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A Mutual Hostility Explanation for the Co-Occurrence of Delinquency and Depressive Mood in Adolescence

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Abstract

Different interpersonal experiences are related to delinquency and depressive mood. In many studies, delinquency has been associated with exposing others to hostility, while depressive mood has been associated with being a victim of others’ hostility. In this study, we proposed that adolescents with a co-occurrence of high delinquency and depressive mood may be both perpetrators and victims in their relations with parents at home, peers and teachers at school, and other people encountered in leisure time. We studied a normative sample of 1452 mid-adolescents (50.61% boys and 49.38% girls). Cluster analyses found a group with a co-occurrence of high delinquency and high depressive mood. Adolescents in this cluster group were highest on being exposed to hostility, exposing others to hostility, and being involved in mutually hostile interactions with others in different everyday contexts. The findings were especially strong when we examined being a victim and a perpetrator across contexts. The results were similar for boys and girls. We conclude that the co-occurrence of high delinquency and depressive mood among some adolescents is intimately linked to the mutually hostile interactions that these adolescents experience in their everyday interpersonal contexts.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by The Research Council for Working Life and Social Science of Sweden (grant number 2004-1981). The first author was also supported by the Spanish Government (project number 2012-33464).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, University Pablo Olavide, Ctra. Utrera km.1, 41013, Seville, Spain

    Belén Martínez-Ferrer

  2. Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Håkan Stattin

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  1. Belén Martínez-Ferrer
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  2. Håkan Stattin
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Correspondence to Belén Martínez-Ferrer.

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The procedures 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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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study (see Methods section).

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Martínez-Ferrer, B., Stattin, H. A Mutual Hostility Explanation for the Co-Occurrence of Delinquency and Depressive Mood in Adolescence. J Abnorm Child Psychol 45, 1399–1412 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0245-6

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