A retrospective longitudinal research design was used to evaluate male adult outcomes associated with four patterns of physical aggression from childhood to adulthood—child-only aggression, child and adult continuity of aggression, adult-onset aggression, and a contrast group with low levels of aggression in childhood and adulthood. The continuity and adult-onset aggression groups had the highest levels of social maladjustment (e.g., marital instability), psychiatric disturbance (e.g., alcohol disorders, major depression), personality dysfunction (e.g., higher prevalence of elevated borderline and narcissistic personality disorder scores), and higher plasma testosterone levels. The child-only aggression group manifested more psychiatric and personality disturbance than the contrast group, but not nearly as much disturbance as the continuity and adult-onset groups. After controlling for age and socioeconomic status (SES) variables, race (White/Black) was typically not a significant predictor of outcome variables. Findings are discussed with regard to life course implications of the physical aggression patterns, and of the support provided for an adult-onset aggressive type.

Self-instructional training, a widely used intervention for treating the learning and behavioral difficulties of impulsive, attention deficit-hyperactivity disordered, and learning disabled children, has repeatedly failed to promote self-control or improve academic performance. In light of this failure, we critically examine four assumptions underlying self-instructional training: (a) children with learning and behavior problems show a lack and/or deficient use of self-regulatory private speech; (b) modeling of self-verbalizations will increase children's spontaneous production of private speech; (c) speech and action are intrinsically coordinated; and (d) internalization refers to subvocalization of private speech. We argue that self-instructional training interventions need to be thoroughly grounded in Soviet developmental theory of verbal self-regulation and in systematic research on the social origins and development of children's private speech. A new research agenda is suggested.

In this article, I explore whether there might be two separable components to person-perception and interpersonal engagement in infancy: the ability to apprehend other people's attitudes on the one hand, and the ability to perceive actions on the other. In support of this approach, I summarize some evidence from recent study of autistic adolescents' judgments of attitudes and actions manifest in moving point-light displays of people. I highlight the far-reaching cognitive as well associal-developmental implications of early interpersonal-affective engagement. I conclude by speculating that certain abnormalities that would stem from autistic individuals' impaired ability to perceive and engage with people's attitudes may be somewhat mitigated by their relative ability to perceive the actions of others.

We examined childhood social withdrawal and aggression as predictive of adolescent maladaption, comparing and contrasting social and emotional outcomes associated with aggression and social withdrawal. We also focused on childhood social competence as a predictor of adolescent adaptation. The sample comprised 60 children for whom a complete data set was available at both ages 7 and 14 years. The predictors were aggregated measures of social withdrawal, aggression, and social competence derived from three sources—behavioral observations, peer assessments, and teacher ratings. The outcomes focused primarily on markers of internalizing and externalizing problems. The results indicated that childhood social withdrawal uniquely and significantly contributed to the prediction of adolescent loneliness, felt insecurity, and negative self-regard. Aggression predicted adolescent delinquent activity; social competence predicted felt security in the peer group and substance use in adolescence.

This paper uses a functionalist view of emotion to consider family factors that create risk for depressive symptoms in adolescents. Two adolescent siblings and their mothers were assessed for emotion regulation during autonomy-related communication tasks, whereas their mother's attachment- and intimacy-related functioning was assessed through interview and self-report. The results indicate that older teens' failure to establish autonomous stances during communication and their mothers' dissatisfaction with intimate relationships increase risk for teenagers reporting depressive symptoms. Further, mothers' preoccupation attachment-related issues was found to be associated with less autonomous communication from older teenagers. Implications of these findings and future directions for investigating the family factors associated with adolescent depression are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative contributions of social withdrawal, peer rejection, and victimization by peers in predicting feelings of loneliness and depressed mood over time. According to the proposed model, the feelings of loneliness associated with social withdrawal are mediated by the negative peer experiences (negative peer status and peer victimization) to which withdrawn children are exposed. In predicting depressed mood over time, it was further hypothesized that self-reported loneliness ultimately mediates the subsequent depressed mood associated with withdrawal and negative peer experiences. The study was conducted across 2 consecutive years (Time 1 and Time 2), with children each year nominating peers for peer status, social withdrawal, and victimization measures, and completing self-report measures of loneliness and depressed mood. Fourth- and fifth-grade children participated at Time 1, and children that remained in the same school were again evaluated at Time 2 (N = 567). A series of regression analyses indicated that the postulated sequence of mediations adequately represented the pattern of longitudinal associations between the variables, as well as their pattern of change over time. The contribution of social withdrawal to the prediction of subsequent loneliness was accounted for by the expected pattern of mediations of negative peer experiences. Self-reported loneliness ultimately mediated the subsequent depressed mood associated with withdrawal and negative peer experiences.

This study examined the relation between children's peer relationships and teacher-rated psychological adjustment. A number of shortcomings in the peer literature were addressed by: (a) employing carefully delineated peer variables (passive isolation, rejected isolation, aggressive-disruptive, peer preference, mutual friendship); (b) employing a data analytic strategy that permitted simultaneous examination of main effects of and interactions among peer variables; (c) using an outcome measure that is well-normed for children and widely used in studies of adjustment; and (d) controlling for outcome measures' autocorrelations across time points. For 236 school children in the third, fourth, and fifth grades, concurrent associations were examined between these peer variables and internalizing and externalizing problems. Longitudinal associations were examined over a period of 2 years. In so doing, we found that passive isolation was a risk factor for internalizing problems, and rejected isolation was marginally predictive of externalizing problems. Furthermore, we found complex moderating effects of mutual friendship, such that children who were not isolated may derive benefits from having a close mutual friend, but the results were not clear for children with poor peer-group relationships. Much additional research is needed to further clarify these findings.

This study explored developmentally salient cognitive and emotional facets of personality during adolescence and their contribution to psychological functioning in young adulthood. Specifically, we examined the of relations among two kinds of actual-ideal self-discrepancies, expressed negative emotions, and self-dissatisfaction during midadolescence and assessed their longitudinal contribution to young adult symptoms of hostility and depression, as well as self-worth. We drew upon a dataset that included both a group of youngsters who had been psychiatrically hospitalized at age 14 and a normative comparison group of high school students studied over an 11-year period. Findings demonstrated that the magnitude of particular actual-ideal discrepancies, expressed negative emotions, and self-dissatisfaction differed between the groups. Contrary to expectation, actual-ideal self-discrepancies were not related to expressed negative emotions during midadolescence. For the psychiatric group, however, both self-discrepancies and expressed negative emotions made unique contributions to individuals' general sense of self-dissatisfaction. Moreover, particular types of actual-ideal self-discrepancies, specific expressed emotions, and self-dissatisfaction differentially predicted symptoms of hostility and depression, as well as diminished self-worth in young adulthood, albeit differently for the two groups. The importance of cognitions and emotions in the course diverse developmental pathways and future directions of the study are discussed.

This study examined the relationship between psychiatric symptomatology and the representations of attachment relationships held by adults with serious psychopathological disorders. Psychiatric symtomatology was assessed by self-report and three sets of expert ratings. Seventy-six persons with serious psychopathological disorders were included as participants. As expected, persons relying on hyperactivating strategies of attachment reported generally more psychiatric symptoms than did those relying on deactivating strategies of attachment. However, the three sets of experts rated persons relying on deactivating strategies as more symptomatic than others. More specifically, interviewers who conducted Quality of Life Interviews rated dismissing subjects as exhibiting looser thinking than others. Interviewers who conducted Attachment Interviews rated dismissing subjects as experiencing more delusions, hallucinations, and suspiciousness, and case managers rated dismissing subjects as generally more psychotic. These findings suggest that, although greater preoccupation with attachment issues is associated with more acknowledgment of distress generally and symptoms specifically, greater reliance on deactivating strategies may be associated with greater symptomatology observed by others.

This report represents the perspective that adolescent substance use is best understood as an adaptation to an ecology defined jointly by families and peers. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 206 boys in the Oregon Youth Study. The analyses proceeded in four steps. First, it was found that the transition from middle to high school was a period of rapid growth in smoking for boys with a prior history of low sociometric status. Second, a structural equation model was tested showing that deviant peer association in early adolescence mediated the relation between peer and family experiences in middle childhood and later substance use. Third, an observational study of the boys with their best friends revealed that active support for rule breaking and substance use was associated with immediate escalation in substance use during the transition to high school. Finally, it was found that ineffective parental monitoring practices were highly associated with the boy's involvement in a deviant peer network. In fact, a high degree of similarity was found between boys and their best friends for substance use when parental monitoring was low. These analyses show that substance use in adolescence is embedded within the proximal peer environment, which in turn, emerges and is amplified within a context of low adult involvement and monitoring.

Developmental patterns of childhood peer relations were examined in the prediction of externalizing behavior problems in a 4-year multiple cohort longitudinal study. The participants consisted of 880 third- (M = 9.3 years) through seventh- (M = 13.4 years) grade students. Approximately half of the participants were female, one third were Black, and one third were from low-income homes. Developmental patterns of six indices of peer relations (including group acceptance, group rejection, having a reciprocated best friend, social support from best friend, conflict with best friend, and the aggressiveness of the best friend) were examined as predictors of aggression and delinquency using logistic regression analyses. Results suggest that both group and dyadic peer relations problems are risk factors for aggression and delinquency. Support was found for the cumulative risk model in the prediction of externalizing outcomes from multiple social risk factors that were additively associated with each negative outcome.

This short-term prospective study examined the contribution of aggression and depression, stressful life events, and their interactions to the prediction of peer rejection. Subjects were 497 fifth- and sixth-grade children who completed questionnaires at two time points separated by approximately 3 months. Levels of peer rejection and aggression were assessed by peer nominations; level of depressive symptoms and number of stressful life events were measured by self-report questionnaires. Controlling for sex and baseline level of peer rejection, aggression directly predicted peer rejection. In contrast, depressive symptoms interacted with life stress to predict peer rejection. Examination of the Depression × Stress interaction revealed that depressive symptoms in children who had experienced high levels of life stress were not associated with increased levels of peer rejection, whereas depressive symptoms in children with low levels of stress were predictive of subsequent peer rejection. Several interpretations of these findings and directions for future research are suggested.

This study was designed to expand the investigation of peer-rejected subgroup differences to adolescence. A sample of 501 eighth-grade adolescents (age 13–14 years) were assessed. These students and their classmates (1,082 15–16-year-olds) were assessed at 10th grade. Rejected-antisocial and rejected-nonantisocial subgroups were identified at both time periods using peer ratings of social status and antisocial behavior. They were compared with accepted, accepted-antisocial, and accepted-nonantisocial subgroups. Results are consistent with past research indicating significant heterogeneity within the rejected population. Rejected-antisocial adolescents exhibited elevated problem behavior (substance use and deviant peer involvement), depression, and school adjustment difficulties (low attendance, low achievement, and school discipline problems). Rejected-nonantisocial students in contrast exhibited little problem behavior, but were characterized by low physical attractiveness and lower involvement in athletics. Discussions of psychopathological risk associated with peer rejection must account for the heterogeneity and extreme differences between antisocial and nonantisocial-rejected adolescents. Comparison of antisocial and nonantisocial-rejected children with their respective antisocial and nonantisocial-accepted comparison groups revealed few differences. This calls into question the unique contribution of rejection in the development of psychopathology.