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Chapter 3 - Developmental Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

Richard Howard  and
Conor Duggan
Richard Howard
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Conor Duggan
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Summary

This chapter reviews what is known about the developmental antecedents of adult antisocial personality. It addresses the question of why it is that, while many people may have personality difficulties, a minority develop a severe and persistent dysfunction of personality that is more or less life-long, leading them into a pattern of chronic antisocial behaviour. Findings reviewed in this chapter suggest that the route to adult antisociality is marked by a cascade of developmental roadblocks and insults arising during childhood and adolescence. The authors emphasise the importance of adolescence as a period when things can go seriously awry and personality can deviate from a normal track. They further emphasise the critical importance of substance abuse, particularly the misuse of alcohol, in the genesis of life-course-persistent antisociality. Two possible developmental pathways are described, one predominantly male, the other predominantly female, through which adult antisociality results from adverse circumstances in childhood and adolescence.

Keywords

developmentadolescencechildhoodpathwaysdrug abusealcohol abusebrain injury.
Type
Chapter
Information
Antisocial Personality
Theory, Research, Treatment
 , pp. 43 - 58
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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