Diagnosis Of Antisocial Personality Research Articles

Diagnostic consistency in antisocial personality.

The authors' study, based on an eight- to nine-year follow-up of convicted male felons, indicates that consistency in the diagnosis of antisocial personality is related to the extent of the original history of delinquent and criminal behavior. Inconsistency appears to be a manifestation of milder antisocial personality.

Adult Psychiatric Status of Black Schoolboys

A study was made of the adult psychiatric status of 235 young black men of average or better intelligence who were urban-born and urban-educated. The frequency of psychiatric disorders and the childhood variables foreshadowing those disorders are compared with findings from an earlier study of white child-guidance-clinic patients and normal white controls reared in the same city. Despite discrimination, young urban black men apparently differ little from whites in rates of psychiatric disorders. Among the three childhood variables investigated, the child's own antisocial behavior was a more powerful predictor of adult psychiatric status than was either his family's social status or his father's history of antisocial behavior. This same result had been noted for whites. All three childhood predictors were positively associated with the diagnosis of antisocial personality in adult life.