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Longitudinal Discrepancy in Adolescent Aggressive Behavior Problems: Differences by Reporter and Contextual Factors

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Abstract

Little is known about the developmental course of informant discrepancies in adolescent aggressive behavior problems, though whether aggression increases or decreases over time depends on reporter. Evaluating discrepancies longitudinally can uncover patterns of agreement/disagreement between reporters across time and determine contexts that give rise to these differences. This study addresses longitudinal informant discrepancies by examining parent-report and adolescent report of adolescent aggressive behavior problems over time and further investigates possible contextual factors related to the longitudinal discrepancy. Five-waves (from age 11.5 to 15) of multi-informant data from the PROSPER project (N = 977; 52% female; 87% Caucasian) were used to test longitudinal change in informant discrepancies between mother-, father-, and adolescent-reported aggressive behavior problems. Results showed that parents reported more aggression than their adolescents at age 11.5 and that the discrepancy at first converged over time before diverging. By age 15, adolescents reported more aggression than their parents. Parental hostility, family status, and adolescent gender predicted change in informant discrepancies. Practical and developmental implications are discussed for assessing and determining accurate change in adolescent aggressive behavior problems.

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Acknowledgements

The first and second authors contributed equally to this paper. The authors would like to thank Stefanos Mastrotheodoros and Amanda Griffin for their helpful comments on the analyses.

Funding

Work on this paper was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant R01 DA013709) and co-funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Additional suppprt was provided by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grant R03 HD087611).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA

    Panpan Yang & Gabriel L. Schlomer

  2. The School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Melissa A. Lippold

  3. Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Mark E. Feinberg

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  1. Panpan Yang
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  2. Gabriel L. Schlomer
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  3. Melissa A. Lippold
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  4. Mark E. Feinberg
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Contributions

PY developed, conducted, and interpreted the analyses and contributed to writing the paper; GS conceived the study, assisted with development and interpretation of analyses, and wrote the paper; ML provided theoretical and conceptual guidance and contributed to writing the paper; MF conceived the study, participated in its design and coordination, and contributed to writing the paper. All authors read and approved the final paper.

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Correspondence to Gabriel L. Schlomer.

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The original project grant was approved by the IRB at the Pennsylvania State University. The current study was deemed exempt by the University at Albany, SUNY IRB because the study uses deidentified secondary data. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Yang, P., Schlomer, G.L., Lippold, M.A. et al. Longitudinal Discrepancy in Adolescent Aggressive Behavior Problems: Differences by Reporter and Contextual Factors. J Youth Adolescence 50, 1564–1581 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01431-1

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