Personality Trait Differences in Boys and Girls With Clinical or Sub-Clinical Diagnoses of Conduct Disorder Versus Antisocial Personality Disorder

• NCJ Number: 219883
• Journal: Journal of Adolescence Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Dated: August 2007 Pages: 537-547
• Author(s): Jeanette Taylor; William G. Iacono
• Date Published: August 2007
• Length: 11 pages
• Grant Number(s): DA 05147; DA 13240; AA 09367
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health and Human Services; National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined whether the progress over time in antisocial behavior disorders was linked to personality traits in a community sample of adolescent boys and girls.

Abstract

Study results provide some support for the hypothesis that an individual's personality traits may help him/her to organize his/her behaviors toward a more persistent antisocial behavior pathway or toward a cessation of antisocial behavior. The adolescents who progressed from conduct disorder (a less severe form of antisocial behavior) to antisocial personality disorder (a more severe form of antisocial behavior) had extreme personality traits such as aggression, lack of adherence to traditional values, and sensation-seeking. The persistence and stability of these personality traits over time was associated with the evolution of antisocial behavior into antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The youth who exhibited conduct disorder but did not progress toward ASPD had personality traits similar to those of the controls who did not manifest any antisocial behavior. Factors other than personality traits were most likely contributed to antisocial behavior by these youth. These factors might include having antisocial friends and alienation from normative peers. These findings suggest that personality assessment could help improve the prediction regarding whether children with conduct disorder will progress to an ASPD diagnosis. Study participants were drawn from 578 16-17 year-old boys and 674 girls who were participating in the Minnesota Twin Family Study, an ongoing longitudinal study of substance use problems and related behavior among same-sex twins and their parents. Personality was measured with the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Participants were assessed for conduct disorder and ASPD by using criteria from DSM-III-R. Adolescents with conduct disorder and ASPD data from both the intake assessment (at age 17) and the first followup assessment (at age 20) were eligible for this study (n=1,107). 1 table and 30 references