Testing Descriptive Hypotheses Regarding Sex Differences in the Development of Conduct Problems and Delinquency

Abstract

Accurate descriptions of sex differences in the development of childhood conduct problems and adolescent delinquency will inform theories of their causes in fundamentally important ways. Using data on 4,572 offspring of a national sample of women, we tested descriptive hypotheses regarding sex differences. As predicted, the magnitude of sex differences varied with age, suggesting that multiple processes differentially influence levels of these behaviors in females and males across development. During childhood, boys scored lower on measures of cognitive ability and exhibited lower sociability and compliance and greater hyperactivity, oppositional behavior, and conduct problems. Most of these variables were associated with childhood conduct problems and adolescent delinquency equally in females and males, but maternal delinquency and early childhood sociability were correlated more strongly with childhood conduct problems in males and childhood compliance predicted adolescent delinquency more strongly in females. Both sexes exhibited both childhood-onset and adolescent-onset trajectories of delinquency. Although more males followed a childhood-onset trajectory, there were few sex differences in the early childhood risk correlates of either delinquency trajectory.

The influence of auditory short-term memory on behavior problem development

“…Given the consistency between certain findings from this study and previous research regarding the relations between STM and anxious/ depressed behaviors (Johnson & Gronlund, 2009), hyperactive behaviors (Hale et al, 2002;Petersen et al 2013), and certain externalizing behaviors (Ripley & Yuill, 2005;Lahey et al, 2006), cognitive interventions might benefit children who demonstrate anxious/depressed, antisocial, and hyperactive behaviors. Cognitive interventions designed to improve STM indicate that STM deficits can be remediated (e.g.…”

“…Results suggested one path interaction; specifically, sex moderates the effect of phonological storage on the slope of antisocial behavior; however, Lahey et al (2006) did not find that sex moderates the effect of STM on conduct problems. The difference between the findings of these studies may be due to the use of the Digit Span score as a combination of the phonological storage and phonological rehearsal as a single score in the study by Lahey et al, as opposed to the separate analysis of the effects of phonological storage and phonological rehearsal on behavior problems in the current study.…”

“…In summary, previous research suggests the following findings: first, behavior problems develop at different rates in children (Bongers et al, 2003;Bub et al, 2007;Fanti & Henrich, 2010;Grimm et al, 2009;Kolfler et al, 2011;Reynolds et al, 2010); second, sex moderates the development of behavior problems with males initially demonstrating higher eternalizing behaviors and females initially demonstrating higher internalizing behaviors (Bongers et al, 2003;Lahey et al, 2006); third, there are distinct subcomponents of STM (i.e., phonological storage and phonological rehearsal; Baddeley, 2003); and fourth, the subcomponents of STM are related to behavior problems (Bolden, Rapport, Raiker, Sarver, & Kofler, 2012;Hale et al, 2002). What is unknown, however, and what this study will uniquely examine, is whether phonological storage and rehearsal affect the development of behavior problems and whether sex moderates this effect.…”

Prospective Association of Childhood Receptive Vocabulary and Conduct Problems with Self-Reported Adolescent Delinquency: Tests of Mediation and Moderation in Sibling-Comparison Analyses

“…Mothers rated each of their children using a 3-point scale for each item: often true = 3, sometimes true = 2, or not true = 1. We used mean ratings of BPI items selected a priori and confirmed in confirmatory factor analysis of items referring to disruptive behavior (D'Onofrio et al, 2008) to create a conduct problem score: “cheats or tells lies;” “has trouble getting along with teachers”; “disobedient at home”; “disobedient at school”; “bullies or is cruel or mean to others”; “breaks things on purpose or deliberately destroys his/her own or another's things”; and “does not seem to feel sorry after misbehaving.” Across the 10 assessments over ages 4–13 years, the range of Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from .68–.80, median = .74 (Lahey et al, 2006). These childhood conduct problem items used in the CNLSY overlap substantially with those used in previous population-based longitudinal studies (Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson, Silva, & Stanton, 1996).…”

“…These childhood conduct problem items used in the CNLSY overlap substantially with those used in previous population-based longitudinal studies (Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson, Silva, & Stanton, 1996). This measure of childhood CP is valid in the sense of robustly predicting convictions for nontrivial offenses during adolescence in the CNLSY (Lahey, et al, 2006). For the present analyses, the conduct problem scores were the average of all assessments conducted during ages 4 through 9 years.…”