Håkan Stattin

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.

Preventing heavy alcohol use in adolescents (PAS): cluster randomized trial of a parent and student intervention offered separately and simultaneously

AIMS To evaluate the effectiveness of two preventive interventions to reduce heavy drinking in first- and second-year high school students. DESIGN AND SETTING Cluster randomized controlled trial using four conditions for comparing two active interventions with a control group from 152 classes of 19 high schools in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS A total of 3490 first-year high school students (mean 12.68 years, SD=0.51) and their parents. Intervention conditions (i) Parent intervention (modelled on the Swedish Örebro Prevention Program) aimed at encouraging parental rule-setting concerning their childrens alcohol consumption; (ii) student intervention consisting of four digital lessons based on the principles of the theory of planned behaviour and social cognitive theory; (iii) interventions 1 and 2 combined; and (iv) the regular curriculum as control condition. Main outcome measures Incidence of (heavy) weekly alcohol use and frequency of monthly drinking at 10 and 22 months after baseline measurement. FINDINGS   A total of 2937 students were eligible for analyses in this study. At first follow-up, only the combined student-parent intervention showed substantial and statistically significant effects on heavy weekly drinking, weekly drinking and frequency of drinking. At second follow-up these results were replicated, except for the effects of the combined intervention on heavy weekly drinking. These findings were consistent across intention-to-treat and completers-only analyses. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that adolescents as well as their parents should be targeted in order to delay the onset of drinking, preferably prior to onset of weekly drinking.

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

The usefulness of self-reported psychopathy-like traits in the study of antisocial behaviour among non-referred adolescents

The present study addresses the question of whether it is possible to use a self‐report measure of psychopathic traits on non‐referred youth samples to identify a subgroup of problematic youths who are particularly problematic and different from other problem youths. A large sample of eighth‐grade, non‐referred adolescents, and their parents were assessed. Results showed that the adolescents exhibiting a low‐socialized psychopathy‐like personality constellation had a more frequent, violent, and versatile conduct‐problem profile than other low‐socialized and well socialized adolescents. The psychopathy‐like adolescents also differed from other poorly socialized adolescents in ways that suggested that their etiological background was different from adolescents with non‐psychopathy‐like conduct problems. We conclude that self‐report measures can indeed be useful for research purposes in subtyping youths with conduct problems. Copyright

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.

Unstructured youth recreation centre participation and antisocial behaviour development: Selection influences and the moderating role of antisocial peers.

This study involves a two-year longitudinal investigation of adolescent participation in unstructured youth recreation centres and the development of antisocial behaviour. Participants were 1163 adolescents who represented 92% of all eighth-grade students in the town of Örebro, Sweden, during the fall of 1999. Antisocial young people and those with poor relations to parents or school were likely to become involved in the centres. After controlling for these selection influences, the frequency of youth centre participation was associated with a significant increase in antisocial behaviour over time for boys and girls. Youth centres that aggregated many antisocial peers together were particularly likely to promote the antisocial behaviour of new attendees. The findings are consistent with prior theory and research on youth development and out-of-school activities. Activities that lack structure and skill-building aims appear to attract high-risk adolescents and the resulting social environment is conducive to the development of antisocial behaviour.

Perceived parenting style and adolescent adjustment : revisiting directions of effects and the role of parental knowledge

In the present research on parenting and adolescent behavior, there is much focus on reciprocal, bidirectional, and transactional processes, but parenting-style research still adheres to a unidirectional perspective in which parents affect youth behavior but are unaffected by it. In addition, many of the most cited parenting-style studies have used measures of parental behavioral control that are questionable because they include measures of parental knowledge. The goals of this study were to determine whether including knowledge items might have affected results of past studies and to test the unidirectional assumption. Data were from 978 adolescents participating in a longitudinal study. Parenting-style and adolescent adjustment measures at 2 time points were used, with a 2-year interval between time points. A variety of internal and external adjustment measures were used. Results showed that including knowledge items in measures of parental behavioral control elevated links between behavioral control and adjustment. Thus, the results and conclusions of many of the most highly cited studies are likely to have been stronger than if the measures had focused strictly on parental behavior. In addition, adolescent adjustment predicted changes in authoritative and neglectful parenting styles more robustly than these styles predicted changes in adolescent adjustment. Adolescent adjustment also predicted changes in authoritativeness more robustly than authoritativeness predicted changes in adjustment. Thus, parenting style cannot be seen as independent of the adolescent. In summary, both the theoretical premises of parenting-style research and the prior findings should be revisited.

Social phobia subtypes in the general population revealed by cluster analysis

BACKGROUND Epidemiological data on subtypes of social phobia are scarce and their defining features are debated. Hence, the present study explored the prevalence and descriptive characteristics of empirically derived social phobia subgroups in the general population. METHODS To reveal subtypes, data on social distress, functional impairment, number of social fears and criteria fulfilled for avoidant personality disorder were extracted from a previously published epidemiological study of 188 social phobics and entered into an hierarchical cluster analysis. Criterion validity was evaluated by comparing clusters on the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS). Finally, profile analyses were performed in which clusters were compared on a set of sociodemographic and descriptive characteristics. RESULTS Three clusters emerged, consisting of phobics scoring either high (generalized subtype), intermediate (non-generalized subtype) or low (discrete subtype) on all variables. Point prevalence rates were 2.0%, 5.9% and 7.7% respectively. All subtypes were distinguished on both SPS and SIAS. Generalized or severe social phobia tended to be over-represented among individuals with low levels of educational attainment and social support. Overall, public-speaking was the most common fear. CONCLUSIONS Although categorical distinctions may be used, the present data suggest that social phobia subtypes in the general population mainly differ dimensionally along a mild moderate-severe continuum, and that the number of cases declines with increasing severity.

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.