Early Adolescent Behavior Research Articles

The Effect of Academic Self-Concept on ADHD and Antisocial Behaviors in Early Adolescence

Using structural equation modeling techniques, we evaluated the effect of academic self-concept (ASC) on the development of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and antisocial behaviors in early adolescence. Participants (n = 445) were recruited from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research study. Eligibility was determined by the presence of complete data for the following variables at the specified time periods: reading at age 7, teacher reports of ADHD and antisocial behaviors at age 7, self-ratings of ASC at ages 9 and 11, and teacher reports of ADHD and antisocial behaviors at age 13. The results indicated that ASC is an important construct that directly contributes to the development of antisocial behaviors rather than to symptoms of ADHD. The results also indicated that children's early history of behavioral problems and academic performance contribute to the development of a more robust understanding of the impact of ASC on the development of disruptive behaviors in early adolescence.

Health behavior-based selection into educational tracks starts in early adolescence.

Health behaviors and educational tracks of an individual are here presumed to have a strengthening influence on each other during the developmental process, through which individuals gradually reach their adult health and social position. This longitudinal study of a Finnish nationally representative sample of 12 year olds born in 1970 (N = 1009) examined the associations of health behaviors at ages 12 and 14 with educational track at age 16. The dependent variable, educational track, classified the respondents into five successive categories, thought to predict their adult social position. Selection into different educational tracks according to health behaviors was obvious already at age 12, when frequency of tooth brushing, consumption of sweets, coffee drinking and level of participation in physical exercise predicted educational track independently of sociodemographic background. At age 14, the independent predictors were smoking, frequency of tooth brushing and coffee drinking. At both ages, sociodemographic factors had independent associations with educational track. It seems that certain health-related behaviors in early adolescence are indicators of a person's possibilities to benefit from a country's educational supply. Both sociodemographic background and health-related behaviors influence the process of selection into educational tracks leading to social position and health in adulthood.

Examining the Social Context of Bullying Behaviors in Early Adolescence

Familial and adult influences, peer relations, and distal contextual factors were tested as correlates of a continuous measure of bullying behavior within a sample of 558 middle school students. Only 19.5% of the sample reported exhibiting no bullying behavior in the past 30 days. Parental physical discipline, time spent without adult supervision, negative peer influences, and neighborhood safety concerns were each positively associated with bullying behavior. In contrast, positive adult role models were associated with less bullying behavior. Results suggest that counselors should focus prevention and intervention efforts on the risk factors within the larger social context of an adolescent's life.

A prospective study of familial and social influences on girls' body image and dieting

This study examines the emergence of body image concerns and dieting behaviors in early adolescence as a function of girls' perceptions of family relationships, maternal modeling of dieting behaviors and body image concerns, and familial and peer pressures to diet. Self-report measures were obtained from 77 White girls and their mothers in early adolescence (mean age = 12.3 years) and 1 year later. Girls' perceptions of family relations and mothers' perceptions of daughters' weight at Time 1 significantly predicted girls' dieting behavior 1 year later over and above Time 1 dieting and body image. Only girls' previous body image and dieting behaviors significantly predicted more body dissatisfaction 1 year later. Girls' body image was found to mediate the relationship between family relations and dieting at Time 1 assessment, but not over time. The importance of implementing early prevention and interventions programs is discussed.

Gender discrimination as a function of stereotypic and counterstereotypic behavior : A cross-cultural study

This study investigated gender discriminatory behavior of early adolescents from a cross-cultural perspective. One hundred sixty 7th-graders (80 Israeli Arabs and 80 Israeli Jews) were presented with two male candidates for class representative, one outstanding candidate with traditional feminine interests and characteristics, and the other an average candidate with masculine interests and characteristics. Participants were asked to rate the candidates on various measures such as their own election choice, others' election choice, their prediction of the candidate's likelihood of being elected, and their affinity and willingness to engage in activities with the candidate. The results showed that while both Arab and Jewish participants discriminated against the feminine candidate, the Arab participants discriminated to a much greater degree. The results emphasize the important role that culture plays in gender discriminatory behavior.

Measurement of antisocial behaviour in early adolescence and adolescence: psychometric properties and substantive findings

AbstractBackground/AimsThis article describes the development of a new self‐report instrument, the Bergen Questionnaire on Antisocial Behaviour, for the measurement of antisocial behaviour in preadolescence and early adolescence, and presents a number of substantive results derived from a multiple‐cohort, longitudinal study involving 2430 Norwegian students in the 10–16‐year age range.Method/ResultsInternal consistency analyses showed that individual differences in antisocial behaviour could generally be measured more reliably in boys than in girls, at an earlier age, and with a greater number of scales. The relatively high correlation between the high‐prevalence and low‐prevalence scales indicated that students who took part in more serious antisocial acts were to a much greater extent involved in less serious offences as well. We also found substantial correlations between smoking and use of alcohol and the core antisocial scales, suggesting that such behaviour may represent a kind of norm‐breaking, antisocial behaviour in these age‐groups.ConclusionsWe concluded that individual differences in antisocial behaviour displayed substantial stability over a one‐year interval (disattenuated Pearson correlation around 0.80) and, to a somewhat lesser degree, for a two‐year interval (disattenuated correlation around 0.60) for boys belonging to the oldest cohort. For girls and for students in the younger age cohorts, the stability was somewhat lower. A set of analyses involving expected sex and age differences, differences between self‐reported arrested and non‐arrested subjects, and correlations with a number of conceptually related variables attested to the construct validity of the key scales included in the questionnaire. In sum, the new questionnaire should be a useful instrument for the study of the development, causes and correlates of antisocial behaviour in relatively young populations. Copyright © 1999 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

Best Friendships, Group Relationships, and Antisocial Behavior in Early Adolescence

Correlations between adolescents' own antisocial behavior and adolescents' perceptions of the antisocial behavior of their best friends and friendship groups were examined in this study. The strength of those correlations was expected to vary as a function of the qualities of the dyadic friendships and group relationships. Perceptions of peers' antisocial behavior and dyadic friendship and group relationship qualities were collected through interviews with 431, 12- through 13-year-old adolescents. Measures of adolescents' concurrent and subsequent antisocial behaviors were obtained from the adolescents and their teachers. Adolescents who perceived their friends and groups as participating in antisocial behavior had higher self-reported and teacher-reported antisocial behavior ratings. Perceptions of best friend antisocial behavior were correlated more strongly with adolescents' own concurrent, but not subsequent, antisocial behavior when high levels of help, companionship, and security characterized dyadic friendships. The results are discussed in terms of peer influence and friendship selection processes.

Intra‐Individual Differences and Relationship‐Specificity of Mentalising in Early Adolescence

There is increasing interest in understanding how relationships promote children’s understanding of their own and others’ thoughts and feelings. A key question in this research is whether children’s ability and motivation to represent and nderstand anothers’ thoughts and feelings is a function of the quality of the relationship with that individual or, alternatively, a more general characteristic of the child that is similarly expressed across relationship contexts. The current study sought to extend previous research by assessing mentalising behaviour in early adolescence and examining intra‐individual differences in adolescents’ mentalising behaviour about self and other in different relationships. The research design exploited the natural experiment of the secondary school, in which children develop very diverse relationships with different teachers. In the spring of the academic year, a vignette‐based, semi‐structured interview was administered, and students’ understanding and attributions of mental states of their most and least liked teachers were coded using a newly developed system. Results indicated that there were significant intra‐individual differences in adolescents’ mentalising; the psychological sophistication with which adolescents understood and described another’s behaviour was predicted from the affective quality of the relationship. In addition, there was significantly less incongruity or distortion in adolescents’ mentalising about their most liked teacher compared with their least liked teacher, highlighting the need to consider not only the presence but also the ‘accuracy’ of mentalising.

Pubertal maturation and the development of behavioural and emotional problems in early adolescence.

Development of problem behaviour in early adolescence was predicted from change in pubertal stage and timing of pubertal development. Parent-reported (Child Behavior Checklist) and self-reported (Youth Self-Report) problem behaviour, pubertal stage and life events were assessed twice from a community sample of nearly 1300 Dutch children, aged 10-12 years at T1 and 12-14 years at T2. Pubertal change was a significant predictor of development in most parent-reported problems. Once initial differences in problems had been accounted for, the slower the progress in pubertal development, the higher the problem score at T2. Development of self-reported problems was independent of pubertal change. Pubertal timing predicted development of two parent-reported and three self-reported problem scales. Of the parent-reported problems, early maturation was associated with a decrease in boys' social problems and attention problems. Late maturing increased girls' social problems. Of the self-reported problems, early maturation was associated with an increase in girls' withdrawn and delinquent behaviour. Late maturing increased boys' attention problems. We conclude that pubertal development has small but significant effects on the development of problem behaviour in early adolescence.

Delinquent boys and precocious girls: Gender, school, and problem behaviour in early adolescence

Delinquent boys and precocious girls: Gender, school, and problem behaviour in early adolescence

Early Peer Rejection and Aggression: Longitudinal Relations with Adolescent Behavior

The purpose of the present study was to examine the longitudinal relations between peer nominations for aggression and rejection in first grade, and aggressive behavior, pyschological-well being, and academic achievement in early adolescence. We found that peer nominations of aggression as early as the first grade are predictive of multiple indicators of aggressive behavior in early adolescence, particularly for boys. Early peer rejection also appears to make a unique contribution to adolescent aggressive behavior and psychological wellbeing in the form of depressive symptoms. For girls, peer rejection also appears to be linked to poorer academic achievement. The present findings support the need for early interventions with aggressive and rejected children. Future research is needed to further delineate the processes by which early peer rejection and aggression are linked to later outcomes.

A Long-Term Program of Research on Drug Use and Crime

This paper describes the major findings emanating from a long-term research program conducted in Baltimore, Maryland, on the drugs-crime relationship. It is the compilation of experiences, studies, and findings related to the research career of David N. Nurco, D.S.W., and his colleagues. Covering a period of over 30 years, the program of research, described in the report from the personal perspective of Dr. Nurco, has moved from the study of the nature and correlates of narcotic drug use to the development of data-based interventions. Topics investigated involve many aspects of narcotic addiction, including the relationship between addiction status and crime rates; changes in addict behavior over time; individual variation among addicts in the type, frequency, and severity of crime; and an examination of the early adolescent behavior of males who eventually become narcotic addicts in contrast to that of their never-addicted peers. It concludes with a description of the program's ongoing research, principally dealing with community-based interventions. [Translations are provided in the International s Section of this issue.]

Growth curves of deviant behavior in early adolescence: A multilevel analysis

Multilevel growth curve models provide a means of analyzing individual differences in the growth of deviance, allow a number of theories to be integrated in a single model, and can help to unify research on deviant/delinquent/criminal careers at different stages of the life cycle. Building on the distinction between “population heterogeneity” and “state dependence” as alternative explanations of persistent individual differences in deviance (Heckman, 1981; Nagin and Paternoster, 1991), we show that models with two levels can be used to represent and analyze a variety of criminological theories. The first level (level 1) uses repeated measurements on individuals to estimate individual-level growth curves. The second level treats the level 1 growth curve parameters (e.g., slope, intercept) as outcome variables and uses time-invariant factors to explain variation in these parameters across individuals. We illustrate this approach by estimating a model of growth in deviance drawn from Gottfredson and Hirschi's deviant propensity theory. An innovative feature is the assumption that adolescents' expected growth curves of deviance follow a classical Pearl-Verhulst logistic growth model (Pearl, 1930). The results suggest that five risk factors—parental psychiatric problems, lack of parental support, living arrangements with zero or one parent in residence, low family income, and male gender—have strongly positive effects on deviant propensity. For example, adolescents with no supportive parents, and no other risk factors, have expected asymptotic levels of deviance (peak levels attained at about age 18) that are about twice as high as those of adolescents with no risk factors. Yet more than two-thirds of the individual-level variability in growth curves is unexplained by the five risk factors. This unobserved heterogeneity would remain hidden in analyses using conventional structural equations models and the same explanatory variables.

Age of initiating selected health-risk behaviors among high school students in the united states

To estimate and compare the age of initiation of alcohol use, cigarette smoking, sexual intercourse, and marijuana use among female and male students in U.S. high schools. Using data from the 1991 and 1993 national school-based Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, life-table analysis was used to create hypothetical cohorts to estimate age of initiation of selected health-risk behaviors. The sample size was 12,272 in 1991 and 16,296 in 1993, with an overall response rate of 68% in 1991 and 70% in 1993. Male students initiate each of these behaviors earlier than female students, but the pace of initiation for females accelerates so that by age 15 years the cumulative proportion of male and female students who have initiated these behaviors is similar. For both female and male students, the youngest cohort appears to initiate use of alcohol and sexual intercourse at earlier ages than older cohorts. Similarly, the younger cohorts of female students appear to initiate smoking cigarettes and using marijuana at earlier ages than older cohorts. Many high school students are initiating alcohol use, cigarette smoking, sexual intercourse, and marijuana use at early ages. These data suggest a need for intensive intervention programs by middle/junior high school to motivate and prepare students to avoid these behaviors. Clinicians should begin screening and counseling for risk behaviors in early adolescence.

Association of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure With Behavioral and Learning Problems in Early Adolescence

To examine the association of moderate levels of prenatal alcohol exposure with learning and behavior in early adolescence. A population-based cohort of 464 children were followed longitudinally from birth to age 14 years. Alcohol exposure was assessed via in-depth maternal self-report in the fifth month of pregnancy. At age 14, learning and behavior were assessed with multiple measures, tapping parent, teenager, and psychologist viewpoints, drawn from adolescent laboratory examination and parent phone interview. The underlying pattern of association between prenatal alcohol and adolescent outcome was detected using partial least-squares statistical techniques; confounding factors were dealt with by regression methods. Analyses revealed a statistically significant, subtle relationship between greater prenatal alcohol use and increased behavior/learning difficulties during adolescence, even after accounting for other developmental influences. "Binge" maternal drinking and exposure early in pregnancy were associated with a profile of adolescent antisocial behavior, school problems, and self-perceived learning difficulties. Fetal alcohol exposure (even at "social drinking" levels) is associated with developmental difficulties in adolescence that are consistent with problems seen earlier in life. Clinicians should understand the potential role prenatal alcohol exposure plays in behavioral and cognitive problems.

Attachment and Antisocial Behavior in Early Adolescence

One hundred sixty-three sixth, seventh, and eighth grade boys (n = 72) and girls (n = 91) were given the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment and a 23-item self-report measure of antisocial behavior. Correlations between attachment to mother, father, and best friend and antisocial behavior showed moderate, inverse associations for the sample as a whole. Explained variance in antisocial behavior predicted by attachment to best friend was redundant with parent attachment. Both for boys and girls, attachment to father was the strongest predictor of antisocial behavior. For boys, attachment relationships with best friends were related to antisocial behavior and parent attachment. For girls, relationships with best friends were independent of other attachments and antisocial behavior. Across the 11-year through 14-year age span studied here, girls showed a positive correlation between age and aggressive antisocial behavior

Problem behavior as a precursor of male criminality

AbstractThe participants (originally 196 boys and 173 girls) in an ongoing longitudinal study were examined using peer nomination and teacher rating at ages 8 and 14 years. Criminal records were collected at age 27 years. The results showed that (a) criminal offenses were best predicted if the accumulation of behavior problems over the school years was considered; (b) the risk for different types of offenses was highest for boys who exhibited escalating conduct problems and school failure over the school years; (c) norm-breaking behavior in early adolescence was strongly related to a propensity to later criminal offenses; (d) childhood aggressiveness did not predict arrests without the presence of other problems. When followed by norm-breaking in early adolescence, it predicted violent offenses, and when followed by poor school success, it predicted property offenses; (e) interestingly, low prosociality turned out to have a significant independent relationship to arrests; and (f) the distinction between an early-onset path and a late-onset path proved to be valid.

Childhood Stress and Family Environment

L'etude menee aupres des enfants d'un village rural sur la cote orientale de Dominique montre la relation entre le stress et la composition du groupe domestique (âge, sexe, relation intergenerationnelle, nombre de personnes). Les enfants vivant dans des foyers ou prendre soin d'eux est une attitude frequente et stable ont un niveau de cortisol modere contrairement aux enfants connaissant des evenements familiaux traumatiques

Parental influences on deviant behavior in early adolescence: A logistic response analysis of age- and gender-differentiated effects

We used data from a 601-family longitudinal study to estimate the separate and combined effects of three risk factors—parental psychiatric disorders (principally depression and substance abuse), supportive parent-child communications, and household income—on the development of deviant behavior in boys and girls aged 11–14. Using logistic response models, we concluded that having fewer than two supportive parents generally increases the risk of deviant behavior, but more so for boys than for girls. This effect is amplified when one or more parent(s) has a chronic mental disorder, but thecombination of fewer than two supportive parentsand one psychiatrically impaired parent has a particularly marked effect on girls. Moreover, older children's behavior is affected more dramatically by parental mental disorders, especially among girls; 13 to 14-year-old girls with both parental risk factors are virtually as deviant as male agemates with both risks. Each one of these effects is present regardless of family income level; however, net of these risks, household income is negatively associated with deviant behavior—a 10% increase in income is associated with a 1.3% decrease in adolescent deviance.

Autonomy, relatedness, and the initiation of health risk behaviors in early adolescence.

Autonomy, relatedness, and the initiation of health risk behaviors in early adolescence.