Does Mother Know Best? Adolescent and Mother Reports of Impulsivity and Subsequent Delinquency

Abstract

Although impulsivity is one of the strongest psychological predictors of crime, it is unclear how well impulsivity, measured at a specific moment in adolescence, predicts criminal behavior months or years into the future. The present study investigated how far into the future self-reports and parents' reports of a youth's impulsivity predicted whether he engaged in illegal behavior, whether one reporter's assessment was more predictive than the other's, and whether there is value in obtaining multiple reports. Data were obtained from a 6-year longitudinal study of adjudicated juvenile offenders (n = 701 mother-son dyads). Youth (m = 15.93 years old; sd = 1.14) and their mothers independently reported on adolescents' impulsivity at the initial assessment. We examined the prospective correlation of these measures with illegal behavior, assessed by official records of arrests and youths' self-reports of offending across the 72-month study period. Youths' and mothers' reports of the adolescents' impulsivity were weakly, but significantly, correlated with one another. Furthermore, mothers' ratings of their sons' impulsivity predicted arrest up to 6 years into the future, whereas youths' reports did not significantly predict arrest beyond 30 months. With respect to youths' self-reports of offending, mothers' ratings of impulsivity again predicted farther into the future (as late as 6 years later) than did youths' self-reports of impulsivity, which were not predictive beyond 4 years. However, across the first 4 years, youths' self-reports of impulsivity explained more variance in self-reported offending than did mothers' ratings. The results underscore the endurance of the predictive utility of an assessment of impulsivity and the importance (and accuracy) of parents' reports of developmental constructs, even when their children are adolescents.

The different faces of impulsivity as links between childhood maltreatment and young adult crime

“…12-14,30-33 In the Pathways to Desistance study of 701 adjudicated adolescents, Bechtold and colleagues (2013) found that adolescent impulsivity was associated with criminal behaviors throughout late adolescence and early adulthood. 14 Moreover, impulsivity was identified as a significant predictor for violent crime such as physical fighting, using a weapon, hurting another person, armed robbery, and intimate partner violence. 34 Given the critical role impulsivity plays in involvement in crime, it is not surprising to note that most risk assessment measures for criminal offending are designed to measure impulsivity more than any other constructs.…”

Personality risk for antisocial behavior: Testing the intersections between callous–unemotional traits, sensation seeking, and impulse control in adolescence

“…These findings are consistent with a breadth of previous evidence showing elevated sensation seeking among antisocial youth (Byck et al, 2015; Mann, Kretsch, Tackett, Harden, & Tucker-Drob, 2015; Newcomb & McGee, 1991; Sijtsema et al, 2010; Zuckerman, 2007). Previous research has also demonstrated a positive relationship between impulsivity and delinquency (Bechtold, Cavanagh, Shulman, & Cauffman, 2014; Cooper et al, 2003; Frick & Viding, 2009; Giannotta & Rydell, 2015; Moffitt, 1993; Snowden & Gray, 2011; Vitacco & Rogers, 2001). Moreover, both impulsivity and sensation seeking have been implicated in the development of related externalizing behaviors in adolescence, including alcohol and substance use (Dick et al, 2010; Elkins, King, McGue, & Iacono, 2006; Hittner & Swickert, 2006; Littlefield & Sher, 2010; Littlefield, Sher, & Steinley, 2010).…”

Dismantling Public Housing, Reconstructing the Lives of Children

“…Parents can provide a view into their children's lives that others cannot. Bechtold and others () found mothers' insights into the impulsivity of their teens quite useful in predicting future arrests, and Rosenberg and others () noted that parents offered insights about their young children useful to occupational therapists.…”