Citation

Martino SC, Ellickson PL, Klein DJ, McCaffrey D, Edelen MO. Aggressive Behav. 2008; 34(1): 61-75.

Affiliation

RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213-26, USA. martino@rand.org

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, International Society for Research on Aggression, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/ab.20215

PMID

17701991

Abstract

Latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify discrete patterns of physical aggression from Grades 7 to 11 among a sample of 1,877 youth. Four trajectory classes adequately explained the development of physical aggression in both boys and girls: Low/No Aggression; Persistent High Aggression; Desisting Aggression, characterized by decreasing risk throughout adolescence; and Adolescent Aggression, characterized by low early risk that increases until Grade 9, levels out, and then declines in late adolescence. Girls were less likely than boys were to be in any trajectory besides the Low/No Aggression trajectory. Parental supervision, deviant peer association, academic orientation, impulsivity, and emotional distress at Grade 7 were all strongly associated with trajectory class membership. These associations did not differ by gender. These findings strongly suggest that the processes involved in the development of physical aggression in adolescence operate similarly in boys and girls.

Language: en