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Longitudinal Associations between Depression and Aggression in Children and Adolescents

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Abstract

Due to the longstanding and detrimental effects of engaging in aggressive behaviour and of experiencing symptoms of internalizing problems in children and adolescents, there is an increasing interest in identifying the temporal sequence between these 2 problems with previous research yielding inconsistent findings. Therefore, the longitudinal links between relational aggression, physical aggression, and depression were examined across 7 years in a sample of 643 children (54 % girls) aged 10 at Time 1. Three models were compared— (1) the failure model, in which aggression predicted depression, (2) the acting out model, in which depression predicted aggression, and (3) a reciprocal model, in which both aggression and depression shared a reciprocal relation over time. Cross-lagged path analyses using structural equation modeling supported the failure model (i.e., engaging in relational and physical aggression predicts subsequent depressive symptoms). Findings were similar for boys and girls. These findings add to the literature suggesting that externalizing problems precede internalizing problems.

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Notes

  1. Although analyses reported using the child and adolescent BASC-2 scores calculated according to the manual, each model was evaluated using the adolescent scores for the BASC-2 without the additional item. Findings of these analyses resulted in no changes to our models. Therefore, we report findings according to the child and adolescent BASC-2 scores derived from the manual.

  2. Although we did not include ethnicity as a control variable, each model was evaluated with the inclusion of this variable. Findings of these analyses did not result in any changes to our models. The parameter estimates for ethnicity were non-significant in all three models. Since ethnicity was not related to our variables of interest and since the inclusion of ethnicity did not result in any change in our models, it was not retained.

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  1. Counselling Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Christine Blain-Arcaro & Tracy Vaillancourt

  2. School of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Tracy Vaillancourt

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  1. Christine Blain-Arcaro
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Correspondence to Tracy Vaillancourt.

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This study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant # 833–2004-1019), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant # 201009MOP-232632-CHI-CECA-136591), and the Canada Research Chairs program (grant # 201009MOP-232632-CHI-CECA-136591) awarded to the 2nd author.

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Christine Blain-Arcaro declares that she has no conflict of interest. Tracy Vaillancourt declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Blain-Arcaro, C., Vaillancourt, T. Longitudinal Associations between Depression and Aggression in Children and Adolescents. J Abnorm Child Psychol 45, 959–970 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0204-2

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