Despite increasing knowledge of social and biological risk factors for antisocial and violent behavior, we know surprisingly little about how these two sets of risk factors interact. This paper documents 39 empirical examples of biosocial interaction effects for antisocial behavior from the areas of genetics, psychophysiology, obstetrics, brain imaging, neuropsychology, neurology, hormones, neurotransmitters, and environmental toxins. Two main themes emerge. First, when biological and social factors are grouping variables and when antisocial behavior is the outcome, then the presence of both risk factors exponentially increases the rates of antisocial and violent behavior. Second, when social and antisocial variables are grouping variables and biological functioning is the outcome, then the social variable invariably moderates the antisocial-biology relationship such that these relationships are strongest in those from benign home backgrounds. It is argued that further biosocial research is critical for establishing a new generation of more successful intervention and prevention research.

Teacher-rated antisocial behavior in early elementary grades has been shown to be a precursor of adolescent delinquency and drug use. The combined effects of parent and teacher training on the teacher-rated antisocial behavior of a panel of subjects assigned to experimental and control classrooms at entry into the first grade was assessed at the end of the second grade. Lower rates of aggressiveness were found for white boys in the experimental classrooms and lower rates of self-destructive behavior were found for white girls in the experimental classrooms when compared with controls on the Teacher Form of the Child Behavior Checklist. No significant condition differences were found for black subjects. The interventions are described and limits and implications of the study are discussed.

This study examined whether maternal control protects African American adolescents from the negative influence of problem peers. Two forms of control were examined, behavioral control and psychological control. It was hypothesized that there would be a curvilinear relation between control and adolescent problem behavior, with the strength of the relationship and the amount of control optimal for adolescent development varying by the level of peer problem behavior. In general, data supported this model, particularly in regard to behavioral control, where the predicted curvilinear interaction occurred even after controlling for initial levels of problem behavior. The predicted curvilinear interaction between psychological control and peer problem behavior was statistically significant if initial levels of problem behavior were not controlled for but was not significant after controlling for initial problem behavior. These findings suggest that high-quality parenting can play a modest but critical role in the face of environmental adversity.

The search for ways to prevent juvenile crime in the United States has become a matter of national urgency, as the incidence of serious offenses continues to rise. Most prevention initiatives focus on late childhood or adolescence. Such initiatives may be missing an important additional opportunity to intervene earlier in children's lives. This review of literature from criminology, psychology, and education shows that there exist key early childhood factors which are associated with later antisocial or delinquent behavior and that early childhood programs which seek to ameliorate the effects of those factors can prevent later antisocial or delinquent behavior. In particular, the review focuses on programs which have demonstrated long-term effects on antisocial behavior or delinquency. These programs have in common a combination of intensive family support and early education services, and effects on a broad range of child and family risk factors for delinquency. Moreover, there is promising evidence of their cost-effectiveness. As one element in a comprehensive plan to address poverty and other environmental causes of crime, programs combining family support with early education show promise in lessening the current devastating impact of delinquency on America's children and families.

The Montréal Longitudinal Study of Disruptive Boys, an experimental study, was designed to understand boys who were considered disruptive in kindergarten. One part of the study involved assessing effects of a preventive treatment program carried out during the boys' early years in primary school. This paper reports on the outcome of the randomized treatment experiment 3 years after treatments ended. Disruptive boys were randomly allocated to a treated group and two nontreated groups. Treatment consisted of parent training and training of boys for social skills, fantasy play and television viewing. Results suggest that the treatment program had some positive effects. Some of the improvements were not evident immediately after treatment ended.

OBJECTIVE: Methods to prevent two major mental disorders, schizophrenia and conduct disorder, have been elusive. This study assessed the effects of an early nutritional, educational, and physical exercise enrichment program on adult outcome for schizotypal personality, conduct disorder, and criminal behavior. METHOD: Eighty-three children were assigned to an experimental enrichment program from ages 3 to 5 years and matched on temperament, nutritional, cognitive, autonomic, and demographic variables with 355 children who experienced usual community conditions (control group). Both self-report and objective measures of schizotypal personality and antisocial behavior were obtained when the subjects were ages 17 and 23 years. RESULTS: Subjects who participated in the enrichment program at ages 3-5 years had lower scores for schizotypal personality and antisocial behavior at age 17 years and for criminal behavior at age 23 years, compared with the control subjects. The beneficial effects of the intervention were greater for children who showed signs of malnutrition at age 3 years, particularly with respect to outcomes for schizotypy at ages 17 and 23 and for antisocial behavior at age 17. CONCLUSIONS: The results are consistent with an increasing body of knowledge that implicates an enriched, stimulating environment in beneficial psychological and behavioral outcomes. These findings have potential implications for the prevention of schizophrenia and criminal behavior.

Many prevention studies are now designed with complementary interventions in different settings. Evaluations of these interventions require assessing the child's behavior in each of these settings. Conducting these studies, therefore, may involve recruiting school districts, principals, classroom teachers, peers, parents, siblings, and in later years, employers and intimate partners. These participants may be considered natural raters or satellite subjects, depending on their degree of involvement. Issues of recruitment and retention thus are magnified in multimethod, multiagent studies. To illustrate these issues, findings are presented for three studies conducted with risk populations in the past decade at the Oregon Social Learning Center: a passive longitudinal study, a selected prevention study, and an indicated prevention study. Findings indicate that achieving high recruitment and retention rates for at-risk and high-risk subjects in multisetting studies is possible, and that a developmental approach should be taken to recruiting risk populations.

This study explored the effects of structural and experiential neighborhood factors and developmental stage on antisocial behavior, among a sample of poor urban adolescents in New York City. Conceptually and empirically distinct profiles of neighborhood experience were derived from the data, based on measures of perceived neighborhood cohesion, poverty-related hassles, and involvement in neighborhood organizations and activities. Both the profiles of neighborhood experience and a measure of census-tract-level neighborhood hazard (poverty and violence) showed relationships to antisocial behavior. Contrary to expectation, higher levels of antisocial behavior were reported among adolescents residing in moderate-structural-risk neighborhoods than those in high-structural-risk neighborhoods. This effect held only for teens in middle (not early) adolescence and was stronger for teens perceiving their neighborhoods as hassling than for those who did not. Implications for future research and preventive intervention are discussed.

Conducted a pilot study to test the feasibility of a prevention program for promoting parenting in families of preschoolers at high risk for behavior problems. Risk status was based on a family history of antisocial behavior and residence in a low-income, urban community. Thirty preschoolers (ages 21/2 to 5) and their parents were randomly assigned to a 1-year, home- and clinic-based intervention or to a no-intervention control condition. Despite families' multiple risk factors, high rates of attendance and satisfaction were achieved. Relative to controls, intervention parents were observed to be significantly more responsive and use more positive parenting practices. Results support the feasibility of engaging high-risk families in an intensive prevention program. The meaningful changes achieved in parenting suggest that a preventive approach is promising for families with multiple risk factors.

The design of effective interventions for antisocial adolescents has been greatly influenced by research-based developmental theories. However, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) demonstrating effectiveness of these treatments have contributed minimally to alterations and refinements of these theories. In this article, nine guidelines for research that may enhance the contributions of RCTs to developmental theory are proposed:(1) use mediational analyses to test and refine theories of change;(2) use moderator analyses to test differential pathways to change;(3) assess change processes separately for different types of antisocial behavior;(4) use constructive and dismantling designs to isolate effects of intervention components on targeted mediators and outcomes;(5) assess the time-sensitive nature of change mechanisms with theoretically relevant spacing of multiple assessments and long-term follow-ups;(6) expand the nomological net of developmental theories by assessing intervention effects on nontargeted constructs;(7) use RCTs to disentangle direction of effects questions in developmental theories;(8) conduct secondary analyses of RCTs to assess extra-treatment influences on antisocial behavior; and (9) assess the generalizability of mediator and moderator effects. Use of these guidelines may promote a recursive and iterative relationship between RCTs and theory building. Improved developmental theories may yield more effective interventions, and theory-testing interventions may engender more comprehensive and better informed theories.