Response decision processes and externalizing behavior problems in adolescents

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2002

Abstract

Externalizing behavior problems of 124 adolescents were assessed across Grades 7-11. In Grade 9, participants were also assessed across social-cognitive domains after imagining themselves as the object of provocations portrayed in six videotaped vignettes. Participants responded to vignette-based questions representing multiple processes of the response decision step of social information processing. Phase 1 of our investigation supported a two-factor model of the response evaluation process of response decision (response valuation and outcome expectancy). Phase 2 showed significant relations between the set of these response decision processes, as well as response selection, measured in Grade 9 and (a) externalizing behavior in Grade 9 and (b) externalizing behavior in Grades 10-11, even after controlling externalizing behavior in Grades 7-8. These findings suggest that on-line behavioral judgments about aggression play a crucial role in the maintenance and growth of aggressive response tendencies in adolescence. Copyright © 2002 Cambridge University Press.

Publication Title

Development and psychopathology

Volume

14

Issue

1

First Page

107

Last Page

122

Comments

This article was published in Development and psychopathology, Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages 107-122.

The published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954579402001062.

Copyright © 2002 Cambridge University Press.

This document is currently not available here.

COinS