Relationship between Mental Health Symptoms and Reactive and Proactive Aggression Among Females in Residential Juvenile Justice Facilities

Abstract

The female juvenile justice population has been traditionally overlooked in research, though it is the fastest-growing segment of the justice system. Intervention development should focus on this population, which is particularly high in both mental health symptom prevalence and levels and rates of aggression. This study examined the relationship between mental health symptoms (internalizing and externalizing) and aggression (reactive and proactive) among girls in residential juvenile justice facilities, and proposed mediators of this relationship (outcome expectations, hostile attribution bias, and anger). Multiple regression analyses indicated that symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder were associated with reactive aggression and with proactive aggression when controlling for symptoms of major depressive disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Parallel mediation analyses revealed that anger significantly mediated the relationships between the predictor variables of internalizing symptoms, generalized anxiety disorder, and externalizing symptoms and the outcome variables of reactive and proactive aggression, while outcome expectations and hostile attribution bias did not. Implications for future intervention development and research and limitations are discussed.%%%%M.S., Psychology – Drexel University, 2016