Motivational ideas in psychology and their relation to causes are reviewed. Key ideas include hedonism, arousal, rational decision-making, reinforcement, and impulsivity. Motivations proposed for different acts classified as conduct disorder or delinquency are discussed as well as motivational constructs in delinquency theories. It is concluded that theories should include energizing, directing, inhibiting, and decision-making stages at a minimum. Empirical studies of motivations for delinquency that involve asking youth to give reasons for their acts are also reviewed. The most common motivations reported are utilitarian (seeking money or material goods) and hedonistic (seeking excitement or pleasure). It is pointed out that the validity of motivational theories is a separate issue from the validity of verbal reports of motivations. People may be aware of immediate situational motivations but unaware of longer term biological, psychological, or social factors. A program of research on the energizing, directing, and inhibiting of antisocial behavior is recommended and on the relative effectiveness, in reducing conduct disorder and delinquency, of programs targeting these different stages.

In this paper, both longitudinal and treatment studies relevant to conduct disorder (CD) are reviewed, and a developmental approach to its prevention is presented. Outcome studies for the treatment of CD and antisocial behavior are first reviewed to demonstrate that, although none have been entirely successful, many interventions have powerful effects on various symptoms that comprise the disorder, highly predictive antecedents, and risk factors. Second, the development of CD and the potency and interrelationship among antecedent and mediating variables is traced through the preschool and early elementary school years. Third, an attempt is made to synthesize the developmental and treatment research findings to suggest possible integrations of interventions that are promising for future preventive trials in the preschool and elementary school periods. It is concluded that, whereas before the entry to school preventive interventions targeted entirely in the family setting may prove successful, after the transition to school multisetting interventions will be essential. Finally, three examples of new and multisetting prevention trials are briefly described.

The factors contributing to the mental health of a sample of 18-year-olds were analyzed in a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The contribution of proximal variables such as parenting behavior, intermediate variables such as other family factors, and the more distal variables such as social class and minority status were all highly significant. Child variables were also found to make significant contributions to understanding mental health. When the sample was divided into three subsamples, white advantaged, white disadvantaged, and African American (almost entirely disadvantaged), the mental health of the African American sample was higher than that of the white disadvantaged sample. The regression coefficients fit to the whole sample underestimated the mental health of the African Americans and overestimated the health of the white disadvantaged. The parenting of the African American sample was less approving and more critical and more controlling than that of the other two samples. To investigate the correlates of resilience, pairs of subjects were contrasted who had the same mental health but differed in whether they exceeded or were less than the mental health predicted for them. None of the variables in the study differentiated significantly between the two groups.

Two major transitions – initial school entry and transition to middle school – are emphasized as the points in development most amenable to preventing conduct disorder. As a complement to Reid's analysis of the child and family foci for prevention efforts, this paper discusses the importance of considering social context factors in prevention. In the early school years, peers inadvertently reinforce aggressive and coercive behavior and, thus, contribute to the coercive cycle Patterson describes in families. Middle schools in inner-city contexts have peer social network characteristics that also support delinquent and violent behavior more directly, in contrast to the general suppositions of social control theories of delinquency. The impact of neighborhoods and the larger societal tolerance of violence reflected in the media are also discussed. Prevention strategies for addressing these contextual factors at both developmental periods are outlined in the paper.

The role of assortative pairing for conduct problems in the continuity of such problems with pervasive social maladaptation in early adulthood was examined in a general population inner-city sample and a high-risk group (young people raised in children's homes). Previous findings showing a switch out of conduct disorder for those in the high-risk group who had supportive cohabiting relationships in early adulthood were replicated in the general population sample, using a latent class analysis. Conduct-disordered individuals, however, were much less likely to attain supportive relationships. The reasons for this lay in a chain of environmental linkages through which conduct-disordered individuals paired assortatively with those who provided less support. This process involved unsatisfactory parenting environments, a lack of planful competence, and the membership of a deviant peer group. Protection afforded by a stable family life, a nondeviant peer group, and planful behavior reduced the risks of assortative pairing. The linking processes appeared to be the same for the general population and the high-risk samples, although having been in the children's homes related to an increased risk of a lack of support, even when the linking processes were taken into account.

The present paper charts the course for future research on the treatment of conduct disorder. The course builds on current advances both in understanding conduct disorder and its treatment and in the clinical care provided to youth and their families. The paper highlights substantive and methodological advances in contemporary research on both treatment and developmental psychopathology more generally. In light of the current status of treatment research, several priorities are identified, which include expanding the criteria used to evaluate outcome, expanding the range of research questions asked about treatment, testing a broader range of treatments and treatment combinations, evaluating long-term treatment effects, and expanding the models to develop and to evaluate treatment. A plan is presented to guide the progression of research to identify and to develop effective interventions. The special opportunities that a developmental perspective provides for designing treatments for youth of different ages and stages of development are also discussed.

The thesis of this paper is that a reciprocal relation must develop between basic research on the developmental psychopathology of conduct disorder and applied treatment studies. Basic research can guide treatment design, and treatment outcomes can test developmental theories. The nature of conduct disorder seems to be one of multivariate components that act in self-perpetuating ways across development. These components include family, child-cognitive, peer group, and ecocommunity systems. Interventions that are directed toward just one component may be successful in producing proximal changes in the targeted domain, but they are not likely to be successful in long-term prevention of serious conduct disorder because other forces counteract these changes. The goal of treatment research needs to be long-term conduct disorder prevention. Two kinds of treatment studies are needed, one kind that is directed toward developing a technology of successful change procedures for individual processes and a second kind that uses these multiple change procedures in a comprehensive effort to prevent serious conduct disorder.

“Whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth…makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference,” claimed Aristotle, wrestling with notions of conduct disorder (CD) and antisocial behavior two thousand years ago (Bk. II, chap. 1). As I respond to the invitation of John Richters and Dante Cicchetti to reflect on “where research on antisocial behavior has been, is now, and is going,” I think about the implications of Aristotle's claim. On the one hand, Aristotle points to the training received during childhood as key to understanding subsequent misbehavior. On the other, he believed that individuals must be responsible for their behavior and that, therefore, they must be able to make choices regarding how to act.

The papers in this special issue attest to the theoretical and empirical advances that have been made in understanding the epidemiology, subtypes, etiology, neuropsychology, psychobiology, course, consequences, prevention, and treatment of conduct disorder (CD) (see also Kazdin, 1987; Loeber, 1990; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986; Moffitt, 1990; Patterson, 1982; Robins, 1991; White, Moffitt, Earls, Robins, & Silva, 1990). A number of theoretical conceptualizations have been forwarded in an attempt to comprehend this complex form of disorder in children. Such divergence in thinking indicates that the topic of CD has evolved into an active and significant domain of inquiry. To date, however, there has been no unifying theoretical framework for bringing conceptual clarity to the diverse perspectives represented in the study of conduct disorder. Although existing work within particular disciplines and subdisciplines has provided substantial contributions to our understanding of CD, these accounts typically have not considered the broader matrix of complex and evolving biological, cognitive, socioemotional, representational, and social-cognitive capacities of the developing child. As a consequence, disparate theoretical formulations are often too narrow in focus to address the range of processes and mechanisms that will be necessary to explain adequately how and why manifestations of CD emerge, change overtime and are influenced by children's developmental levels.