Aggression

Outcomes and Trajectories of Aggression

Aggressive children and adolescents face several short- and long-term negative consequences. Aggressive children are often disliked by their normative (nonaggressive) peers and affiliate with delinquent peers who may solidify and expand the child’s antisocial tendencies. Aggressive children are also often disengaged from school, either by their own choice or through negative teacher reactions, suspensions, and expulsions. These negative consequences of childhood are often exacerbated over time, leading to further delinquency, substance use, and school dropout during adolescence, and to criminal behavior, poor marital relations, and unemployment or underemployment during adulthood.

Aggression during childhood is thus a probabilistic predictor of aggression during adolescence, and adolescent aggression is associated with higher aggression in adulthood. Indeed, numerous longitudinal studies have shown that aggression is as stable across time as traits such as intelligence. In considering the relationship of childhood with adult aggression, it is important to keep in mind the concept of heterotypic continuity. This refers to the continuity of an underlying trait or disposition that may be behaviorally manifested in a variety of ways across development. Thus, children who are aggressive may become adolescents who carry weapons and are involved with gangs [Page 87]and who may, in turn, become adults who assault others, commit violent crimes, and abuse their spouses and children.

However, it is equally important to consider that most youths who exhibit aggressive behavior do not become violent adults. Indeed, during adolescence, a certain level of aggression and antisocial behavior is considered normative. An important distinction is between individuals who engage in age-normative aggression and antisocial behavior and those who are likely to continue antisocial behavior into adulthood.

Life-course-persistent individuals exhibit antisocial behavior early, in the forms of childhood aggression and antisocial acts such as truancy, theft, and vandalism and across contexts (i.e., at home, at school, in the neighborhood). These individuals often have biological risks (e.g., neuropsychological deficits, difficult temperament) that interact with environmental risks (e.g., low socioeconomic neighborhoods, family, and parental factors). This interaction not only leads to early antisocial behavior but results in children becoming ensnared in a deviant lifestyle and failing to learn prosocial skills. Thus, the continuity of antisocial behavior is maintained not only by learning aggression and antisocial behavior but also by failure to learn conflict resolution skills, academic skills that might secure a legitimate job, and lack of opportunity to interact with nondeviant individuals.

Adolescent-limited individuals, in contrast to life-course-persistent delinquents, do not commit antisocial acts during childhood (though it seems likely that they do engage in normative levels of childhood aggression) and discontinue their antisocial behavior after entering adulthood. These individuals appear to feel a “maturity gap” during adolescence when they are biologically adults yet are offered few of the rewards of adulthood (e.g., independence from parents, financial rewards, sexual experiences). Life-course-persistent delinquents are perceived to have these adult rewards, and adolescent-limited delinquents turn to them as role models for antisocial behavior aimed at obtaining these rewards.

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