Abstract
This longitudinal investigation examined interactions between aggression and peer victimization during middle childhood in the prediction of arrest through the adult years for 388 (198 boys, 190 girls) study participants. As part of an ongoing multisite study (i.e., Child Development Project), peer victimization and aggression were assessed via a peer nomination inventory in middle childhood, and juvenile and adult arrest histories were assessed via a self-report questionnaire as well as review of court records. Early aggression was linked to later arrest but only for those youths who were rarely victimized by peers. Although past investigators have viewed youths who are both aggressive and victimized as a high-risk subgroup, our findings suggest that the psychological and behavioral attributes of these children may mitigate trajectories toward antisocial problems.
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Notes
As noted earlier in this paper, terminology and conceptualization vary across studies. Insofar as appropriate, we will describe existing findings using the categories and terminology relied on by the original researchers.
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Acknowledgements
The Child Development Project has been funded by grants MH56961, MH57024, and MH57095 from the National Institute of Mental Health, HD30572 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and DA016903 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Schwartz, D., Lansford, J.E., Dodge, K.A. et al. Peer Victimization during Middle Childhood as a Marker of Attenuated Risk for Adult Arrest. J Abnorm Child Psychol 46, 57–65 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0354-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0354-x