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Co-developmental trajectories of aggression and rule-breaking from middle childhood to early adolescence: individual and environmental predictors

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Abstract

This study examined the heterogeneous co-developmental trajectories of aggression and rule-breaking from middle childhood to early adolescence, as well as how these identified, distinct trajectories related to individual and environmental predictors. A total of 1944 Chinese elementary school students in grade 4 (45.5% girls, Mage = 10.06, SD = 0.57) completed measures on five occasions across two and a half years, using six-month intervals. Findings included: (a) Parallel process latent class growth modeling revealed four distinct co-developmental trajectory groups of aggression and rule-breaking: congruent-low (84.0%); moderate-decreasing aggression and high-decreasing rule-breaking (3.8%); moderate-increasing aggression (5.9%); and moderate-increasing rule-breaking (6.3%); (b) Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that children belonging to the high risk groups were more likely to experience multiple individual and environmental difficulties. Implications for prevention of aggression and rule-breaking were discussed.

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Data availability

Our study is not able to share data and relevant materials publicly because our data derive from an ongoing scientific research project supporting by National Natural Science Foundation of China. Because the survey data involve users’ privacy and confidentiality issues, we have signed confidentiality agreements with the data providers, that is, relevant elementary school boards.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31971005), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (No. 2021A1515012515, No. 2022A1515011233), “14th Five-Year” Plan of Philosophy and Social Science Development in Guangzhou City, 2022 (No. 2022GZGJ175), and Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project in Guangdong Province, 2022 (No. GD22CXL03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, 510631, People’s Republic of China

    Jianing Cheng & Lili Tian

  2. School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, People’s Republic of China

    Jianing Cheng

  3. Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    E. Scott Huebner

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  1. Jianing Cheng
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Contributions

Jianing Cheng participated in the study design, collected data, performed the statistical analysis, wrote the main manuscript text and prepared figures; E. Scott Huebner participated in the study design and coordination and helped draft the manuscript; Lili Tian participated in the study design, collected data, and coordination and draft the manuscript; All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lili Tian.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (School of Psychology Research Ethics Committee, South China Normal University) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Cheng, J., Scott Huebner, E. & Tian, L. Co-developmental trajectories of aggression and rule-breaking from middle childhood to early adolescence: individual and environmental predictors. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 33, 401–410 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-023-02171-2

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