A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

A novel behavioural screening questionnaire, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), was administered along with Rutter questionnaires to parents and teachers of 403 children drawn from dental and psychiatric clinics. Scores derived from the SDQ and Rutter questionnaires were highly correlated; parent-teacher correlations for the two sets of measures were comparable or favoured the SDQ. The two sets of measures did not differ in their ability to discriminate between psychiatric and dental clinic attenders. These preliminary findings suggest that the SDQ functions as well as the Rutter questionnaires while offering the following additional advantages: a focus on strengths as well as difficulties; better coverage of inattention, peer relationships, and prosocial behaviour; a shorter format; and a single form suitable for both parents and teachers, perhaps thereby increasing parent-teacher correlations.

https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01545.x

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A Research Note

Background Little is known about the general population prevalence or severity of DSM-IV mental disorders. Objective To estimate 12-month prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of DSM-IV anxiety, mood, impulse control, and substance disorders in the recently completed US National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Design and Setting Nationally representative face-to-face household survey conducted between February 2001 and April 2003 using a fully structured diagnostic interview, the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey Initiative version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Participants Nine thousand two hundred eighty-two English-speaking respondents 18 years and older. Main Outcome Measures Twelve-month DSM-IV disorders. Results Twelve-month prevalence estimates were anxiety, 18.1%; mood, 9.5%; impulse control, 8.9%; substance, 3.8%; and any disorder, 26.2%. Of 12-month cases, 22.3% were classified as serious; 37.3%, moderate; and 40.4%, mild. Fifty-five percent carried only a single diagnosis; 22%, 2 diagnoses; and 23%, 3 or more diagnoses. Latent class analysis detected 7 multivariate disorder classes, including 3 highly comorbid classes representing 7% of the population. Conclusion Although mental disorders are widespread, serious cases are concentrated among a relatively small proportion of cases with high comorbidity.

/pdf/prevalence-severity-and-comorbidity-of-12-month-dsm-iv-54fahxwd1s.pdf

Prevalence, Severity, and Comorbidity of 12-Month DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication

So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Human biochemical genetics

This chapter suggests that delinquency conceals two distinct categories of individuals, each with a unique natural history and etiology: A small group engages in antisocial behavior of one sort or another at every life stage, whereas a larger group is antisocial only during adolescence. According to the theory of life-course-persistent antisocial behavior, children's neuropsychological problems interact cumulatively with their criminogenic environments across development, culminating m a pathological personality. According to the theory of adolescence-limited antisocial behavior, a contemporary maturity gap encourages teens to mimic antisocial behavior in ways that are normative and adjustive. There are marked individual differences in the stability of antisocial behavior. The chapter reviews the mysterious relationship between age and antisocial behavior. Some youths who refrain from antisocial behavior may, for some reason, not sense the maturity gap and therefore lack the hypothesized motivation for experimenting with crime.

/pdf/adolescence-limited-and-life-course-persistent-antisocial-52vil00qlw.pdf

Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy.

Thus far we have reported evidence that as they enter adulthood females, relative to males, commit fewer crimes, are less likely to be involved in serious or violent crime, and their antisocial disorders are less likely to persist beyond adolescence into adulthood (see chapter 13). The exception to this pattern is that young women are as likely as young men to be involved in violence within their intimate relationships (see chapter 5). This suggests the need to examine in greater detail the types of men with whom antisocial females form intimate relationships. In addition, it has been remarked that although women who have conduct problems are seldom serious and violent offenders, they are the mothers who produce the next generation of serious and violent males (Henry et al. , 1993; Tremblay, 1991). An examination of assortative mating may help us to understand how this might occur. By age 21, many of the Dunedin Study members were involved in committed intimate relationships with partners and, through de facto unions and marriages, some Study members already moved from their families of origin into new families of ‘destination’. In this chapter, we examine who pairs off with whom and test whether antisocial females, as well as antisocial males, are likely to form unions with other antisocial persons. We also examine the consequences of assortative mating for the persistence of antisocial behaviour into adulthood, as well as the implications of this assortative mating for reproduction.

Sex, antisocial behaviour, and mating: mate selection and early childbearing

There is enormous interest in identifying causes of child psychopathology but considerable difficulty in knowing which risks are genuinely causal and in showing how they work. Why is it such a problem and how might we go about testing causal hypotheses? In this chapter we first discuss the threats that clinicians and researchers face in making causal inferences from traditional observational designs, explain why natural experiments are useful and what they are. The focus will be on the growing range of different types of natural experiment, with the emphasis on principles and strategy, assumptions and limitations. We then adopt a similar approach to animal models designed to study environmental and genetic risks with an emphasis on the concepts, principles and experimental strategies.

Using natural experiments and animal models to study causal hypotheses in relation to child mental health problems

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: Modern Approaches, Third Edition

In previous chapters we saw evidence that males are more antisocial than females. In the next three chapters we ask if the aetiology of antisocial behaviour differs for males and females. This chapter takes a first look at this question by testing the hypothesis that males are more vulnerable than females to individual, familial, and environmental risk factors for antisocial behaviour. The basic premise is that biological sex or psychological gender serve either to exacerbate the influence of the risk factor or conversely to protect the individual from its influence. Three types of research designs have been used to try to address the question of whether certain risk factors have a greater influence on the development of antisocial behaviour in males versus females. One approach is to use behavioural genetic designs to examine whether there are any sex differences in the genetic and environmental aetiology of antisocial behaviour. The available evidence suggests that estimates are more similar than different among males and females for genetic and environmental liability for externalizing behaviour problems (Gjone, Stevenson, and Sundet, 1996; Gjone et al. , 1996), conduct problems (Cadoret and Cain, 1980; Cadoret et al. , 1995; Slutske et al. , 1997), and crime (Baker et al. , 1989; Gottesman, Goldsmith, and Carey, 1997). Two studies that have found sex differences in the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on antisocial behaviour reached opposite conclusions (Eley et al. , 1999; Silberg et al. , 1994).

Sex Differences in Antisocial Behaviour: Sex effects in risk predictors for antisocial behaviour: are males more vulnerable than females to risk factors for antisocial behaviour?

Michael Rutter

Papers

Sex, antisocial behaviour, and mating: mate selection and early childbearing

Using natural experiments and animal models to study causal hypotheses in relation to child mental health problems

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: Modern Approaches, Third Edition

Sex Differences in Antisocial Behaviour: Sex effects in risk predictors for antisocial behaviour: are males more vulnerable than females to risk factors for antisocial behaviour?

Acute Life Stresses