Understanding externalizing behavior from children's personality and parenting characteristics

Abstract

A total of 946 Japanese children in the 5th to 9th grades and their parents were studied in order to investigate the extent to which parenting characteristics (measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument) and the personality of the child (measured by the junior version of the Temperament and Character Inventory) would be associated with the two aspects of the externalizing problems — aggression and delinquency — of the child (measured by the Child Behavior Checklist). A series of regression analyses demonstrated that (1) aggressive children were higher in Novelty Seeking, and delinquent children were higher in Novelty Seeking and lower in Harm Avoidance, and (2) both aggressive and delinquent children were characterised by low maternal care, paternal over-protection, and low maternal overprotection. A structural equation model confirmed these findings except for the link between the two externalising behaviour scores and the maternal care. Moreover, it was suggested that Novelty seeking of the child would be predicted by low parental care and low paternal and high maternal overprotection. The children's aggression and delinquency could, to some extent, be explainable by their temperament patterns and parental characteristics.

Introduction

A developmental approach to juvenile aggressive and delinquent behavior can open many avenues to knowledge. Caspi (2000) and Caspi et al. (2003) demonstrated predictability of adult personality from the behavioural characteristics of 3-year olds in a long-term follow-up study. Aggressive behavior is no exception. Its onset during childhood or early adolescence increases the risk of later criminal behavior, academic failure, and problems in social relationships (Conger et al., 2003). In order for children to achieve early socialization they must obtain control over anger and tolerance for frustrating circumstances. These capacities do not come automatically. Temper tantrums and disruptive reactions to frustration are examples of lack of anger tolerance. By middle childhood, most children have acquired self-control strategies that permit them to manage anger and tolerate frustrating circumstances. However, there are some children who still have great difficulty in regulating their emotions and controlling their impulses.

Systematic individual differences in temperament emerge very early. Some babies are less easy to soothe and have problems adapting to the rhythms of social life. A large body of research suggests that some infants are born with dispositions that favor particular levels of activity, irritability, and vulnerability to arousal (Bates, 1986, Goldsmith and Campos, 1986, Kagan et al., 1984, Kagan et al., 1987, Rothbart and Goldsmith, 1985). Although there are measures of temperaments of infants and toddlers there is a scarcity of temperament measures of school children. Cloninger et al. (1993) presented a model of personality that consists of two elements — temperament and character. Temperament refers to automatic emotional responses to experiences that are moderately heritable and stable throughout life; the four measured temperament dimensions are Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA), Reward Dependence (RD), and Persistence (P). Cloninger et al. (1994b) hypothesized that the temperament systems in the brain are functionally organized as independently varying systems for the activation (Novelty Seeking), maintenance (Reward Dependence), and inhibition (Harm Avoidance) of behavior in response to specific classes of stimuli. In contrast, character refers to self-concepts and individual differences in goals and values, which influence voluntary choices, intentions, and the meaning of what is experienced in life. Differences in character are moderately influenced by sociocultural learning and mature in progressive steps throughout life. The three measured character dimensions are Self-directedness (SD), Co-operativeness (C), and Self-transcendence (ST). Each of these aspects of personality interacts with the others to motivate adaptation to life experiences and influence susceptibility to emotional and behavioral disorders. Cloninger et al. (1993) have developed a model of personality that includes seven personality dimensions. From this theoretical consideration was developed a self-report measure — the Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger et al., 1994a). The original version is for an adult population, but a version for schoolchildren was developed later (Luby et al., 1999).

Using Taiwanese junior high school students, Kuo et al. (2003) reported that delinquent and aggressive behaviours were predicted by high Novelty Seeking score. In a longitudinal follow-up study of children aged 3 to 10, Leech et al. (2003) reported that lower shyness of children predicted delinquent behavior at age10. In a Swedish longitudinal study, Sigvardsson et al. (1987) maintained that children with the temperament constellation of high Novelty Seeking, low Harm Avoidance, and low Reward Dependence showed more aggressive behavior at age 15 and more violent and delinquent behavior as adults than children with other temperament profiles. These reports suggest that delinquent and aggressive behaviours of adolescents have some temperamental characteristics.

Because the home environment is a main developmental context for children, parental behaviors as they contribute to children's behavior problems have been intensively investigated. Dodge et al. (1994) followed children from kindergarten to grade 3. They reported that children's externalizing behavior scores could be predicted by aspects of the early home environment, such as harsh discipline, lack of maternal warmth, and maternal aggressive values. Examining some 8000 children aged 14 in a prospective study, Bor et al. (2004) reported that delinquency was predicted by marital instability and, to a lesser extent, by parents who displayed low affection and allowed much freedom. A drawback of these past investigations is the lack of focus on father's contribution. Dodge et al. (1994) studied only mothers' attitudes. Bor et al. (2004) combined the data of mothers' and fathers' attitudes. Phares and Compas (1992) reviewed research in all major journals addressing clinical child development published between 1984 and 1992 and found that nearly half of all reported studies involved mothers only. Only one quarter of the remaining studies included father-related material. Another important environment for children's development is the group of peers (e.g., Harris, 1995, Hodges et al., 1997). This issue is, however, beyond the scope of this article but certainly merits further investigations.

Another issue related to the relationship between children's aggressive and delinquent behaviours and sociocultural aspects of parental and temperamental characteristics is the cultural background where the study is conducted. Some authors pointed out the cultural differences of child rearing pattern between the Western and Eastern countries (e.g., Benedict, 1946, Nakane, 1970, Rothbaum et al., 2002). The present report is not an attempt to make a cross-cultural comparison but may provide a reference to such investigations.

Despite the clinical and research importance of children's aggressive and delinquent behaviours, there have been few studies investigating both the children's personality and the parents' rearing styles of fathers and mothers separately in a Japanese population.

This study will address the following questions:

• Is there any association between children's personality, in particular, their temperament, and externalizing behaviors?

• Do parental behaviors have any influence on children's externalizing behaviors?

• Are there any different relations with children's externalizing problems between paternal and maternal parenting styles?