Oppositional and Conduct Problems

The chapter focuses on the role of family in pathways to antisocial outcomes. Parental monitoring and supervision of child behavior are found to moderate the effects of family disadvantage on adolescent conduct problems, indicating that the close involvement of parents in children's and adolescent's activities may mitigate some of the risk associated with socio-economic adversity. Child factors associated with the development and course of antisocial behavior are typically grouped into three broad domains. Behavioral factors have received the most attention in this literature, and emphasize characteristics and patterns of the observable behavior. While requiring ongoing investigation, such interactions help to explain the reason child abuse leads to antisocial behavior in some children but not others. While temperament is implicated broadly in theoretical explanations of antisocial development, the notion that temperamental factors underlie and drive behavioral manifestations remains controversial.