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Kirkpatrick, Neil M.

Psychology

2008

PhD

Although still controversial, a growing body of research supports the contention that girls and boys follow substantially different developmental trajectories to antisocial behavior in adolescence. However, for both girls and boys, aggression is regarded as a fundamental causal process of persistent antisocial behavior. Additionally, for boys, a pattern of interpersonal responding marked by low-empathy and low-emotional responsiveness, generally referred to as Callous Unemotional (CU) traits, has been found to mark a particularly severe subset of aggressive, antisocial youth. The current study proposes that girls might better be characterized as callous and emotionally reactive, than callous, and unemotional, and seeks to draw a link between emotional reactivity and aggression, that is moderated by gender such that emotional reactivity is significantly associated with aggression for girls but not boys, in a sample of adjudicated youths (n=150, mean age = 15.21 years, SD = 1.40 years, range = 11-17). Youths were interviewed individually at one of two locations, either a detention center or a locked residential facility, and the staff and teachers at these centers completed packets of written measures. Resulted supported an association between emotional reactivity and aggression that is moderated by gender, such that it is relevant for girls but not for boys. Although several of the individual hypotheses were not supported, the pattern of results suggested several methodological and conceptual modifications that could enhance future studies. The necessity for caution when incorporating both cognitive and affective risk factors into a single model is discussed.