Violence in Childhood: Testing Moffitt’s Hypothesis Concerning Interactions among Individual, Family, and Neighborhood Influences

• In Event: Testing Moffitt's Hypotheses on Abstainers, Adolescent-Limited Offenders, and Life Course Persisters

Abstract

Drawing on data from three waves of the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, this paper investigates the onset of violent behavior in early childhood (by age 9). We integrate an individual difference approach, which emphasizes neuropsychological deficits such as low self-control and verbal ability, with a social-structural approach that stresses family and neighborhood socioeconomic contexts. We derive hypotheses from Moffitt’s (1993) developmental theory that predict that multiple disadvantages across levels of explanation are interactive and underlie the onset of violence in childhood (and perhaps subsequent life-course persistent offending). Specifically, analysis assesses whether interactions in early childhood between family/neighborhood disadvantages and neuropsychological deficits (e.g., low verbal ability) pattern trajectories in violent behavior. The ability of Moffitt’s dual taxonomy to explain violence among children and implications for theory and research on the early-onset of serious delinquency are discussed.

Authors

• Tom L. McNulty, University of Georgia

• Paul E. Bellair, Ohio State University