The Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression

Kenneth H. Rubin, Debra J. Pepler

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780805803709
• eBook ISBN: 9781134746415
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Comprised of papers and commentaries from the Earlscourt Symposium on Childhood Aggression held in Toronto, Canada, this volume reflects the Earlscourt Child and Family Centre's commitment to linking clinical practice to identifiable research-based interventions which are known to be effective in the prevention and treatment of antisocial behavior in children.

The education of human services professionals has typically failed to train individuals to work with specific client populations, providing a generalist approach grounded in theoretical assumptions and professional values rather than research and empirical studies. This compelling book serves to fill this gap in professional education in the area of childhood aggression. Representing substantial accomplishments in the advancement of an understanding of the plight of aggressive children and how best to ameliorate their often unpredictable and painful situations, this text allows for cautious optimism that empirical research can have practical consequences for aggressive children and their prospects for a better life. As such, it is a truly important information resource for professionals in the fields of developmental psychology and counseling.

I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CHILDHOOD AGGRESSION

Section 1:
Descriptive and Predictive Studies
of Childhood Aggression

1

Childhood Aggression and Adult Violence:
Early Precursors and Later-Life Outcomes

David P. Farrington
Cambridge University

Farrington (1978) found that there was significant continuity in aggressiveness over time in a sample of London males. Teacher-rated aggressiveness at age 8 predicted self-reported violence at age 18. The extensive reviews by Olweus (1979, 1980, 1984a) show that these results are not untypical. In 16 surveys covering periods of up to 21 years, the average stability coefficient (correlation) for male aggression was .68. Further, this average stability coefficient decreased linearly with the time interval, according to the following equation:

y = .78 − .018 x

(where y = stability coefficient and x = time interval in years). This chapter is not concerned with female aggression, but this also seems to be relatively stable over time (Olweus, 1981, 1984b). Olweus concluded that there were relatively stable aggressive reaction tendencies within individuals.

One of the most impressive and longest lasting studies of the continuity of aggressiveness was carried out by Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz, and Walder (1984). They followed up several hundred children from New York State, and found that peer-rated aggression at age 8 significantly predicted self-reported aggression at age 30 (for males, as in other studies quoted here). Similar results were reported by Eron and Huesmann (1984) and Eron, Huesmann, Dubow, Romanoff, and Yarmel (1987). Studies spanning shorter time periods have also reported significant continuity in aggression for males (e.g., Bachman, O'Malley, & Johnston, 1978; Moskowitz, Schwartzman, & Ledingham, 1985; Pulkkinen & Hurme, 1984; Stattin & Magnusson, 1984). The first aim of this chapter is to extend the analyses of Farrington (1978) up to the adult years (age 32) to investigate the degree of continuity in aggression from age 8 to age 32.

It is clear that early aggression also predicts later delinquency and crime, as the reviews by Loeber and Dishion (1983) and Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber (1987) show. For example, Huesmann et al. (1984) found that peer-rated aggression at age 8 significantly predicted convictions up to age 30. In an impressive 40-year follow-up study in Massachusetts, McCord (1983) reported that aggressive adolescents were more likely to be convicted of index crimes than were nonaggressive adolescents. Also, in two studies in the mid-West of America, teacher-rated aggression significantly predicted juvenile delinquency and adult crime over periods of 8 years (Feldhusen, Aversano, & Thurston, 1976; Feldhusen, Thurston, & Benning, 1973) and 15 years (Roff, 1986; Roff & Wirt, 1984, 1985). In Chicago, Ensminger, Kellam, and Rubin (1983), and Kellam, Brown, Rubin and Ensminger (1983) reported that teacher-rated aggression in first grade significantly predicted self-reported delinquency 10 years later.

Early aggression also predicts later violent crime, as Farrington (1978) demonstrated. Similarly, in Finland, Pulkkinen (1983) showed that peer and teacher ratings of aggression at age 8 predicted violent offenses up to age 20; and, in Sweden, Magnusson, Stattin, and Duner (1983) reported that teacher-rated aggression at ages 10 and 13 predicted violent offenses up to age 26 (see also Magnusson, 1988). It is also clear that juvenile violent offenses predict adult violent offenses (e.g., Hamparian, Davis, Jacobson, & McGraw, 1985).

Little is known about other later-life outcomes of boys who are aggressive at an early age, although Huesmann, Eron, and Yarmel (1987) found that peer-rated aggression at age 8 significantly predicted low attainment (in reading, spelling, and arithmetic) at age 30. The second aim of this chapter is to investigate the later-life outcomes at age 32 of boys who were aggressive as children and adolescents (between ages 8 and 18).

Farrington (1978) discovered that the most important early precursor of aggression and violence was the harsh attitude and discipline of a boy's parents at age 8. Other important early precursors were low family income, parental criminality, poor parental supervision, separations from parents, high daring, and low intelligence, all measured at age 8–10. Similarly, McCord, McCord, and Howard (1963) found that, as children, violent delinquents tended to have parents who were in conflict, who supervised them poorly, who were rejecting and punitive, whose discipline was erratic, and who were aggressive, alcoholic, or convicted. In her later follow-up, McCord (1977, 1988) again documented how violent parents tended to have aggressive sons.

The main problem in interpreting all these results centers on the issue of generality versus specificity in antisocial behavior. In a review of longitudinal research on violence, Farrington (1982) concluded that it was rare for offenders to specialize in violence. It was more common for offenders to commit a variety of different kinds of crimes, as the later review of specialization by Farrington, Snyder, and Finnegan (1988) also shows. Studies in Ohio (Hamparian, Schuster, Dinitz, & Conrad, 1978; Miller, Dinitz, & Conrad, 1982) and in Stockholm (Wikstrom, 1985, 1987) confirm that the majority of crimes committed by violent offenders are not violent. However, specialization seems to be more apparent in offenders aged over 40 (McCord, 1980; Peterson, Pittman, & O'Neal, 1962).

Farrington (1978) found that violent offenders tended to have committed more crimes than nonviolent offenders, and this result has been replicated in Copenhagen (Guttridge, Gabrielli, Mednick, & Van Dusen, 1983) and in Philadelphia (Piper, 1985). In general, violent offenders tend to be frequent or “chronic” offenders, and the probability of committing a violent offense increases with the number of offenses committed (Farrington, 1982). Hence, the difference between violent and nonviolent offenders may be quantitative, rather than qualitative, approximating the difference between more frequent and less frequent offenders. This may be why early aggression predicts chronic offending (Loeber & Stout-hamer-Loeber, 1987).

The view that a general syndrome of antisocial behavior arises in childhood and continues into adulthood has been argued most persuasively by Robins (1979, 1983, 1986). She has repeatedly demonstrated that the number of types of conduct disorder shown in childhood predict the number of types of antisocial adult behaviors, rather than one specific type of child conduct disorder (such as aggression) predicting one specific type of adult antisocial behavior (such as violence; Robins & Ratcliff, 1978, 1980). Similarly, West and Farrington (1977) concluded that their research showed that a constellation of adverse childhood factors led to a constellation of deviant behaviors at age 18, including stealing, drinking, drug taking, sexual promiscuity, erratic work histories, reckless driving, and violence. They explained their results by suggesting that all these kinds of deviant behavior reflected a single underlying theoretical construct, which they termed antisocial tendency. This arose in childhood and continued into the teenage years, although its behavioral manifestations changed with age.

The key question is whether aggressive or violent behavior is merely one element of a more general antisocial tendency, or whether it reflects a more specific underlying violent tendency. The general continuity in antisocial behavior with age inevitably means that there will be continuity between child aggression and adult violence, and between child aggression and adult antisocial behavior. However, is it possible to demonstrate specific continuities involving aggression and violence that are different in some way from the general continuities? Loeber (1982, 1988) has consistently argued that overt aggressive behaviors are different in kind from covert nonaggressive acts, such as stealing, and that these two kinds of behaviors have different developmental pathways (see also Loeber & Schmaling, 1985a, 1985b).

One method of investigating this question is to compare aggressive and nonaggressive offenders. For example, McCord (1979, 1980) found that they were similar in having poor parental supervision, but different in that parental conflict and parental aggressiveness were more predictive of violence, whereas maternal affection and paternal criminality were more predictive of property crimes. Hogh and Wolf (1983) in Copenhagen showed that violent offenders had relatively low intelligence, and Wikstrom (1987) in Stockholm discovered that they were more likely to come from lower class families than other types of offenders. However, Farrington and West (1971) found few differences between self-reported violent offenders and predominantly nonviolent early delinquents.

If, indeed, violent offenders tend to commit more offenses than nonviolent offenders, it is only to be expected that these two groups will differ in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. In order to disentangle qualitative and quantitative differences, the key question is whether violent offenders differ significantly from nonviolent offenders who have committed the same number of offenses, and this is the third question to be investigated in this chapter.

THE PRESENT RESEARCH

The present research is part of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which is a prospective longitudinal survey of 411 males. At the time they were first contacted in 1961–1962, they were all living in a working-class area of London, England. The vast majority of the sample was chosen by taking all the boys who were then aged 8 and on the registers of six state primary schools within a 1–mile radius of our research office. In addition to 399 boys from these six schools, 12 boys from a local school for the educationally subnormal were included in the sample, in an attempt to make it more representative of the population of boys living in the area. The boys were overwhelmingly White, working-class, and of British origin. Major results obtained in this survey have been reported previously (Farrington, 1989a; Farrington & West, 1981; West, 1969, 1982; West & Farrington, 1973, 1977).

The major aim in this survey was to measure as many factors as possible that were alleged to be causes or correlates of offending. The boys were interviewed and tested in their schools when they were aged about 8, 10, and 14, by male or female psychologists. They were interviewed in our research office at about 16, 18, and 21, and in their homes at about 25 and 32, by young male social science graduates. The tests in schools measured intelligence, attainment, personality, and psychomotor impulsivity, whereas information was collected in the interviews about living circumstances, employment histories, relationships with females, leisure activities, and offending behavior. On all occasions except at ages 21 and 25, the aim was to interview the whole sample, and it was always possible to trace and interview a high proportion. For example, at age 18, 389 of the 410 males still alive (94.9%) were interviewed.

In addition to the interviews and tests with the boys, interviews with their parents were carried out by female social workers who visited their homes. These took place about once a year from when the boy was about 8 until when he was aged 14–15 and was in his last year of compulsory education. The primary informant was the mother, although many fathers were also seen. The parents provided details about such matters as family income, family size, their employment histories, their child-rearing practices (including attitudes, discipline, and parental agreement), their degree of supervision of the boy, and his temporary or permanent separations from them.

The boys’ teachers completed questionnaires when the boys were aged about 8, 10, 12, and 14. These provided information about the boys’ troublesome and aggressive school behavior, their attention deficit, their school attainments, and their truancy. Ratings were also obtained from the boys’ peers when they were in their primary schools, about such topics as their daring, dishonesty, troublesomeness, and popularity.

Searches were also carried out in the national Criminal Record Office in London to try to locate findings of guilt of the boys, of their parents, of their brothers and sisters, and (in recent years) of their wives and cohabitees. Convictions were only counted if they...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction: Current Challenges in the Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression
• Part I The Development of Childhood Aggression
• Part II Treatment of Childhood Aggression
• Author Index
• Subject Index