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

Abstract

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.

Branched-chain amino acids linked to depression in young adults

“…Additional analyses used depressive symptom scores captured before the metabolite data (at age 22); thus, eight separate models per metabolite were run using GBI self-rating (age 17), MPNI self-rating (age 17), MPNI co-twin rating (age 17), MPNI self-rating (age 14), MPNI cotwin rating (age 14), MPNI teacher rating (age 14), MPNI teacher rating (age 12), or MPNI parent rating (age 12) as the main independent variable, adjusted for age, sex, BMI, and familial relatedness. Previous investigations have shown that different raters and ages can provide unique contributions to associations with mental health ratings (Whipp et al, 2019(Whipp et al, , 2021a. The depressive symptom scores were standardized with mean 0, SD 1 for comparability.…”

“…An MPNI p factor variable was created by combining all the behavioral and emotional problem subscales together into a sum score, with no missing items allowed. A composite "combined" p factor score was also created by taking the mean of parent (12), teacher (12), and self ( 14) p factor values because we know that ratings from different raters are not highly correlated (Achenbach et al, 1987;Whipp et al, 2019Whipp et al, , 2021a. The combined p factor is used in initial analyses to reduce issues of multiple testing, as was applied in our previous aggression biomarker study (Whipp et al, 2021b).…”

“…Depression is often found as a comorbidity with other psychopathologies (e.g., anxiety, attention problems, and aggression) (Jaffee et al, 2002;Caspi et al, 2014;Bartels et al, 2018;Whipp et al, 2021a), and these pathologies are also correlated genetically (Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Electronic address, 2019; Sprooten et al, 2022). Thus, it is also worth investigating biomarkers at a broader level of mental health, for example, the p factor.…”

Taking the chance!–Interindividual differences in rule-breaking

“…How rule-breaking as an individual tendency towards norms favours behaving "right" or "wrong" concerns morality and remains an open question. Rule-breaking can lead to adverse outcomes (e.g., legal problems, scientific misconduct, aggression; [126][127][128][129][130][131][132]), but it also has advantages [133]. Examples of positive consequences of rule-breaking include being seen as a person with moral courage [134,135], good heart (e.g., nurses helping patients even when going against clinic statements; [136]), being creative [137], or becoming an entrepreneur (e.g., increasing your earnings by selling new products that overcome the established rules in the market; [138]).…”

Children’s intrapsychic processes and aggressive-defiance behaviors as a function of sex.

“…When children harm others, they often do so by expressing behaviors valued by their respective sex groups (Martínez-González et al, 2021; Whipp et al, 2021; Wolke et al, 2009; Wood & Eagly, 2002). While male children tend to demonstrate dominance through more overt relational verbal and physical behaviors (i.e., threatening, hitting, and pushing), female children are more likely to injure others in a more subtle yet fully relational manner (i.e., threatening, exclusion, gossiping, withdrawal; Archer & Coyne, 2005; Card et al, 2008; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995).…”