Title of Dissertation: REVISITING THE ROLE OF DELINQUENT ATTITUDES ON CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR Kyle J. Thomas, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Dissertation Directed By: Associate Professor, Jean McGloin, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice By employing global attitude measures, which ask respondents to evaluate the abstract idea of a behavior absent of context, rather than specific measures that...

Six types of antisocial and delinquent behaviors (e.g., property destruction and authority avoidance) were assessed in 526 youths (11 to 24 years of age) with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities and 1,030 11- to 18-year-olds without intellectual disabilities. Overall, 10% to 20% of youths with intellectual disabilities exhibited some type of antisocial and delinquent behavior, which we...

The Chronic Self-Destructiveness Scale (CSDS) and the Psychopathic Deviate and Hypomania scales of the MMPI were administered to 112 delinquent adolescents and to 141 high-school students. Both male and female delinquents reported significantly higher levels of chronic self-destructiveness. Significant positive correlations between the CSDS and the MMPI scales were found for all groups. The res...

OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to identify the relationships between caregiver strain among parents of young adolescents with ADHD and child characteristics during a 1-year period. METHOD Parents of 52 middle-school-aged youth with ADHD participated in this study and completed two evaluations 1 year apart. RESULTS Ratings of oppositional and delinquent behavior best predicted l...

BACKGROUND Genetic predisposition and environmental influences are both important factors in the development of problematic behavior leading to substance use in adolescence. Involvement with delinquent peers also strongly predicts adolescent externalizing behavior. Several lines of evidence support a role of GABRA2 on externalizing behavior related to disinhibition. However, whether this geneti...

Cross-sectional studies have reported an association between lead (Pb) levels in bone and delinquent behavior in later childhood and adolescence. This is the first prospective longitudinal study of Pb and child development to address this question with comprehensive assessments of toxicant exposure and other developmental cofactors. A prospective longitudinal birth cohort of 195 urban, inner-ci...