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Trends & issues in crime and criminal jusce
ISSN 0817-8542
Antisocial behaviour during
the teenage years:
Understanding
developmental risks
Kathryn Lynn Modecki, Bep Uink and
Bonnie L Barber
Adolescent ansocial behaviour, including delinquency, illegal
substance use and violence carry heavy social and economic
costs in Australia (Williams et al. 2005). Individuals are far more
likely to engage in ansocial behaviour during adolescence than
any other period of their life. In fact, in Australia, the oending
rate for adolescents is almost three mes the rate of all other age
groups (AIC 2013). Society’s challenges in reducing adolescent
ansocial behaviour underscore a fundamental reality: in order
to eecvely prevent these illegal and dangerous behaviours, we
must adequately understand their causes (Mo 2005).
Theorecal advances
Recent advances in the psychological sciences point to a
convergence of factors that exacerbate risk for iniaon and
escalaon of ansocial behaviour during adolescence (Modecki
& Uink 2017). Illustravely, signicant up-cks in problem
behaviours during the teenage years may be at least parally
aributable to developmental decits in what psychologists term
‘execuve funcon’ capacies (Luciana 2013). These capacies
are innately ed to decision making, and allow youth control
over impulses and behaviour.
Abstract | Individuals are far
more likely to engage in ansocial
behaviour during adolescence than
any other period of their life. This
paper presents selected results
from two studies which used
secondary data analysis to provide
a theorecally informed picture of
youths’ decision-making process in
relaon to delinquency.
Study 1 focused on changes in
adolescents’ perceived rewards
and delinquency involvement over
four years. Results showed that
high levels of perceived rewards
go hand in hand with high levels
of delinquency, but perceived
ansocial rewards ‘topped out’ by
age 14, suggesng that the best
me to intervene is during early
adolescence or late childhood.
Study 2 focused on anger control.
Youth who were highly delinquency-
involved were especially likely to
report surges in anger on days when
they experienced a stressor, poinng
to a need for delinquency prevenon
programs aimed at emoon control,
including cognive reappraisal.
Improving these skills should
enhance youths’ ability to navigate
risk during the teenage years.
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Yet adolescents’ execuve systems can easily become overwhelmed because of the considerable
demands placed on these systems. For instance, adolescents are oen aracted to novel and risky
sengs and they idenfy sizable social and emoonal rewards from problem behaviour engagement.
More generally, adolescents are suscepble to uctuang emoons and oen wrestle with intense
emoonal reacvity as they encounter setbacks and challenges. These burdens on adolescents’
execuve systems, in the form of disproporonate perceived rewards for ansocial behaviour and
intense emoons, hamper adolescents’ ability to modulate their ‘internal trac’. As described below,
this may make it especially dicult for adolescents to rein in their impulses to engage in ansocial
behaviours, including behaviours related to delinquency—dened here as illegal and ansocial
behaviours of youth under the age of 18 (Luciana 2013; Modecki, Zimmer-Gembeck & Guerra 2017).
Arguably as a result of such burdens, adolescents are more suscepble to acng on their impulses
and taking part in aggressive, illegal and risky behaviours, relave to either children or adults
(Fine & Sung 2014; Luciana 2013). In environments featuring developmentally novel stressors,
adolescents are at a disadvantage, because they lack a repertoire of skills with which they might
prosocially navigate challenge. For instance, during the teenage years, crical skills such as decision-
making (including opmal weighing of rewards versus risks) and emoonal regulaon remain under
construcon (Modecki 2017).
Strain and ansocial behaviour
Because youth with underdeveloped decision-making and less-controlled emoons lack the
psychological resources to successfully resolve issues through convenonal strategies, these stressful
situaons can be especially strong catalysts for problems (Simons et al. 2003). As a result, pursuing
violence and illegal behaviours may be one way youth cope with the challenges of day-to-day life
(Chassin et al. 2010).
Notably, youth living in economically disadvantaged sengs experience added strains and
stressors as they navigate day-to-day life. Stressors including family dicules, perceived injusce,
neighbourhood disorganisaon, and less-eecve social instuons, amplify the common
developmental challenges with which youth must cope (Uink et al. 2018). These and other cumulave
strains may trigger youth to act out in the form of violence and other ansocial behaviours (Agnew
2001; Simons et al. 2003). In fact, criminologists have long pointed to the experience of ‘strain’ as a
salient explanaon for crime.
Adolescent ansocial behaviour and heterogeneity
Among adolescents, who are developmentally at risk for criminal engagement, there exists a subset
of young people who connue these behaviours into adulthood. These youth, somemes termed
‘life-course persistent oenders,’ also tend to begin ansocial acvies at a very early age (Mo et
al. 2002). During the teen years, life-course persistent oenders can be dicult to dierenate from
youth whose engagement is limited to adolescence, because their behaviours during this period are
relavely similar, except for violence (Mo 1993). A body of work has sought to disentangle those
who connue to oend from those who do not, and to do so earlier in the life course. Among the
disnguishing factors associated with more persistent involvement are negave emoonality at a
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young age and ‘state dependence’, in which early involvement in problem behaviour leads to further
problems (Nagin & Paternoster 2000). In addion, young people who persist in ansocial behaviours
are more likely to come from low socio-economic backgrounds, given the numerous stressors and
associated lack of supports endemic to these environments.
Indeed, one of the more intractable risk factors for persistence with crime beyond adolescence is
being raised within circumstances of socio-economic adversity (Mo et al. 2002). Among other
hazards, adverse social environments amplify risks for negave interacons with family, peers and
school sengs, which can lead young people onto developmental pathways of risk rather than
resilience (Aguilar et al. 2000).
Individual characteriscs: rewards and negave emoons
That said, scholars have also idened a number of individual risk factors for adolescent involvement
in ansocial behaviour which exist across socio-economic gradients but exacerbate the risk associated
with situaonal strains and early disadvantage. In parcular, reward percepons and negave emoons
have received growing aenon from developmental psychologists, because they are closely linked to
teens’ involvement in ansocial behaviour and because the development of these characteriscs aligns
with age–crime trends (eg Steinberg et al. 2009). Indeed, substanal evidence supports what many
juvenile jusce praconers already suspect (Modecki 2017)—that a heightened focus on rewards
and negave emoonality is associated with ansocial behaviour, and that these factors contribute to
youths’ crime to a degree that disnguishes them from adult oenders (Sco & Steinberg 2008).
Given that these individual risks—reward-bias and the tendency to experience intense negave
emoons—appear to develop over me and are ed to ansocial choices, they represent risk factors
that may be modiable to prevent crime (Modecki 2009). As a result, understanding the development
of these factors, and how they relate to involvement in ansocial behaviour across the teenage years,
can inform intervenon and prevenon eorts. This report explores these factors in the context of
unique data from Australian youth living in sengs of economic disadvantage.
This report focuses on two studies which together provide a picture of factors that contribute to
escalang problems during the teenage years. These factors are explored among a parcularly high-
value group for criminologists and policymakers—young adolescents in economically disadvantaged
sengs, a subset of whom could require signicant me and resources due to their risk for engaging
in ansocial behaviour. Both studies provide brief snapshots of how changes in these factors are
linked with involvement in ansocial behaviour, and suggest novel ways that delinquency might be
prevented among high-risk youth.
Study 1: How rewarding is delinquency?
Increasingly, adolescents’ disproporonate involvement in ansocial behaviour has been aributed
to their heightened sensivity to rewards. That is, adolescents are more behaviourally disposed
towards aaining emoonal and social rewards from crime than any other age group (Shulman &
Cauman 2013) and a growing literature has idened the rewards of problem behaviour as having a
parcularly strong inuence on youth delinquency (Modecki 2009; Smith et al. 2011).
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Indeed, past research indicates perceived rewards may be a stronger predictor of oending than
perceived risks, at least among juvenile oenders (Loughran et al. 2009). In prior research, Loughran
and colleagues ploed average perceived rewards over three years, and showed that mean levels
of perceived rewards remained relavely stable among incarcerated youth. Importantly, however,
reward levels connued to correspond with levels of oending, in that youth who engaged in high
levels of oending also perceived high rewards from crime, medium-level oenders perceived
moderate rewards, and so on.
That said, previous research has only looked at averages at dierent points in me, and has not
yet mapped developmental trajectories of reward percepons, nor examined how such changes in
reward percepon may be linked to delinquency. Further, serious juvenile oenders may experience
delinquency as dierenally rewarding than community-based youth, because by the me young
individuals have become incarcerated, they will have accumulated a broad range of benets and costs
from their crimes.
Thus, previous data do not answer quesons about the developmental progression of perceived
rewards and delinquency during adolescence, nor do they necessarily generalise to risks specic to
youth sll living in their communies. With a focus on disadvantaged youth in community sengs,
Study 1 explores a key queson for criminal jusce programs and policy: how do rewards drive
behaviour (and vice versa) among these youth?
This report addresses some of the methodological challenges inherent in probing the link between
perceived rewards and ansocial behaviour, by examining whether early levels of perceived
rewards predict changing involvement in delinquency over four years. Importantly, the reverse is
also examined: whether high levels of perceived rewards earlier in adolescence predict changes in
delinquency over four years. In other words, this approach applies a developmental criminology lens
to ansocial rewards and delinquency among low socio-economic status Australian youth during the
teenage years.
Sample
Data were derived from mulple waves of a large-scale annual self-report survey of Western
Australian youth, the Youth Acvity Parcipaon Survey (YAPS), funded by the Australian Research
Council. Further details regarding data collecon, the range of measures collected, and samples
over me can be found in Modecki, Barber and Vernon (2013); Modecki, Barber and Eccles (2014);
and Drane, Modecki and Barber (2017). Among YAPS parcipants, longitudinal data on ansocial
rewards were available for one cohort of youth across four years (from grades 9–12, corresponding
approximately with ages 13–18 years); see Table 1.
YAPS recruited schools across the state which covered a range of the socio-economic index computed
annually by the Western Australian Department of Educaon. The Index of Community
Socio-Educaonal Advantage (ICSEA) is calculated with data from the Australian Bureau of Stascs,
based on the addresses of all students aending each school. This study includes students with
average or below ICSEA, represenng the boom half of the spectrum of educaonal background
(n=480). Thus, Study 1 draws on a sample of youth from average to extremely educaonally
disadvantaged backgrounds and uses annual longitudinal self-report data to examine perceived
rewards and delinquency over me.
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Measures
Perceived ansocial rewards were assessed using items from a valid construct which has successfully
measured decision-making in adolescents (Parsons, Seigel & Cousins 1997). Youth were presented
with the following:
Below is a list of behaviours that are illegal and/or dangerous. Some people might think that they have
advantages or benets. We are interested in whether you think they have advantages or benets.
Four items were used to assess the perceived benets of four illegal behaviours, such as shopliing
and illegal drug use. Youth responded on a Likert scale ranging from 0 (no benets), to 4 (moderate
benets) to 8 (a lot of benets). Internal reliability in this sample was good, and ranged from
α=0.78–0.94 across waves. This construct is referred to as ‘ansocial rewards’ or ‘perceived ansocial
rewards’ throughout this report.
Delinquency was measured with a reliable (α ranged from 0.77–0.91 across waves) and valid
construct that was adapted from a larger delinquency scale (Modecki, Barber & Vernon 2013)
to assess key behaviours of interest, including damaging public property, police contact, physical
ghng, and stealing. An example item includes:
In the past 6 months, how oen have you goen in a physical ght with another person?
Items were measured on an eight-point scale from 1 (none) to 8 (31 or more mes).
Pubertal ming was also controlled in these analyses, given its links to the development of ansocial
behaviours (eg Modecki, Barber & Eccles 2014). Pubertal ming was assessed using one item, taken
from Dubas, Graber and Petersen (1991). This item assessed self-reported physical development
relave to peers, with responses ranging from 1 (much later) to 5 (much earlier).
Table 1: Demographic characteriscs of Study 1 parcipants
Age at grade 9: M(SD) 14.42 (0.38)
Gender (% female) 57.3
School(s) socio-economic range (ICSEA) 815–1,000
Source: YAPS collecon 2011 [data le]
Analyses
Analyses involved modelling an uncondional latent growth curve of perceived ansocial rewards
across grades 9–12, followed by a condional model in which covariates (gender, pubertal ming)
and predictors (early, grade 9 delinquency) were added. Next, the same models were run with
delinquency as a latent growth curve and early (grade 9) perceived rewards as the predictor.
All models were run in Mplus version 7.1 both with maximum likelihood esmaon and then with
Bayes esmaon. For more detailed analyses and comparisons with alternave analyc approaches,
see Modecki and Uink forthcoming.
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Results
First, perceived rewards were relavely stable across grades 9–12; however there was signicant
inter-individual variaon in early levels of rewards in grade 9. Adding covariates and predictors
to the model showed high early perceived rewards was associated with higher early delinquency
involvement (intercept, p<0.001). Importantly, other factors were also associated with subsequent
change in perceived rewards over four years.
That is, early puberty was associated with subsequent increases in ansocial rewards (intercept,
p=0.04) and high levels of early delinquency involvement were associated with subsequent declines
in rewards (linear slope, p<0.001). As described in Figure 1, this eect of delinquency on rewards
represents a ‘bouncing back’ eect, as youth who engaged in high levels of delinquency early on
appear to experience a ceiling eect. Even so, these youth with high levels of early delinquency
involvement sll perceived ansocial behaviour as most rewarding, at a rank-level, across the four
years. Even by the end of high school, the dierent categories of youth failed to converge in their
perceived ansocial rewards.
Figure 1: Interacon between maturaon (me) and delinquency engagement predicng perceived rewards
Source: YAPS collecon 2011 [data le]
Second, delinquency underwent curvilinear change across four years, following a u-shaped curve.
There was also signicant inter-individual variaon in early levels of delinquency in grade 9.
Adding covariates and predictors to the model showed high early perceived rewards were associated
with high early levels of delinquency involvement (intercept, p<0.001).
High levels of perceived ansocial rewards were also associated with subsequent declines in
delinquency over the rst few years (linear slope, p<0.001) followed by increases over the last few
years (quadrac slope, p<0.001).
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Figure 2 demonstrates the interacon between maturaon (me) and early perceived rewards
predicng delinquency involvement. Youth who perceived high levels of ansocial rewards early
on, were already engaging in high levels of delinquency. These youth declined in their delinquency
involvement over the next few years of high school, followed by a slight upturn in grade 12.
Again, despite declines in delinquency over four years of high school, the sub-set of youth who
perceived many rewards from crime in 9th grade remained the most delinquency involved, at a rank-
level, across all years.
Figure 2: Interacon between maturaon (me) and perceived rewards predicng delinquency
involvement
Source: YAPS collecon 2011 [data le]
Overall, Study 1 ndings highlight that early adolescents’ percepons of delinquency’s rewards
are not necessarily enduring. Rather, for those adolescents whom police and jusce personnel are
most likely to encounter (who are already engaging in relavely high levels of delinquency early
in adolescence), these rewards diminished over me. That is, for these youth, perceived rewards
appeared to hit a ceiling by 9th grade. This suggests that delinquency may ‘lose its shine’, and these
young people gradually desist from ansocial behaviour. Indeed, adolescents high in early perceived
rewards also reported rapid declines in delinquency from grade 9–11, such that grade 9 represented
a developmental peak for engagement in ansocial behaviours. Although these young people were
the most frequent oenders at each me point, this subset of adolescents are likely to be largely
representave of ‘adolescent-limited’ oenders, given their overall paern of desistance.
That said, early oenders represent a high-value target for law enforcement. As described further in
the conclusion, addressing ancipated benets from crime as a prevenve strategy early on (prior to
the transion to high school) could prove useful.
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For youth low in early delinquency, however, perceived rewards tended to increase over me,
perhaps a reecon of perceived es between social status and rule-violang behaviours (Rebellon
2006). Although adolescents did not nominate specic percepons related to the benets of illegal
behaviour, previous work suggests that impressing peers is indeed a salient idened reward from
crime (Modecki 2009). Those adolescents who were low in early perceived rewards reported increased
delinquent behaviour across the remainder of high school, reecve of a developmental norm of at
least some low level problem behaviour engagement (Modecki 2017). That said, these adolescents
remained lowest in delinquency—in terms of rank—at each me point, so that early low levels of
perceived reward as well as early low levels of delinquency involvement appear to characterise youth
on a fairly auspicious developmental trajectory, at least in terms of averng crime involvement.
Study 2: Are emoonal responses and adolescent
delinquency linked?
Not only are rewards of crime especially salient to adolescents’ ansocial decisions, but emoon also
plays a role. The emoonal variability of adolescence is well documented and this developmental
period is characterised by relavely poor emoonal control (Cauman & Steinberg 2000).
However, signicant variability between young people also exists. That is, some adolescents are
beer able to temper their emoons than others are and some youth are less emoonally reacve
than others when encountering setbacks and challenges (Uink, Modecki & Barber 2017).
More specically, adolescents who are delinquency-involved tend also to be disnguished by
especially intense emoonal responses to aggravaons and annoyances, and can show large
deviaons (in terms of highs and lows) in their emoons (Planer et al. 2007; Uink et al. 2018).
Indeed, previous survey research shows that adolescents who are beer able to temper their
emoons also make fewer ansocial decisions and engage in fewer delinquent acts (Cauman
& Steinberg 2000; Modecki 2008, 2009). Moreover, among juvenile oenders, developmental
improvements in emoonal control are associated with subsequent decreases in and desistance from
ansocial behaviour (Chassin et al. 2010; Monahan et al. 2009).
This link between emoonal control and delinquency is important for a number of reasons.
Understanding young people’s responses to strains and hassles is highly germane to delinquency
prevenon, because these can trigger emoonal and behavioural responses associated with ‘acng-
out’. Thus, learning to be less reacve to aggravaons may help to diminish adolescents’ aggressive and
ansocial reacons to setbacks. More broadly, if at-risk youth are to steer away from involvement in the
jusce system, they will need the skills necessary to successfully navigate challenges in day-to-day life.
Sample
Study 2 takes a dierent approach to understanding ansocial behaviour during the teenage years,
and examines a second developmental risk—emoonal valence, here in relaon to stress. Taking
advantage of exisng data from an intensive ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study with
at-risk youth, this study examines how changes in emoons relave to typical daily emoons are
linked to delinquent behaviour. By describing how delinquent youth (fail to) temper their emoonal
responses in the real world, ndings provide praccal insight for delinquency prevenon and
intervenon programs and services (Modecki & Mazza 2017).
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Thus, the second approach was to use intensive EMA data from cohort 1 of the Young and
Well Cooperave Research Centre supported ‘How do you feel?’ study. Data were collected via
smartphones from 109 low socio-economic status Australian youth (see Uink, Modecki & Barber
2017 for details of the study; see Table 2 for ‘How do you feel?’ cohort 1 parcipant details). Youth
were texted ve mes a day for seven days and asked to provide their current emoon and whether
they had experienced a recent hassle, among other details. Before and aer EMA, the parcipants
reported their recent delinquency involvement and completed other wellbeing indices to provide a
picture of overall mental health.
Table 2: Demographic characteriscs of ‘How do you feel?’ cohort 1 parcipants
Age: M(SD) 14.7 (0.92)
Gender (% female) 66.9
Socio-economic range (ICSEA) 900–1,000
Source: ‘How do you feel?’ data collecon cohort 1 2013–14 [data le]
Measures
Delinquency was measured before and aer EMA using 15 items that assessed how oen parcipants
had engaged in ansocial or aggressive behaviour and substance use. This measure has been used
in previously published research on adolescent ansocial behaviour (Fredricks & Eccles 2006), and
example items include: ‘About how oen in the last 6 months have you used drugs?’and ‘About how
oen…have you goen in a physical ght with another person?’, where responses ranged from
0 (none) to 7 (31 or more mes). Internal reliability at before and aer EMA was excellent (α=0.85,
α=0.90) and test-retest reliability was high (r=0.88). Parcipants’ scores from both surveys were
averaged to create an ansocial behaviour score.
Daily hassles were measured during the EMA poron of the study by asking parcipants via
smartphones, ‘Since you were last messaged has anything bad happened to you?’ at each sampling
moment. The format of this queson meant that parcipants reported on events that had occurred
within the last two to ve hours. A dummy variable was created based on this informaon, coded
so that 0 means no bad events (hassles) that day, and 1 means one or more moderate to severe
hassle(s) that day. Emoon was also measured during the EMA poron of the study, by asking via
smartphones ‘Right now, how are you feeling?’ Parcipants rated how angry (among other emoons)
they were feeling on a ve-point scale, from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). Emoon was averaged
across the day for this report.
Analyses
Cross-level random slopes models were run within a hierarchical linear modelling framework in
Mplus version 7.0, with delinquency at level 2, daily hassle (yes/no) as the level 1 predictor and day-
level anger as the level 1 outcome variable.
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Results
There was a signicant cross-level interacon of hassles × delinquency for anger. As Figure 3
illustrates, youth who engaged in high levels of delinquency reported surges in anger on days they
experienced a hassle (b=0.614, p<0.001). But low-delinquency youth did not change in their relave
anger on days they ran into a hassle (b=–0.176, p>0.05). Thus, as expected, youth delinquency
involvement was ed to surges in anger in relaon to hassles.
Figure 3: Relaons between experiencing of a hassle and daily level of reported anger (ranging from 1–5)
for high and low delinquency youth
***
Source: ‘How do you feel?’ data collecon cohort 1 2013–14 [data le]
That adolescents who engage in high levels of delinquency experience surges in anger on days when
they experience a roadblock or challenge is not surprising at an intuive level. But empirical support
for this phenomenon represents useful evidence for researchers and praconers alike. Daily links
between experience of strain and surges in anger for young people who engage in delinquency
mean that helping adolescents to beer navigate hassles and strains may represent an important
mechanism for improving resilience and coping. Importantly, too, high reacvity to strain suggests that
these adolescents require beer ‘life skills’ for eecvely responding to stress. Given that adolescence
is a crical developmental period for accumulang these skills, helping youth to improve emoonal
control and decision-making in response to dicules should contribute to reducons in ansocial
behaviours and more posive funconing overall (Modecki, Zimmer-Gembeck & Guerra 2017).
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Conclusions
All told, ndings across these two studies describe key developmental features of delinquency that
could be further targeted in intervenon and prevenon programs to reduce adolescent crime.
First, programs and policies should work to reduce the salience of rewards for teenagers. One way
to do so would be to highlight the temporary nature of ansocial rewards (such as impressing peers
and an emoonal ‘rush’), while simultaneously highlighng crime’s serious and long-term negave
consequences (Modecki 2016, 2009). That said, eorts to counter teens’ reward percepons should
be deployed early on, well before 9th grade (age 14), because by this stage youth appear to have
already idened crime as especially rewarding.
Second, programs and services should focus on emoon regulaon and anger control in parcular,
to improve young people’s resilience and prevent delinquency (Landenberger & Lipsey 2005). Holisc
approaches may be best suited to improving self-regulaon and coping skills, including approaches
that balance law enforcement with assisng youth and reconnecng them with supports from
families, schools and communies.
These types of supports may be most eecvely delivered in partnership with respected community
members, by oering a range of support services, and by oering these within an open-door
framework. In all, because oending among those in mid to late adolescence tends to be especially
costly for society (Piquero, Jennings & Farrington 2013), these types of front-end intervenons to
divert youth from ansocial pathways early on should reap monetary and social benets.
Acknowledgements
These data were collected with support from two sources (the Australian Research Council and the
Young and Well Cooperave Research Centre). Neither project was originally funded to examine
juvenile delinquency. Special thanks to members of the project’s advisory board, including Sergeant
Victoria Lewis and Inspector Corey Allen.
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Disclaimer: This research paper does not necessarily
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Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice
Australian Institute of Criminology
aic.gov.au
Kathryn Modecki is a Senior Lecturer
at Grith University and Menzies
Health Instute Queensland; data
were collected while at Murdoch
University.
Bep Uink is a PhD candidate at
Murdoch University.
Bonnie Barber is Professor and
Director of the Building Healthy
Communies program in the Menzies
Health Instute Queensland.
