Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development: Insights about Aggression after Five Decades

Pulkkinen, Lea

doi:10.1017/9781316847992.003

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Finding similar associations when using teacher-rated GPA and standardized test scores suggests that the associations between aggression and academic performance are not dependent on the type of performance rating. Looking across cohorts, the correlations between aggression and academic performance were strongest in adolescence at ages 15 and 16 which corresponds to the findings that adolescent aggression is more strongly associated with negative outcomes than childhood aggression (Pulkkinen, 2018). Considering analyses with parental and self-rated aggression, we observed significant heterogeneity between studies in individual level analyses.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…Childhood and adolescent aggression are risk factors for many negative outcomes in childhood, adolescence and in adulthood, including criminality, greater risk of substance use disorders and psychiatric disorders (Fergusson, Horwood, & Ridder, 2005b), particularly if childhood aggression continues into adolescence and aggression is high in intensity (Pulkkinen, 2017;Pulkkinen, 2018). Aggressive children and adolescents are also at risk for school maladjustment, poor school performance and lower educational attainment, and consequently, for lack of occupational alternatives, poorer adjustment to work life, long-term unemployment and social exclusion (Bynner & Parsons, 2002;Fergusson et al, 2005b;Hinshaw, 1992;Kokko & Pulkkinen, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Higher aggression is related to poorer academic performance in compulsory education

Vuoksimaa

Rose

Pulkkinen

et al. 2020

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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Background: To conduct a comprehensive assessment of the association between aggression and academic performance in compulsory education. Method: We studied aggression and academic performance in over 27,000 individuals from four European twin cohorts participating in the ACTION consortium (Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and InterventiON strategies). Individual level data on aggression at ages 7-16 were assessed by three instruments (Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) including parental, teacher and self-reports. Academic performance was measured with teacher-rated grade point averages (ages 12-14) or standardized test scores (ages 12-16). Random effect meta-analytical correlations with academic performance were estimated for parental ratings (in all four cohorts) and self-ratings (in three cohorts). Results: All between-family analyses indicated significant negative aggression-academic performance associations with correlations ranging from À.06 to À.33. Results were similar across different ages, instruments and raters and either with teacher-rated grade point averages or standardized test scores as measures of academic performance. Meta-analytical r's were À.20 and À.23 for parental and self-ratings, respectively. In within-family analyses of all twin pairs, the negative aggression-academic performance associations were statistically significant in 14 out of 17 analyses (r = À.17 for parental-and r = À.16 for self-ratings). Separate analyses in monozygotic (r = À.07 for parental and self-ratings), same-sex dizygotic (r's = À.16 and À.17 for parental and self-ratings) and opposite-sex dizygotic (r's = À.21 and À.19 for parental and self-ratings) twin pairs suggested partial confounding by genetic effects. Conclusions: There is a robust negative association between aggression and academic performance in compulsory education. Part of these associations were explained by shared genetic effects, but some evidence of a negative association between aggression and academic performance remained even in within-family analyses of monozygotic twin pairs.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher aggression is related to poorer academic performance in compulsory education

Vuoksimaa

Rose

Pulkkinen

et al. 2020

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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“…Although aggression levels in childhood and adolescence are generally higher than in adulthood, aggression levels are relatively stable in their rank order among similar aged peers [44,45]. There is longitudinal continuity in aggression from adolescence to adulthood [46], which is the development period covered in the present study. Additionally, a fairly recent study with similar temporal data collection limitations, using childhood aggression measures (as developmental trajectories) and biological samples in young adulthood, was able to identify cytokines (a measure of inflammation) as a novel group of biomarkers for aggression[5].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ketone body 3-hydroxybutyrate: a biomarker of aggression?

Whipp

Vuoksimaa

Korhonen

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Human aggression is a complex behavior, the biological underpinnings of which remain poorly known. To gain insights into aggression biology, we studied relationships with aggression of 11 low-molecular-weight metabolites (amino acids, ketone bodies), processed using 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. We used a discovery sample of young adults and an independent adult replication sample. We studied 725 young adults from a population-based Finnish twin cohort born 1983-87, with aggression levels rated in adolescence (ages 12, 14, 17) by multiple raters and blood plasma samples at age 22. Linear regression models specified metabolites as the dependent and aggression ratings as independent variables, and included several fixed effects. All metabolites showed low correlations with aggression, with only one - 3-hydroxybutyrate, a ketone body produced during fasting - showing significant (negative) associations with aggression. Effect sizes for different raters were generally similar in magnitude, while teacher-rated (age 12) and self-rated aggression (age 14) were both significant predictors of 3-hydroxybutyrate in multi-rater models. In an independent replication sample of 960 adults from the Netherlands Twin Register, higher self-rated aggression was also related to lower levels of 3-hydroxybutyrate. These exploratory epidemiologic results warrant further studies on the role of ketone metabolism in aggression.

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“…While these specific manifestations of aggression are important to understand and manage for the safety of all in the school environment, broadly defined aggression may be an important marker for a wider set of behavioral problems that co-occur with it. Aggressive behavior itself is heterogenous in nature and can involve overt and covert as well as planned and unplanned actions and rarely occurs in isolation [3][4][5]. All children express such behaviors to varying degrees across development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teacher-rated aggression and co-occurring behaviors and emotional problems among schoolchildren in four population-based European cohorts

et al. 2021

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Aggressive behavior in school is an ongoing concern. The current focus is on specific manifestations such as bullying, but the behavior is broad and heterogenous. Children spend a substantial amount of time in school, but their behaviors in the school setting tend to be less well characterized than at home. Because aggression may index multiple behavioral problems, we used three validated instruments to assess means, correlations and gender differences of teacher-rated aggressive behavior with co-occurring externalizing/internalizing problems and social behavior in 39,936 schoolchildren aged 7–14 from 4 population-based cohorts from Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK. Correlations of aggressive behavior were high with all other externalizing problems (r: 0.47–0.80) and lower with internalizing problems (r: 0.02–0.39). A negative association was observed with prosocial behavior (r: -0.33 to -0.54). Mean levels of aggressive behavior differed significantly by gender. Despite the higher mean levels of aggressive behavior in boys, the correlations were notably similar for boys and girls (e.g., aggressive-hyperactivity correlations: 0.51–0.75 boys, 0.47–0.70 girls) and did not vary greatly with respect to age, instrument or cohort. Thus, teacher-rated aggressive behavior rarely occurs in isolation; boys and girls with problems of aggressive behavior likely require help with other behavioral and emotional problems. Important to note, higher aggressive behavior is not only associated with higher amounts of other externalizing and internalizing problems but also with lower levels of prosocial behavior.

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Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development: Insights about Aggression after Five Decades

Cited by 7 publications

References 50 publications

Higher aggression is related to poorer academic performance in compulsory education

Higher aggression is related to poorer academic performance in compulsory education

Ketone body 3-hydroxybutyrate: a biomarker of aggression?

Teacher-rated aggression and co-occurring behaviors and emotional problems among schoolchildren in four population-based European cohorts

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