less than one’, ‘less than one
per day’, ‘1–5 per day’, ‘6–10 per day’, ‘11–20
per day’ and ‘more than 20 per day’. Midpoints
of categories were used and multiplied by
seven. The upper category was recoded with
157.25 (i.e. 141 plus half the range to the mid-
point of the adjacent category).
Frequency of drunkenness was measured by
the question “In the last 30 days, how many
times have you done the following?”, and ‘I was
drunk’ being one item. The response categories
were ‘never’, ‘once or twice’, ‘3–5 times’, ‘6–9
times’, ‘10–19 times’, ‘20–39 times’ and ‘40
times or more’. Midpoints of categories were
used and 45.75 for the upper category.
Frequency of cannabis use was assessed in
the same way as frequency of drunkenness,
with the question “Have you ever consumed
cannabis in the last 30 days?”
To measure bullying, the students were asked
“How often have you taken part in bullying other
classmates at school in the past couple of months?”
The response categories were ‘I have not bullied
other students in the past couple of months’ (coded
as 0), ‘that has only happened once or twice’ (0.5),
‘two to three times a month’ (2.5), ‘about once a
week’ (4) and ‘several times a week’ (8).
Fighting was assessed with the question
“How often have you been involved in a fight
or brawl in the past 12 months?” Students could
indicate: ‘I have not been involved in a fight’
(coded as 0), ‘once’ (1), ‘twice’ (2), ‘three
times’ (3) and ‘four times or more’ (4.5).
Since the distributions of these frequency
measures were skewed to the left, the logarithm
512 Journal of Health Psychology 17(4)
was taken for regression analyses, as recom-
mended by Tabachnick and Fidell (2001). Such
a transformation not only approximates normal
distribution, but also reduces the impact of
outliers.
Independent variables
Students were asked how often they did eight
specific JFA (“How often do you and your fam-
ily usually do each of these things all together?”),
and how much they liked them (“Do you like to
do these things with your family?”). Both ques-
tions concerned the following eight activities:
(1) watch TV or a video together; (2) play
indoor games together; (3) eat a meal together;
(4) go for a walk together; (5) go places
together; (6) visit friends or relatives together;
(7) play sports together; (8) sit and talk about
things together.
For the question on frequency, the answer
categories were ‘every day’ (coded as 5),
‘almost every day’ (4), ‘about once a week’ (3),
‘less often’ (2), or ‘never’ (1). For the question
on enjoyment, the answer categories were ‘like
very much’ (coded as 4), ‘rather like’ (3), ‘don’t
like very much’ (2) and ‘don’t like at all’ (1), as
well as ‘my family doesn’t do this’.
Analytical strategy
Index construction
Given that earlier research found that JFA fre-
quency is dependent on the gender and the age
of adolescents (Zaborskis, Zemaitiene, Borup,
Kuntsche, & Moreno Rodriguez, 2007), we
split our sample into four groups: boys aged 13
or 14 (M = 14.4, SD = .43); boys aged 15 or 16
(M = 15.6, SD = .45); girls aged 13 or 14 (M =
14.3, SD = .44); and girls aged 15 or 16 (M =
15.6, SD = .44). The construction of the index
and all subsequent analyses were performed
separately for each of these groups.
If the teenage respondents had never taken
part in a particular family activity, they were
logically not in a position to indicate whether
they enjoyed it or not. Thus, the 284 students
(7.6%) who stated that they never undertake
four or more of the JFA were classified as ado-
lescents from ‘inactive families’ and were
excluded from both indices and from the subse-
quent multivariate analyses (cf. below).
In the end, the multivariate analysis sample
consisted of 3467 students who had taken part
in at least four of the eight JFA. We refer to this
group as adolescents from ‘active families’. Of
these, 746 (23.5%) indicated doing seven out of
the eight JFA, while 423 (12.2%) indicated
doing six out of the eight, and 283 adolescents
(8.2%) only five.
The JFA frequency index—and by analogy
the JFA enjoyment index—was calculated as a
weighted mean score, as recommended by
Zaborskis and colleagues (2007). Using princi-
pal component analysis and the pair-wise exclu-
sion of missing values, weights were determined
separately for frequency and enjoyment, and for
each of the four groups.1 This approach has the
advantage that each item contributes to the
mean score according to its contribution to the
total score variance. If an individual had miss-
ing values on between one and three of the eight
JFA items, the mean score was calculated based
on the remaining four to seven items.
Statistical analyses
We first used t-tests to analyse whether there are
any differences in the mean level of problem
behaviours between adolescents from ‘inactive
families’ and those from ‘active families’.
Subsequently, for adolescents from ‘active
families’, we used multiple linear regressions to
investigate whether JFA frequency or enjoyment,
or an interaction between the two can predict
tobacco, alcohol and cannabis use, and bullying
and fighting, respectively. We checked correla-
tions between the JFA frequency and enjoyment
indices. These were found to be reasonably low
(Pearson’s r < 0.5), thus allowing their mutual
inclusion in a multiple linear regression. To facili-
tate comparisons, the independent variables were
Z-transformed. As recommended by Jaccard and
Wan (1996), interaction terms were obtained by
Windlin and Kuntsche 513

Table 1.  Means, standard deviations (in brackets) and Cronbach’s alpha for the eight items (in italics) of
the frequency and the enjoyment of joint family activities, as reported by adolescents who do at least four
of the eight activities (adolescents from ‘active families’).

Boys Girls

  13-14 years 15-16 years 13-14 years 15-16 years

  Frequency Enjoyment Frequency Enjoyment Frequency Enjoyment Frequency Enjoyment

Watch TV or a 2.5 (1.1) 3.2 (0.8) 2.4 (1.1) 3.1 (0.8) 2.3 (1.1) 3.1 (0.8) 2.4 (1.1) 3.1 (0.8)
video together
Play indoor 1.4 (0.9) 2.7 (0.9) 1.2 (0.8) 2.6 (0.9) 1.2 (0.8) 2.7 (0.9) 1.2 (0.8) 2.7 (0.9)
games together
Eat a meal 3.8 (0.6) 3.4 (0.7) 3.6 (0.7) 3.4 (0.7) 3.7 (0.6) 3.4 (0.6) 3.7 (0.7) 3.5 (0.7)
together
Go for a walk 1.3 (0.8) 2.1 (0.9) 1.1 (0.8) 2.2 (0.9) 1.3 (0.7) 2.2 (0.9) 1.2 (0.7) 2.3 (1.0)
together
Go places 1.4 (0.7) 2.7 (1.0) 1.4 (0.6) 2.7 (0.9) 1.3 (0.6) 2.7 (0.9) 1.3 (0.6) 2.8 (0.9)
together
Visit friends 1.6 (0.7) 2.8 (0.9) 1.5 (0.7) 2.8 (0.9) 1.5 (0.6) 2.9 (0.9) 1.5 (0.6) 2.9 (0.9)
or relatives
together
Play sports 1.2 (1.0) 2.8 (1.0) 1.0 (0.9) 2.7 (1.0) 1.0 (0.8) 2.7 (1.0) 0.9 (0.8) 2.6 (1.0)
together
Sit and talk 2.0 (1.1) 2.4 (1.0) 2.1 (1.1) 2.6 (1.0) 2.1 (1.2) 2.7 (1.0) 2.3 (1.1) 2.9 (1.0)
about things
together
Cronbach’s alpha 0.67 0.83 0.65 0.82 0.63 0.82 0.64 0.81

Note: Adolescents who do fewer than four activities (adolescents of ‘inactive families’) were excluded because their
enjoyment of the activities could not be assessed reliably (for the number of cases, see Table 2).

multiplying the two Z-standardized indices (inter- Results

action = Z(frequency index) * Z(enjoyment
index)). In a first step we calculated regression
models using only the JFA frequency and enjoy-
ment indices. In a second step we added the
interaction variable. To illustrate the interaction
effect, the level of a given outcome variable was
plotted as a function of the JFA frequency index
for both above-median and below-median JFA
enjoyment.
All analyses were performed with Stata 10.1
and adjusted for the design effects of clusters
(school classes) by using the Huber-White
sandwich estimator for standard errors (Stata
Corp, 2009). When interpreting the results, we
consider both significance levels and the con-
sistency of results across gender and age groups
and outcome variables (Rothman, 2002).
Table 1 shows both the means and the standard
deviations for the frequency and enjoyment
items of the eight JFA among adolescents who
indicated that they had taken part in at least half
of them. In all four groups, ‘eating a meal
together’ is by far the most frequent and the
most popular JFA, whereas ‘playing sports
together’ is the least frequent, and ‘going for a
walk’ the least popular. As a measure of inter-
item correlation, Cronbach’s alpha varies
between 0.63 and 0.67 for the frequency items
and is about 0.82 for the enjoyment items.
As shown in Table 2, differences in sub-
stance use and aggressive behaviour can be
observed between age and gender groups: in
general, the prevalence of substance use and
 514

Table 2.  Means, standard deviations (in brackets) among adolescents from ‘active’ vs. ‘inactive’ families, and t-values of mean differences (after taking
logarithms).

Boys Girls

13-14 years 15-16 years 13-14 years 15-16 years

Means t-value Means t-value Means t-value Means t-value

Act.a Inact.b Act.a Inact.b Act.a Inact.b Act.a Inact.b  

Group sizes (n) 794 70 864 81 948 57 861 76  

Smoked 2.4 (15.1) 9.4 (34.7) −1.61 8.9 (28.4) 16.6 (37.3) −2.25* 3.0 (14.3) 12.8 (34.3) −2.43* 6.9 (24.3) 17.9 (40.7) −2.45*
cigarettes
Drunkenness 0.2 (1.8) 2.0 (7.0) −2.04* 0.5 (1.6) 1.5 (5.4) −2.78** 0.2 (0.7) 0.5 (1.3) −1.78 0.4 (1.3) 0.7 (1.3) −2.44*
Cannabis use 0.5 (3.1) 2.3 (8.5) −1.92 1.3 (5.8) 5.0 (12.0) −3.40*** 0.3 (1.6) 1.5 (6.6) −1.69 0.9 (4.9) 2.0 (6.3) −1.92
Bullying 1.0 (2.1) 1.3 (2.3) −1.08 1.1 (2.0) 1.7 (2.4) −3.23** 0.5 (1.4) 1.0 (2.2) −2.12* 0.5 (1.5) 1.1 (2.1) −2.48*
Fighting 0.8 (1.3) 1.4 (1.7) −2.92** 0.9 (1.3) 1.2 (1.6) −2.07* 0.2 (0.7) 0.5 (1.1) −1.73 0.3 (0.8) 0.6 (1.2) −2.02*

Note: a Adolescents from ‘active families’; b Adolescents from ‘inactive families’; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
Journal of Health Psychology 17(4)
Windlin and Kuntsche 515

Table 3.  Frequency and enjoyment of JFA, and their interaction as predictors of substance use and violent
behaviour in linear regressions models (beta coefficients).

Model Boys Girls

13-14 years 15-16 years 13-14 years 15-16 years

(n = 794) (n = 864) (n = 948) (n = 861)

a b a b a b a b
Smoked cigarettes
  Frequency of JFA .01 .00 .00 −.07 −.06 −.07 −.07* −.11***
  Enjoyment of JFA −.12** −.11 −.20*** −.17*** −.19*** −.18*** −.22*** −.18***
 Interaction .02 .14** .04 .13**
 R2 1.3% 1.4% 3.9% 5.6% 5.1% 5.3% 6.8% 8.3%
Drunkenness
  Frequency of JFA .03 .00 .04 .03 −.05 −.07* −.07* −.09*
  Enjoyment of JFA −.20*** −.19*** −.18*** −.18*** −.17*** −.16*** −.23*** −.21***
 Interaction .07 .01 .05 .07
 R2 3.6% 4.0% 2.8% 2.9% 3.9% 4.1% 7.2% 7.6%
Cannabis use
  Frequency of JFA −.05 −.09* −.03 −.05 −.07** −.10** −.07* −.11*
  Enjoyment of JFA −.11* −.09* −.18*** −.17*** −.13** −.12** −.23*** −.19***
 Interaction .11* .05 .06* .14*
 R2 2.2% 3.3% 3.9% 4.0% 3.1% 3.4% 7.1% 8.8%
Bullying
  Frequency of JFA −.04 −.06 .00 −.03 .01 −.02 .03 .02
  Enjoyment of JFA −.12** −.11** −.13** −.11** −.22*** −.20*** −.16*** −.16***
 Interaction .05 .07 .08 .01
 R2 2.2% 2.4% 1.6% 2.0% 4.6% 5.2% 2.3% 2.3%
Fighting
  Frequency of JFA .07 .07 .03 .01 −.01 −.03 −.03 −.06
  Enjoyment of JFA −.17*** −.17*** −.12** −.12* −.13** −.12* −.09 −.06
 Interaction −.01 .04 .06 .11*
 R2 2.1% 2.2% 1.3% 1.4% 1.9% 2.2% 1.0% 2.1%

Note: The logarithm of outcome variables was taken, and the frequency and enjoyment indices were standardized.
* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

aggressive behaviour tends to be higher among
15– and 16–years-olds than among the 13– and
14–year–olds. The same holds for boys com-
pared to girls. However, much more important
than these age and gender differences are the
variations within the groups, i.e. between ado-
lescents from ‘active families’ and those from
‘inactive families’. Teenagers who report doing
hardly any JFA (‘inactive families’) tend to
smoke more cigarettes per week, to have been
drunk, to have used cannabis more often and to
have been more frequently involved in bullying
or fighting. Although the results were not
always statistically significant, the direction of
the relationship was consistent in all groups.
Multiple linear regressions were calculated
for adolescents from ‘active families’ so that
both the frequency and the enjoyment variables
could be included, as well as their interaction
term. According to the models without the inter-
action term (see the ‘a’ columns in Table 3),
enjoyment of JFA, regardless of frequency, was
516 Journal of Health Psychology 17(4)
consistently linked to lower levels of substance
use and the violent behaviours addressed in this
study. This holds true for all four groups, i.e. for
boys and girls, and for the different age ranges.
As regards JFA frequency, a less consistent
picture emerged. Among boys, no clear pattern
could be detected, as the algebraic sign changed
from one outcome variable to the other, and the
regression coefficients were only minor in terms
of effect size and were never significant. Among
girls, we observed that there tended to be inverse
relationships, albeit not always significant,
between JFA frequency and the problem behav-
iours of substance use and involvement in fight-
ing (but not bullying). Only for 15– and
16–year-old girls was a consistent and significant
pattern found for the inverse relation between
JFA frequency and the substance use variables.
A closer examination of the size of the
regression coefficients of the JFA enjoyment
and frequency indices revealed that the (inverse)
association with the different problem behav-
iours was always much stronger (at least by a
factor of 2, with one single exception) for
enjoyment than for frequency.
We checked for a possible interaction between
JFA frequency and enjoyment by including in the
regression model a variable that was the product
of the two indices (see the ‘b’ columns in Table 3).
The interaction term was hardly ever significant.
However, it was striking that the algebraic sign
of its coefficient was almost always positive. The
meaning of this is illustrated in Figure1, which
plots cannabis use among 15– and 16–year–old
girls. Within the group who reported above-
median enjoyment of JFA, the impact of increas-
ing frequency is much lower (or even negligible)
than it is for the group reporting below-median
enjoyment, while an increase in the frequency
has a much stronger effect.
Discussion
Drawing on from primary socialization theory
(Oetting, et al., 1998; Oetting & Donnermeyer,
1998), we propose two principal arguments to
explain the inverse relationship between JFA
0.40
Times used cannabis, last 30d
low enjoyment of JFA
0.35
high enjoyment of JFA
0.30
(logarithmised)
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
-1 0 1
Index of frequency of JFA (Z-standardised)
Figure 1.  Relation between JFA frequency
and cannabis use, according to the level of JFA
enjoyment (median split) among 15-16 year-old girls.
and adolescent problem behaviour: 1) JFA
restrict adolescents’ opportunities to engage in
problem behaviour (Crawford & Novak, 2002);
2) JFA promote and encourage trust, self-
confidence and the transmission of prosocial
values from parents to adolescents which, in
turn, curbs the development of problem behav-
iours. The aim of the study was to test these two
hypotheses empirically by investigating the link
between both JFA frequency and enjoyment and
problem behaviours.
In a first step we analysed differences in
problem behaviour between adolescents who
did hardly any JFA (from ‘inactive families’),
and those who undertook at least a minimum
number of JFA (from ‘active families’). These
analyses found that there were consistently
higher frequencies of substance use and violent
behaviours among adolescents from ‘inactive
families’. These results are in line with earlier
research on JFA and problem behaviours
(Garmiene, et al., 2006; Granado Alcon &
Pedersen, 2001). However, as we could not
control for levels of enjoyment, this result can-
not be used to explicitly support or contradict
either of the two proposed hypotheses.
Among adolescents from ‘active families’
we conducted multiple regression analyses
where we could disentangle the JFA frequency
and enjoyment variables. These results showed
a very clear and consistent association between
Windlin and Kuntsche 517
enjoyment and lower levels of problem behav-
iours, even when controlled for frequency.
Although the latter also tends to be inversely
related to problem behaviours, this trend is not
consistent and tends to be much weaker than the
one observed for the association between enjoy-
ment of JFA and problem behaviours.
When explaining the association between
JFA and adolescent problem behaviour, it there-
fore seems that the adolescents’ enjoyment of
these activities is more important than how
often they actually undertake them. These
results support the hypothesis that it is through
improving mutual trust, secure attachment, and
transmission of prosocial values from parents to
child that JFA can protect against adolescent
problem behaviours (Hahm, et al., 2003;
Kuntsche & Kuendig, 2006).
However, the frequency of JFA can also pro-
tect against adolescent problem behaviours, at
least among certain groups. This appears to be
the case with respect to substance use for girls,
especially those aged 15–16 and those who rated
their enjoyment of JFA relatively low, thus sup-
porting the restricted opportunities’ hypothesis
(Crawford & Novak, 2002). The protective effect
of JFA enjoyment, though, was still stronger
even for this group. We should add that the find-
ing should not be extended to other groups of
teenagers, as adolescents who like JFA tend to be
much less prone to substance use, regardless of
how often they participate in such activities.
The internal consistency between the items
in the enjoyment index (i.e. the enjoyment of
the eight JFA) was high (Cronbach’s alpha >
0.8), indicating that the enjoyment index can be
considered a global measure of the enjoyment
that adolescents derive from activities they
undertake with their family.
The present study reaches a similar conclu-
sion to that of Stattin and Kerr in their reconcep-
tualization of parental monitoring (2000): strong
parental control over children’s behaviour in
their leisure time seems to be a much less effec-
tive means to prevent children from engaging in
problem behaviour than building a strong emo-
tional bond based on trust and confidence.
The present study has a number of strengths.
It is, to our knowledge, the first to include
differentiated measures of JFA frequency and
enjoyment in the analysis of a wide range of
adolescent problem behaviours. The data used
in this study is nationally representative for
pupils in Switzerland in the chosen age ranges.
The large sample size makes it possible to con-
duct separate analyses of distinct groups of
adolescents that also take accurate account of
the variations in JFA patterns across age groups
and gender described in previous research
(Zaborskis, et al., 2007).
However, the present study has also some
limitations, such as the rather low effect sizes—
9% or below—in terms of explained variance in
our regression models. Without question, other
factors besides JFA may be more influential on
adolescent problem behaviours. Nevertheless,
given that all analyses were performed sepa-
rately for gender and age groups (two variables
accounting for a considerable part of the differ-
ent problem behaviours), the effect size should
not be underestimated. Another limitation of
this study is that the data are cross-sectional and
the construed directions of the found effects are
based solely on theory. For further research, it
would be desirable to use longitudinal designs
to investigate the relationship over time.
Based on the results of our research, we con-
clude that quality rather than quantity appears
to be a determining factor for the protective
effect of JFA a finding which family-based pre-
vention efforts should take into account when
dealing with adolescent problem behaviours.
Parents should be encouraged to engage in JFA
with their children, not so much as an end in
themselves, but as means to strengthen bonds of
mutual trust within the family and to create
opportunities for disclosure. Parents, therefore,
should try to choose joint activities that their
children would potentially enjoy.
Acknowledgment
This research project was supported by the Swiss
Federal Office of Public Health (Grant no. 04.001776
and 09.000925).
518 Journal of Health Psychology 17(4)
Note
1. Further information on the results of the principal
component analyses and the construction of the
indices can be obtained upon request from the
authors.
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