ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR FROM CHILDHOOD TO ADULTHOOD

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The proposed research aims to build knowledge about adult antisocial behavior disorders and violence. Specific hypotheses address: (a) why some young adults persist in antisocial behavior beyond adolescence while others desist, (b) what broad constellation of mental disorders and life problems accompanies adult antisocial behavior, (c) if childhood aggression can lead to adulthood abuse of family members, (d) if bonds to a job or a romantic partner can foster recovery from antisocial behavior, (e) how parental antisocial behavior affects the children of study participants, and (f) if developmental models of male antisocial behavior apply to women, or if female-specific models are needed. The longitudinal Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study has traced the development of antisocial behavior among a representative 1972 birth cohort of 1,000 New Zealand men and women from age 3 to 21. Age-26 outcomes will be measured. Analyses will ascertain relations between the sample members' adult antisocial status and variables drawn from extensive data gathered over many years for study members, their parents, their partners, and now their children. The proposed research will generate (a) disconfirming tests of a published developmental theory of antisocial behavior, (b) recommendations for tailoring the timing and content of intervention to fit delinquents' developmental histories, (c) documentation of the full scope of the cost of antisocial behavior to society, (d) information about the co-incidence of adult life problems for coordinating disparate service-delivery systems to young adults, (e) knowledge about links between delinquency and later family violence, which can be used for prevention of partner and child abuse, (f) knowledge of what brings about natural desistence from crime, which can be harnessed to hasten desistence, (g) an understanding of the process that underlies transmission of aggression from parent to child, and (h) a knowledge base on the origins and consequences of problem behaviors among women.