In chapters 8 and 9 we saw evidence that the aetiology of adolescent antisocial behaviour may be more similar than different for males and females. But aetiological similarity does not preclude males and females, once they are involved in antisocial behaviour, from developing different outcomes. As one example of this divergence, chapter 11 showed that once involved in antisocial behaviour, females but not males are at risk for adult depression. In this chapter, we examine whether antisocial problems in boys and girls predict the same or different outcomes in adulthood.

One possibility is that a history of antisocial behaviour has fewer negative consequences for females than for males. A reason for this expectation has to do with the pressure of social norms. Evidence for the influence of sexrole norms on outcomes emerged from the Fels Research Institute studies (Kagan and Moss, 1962). A number of continuities were found from childhood to adulthood, but they were related to the sex of the individual and the sex-appropriateness of the behaviours being assessed. For example, passivity and dependency showed continuity for female subjects but not for male subjects, whereas aggression showed continuity for male subjects but not for female subjects. These findings suggest that individuals who deviate from socially and culturally expected patterns of behaviour are often disliked and are thus likely to be coerced into more modal patterns – what Cattell (1973) has called ‘coercion to the biosocial mean’.