Content provided in partnership with

Health Care Industry

Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine

<< Page 1 Continued from page 10. Previous | Next

Other prospective longitudinal research is broadly consistent with this finding. Moffitt (1990b) reports that boys with both low neuropsychological performance and family adversity had aggression scores four times higher than boys with either adversity only or neuropsychological deficits only. Similarly, Raine, Brennan, Mednick, and Mednick (1996) found that those with both early neuromotor deficits (including birth complications) and unstable family environments later went on to have higher rates of teenage behavior problems and adult criminal and violent offending compared to those with only social or only biological risk factors. The biosocial group with both sets of risk factors accounted for 70.2% of all violence committed by the entire cohort.

More Articles of Interest: Biosocial Perspectives on Children; Controversial Issues in the Diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A...; Hormone-linked problems reflect parent-child bond - Testosterone's Family Ties; Stressors, quality of the child-caregiver relationship, and children's mental...; Childhood Externalizing Behavior: Theory and Implications

One nonprospective study of 64 violent juvenile offenders took a different approach by dividing subjects into members of gangs versus nongang members (Sparling & Cohen, 1997). Nongang members compared to gang members were much more likely to have neurobehavioral deficits such as history of head injury (57.1% vs. 11.1%) and intermittent explosive disorder (71.4% vs. 11.4%). These pilot findings are intriguing because they suggest that the social variable of belonging to a gang (and the consequent social-affiliative nature of these networks) moderates neurobehavioral-violent relationships. Conceivably, violent offenders with neurobehavioral deficits are less able to sufficiently modulate their aggressive tendencies for good functioning in gangs, which value controlled, proactive aggression.

Protective Influence of Stable Home Environment

Although it is reasonable to hypothesize that the negative effects of biological risk factors in predisposing to antisocial behavior may be ameliorated by the benefits of a positive home environment, there appear to be few tests of this hypothesis. Streissguth, Barr, Kogan, and Bookstein (1996) in a study of 473 individuals with fetal alcohol syndrome found that a stable home environment protected the child from an antisocial outcome. An intriguing case study from Spain of a man who had an iron spike pass through his head, selectively destroying the prefrontal cortex, showed that unlike the case of Phineas Gage, this individual did not have an outcome over the next 60 years of antisocial or criminal behavior (Mataro et al., 2001). Mataro et al. (2001) concluded that prefrontal damage can be followed by stable psychosocial functioning, but a different interpretation can also be made. It is intriguing to note that the subject in question had wealthy parents who owned a family business in which he would be emplo yed for the rest of his life, and that his fiance (a childhood sweetheart) stood by him after the accident and married him, producing two good children and a family which, in the words of one of the children "protected" him throughout his life. It can be argued that this individual did not develop antisocial behavior and psychosocial dysfunction because his family environment buffered him from these negative outcomes. Without such psychosocial support a very different outcome may have resulted.

Health Care Industry

Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Business

Most Popular Articles in Health

Most Popular Publications in Health