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Individual Differences in Personality Associated with Aggressive Behavior among Adolescents Referred for Externalizing Behavior Problems

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Abstract

The present study examined the extent to which individual differences in personality that have been previously associated with aggression in non-clinical subjects (Caprara et al., European Journal of Personality, 27(3), 290–303, 2013, Caprara et al., Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 71–85, 2014) account for aggression among adolescents referred to psychiatric services with diagnosis within the externalizing spectrum (i.e., conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). In particular a conceptual model was examined in which individual differences in basic traits (i.e., emotional instability and agreeableness), lower order traits (i.e., irritability and hostile rumination), and social cognitive mechanisms (i.e., moral disengagement) account for aggressive behavior. One hundred and nine adolescents (81 males, 74.3%), ranging in age from 11 to 18 (M = 13.83, SD = 1.70) and referred to psychiatric services for the above diagnoses, participated at the study. Adolescents filled in questionnaires measuring the Big Five traits, as well as irritability, hostile rumination, and moral disengagement; their parents filled in the Child Behavior Checklist to assess children’s aggressive behavior. Findings corroborated the posited pattern of relations previously found in non-clinical samples. In accordance with those findings, moral disengagement largely mediated the association between traits and aggressive behavior. The model explained a significant portion of variance in aggressive behavior. As a novelty, findings showed a direct association between emotional instability and aggressive behavior, pointing to the major relevance of emotional disregulation in adolescents referred for externalizing problem behaviors in comparison to non-clinical adolescents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Gian Vittorio Caprara, Maria Gerbino, Enrico Perinelli & Guido Alessandri

  2. Child Neuropsychiatric Clinic, Ospedale San Paolo, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Carlo Lenti, Mauro Walder & Cecilia Elena Preda

  3. Ospedale Niguarda, Milan, Italy

    Emilio Brunati & Gianluca Marchesini

  4. Department of Childhood and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Spedali Civili, Brescia, Italy

    Alessandra Tiberti

  5. Unit of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Umberto Balottin & Laura Nonini

  6. Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy

    Giovanni De Girolamo

  7. Department of Childhood and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Ospedale della Valtellina e Valchiavenna, Sondrio, Italy

    Corrado Meraviglia, Daniela Gianatti & Lucrezia Libera

  8. Department of Childhood and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Ospedale della Provincia di Lecco, Lecco, Italy

    Ottaviano Martinelli

  9. Department of Psychology, Bicocca University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Patrizia Steca & Dario Monzani

  10. Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Lecco, Italy

    Massimo Molteni & Maria Nobile

Authors
  1. Gian Vittorio Caprara
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  2. Maria Gerbino
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  3. Enrico Perinelli
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  4. Guido Alessandri
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  5. Carlo Lenti
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  6. Mauro Walder
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  7. Cecilia Elena Preda
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  8. Emilio Brunati
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  9. Gianluca Marchesini
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  10. Alessandra Tiberti
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  11. Umberto Balottin
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  12. Laura Nonini
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  13. Giovanni De Girolamo
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  14. Corrado Meraviglia
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  15. Daniela Gianatti
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  16. Lucrezia Libera
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  17. Ottaviano Martinelli
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  18. Patrizia Steca
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  19. Dario Monzani
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  20. Massimo Molteni
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  21. Maria Nobile
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Enrico Perinelli.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study 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.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

Gian Vittorio Caprara, Maria Gerbino, Enrico Perinelli, Guido Alessandri, Carlo Lenti, Mauro Walder, Cecilia Elena Preda, Emilio Brunati, Gianluca Marchesini, Alessandra Tiberti, Umberto Balottin, Laura Nonini, Giovanni De Girolamo, Corrado Meraviglia, Daniela Gianatti, Lucrezia Libera, Ottaviano Martinelli, Patrizia Steca, Dario Monzani, Massimo Molteni, and Maria Nobile declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Funding

The authors have no funding sources to report.

Experiment Participants

All participants have provided their informed consent to participate in the study.

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Caprara, G.V., Gerbino, M., Perinelli, E. et al. Individual Differences in Personality Associated with Aggressive Behavior among Adolescents Referred for Externalizing Behavior Problems. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 39, 680–692 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-017-9608-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-017-9608-8

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