Antisocial Behavior

Antisocial behavior is a developmental trait which can begin in early elementary grade school and continue on into adolescent years, and adulthood. This study suggests that antisocial behavior starts in with the early childhood development

of coercive family behavior in the home. The theoretical models incorporate the influence of parents' discipline practices, peer relations, depression, stress, and many other variables over the course of the child's development. Empirical tests of the models show how these variables influence and in many cases are influenced by child deviance and how peers help train deviance, and the onset of adolescent depression and criminal activity. The study puts a heavy emphasis on the role of parenting, characterizing families of antisocial children to be lacking in education, using a harsh forceful style of discipline with very little parental involvement and poor supervision and that antisocial behavior is learned from disruptive parenting and its correlation to antisocial behavior. It is believed that many antisocial children have antisocial parents, and grandparents etc.

The article presents research at its best. The research shows how basic epidemiologic and longitudinal studies are used to construct and test theory

of a clinical problem; how multiple variables can be integrated, modeled, and tested; and how basic research can be translated into effective interventions. The article uses theory, research, and guidelines for intervention and very good in showing how these relate to each other. However, I also felt that many of the studies used contained biases to the variables relating to parenting. It seems to

attribute bad parenting, lack of education and certain other stressors to be traits of parents of a lesser social economic class. Bad parenting and antisocial behavior can be found in all social economic classes.

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