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Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedBiosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine
At least three studies have found that MPAs interact with social factors in predicting antisocial and violent behavior. Mednick and Kandel (1988) assessed MPAs in a sample of 129 12-year-old boys seen by an experienced pediatrician. MPAs were found to be related to violent offending as assessed 9 years later when subjects were aged 21 years, although not to property offenses without violence. However, as illustrated in Fig. 3, when subjects were divided into those from unstable, nonintact homes and those from stable homes, a biosocial interaction was observed. MPAs only predicted violence in those individuals raised in unstable home environments. Similarly, Brennan, Mednick, and Raine (1997) found that those with both MPAs and family adversity had especially high rates of adult violent offending within a sample of 72 male offspring of psychiatrically ill parents. This interaction was again confirmed by Pine, Shaffer, Schonfeld, and Davies (1997) who found that MPAs in 7-year-olds combined with environmental r isk in predisposing to conduct disorder at age 17. These findings are similar to those on birth complications reported above; in both cases the presence of a negative psychosocial factor is required to "trigger" the biological risk factor, and in both cases the effects are specific to violent offending. In a study confirming specificity of MPAs to violence, Arseneault, Tremblay, Boulerice, Seguin, and Saucier (2000) found that MPAs assessed at age 14 predicted to violent delinquency at age 17 in 170 males, but not to nonviolent delinquency. In this study, effects were independent of family adversity.
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Nicotine Exposure
The effect of fetal exposure to alcohol in increasing risk for conduct disorders is well known (e.g., Fast, Conry, & Loock, 1999; Olson et al., 1997; Streissguth, Barr, Bookstein, Sampson, & Olson, 1999), but recently a spate of studies has established beyond reasonable doubt a significant link between smoking during pregnancy and later conduct disorder and violent offending (see Raine, in press, for a review). Three of these studies have also observed interactions between nicotine exposure and psychosocial variables in the prediction of later violent offending, and are impressive in terms of their size, the prospective nature of data collection, long-term outcome, and control for third factors such as antisocial behavior in the parents, other drug use, and low social class. Brennan, Grekin, and Mednick (1999) using a birth cohort of 4,169 males found a twofold increase in adult violent offending in the offspring of mothers who smoked 20 cigarettes a day, and also found a dose-response relationship between increased number of cigarettes smoked and increased violence. However, a fivefold increase in adult violence was found when nicotine exposure was combined with exposure to delivery complications--there was no increase in violence in those who were nicotine-exposed but lacking delivery complications. Brennan et al. (1999) observed that effects were specific to persistent offending and did not apply to adolescent-limited offending. Similarly, Rasanen et al. (1999) found a twofold increase in violent criminal offending at age 26 in the offspring of women who smoked during pregnancy. In addition, nicotine exposure lead to an 11.9-fold increase in recidivistic violence when combined with single-parent family, and a 14.2-fold increase when combined with teenage pregnancy, single-parent family, unwanted pregnancy, and developmental motor lags. Again, odds ratios were stronger for recidivistic violence than for violence in general or property offending. Gibson and Tibbetts (2000) also found that maternal smoking interacted with parental absence in predicting early onset of offending in a U.S. sample.
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