David Magnusson

Pubertal maturation in female development

Contents: The Issue of Biological-Psychosocial Interaction. The General Approach and the Basic Model. Data. Psychological Adaptation and Self-Concept. Interpersonal Relations. Social and Emotional Adjustment. The Short-Term Consequences. Developing Girls in a Developing Environment. Mediators of the Influence of Pubertal Timing. The Long-Term Consequences. Some Final Reflections.

The Role of Early Aggressive Behavior in the Frequency, Seriousness, and Types of Later Crime.

This study reports on the relation between aggressive behavior at early school age and later delinquent activities of 1,027 subjects (517 boys and 510 girls) prospectively followed from late childhood to adulthood. The research group was a fairly unbiased age sample of children, covering most of the range of social and psychological upbringing conditions for 10-year-old children in a Swedish community. Aggressiveness was measured by teacher ratings at ages 10 and 13 years. Delinquency, defined as registered lawbreaking, was covered through age 26. There was a strong connection between both the aggressiveness ratings at ages 10 and 13 and adult delinquency for boys, with the majority of delinquents and recidivists being recruited from the early-aggressive boys. High ratings of aggressiveness were characteristic of boys who later committed violent crimes and damage to public property and generally of subjects with a diversified offense pattern. Aggressiveness was not predictive of later crime for girls until they reached the age of 13. For both sexes the relation between aggressiveness and crime was to a large extent independent of intelligence and family education. The possibility of making individual prognoses and the role of aggressiveness for the sexes are discussed.

Antisocial development: A holistic approach

There are few domains in psychology where it is so obvious that scientific investigations have to apply a holistic perspective as in research on antisocial behavior. First, antisocial development is a query of a life-long developmental process, extending

Youth recreation centre participation and criminal offending : A 20-year longitudinal study of Swedish boys

This study assessed whether participation in Swedish youth recreation centres (Fritidsgardar) is related to long-term criminality assessed from late childhood to mid adulthood. A prospective, longitudinal investigation of a representative cohort of 498 boys from a medium-sized Swedish community was employed. A pattern-analysis identi” ed ” ve configurations of boys who showed different profiles of social and academic competence at the age of 10. The configurations were compared with respect to juvenile and adult criminality for boys who did, and who did not, make the decision to participate in a youth recreation centre at age 13. Results showed that participation in youth centres was nonrandom. Boys with a multiple problem profile of both social and academic problems in school at age 10 showed more frequent participation in recreation centres at age 13. The frequency of criminal offending increased for all configurations of boys who became involved in a recreation centre. Frequent participation in youth centres was linked to high rates of juvenile offending and persistent offending (i.e., registered for one or several offences both as a juvenile and as an adult). These ” ndings held after controlling for individual, family, and economic factors prior to involvement in the youth centre. The limitations of the ” ndings and their implications for social policy are discussed.

Hyperactive behavior in childhood as related to subsequent alcohol problems and violent offending: A longitudinal study of male subjects

Abstract Within a longitudinal project, possible implications of school age hyperactive behavior problems on later adjustment were studied. Teacher ratings of behavior at age 13 years with respect to Motor Restlessness and Concentration Difficulties, the sum of which used as an indicator of Hyperactive Behavior, were analyzed in relation to alcohol problems and violent offending from 15 to 25–26 years of age for a group of 540 male subjects. Hyperactive Behavior in childhood was found to be significantly related to subsequent alcohol problems as well as to later violent offending. In order to study the co-occurrence of these maladjustment problems, a configural frequency analysis was applied. Two significant ‘types’ were found: one indicating that ‘high’ childhood hyperactive behavior is closely linked to later alcohol problems and violent offending in the same individuals, the other supporting a frequent co-occurring of a pattern of ‘low’ hyperactive behavior in childhood, no subsequent alcohol problems and no violent offending. The results support the hypothesis tested in the present study, and focus the interest on underlying mechanisms to which these maladjustment problems might be linked.

Aggression and Criminality in a Longitudinal Perspective

Since 1965 a longitudinal research program with the title “Individual development and environment” has been in progress at the Department of Psychology, the University of Stockholm. The purpose of the project is to study individual development from early age to adulthood, with particular emphasis on the development of social adjustment. Main subprojects within the program are directed to the study of the genesis of alcoholism, criminality and mental illness. In view of the important role that the individual’s educational-vocational career process and his/her social network play in the development, they have been afforded special attention. (For information about the program, its main aims, strategies and data collections, the reader is referred to Magnusson, in press; Magnusson and Duner, 1981; Magnusson, Duner and Zetterblom, 1975).

Biological maturation in adolescence and the development of drinking habits and alcohol abuse among young males: A prospective longitudinal study.

In the present study, the relationship between biological maturation (skeletal growth) in adolescence and the development of drinking habits and alcohol abuse were studied for a representative group of Swedish males. The results showed that early maturers and late maturers had more advanced drinking habits at age 14 as compared to their normally maturing same-aged peers (p<.05).This difference was not significant 1 1/2 years later. In young adulthood more than one third (36%) of the late maturers were registered for alcohol abuse as compared to 14% of the normal maturers and 8% of the early maturers (p=.12).The relevance of psychosocial factors as mediating the relationship between biology and actual behavior was discussed. It was emphasized that differences in biological and psychosocial maturity should be taken into consideration when studying adolescent behavior, both in cross-sectional and in longitudinal perspectives.

Implications of an Interactional Paradigm for Research on Human Development

This paper consists of three main parts. First, a brief review of an interactional perspective for research on individual functioning is given. The need for integrated models, taking into consideration both psychological and biological factors on the person side in studying the person-environment interaction is emphasized. Second, empirical studies from a longitudinal program are presented. These studies are used as a basis for a discussion of methodological problems connected with interindividual differences in biological maturation. Thirdly, major implications for further development research in an interactional perspective are suggested, including (a) a need for well planned longitudinal research, (b) careful systematic observation and description of psychological phenomena, (c) integration of psychological and biological variables, (d) more interest devoted to the person as an integrated totality than to variables per se, (e) more interest devoted to lawfulness of processes in human functioning than to prediction of behavior, and (f) systematic analyses of environments and situations. Finally, it is argued that an interactional perspective can serve as a general frame of reference for planning, carrying through and interpreting empirical research, in order to overcome the fragmentation that now impedes real progress.

On the Individual

A description of two cases from my time as a school psychologist in the middle of the 1950s forms the background to the following question: Has anything important happened since then in psychological research to help us to a better understanding of how and why individuals think, feel, act, and react as they do in real life and how they develop over time? The studies serve as a background for some general propositions about the nature of the phenomena that concerns us in developmental research, for a summary description of the developments in psychological research over the last 40 years as I see them, and for some suggestions about future directions.

Development of adjustment problems in girls: what syndromes emerge?

The development of a broad spectrum of adjustment problems in girls was studied longitudinally from late childhood to early adulthood. A specific interest concerned how well the externalizing-internalizing distinction could explain the data. The sample consisted of about 500 Swedish girls, reasonably representative of the general population. Variable-oriented methods were complemented with person-oriented methods to study syndrome formation at the level of the individual. The results suggested a rather diversified pattern of multi-problem syndromes in late childhood, whereas the syndrome structure in early adolescence was organized around a differentiation between girls with externalizing adjustment problems and girls with peer problems. An externalizing syndrome was found to be stable between late childhood and early adolescence, increasing the risk of severe maladjustment in adulthood. Internalizing problems showed no clear-cut continuity with adult maladjustment. Results are discussed in relation to the externalizing-internalizing distinction, which to some extent is called in question.