The role of emotional resilience, childhood parentification, and attachment style on antisocial behaviour in adulthood: a comparison of an offender and normative population

Abstract

Purpose: Despite a robust link between poor caregiver attachment and antisociality, few studies have examined the influence of parentification and emotional resilience on delinquency in later life, in groups at differing risk for antisocial conduct.Methodology: This pilot study compared the influence of parentification, attachment style (avoidant or anxious) and emotional resilience on adulthood antisocial behaviour in an offender and normative sample. Of the 137 participants in this study, 66 were supervised by the National Probation Service (age M = 36.90, SD = 13.91), and 71 were recruited from community-dwelling and student populations (age M = 31.83, SD = 13.25). Findings:In partial support of the predictions, participants in the offender group reported significantly greater levels of attachment anxiety compared to the normative group. However, emotional resilience was positively associated with antisociality in the normative sample.Research implications: This small-scale investigation indicates value in exploring these specific variables in a larger, matched samples study, to enable clearer comparisons to be made between offender and normative groups. Practical implications:The preliminary findings suggest that attachment anxiety is associated with antisociality in offender populations, which indicate a therapeutic focus on attachment anxiety as part of correctional care and offender rehabilitation.Originality: This study is novel in its aim to examine the influence of childhood parentification, attachment deficits and emotional resilience on adulthood antisociality in participants from a high-risk offender sample and non-high-risk normative sample.

The family dynamics of children on the streets of Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria

“… 46 Parentification is when a child assumes parental roles of financial provider and together with emotional disconnect the children are at risk of behavioural problems in adolescence and antisocial behaviour in adulthood. 45 , 46 The ‘power of earning money’ whereby the child feels he or she is equal to the parental figure and does not feel the need to share decision-making with the parent was evident in this study. This is another dimension of parentification that negatively influenced the desire for new directions of children on the street because they do not care to discuss their plan for growth with their parents or were sceptical.…”

Self-reported antisocial behaviour of 10-year-old boys in Zhuhai (China) versus Pittsburgh (USA)

“…It is, of course, desirable that this type of cross-national comparative research should be replicated, preferably with large representative samples and using the same measuring instruments. It is also important to study risk factors for antisocial behaviour (Farrington and Aguilar-Carceles, 2023; Jackson, 2017; Juni, 2014; McGauran et al , 2019), including very early risk factors (Zara et al , 2023) and biological risk factors (Bergstrom and Farrington, 2018; Farrington and Bergstrom, 2021). Information about differences in risk factors might help to explain differences in prevalence and frequency between Chinese and American children.…”

Alcances en neurociencias cognitivas: Fundamentación línea de investigación en neurociencias y neurodesarrollo

“…De acuerdo con algunas investigaciones (Lacasa, et al, 2015;McGauran, et al, 2019), los estilos de apego inseguros o desorganizados están relacionados a que niños y adolescentes estén posiblemente implicados en conductas delictivas o en comportamientos en contra de la norma, mientras que los estilos de apegos seguros serían un factor protector contra los delitos.…”