Poster #51 - Changes in Parenting and Violence Exposure are Associated with Changes in Callousness Among Juvenile Offenders

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Because youth with elevated levels of callousness tend to offend at higher rates into adulthood and are more likely to commit serious and violent offenses (Pardini, Byrd, Hawes, & Docherty, 2018), it is important to understand how changes in risk and protective factors influence the development of callousness. In samples of children and adolescents in the community, parenting (Barker et al., 2011; Pardini & Loeber, 2008; Waller et al., 2014; see Waller, Gardner, & Hyde, 2013 for a review), and exposure to violence (Docherty, Boxer, Huesmann, O’Brien, & Bushman, 2016; Kerig, Bennett, Thompson, & Becker, 2012; Tatar II, Cauffman, Kimonis, & Skeem, 2012) have emerged as prominent protective and risk factors, respectively, for callousness. However, these studies have not considered to what extent these associations exist at the level of the individual versus within-individual changes over time (Curran & Bauer, 2011), and thus, results could be due to confounding variables - for example, youth with a higher antisocial propensity may have elevated callousness, elicit more harsh parenting, and engage in more offending behaviors that put them at risk for exposure to violence.

The current study analyzes these associations in a sample of 1,354 serious juvenile offenders (Pathways to Desistance study; Schubert et al., 2004), followed biannually for three years and annually for another four years. The sample is mostly (86%) male, racially and ethnically diverse (44% African American, 29% Hispanic, 25% White, and 2% Other), and was between the ages of 14 and 17 at the time of the committing offense. The current study focuses on the first three years of data and thus covers ages 14 to 21. At each assessment, participants completed validated measures of callousness, maternal warmth and hostility, and exposure to violence, as well as on other potential risk and protective factors (e.g., caring adults, friendship quality).

In order to disaggregate between-person from within-person associations, we calculated each person’s mean across time for each of the variables, and then deviated each of the assessment’s observations from this mean (see Curran & Bauer, 2011 for a description of methodology). Thus, results are able to indicate whether changes in risk and protective factors are associated with changes in callousness. Models using full information maximum likelihood indicated that changes in maternal warmth (p < .001) and witnessing violence (p = .030) are associated with concurrent decreases and increases in callousness, respectively, but that these associations are not significant at a 6-month lag.

Our results are consistent with prior work by demonstrating significant associations between parenting and exposure to violence and callousness, and extends prior work by demonstrating that changes in these risk factors are associated with changes in callousness. However, examining lagged associations over time indicates that these factors may be tightly intertwined, such that temporal ordering cannot be established. Results will be discussed in the context of ecological systems and developmental psychopathology frameworks, and we will highlight implications

Authors

• Meagan Docherty, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Carolina Herrera, Rutgers University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Irving, Rutgers University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joanna Kubik, Rutgers University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Boxer, Rutgers University
  Non-Presenting Author