Citation

Rubin Stiffman A, Dore P, Cunningham R. J. Child Fam. Stud. 1996; 5(4): 487-501.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF02233867

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

We explore a model that examines how personal and environmental variables explain violent behavior by adolescents. Repeated interviews with youths from 1984-1992 from 10 cities across the United States provided the data. These interviews first occurred with 2,787 youths when they were adolescents (1984-85 and 1986-87) and the interviews were repeated on a subsample of 602 youths when they were young adults (1989-90 and 1991-92). Longitudinal multivariate analyses showed that almost a third of the variance in adolescent violent behaviors was predicted by a combination of personal variables (gender, substance misuse) and environmental variables (history of child abuse, stressful events, traumatic events, and city rates of unemployment). Further, almost a third of the variance in change in violent behaviors from year to year was predicted by prior violent behavior and a combination of personal variables (gender, suicidality, and substance misuse) and environmental variables (stressful events).