A life history approach to understanding juvenile offending and aggression

Highlights

• Youthful offenders with fast versus slow LH strategies were identified.

• Youth with a fast strategy experienced higher parental hostility and lower quality homes.

• Youth with a fast strategy were more likely to report victimization.

• Youth with a fast strategy exhibited greater offending and aggression over time.

Abstract

Life history theory has been used to understand how harsh and unpredictable environments contribute to risk behaviors. The theory suggests that exposure to negative environments leads individuals to adopt a “fast” life strategy, which is hypothesized to make individuals more likely to engage in risky behavior that is associated with immediate rewards. Using data from a sample of 1216 justice-involved male youth, we defined distinct groups of youth with a “fast” versus “slow” life strategy, based on their scores on measures of sensation seeking, impulse control, future orientation, consideration of others, and suppression of aggression. A logistic regression was used to test how different environmental factors predicted LH strategy group membership. Having a fast strategy was associated with greater victimization, higher parental hostility, and lower quality home environments. Growth curve models were used to examine group differences in offending and aggression over five years. Youth with a fast life strategy engaged in more violent and non-violent offending, as well as more relational and physical aggression. Although there were significant decreases in these behaviors within both groups over the five years, these group differences remained consistent over time.

Introduction

The experience of growing up in harsh or unpredictable contexts is associated with a wide range of poor adolescent outcomes. Exposure to violence and hostile home environments contributes to higher levels of substance use, criminal behavior, early pregnancy, and mental health problems (Fox, Perez, Cass, Baglivio, & Epps, 2015; Haynie, Petts, Maimon, & Piquero, 2009; Mersky, Topitzes, & Reynolds, 2012). Life history theory (LHT) serves as one framework to better understand the relations between environmental quality and the development of maladaptive behaviors. Harsh and unpredictable environments represent a threat to an individual's mortality or possible future, which leads him to adopt a “fast” life strategy. In contrast, supportive and stable environments represent a long lifespan and predictable future, which lead the youth to adopt a “slow” life strategy. These strategies differ in the extent to which an individual prioritizes immediate rewards at the expense of future consequences. Crime, substance use and other forms of risk-taking all reflect decisions that prioritize immediate gains while disregarding long-term costs.

Previous work evaluating the tenants of LHT in relation to criminal offending and aggressive behavior has been limited in testing the theory's core propositions. Most notably, prior studies have used risk behaviors as indicators of a fast and slow strategy and have overlooked whether individual psychological orientations are also consistent with differences in life strategies (e.g., Belsky, Schlomer, & Ellis, 2012; Brumbach, Figueredo, & Ellis, 2009; Simpson, Griskevicius, Kuo, Sung, & Collins, 2012; Wilson & Daly, 1997). Specifically, LHT argues that the divergence in decision-making processes (e.g., present vs. future orientation) is what facilitates involvement in behavior associated with fast or slow strategies. The current study distinguishes the components of the LHT model and assesses the relations between negative environments, LHT strategies, and offending and aggression in a sample of justice-involved male youth.

LHT provides an evolutionary framework that is used to understand variation in behavioral patterns that reflect the tension between survival and reproduction (e.g., Charnov, 1993; Roff, 1992; Roff, 2002; Stearns, 1992). All organisms face the challenge of allocating and maximizing resources, and often need to dedicate resources to one task at the expense of another. For example, an individual may devote resources towards growth and maturation at the cost of delaying reproduction (Ellis, Figueredo, Brumbach, & Schlomer, 2009). LHT argues that an individual's environment promotes the use of specific “life strategies” that range from fast to slow and carry implications for decision-making. Individuals who adopt faster life strategies typically develop an abbreviated time horizon that prioritizes the possibility of immediate gains. In contrast, slow life strategies are characterized by long-term planning aimed at achieving larger, future gains (Ellis et al., 2012).

Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper (1991) applied a similar framework within the context of parenting and child development, and argued that contextual stressors, such as marital discord or unstable employment, bring about harsh and inconsistent parenting behaviors. As a result of exposure to this type of parenting, children develop insecure attachments within their social relationships. The authors posit that children with insecure attachments will be less skilled at fostering and maintaining close relationships with friends and romantic partners, and will mature and initiate sexual intercourse at an earlier age. Because their early environments signalled stress and uncertainty, it is advantageous to initiate reproduction early to increase the chances of the survival and fitness of one's offspring (Belsky et al., 1991). Indeed, research supported these hypotheses, finding that individuals who have adopted a fast life strategy are more likely to experience earlier reproductive development, have more frequent and more casual sexual relationships, and produce more offspring at a younger age (Bereczkei & Csanaky, 2001; Ellis et al., 2009; Ellis et al., 2012; Mittal & Griskevicius, 2014).

Subsequent work on LHT has provided additional insight into how individual differences in decision-making practices (i.e., slow vs. fast strategies) emerge. Specifically, exposure to harsh and unpredictable environments contribute to differences in life strategies and ultimately lead to variation in developmental, psychological and behavioral outcomes (Ellis, 2004;Ellis et al., 2009; Simpson et al., 2012). Environmental harshness typically refers to rates of morbidity and mortality, whereas unpredictability captures fluctuations in harshness over time (Ellis et al., 2009; Simpson et al., 2012). Empirical tests of LHT have used indicators of neighborhood safety, negative life events, family chaos, and exposure to violence as proxies for environmental harshness and unpredictability (Brumbach et al., 2009; Chang et al., 2018). Exposure to these types of environments lead to declines in mental and physical health, and increases in aggression and criminal behavior (Hunter, Boyle, & Warden, 2004; Taylor & Stanton, 2007).

The LHT has been extended to understand behaviors beyond reproduction and parenting, such as involvement in other forms of risky behavior. Ellis et al. (2012) argue that while risk behaviors (e.g., promiscuity, substance use) are typically understood as maladaptive within developmental psychopathology frameworks, evolutionary models posit that risk behaviors may be adaptive and logical in certain contexts. That is, taking risks carries both costs and benefits, and for individuals in harsh and unpredictable contexts, the benefits of a risky decision might outweigh the costs. Antisocial behaviors often arise in stressful or difficult environments, such as abusive or neglectful family homes or violent neighborhoods (Ingoldsby & Shaw, 2002; Ryan, Williams, & Courtney, 2013; Stewart, Livingston, & Dennison, 2008). Given the potential immediate gains (i.e., status, respect, money) and arguably distant threat of punishment associated with involvement in any one criminal incident, criminal behavior or aggression can be understood as a logical consequence of adopting a fast LH strategy.

Several studies provide empirical support for the importance of LH strategy in understanding risky decision-making, particularly in relation to delinquency and aggressive behaviors. Brumbach et al. (2009) evaluated the relation between environmental harshness and unpredictability with a range of life history traits or strategies during both adolescence and young adulthood. Life history strategies were assessed by measuring physical and mental health, sexual attitudes and behaviors, and delinquency and drug use. As expected, environmental unpredictability and harshness were associated with a faster life strategy during adolescence, which were in turn associated with adolescent social deviance (Brumbach et al., 2009). Another investigation assessed the relation between harsh and unpredictable environments experienced during early and later childhood and LH strategies in young adulthood, with sexual and risky behavior as a proxy for LH strategy (Simpson et al., 2012). Childhood reports of environment quality predicted a faster strategy at age 23. In both studies, youth who reported an earlier age of first sexual intercourse, more sexual partners, and more aggressive and delinquent behavior were assumed to have developed a faster LH strategy (Brumbach et al., 2009; Simpson et al., 2012). That is, these studies equated, rather than differentiated, LH strategy with the presence or absence of risky behaviors and did not determine whether these behaviors also were associated with psychological orientations consistent with a fast or slow strategy.

A recent cross-cultural study examined whether environmental harshness and unpredictability was associated with LH strategy two years later (Chang et al., 2018). The authors assessed LH strategy through measures of insight, planning, and control, as well as measures of parent-child relationship quality and family support. The results suggested that harshness and unpredictability (assessed through childhood measures of neighborhood safety, family chaos and change in family income) predicted LH strategy at age 13, which subsequently predicted externalizing behaviors and academic performance at age 15, a pattern that was invariant across the 11 countries included in the analysis (Chang et al., 2018). Wenner and colleagues (2013) assessed the relation between life history strategy and social deviance, and similarly measured LH strategy with scales of insight and planning, altruism, as well as support from family and friends. Again, because both studies use measures of the environment (i.e., parent-child relationship quality and parental support) as an indicator of life strategy, as opposed to psychological orientations, additional work parsing the environment and strategy seems warranted.

While informative, much of the past work testing LHT often conflates three key components of the framework that arguably should be distinctly considered: environment, psychological orientation, and subsequent behaviors. In light of this limitation, additional work establishing a firm distinction between the LHT components is needed. One study has taken this approach, using the General Factor of Personality (GFP) as an indicator of LH strategy in a sample of 1345 adult male institutionalized offenders (van der Linden, Dunkel, Beaver, & Louwen, 2015). The GFP captures dimensions of personality, interpersonal behavior, (i.e., California Psychological Inventory) and social desirability (i.e., Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). Inmates higher on GFP (indicative of a slower life strategy) reported less violence during their index offence, were less likely to reoffend, and exhibited fewer behavioral and adjustment problems while incarcerated. Although this study clearly distinguishes the strategy indicators from the subsequent behaviors, this analysis did not consider how prior exposure to harsh or unpredictable contexts contributed to the individuals' LH strategies. LH strategies may be reflected by both behaviors and psychological orientations, however, research tends to discount the importance of whether there is concordance between behavior and psychological orientations. Further, it was not able to assess whether the behavioral differences among those with fast and slow strategies persisted after the individuals were released from the facility.

The current study advances our understanding of the development of aggressive, violent, and antisocial behavior among adolescents within a LHT framework. Specifically, we evaluate the extent to which there are group differences in psychological orientations that are consistent with the fast and slow LH strategies. Importantly, we distinguish between fast and slow strategies using several measures of psychosocial functioning (e.g., impulse control, sensation seeking, future orientation, life expectancy and suppression of aggression), as opposed to discriminating between strategies solely based on the presence or absence of risk behaviors. Consistent with a LHT framework, we are able to subsequently explore how exposure to different types of harsh and unpredictable environments are predictive of adolescents' life strategies that moves beyond just a consideration of the relationship between the environment and risky behavior. Importantly, we employ an analytic approach that also allows us to test the individual, rather than cumulative, associations between each environmental factors and LH strategy. Finally, we examine whether individuals with a fast LH strategy are more likely to engage in aggressive, violent and antisocial behavior for a period of five-years following their first arrest.