Comorbidity between antisocial behavior and depression in adolescence is widely recognized. This paper examines whether links with depressed mood differ among three subtypes of antisocial behavior: oppositionality, physical aggression and delinquency. In addition we examine two possible contributors to these links: negative life events that are dependent upon the individual's actions and depressogenic attributional style. Data are drawn from the G1219 large-scale community twin and sibling sample, and include 2409 questionnaire responses from youths aged between 13 and 19 living in the United Kingdom. Depressed mood was independently associated with both oppositionality and delinquency, but not with physical aggression. Dependent negative life events were strongly implicated in the association between delinquency and depressed mood, whereas depressogenic attributional style was implicated in the associations of both oppositionality and delinquency with depressed mood. Oppositionality remained a significant predictor of depressed mood after accounting for attributional style and life events whereas delinquency did not. The pattern of associations was largely similar in boys and girls. We discuss these results in terms of developmental models of the links between antisocial behavior and depressed mood.
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Notes
Usually only presented in the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, Achenbach, 1991a).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The G1219 study was supported by the W T Grant Foundation and a Medical Research Council Training Fellowship to TCE. RR and BM were supported by MRC program grant G9901475. We would like to thank the families for their participation, and Alessandra Iervolino, Maria Napolitano, Robert Plomin, Pak Sham, Abram Sterne and Richard Williamson for input to various stages of the project.
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Rowe, R., Maughan, B. & Eley, T.C. Links Between Antisocial Behavior and Depressed Mood: The Role of Life Events and Attributional Style. J Abnorm Child Psychol 34, 283–292 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-006-9032-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-006-9032-0