Advancing knowledge about delinquency and crime: The need for a coordinated program of longitudinal research

Past research on delinquency and crime has provided convincing data about correlates but not about causes, because it has been largely cross-sectional in design. Whereas cross-sectional research focuses on variations between subjects, longitudinal research can provide information about changes within subjects, which are more important for causes, prevention, and treatment. Many of the most important results in criminology have been obtained in longitudinal or experimental studies, and the major studies of these types are reviewed here. It is now desirable to combine the two methods in a new coordinated program of longitudinal studies including experimental interventions or quasi-experimental analyses. Such projects could study several overlapping cohorts, extend from birth to adulthood, have frequent data collection, and obtain data from a variety of sources about many different types of antisocial behavior.     

PACHIQ-R: the Parent-Child Interaction Questionnaire--revised

The PACHIQ (Parent-Child Interaction Questionnaire) is designed to help clinicians and researchers assess how parents view relationship with their children (PACHIQ-Parent version), and how children evaluate their relationship with their parents (PACHIQ-Child version). The items in this questionnaire refer to both interpersonal behavior and feelings. Conceptually, the PACHIQ is based on learning theory and structural systems theory. The development of the PACHIQ was described by Lange, Blonk and Wiers (1998). The present article reports additional psychometric data obtained in the development and validation of a revised, shorter version of the questionnaire (PACHIQ-R). We present norm tables for families with children who are referred for psychological treatment, and norm tables for families in the normal Dutch population. The PACHIQ-R displays a two-factor structure with factors interpreted as Conflict Resolution and Acceptance. The parent version of the PACHIQ-R contains 21 items, the child version 25 items.     

Psychosocial predictors of adult antisocial personality and adult convictions

In the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, 411 South London males have been followed up since age 8. This article investigates the ability of psychosocial risk factors measured at age 8 - 10 to predict antisocial personality measures at ages 18 and 32 and convictions between ages 21 and 40. The most important childhood predictors were a convicted parent, large family size, low intelligence or attainment, and child-rearing factors, including a young mother and a disrupted family. The accuracy of prediction of antisocial personality at age 32 on the basis of childhood risk factors measured more than 20 years before was surprising: nearly half of boys with a convicted parent at age 10 were antisocial at age 32, compared with one in six of the remainder. Over 60% of boys very high risk at age 8 - 10 became antisocial at age 32. While the present research shows how far adult antisocial and criminal behavior can be predicted in childhood, more research is needed to establish the precise causal mechanisms involved.     

Protective Factors as Moderators of Risk Factors in Adolescence Bullying

The present study examined the role played by protective factors in moderating the effects of risk factors over bullying and victimization in a sample of 679 male adolescents recruited in Italian high schools. Boys’ involvement in bullying revealed that one in three students has bullied others at least sometimes in the previous three months, and one in six has been victimized at the same rate; victimization decreases with age. The family related risk factor (conflicting parents) was positively associated with bullying and with victimization (together with punitive parenting); the same applied for risk factor related to the individual ways of dealing with problems (emotionally oriented coping skills). Protective factors related to the family context (supportive and authoritative parents) and to the individual (problem solving coping skills) were negatively associated to bullying and victimization. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a moderating effect of supportive parenting on punitive parenting and on emotionally oriented coping strategies in predicting victimization. Problem solving coping strategies helped buffer the negative impact of emotionally oriented coping strategies over bullying. Implications of results for practitioners and for future studies are addressed.     

Grandiose-Manipulative,Callous-Unemotional,and Daring-Impulsive: the Prediction of Psychopathic Traits in Adolescence and their Outcomes in Adulthood

There has been much debate about how to measure psychopathic traits in adolescence. One of the main issues is whether one should focus on callous-unemotional (CU) traits alone, or CU traits in combination with Grandiose-Manipulative (GM) and Daring-Impulsive (DI) traits. The current study first investigates the extent to which youth who are high on CU traits are also high on GM and DI traits. In addition, the study investigates if being high on both CU and GM, and high on both CU and DI, identify groups that are particularly characterized by past and future impairments. To investigate this, data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) was analyzed. The CSDD is a prospective longitudinal study of 411 English boys spanning over 50 years. The information available at age 12–14 was coded on the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD). Childhood risk factors were measured at age 8–10 and later life outcomes were measured at age 32. The results indicate that being high on CU in combination with DI delineates a clinically interesting group who are characterized by high childhood risk and poorer adult life outcomes. The same applied to the high CU/high GM group, but to a lesser extent.     

Cohort differences in Big Five personality factors over a period of 25 years

The notion of personality traits implies a certain degree of stability in the life span of an individual. But what about generational effects? Are there generational changes in the distribution or structure of personality traits? This article examines cohort changes on the Big Five personality factors Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience, among first-year psychology students in The Netherlands, ages 18 to 25 years, between 1982 and 2007. Because measurement invariance of a personality test is essential for a sound interpretation of cohort differences in personality, we first assessed measurement invariance with respect to cohort for males and females separately on the Big Five personality factors, as measured by the Dutch instrument Five Personality Factors Test. Results identified 11 (females) and 2 (males) biased items with respect to cohort, out of a total of 70 items. Analyzing the unbiased items, results indicated small linear increases over time in Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness and small linear decreases over time in Neuroticism. No clear patterns were found on the Openness to Experience factor. Secondary analyses on students from 1971 to 2007 of females and males of different ages together revealed linear trends comparable to those in the main analyses among young adults between 1982 onward. The results imply that the broad sociocultural context may affect personality factors.     

Tribespotting: a semiotic analysis of the role of consumption in the tribes of Trainspotting

• The postmodern self is so engaged with the symbolic aspects of consumption that many authors have argued that consumption defines the self. Drawing upon the literature in this area, with a particular stress on the symbolic interactionist school of thought, it is the thesis of the authors that many acts of consumption are tribal and role supporting. From this we develop a model: the rubix cube of postmodern consumption. This model places the power of self‐definition squarely on the psychic powers of the individual and not in the realms of consumption. Consumption does not define the self. Evidence, to support this view and model, is garnered from a semiotic analysis of consumption in the motion picture Trainspotting.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ockham Efficiency Theorem for Stochastic Empirical Methods

Ockham’s razor is the principle that, all other things being equal, scientists ought to prefer simpler theories. In recent years, philosophers have argued that simpler theories make better predictions, possess theoretical virtues like explanatory power, and have other pragmatic virtues like computational tractability. However, such arguments fail to explain how and why a preference for simplicity can help one find true theories in scientific inquiry, unless one already assumes that the truth is simple. One new solution to that problem is the Ockham efficiency theorem (Kelly 2002, Minds Mach 14:485–505, 2004, Philos Sci 74:561–573, 2007a, b, Theor Comp Sci 383:270–289, c, d; Kelly and Glymour 2004), which states that scientists who heed Ockham’s razor retract their opinions less often and sooner than do their non-Ockham competitors. The theorem neglects, however, to consider competitors following random (“mixed”) strategies and in many applications random strategies are known to achieve better worst-case loss than deterministic strategies. In this paper, we describe two ways to extend the result to a very general class of random, empirical strategies. The first extension concerns expected retractions, retraction times, and errors and the second extension concerns retractions in chance, times of retractions in chance, and chances of errors.