Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:08:00.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social and economic antecedents and consequences of adolescent aggressive personality: Predictions from the interactionist model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2015

Rand D. Conger ,
Monica J. Martin ,
April S. Masarik ,
Keith F. Widaman  and
M. Brent Donnellan
Rand D. Conger*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Monica J. Martin
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
April S. Masarik
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Keith F. Widaman
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
M. Brent Donnellan
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Rand D. Conger, Family Research Group, 202 Cousteau Place, Suite 100, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; E-mail: rdconger@ucdavis.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present study examined the development of a cohort of 279 early adolescents (52% female) from 1990 to 2005. Guided by the interactionist model of socioeconomic status and human development, we proposed that parent aggressive personality, economic circumstances, interparental conflict, and parenting characteristics would affect the development of adolescent aggressive personality traits. In turn, we hypothesized that adolescent aggressiveness would have a negative influence on adolescent functioning as an adult in terms of economic success, personality development, and close relationships 11 years later. Findings were generally supportive of the interactionist model proposition that social and economic difficulties in the family of origin intensify risk for adolescent aggressive personality (the social causation hypothesis) and that this personality trait impairs successful transition to adult roles (the social selection hypothesis) in a transactional process over time and generations. These results underscore how early development leads to child influences that appear to directly hamper the successful transition to adult roles (statistical main effects) and also amplify the negative impact of dysfunctional family systems on the transition to adulthood (statistical interaction effects). The findings suggest several possible points of intervention that might help to disrupt this negative developmental sequence of events.

Type
Special Section Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 27 , Issue 4pt1 , November 2015 , pp. 1111 - 1127
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, P. D. (2003). Missing data techniques for structural equation modeling. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112, 545–557.Google Scholar
Amato, P. R., & Booth, A. (2001). The legacy of parents’ marital discord: Consequences for children's marital quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 627–638.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, C. A., Buckley, K. E., & Carnagey, N. L. (2008). Creating your own hostile environment: A laboratory examination of train aggressiveness and the violence escalation cycle. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 462–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angell, R. C. (1936). The family encounters the depression. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Arbuckle, J. L. (1996). Full information estimation in the presence of incomplete data. In Marcoulides, G. A. & Schumacker, R. E. (Eds.), Advanced structural equation modeling: Issues and techniques (pp. 243–277). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2002). The inheritance of inequality. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 16, 3–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. H., & Corwyn, R. F. (2002). Socioeconomic status and child development. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 371–399.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, M. W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In Bollen, K. A. & Long, J. S. (Eds.), Testing structural equal models (pp. 136–162). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Conger, R. D., & Conger, K. J. (2002). Resilience in Midwestern families: Selected findings from the first decade of a prospective, longitudinal study. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 361–373.Google Scholar
Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., & Martin, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual development. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 685–704.Google Scholar
Conger, R. D., & Donnellan, M. B. (2007). An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 175–199.Google Scholar
Conger, R. D., Ebert-Wallace, L., Sun, Y., Simons, R. L., McLoyd, V. C., & Brody, G. H. (2002). Economic pressure in African American families: A replication and extension of the family stress model. Developmental Psychology, 38, 179–193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conger, R. D., & Elder, G. H. Jr. (1994). Families in troubled times: The Iowa Youth and Families Project. In Conger, R. D. & Elder, G. H. Jr. (Eds.), Families in troubled times: Adapting to change in rural America (pp. 3–19). Hillsdale, NJ: Aldine.Google Scholar
Conger, R. D., Schofield, T. K., Conger, K. J., & Neppl, T. K. (2010). Economic pressure, parent personality and child development: An interactionist analysis. Historical Social Research, 35, 169–196.Google Scholar
Conger, R. D., Schofield, T. J., & Neppl, T. K. (2012). Intergenerational continuity and discontinuity in harsh parenting. Parenting: Science and Practice, 12, 222–231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1985). The NEO Personality Inventory manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
Cui, M., Durtschi, J. A., Donnellan, M. B., Lorenz, F. O., & Conger, R. D. (2010). Intergenerational transmission of relationship aggression: A prospective longitudinal study. Journal of Family Psychology, 24, 688–697.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Coie, J. D., & Lynam, D. (2006). Aggression and antisocial behavior in youth. In Damon, W. & Lerner, R. M. (Series Ed.) & Eisenberg, N. (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional and personality development (6th ed., pp. 437–472). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Donnellan, M. B., Conger, R. D., & Burzette, B. G. (2005). Criterion-related validity, self–other agreement, and longitudinal analyses for the Iowa Personality Questionnaire: A short alternative to the MPQ. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 458–485.Google Scholar
Donnellan, M. B., Conger, R. D., & Burzette, R. G. (2007). Personality development from late adolescence to young adulthood: Differential stability, normative maturity, and evidence for the maturity-stability hypothesis. Journal of Personality, 75, 237–263.Google Scholar
Donnellan, M. B., Conger, K. J., McAdams, K. K., & Neppl, T. K. (2009). Personal characteristics and resilience to economic hardship and its consequences: Conceptual issues and empirical illustrations. Journal of Personality, 77, 1–31.Google Scholar
Donnellan, M. B., Larsen-Rife, D., & Conger, R. D. (2005). Personality, family history, and competence in early adult romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 562–576.Google Scholar
Duncan, G. J., & Magnuson, K. A. (2003). Off with Hollingshead: Socioeconomic resources, parenting, and child development. In Bornstein, M. H. & Bradley, R. H. (Eds.), Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development (pp. 83–106). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Edens, J. F., Marcus, D. K., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Poythress, N. G. Jr. (2006). Psychopathic, not psychopath: Taxometric evidence for the dimensional structure of psychopathy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 131–144.Google Scholar
Feinstein, L., & Bynner, J. (2004). The importance of cognitive development in middle childhood for adulthood socioeconomic status, mental health, and problem behavior. Child Development, 75, 1329–1339.Google Scholar
Furstenberg, F. F., Cook, T. D., Eccles, J., Elder, G. H., & Sameroff, A. J. (1999). Managing to make it: Urban families and adolescent success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gershoff, E. T., Aber, J. L., Raver, C. C., & Lennon, M. C. (2007). Income is not enough: Incorporating material hardship into models of income associations with parenting and child development. Child Development, 78, 70–95.Google Scholar
Haas, S. A. (2006). Health selection and the process of social stratification: The effect of childhood health on socioeconomic attainment. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 47, 339–354.Google Scholar
Harkness, A. R., Tellegen, A., & Waller, N. (1995). Differential convergence of self-report and informant data for Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire traits: Implications for the construct of negative emotionality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 64, 185–204.Google Scholar
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6, 1–55.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., & Baker, J. H. (2007). Genetic influences on measures of the environment: A systematic review. Psychological Medicine, 37, 615–626.Google Scholar
Kessler, R. C., McGonagle, K. A., Zhao, S., Nelson, C. B., Hughes, M., & Eshleman, S. (1994). Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in the United States: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51, 8–19.Google Scholar
Kim, H. K., Pears, K. C., Capaldi, D. M., & Owen, L. D. (2009). Emotion dysregulation in the intergenerational transmission of romantic relationship conflict. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 585–595.Google Scholar
Kinsfogel, K. M., & Grych, J. H. (2004). Interparental conflict and adolescent dating relationships: Integrating cognitive, emotional, and peer influences. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 505–515.Google Scholar
Klein, A., & Moosbrugger, H. (2000). Maximum likelihood estimation of latent interaction effects with the LMS method. Psychometrika, 65, 457–474.Google Scholar
Krueger, R. F., Markon, K. E., Patrick, C. J., & Iacono, W. G. (2005). Externalizing psychopathology in adulthood: A dimensional-spectrum conceptualization and its implications for DSM-V. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 537–550.Google Scholar
Linver, M. R., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Kohen, D. (2002). Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development. Developmental Psychology, 38, 719–734.Google Scholar
Little, T. D., Cunningham, W. A., Shahar, G., & Widaman, K. F. (2002). To parcel or not to parcel: Exploring the question, weighing the merits. Structural Equation Modeling, 9, 151–173.Google Scholar
Little, T. D., Rhemtulla, M., Gibson, K., & Schoemann, A. M. (2013). Why the items versus parcels controversy needn't be one. Psychological Methods, 18, 285–300.Google Scholar
Magidson, J. F., Roberts, B. W., Collado-Rodriguez, A., & Lejuez, C. W. (2014). Theory-driven intervention for changing personality: Expectancy value theory, behavioral activation, and conscientiousness. Developmental Psychology, 50, 1442–1450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Magnusson, D., & Stattin, H. (1998). Person–context interaction theories. In Damon, W. & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (pp. 685–759). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Marcus, D. K., John, S. L., & Edens, J. F. (2004). A taxometric analysis of psychopathic personality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 626–635.Google Scholar
Markon, K. E., Chmielewski, M., & Miller, C. J. (2011). The reliability and validity of discrete and continuous measures of psychopathology: A quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 856–879.Google Scholar
Martin, M. J., Conger, R. D., Schofield, T. J., Dogan, S. J., Widaman, K. F. Donnellan, M. B., et al. (2010). Evaluation of the interactionist model of socioeconomic status and problem behavior: A developmental cascade across generations. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 697–715.Google Scholar
Mayer, S. (1997). What money can't buy: Family income and children's life chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McLeod, J. D., & Kaiser, K. (2004). Childhood emotional and behavioral problems and educational attainment. American Sociological Review, 69, 636–658.Google Scholar
Melby, J. N., & Conger, R. D. (2001). The Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales: Instrument summary. In Kerig, P. K. & Lindahl, K. M. (Eds.), Family observational coding systems: Resources for systematic research (pp. 33–57). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Miles, D. R., & Carey, G. (1997). Genetic and environmental architecture of human aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 207–217.Google Scholar
Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., et al. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 2693–2698.Google Scholar
Murrie, D. C., Marcus, D. K., Douglas, K. S., Lee, Z., Salekin, R. T., & Vincent, G. (2007). Youth with psychopathy features are not a discrete class: A taxometric analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 714–723.Google Scholar
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (1998–2014). Mplus user's guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles: Author.Google Scholar
Rhee, S. H., & Waldman, D. (2002). Genetic and environmental influences on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 490–529.Google Scholar
Rowe, D. C., & Rodgers, J. L. (1997). Poverty and behavior: Are environmental measures nature and nurture? Developmental Review, 17, 358–375.Google Scholar
Rueter, M. A., Holm, K. E., Burzette, R., Kim, K. J., & Conger, R. D. (2007). Mental health of rural young adults: Prevalence of psychiatric disorders, comorbidity, and service utilization. Community Mental Health Journal, 43, 229–239.Google Scholar
Rushton, J. P., Fulker, D. W., Neale, M. C., Nias, D. K. B., & Eysenck, H. J. (1986). Altruism and aggression: The heritability of individual differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 1192–1198.Google Scholar
Rutter, M. (2003). Commentary: Causal processes leading to antisocial behavior. Developmental Psychology, 39, 372–378.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A. J. (1998). Environmental risk factors in infancy. Pediatrics, 102, 1287–1292.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A. J. (2010). A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture. Child Development, 81, 6–22.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A. J., Seifer, R., Barocas, R., Zax, M., & Greenspan, S. (1987). Intelligence quotient scores of 4-year-old children: Social-environmental risk factors. Pediatrics, 79, 343–350.Google Scholar
Schofield, T. J., Martin, M. J., Conger, K. J., Neppl, T. M., Donnellan, M. B., & Conger, R. D. (2011). Intergenerational transmission of adaptive functioning: A test of the interactionist model of SES and human development. Child Development, 82, 33–47.Google Scholar
Shiner, R. L., Masten, A. S., & Roberts, J. M. (2003). Childhood personality foreshadows adult personality and life outcomes two decades later. Journal of Personality, 71, 1145–1170.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. A., & Collins, W. A. (2005). The development of the person: The Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation from birth to adulthood. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Trentacosta, C. J., Neppl, T. K., Donnellan, M. B., Scaramella, L. V., Shaw, D. S., & Conger, R. D. (2010). Adolescent personality as a prospective predictor of parenting: An interactionist perspective. Journal of Family Psychology, 24, 721–730.Google Scholar