Antisocial Beha
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S. Volkov
Antisocial Behavior in Childhood and
Adolescence
Antisocial behavior is a broad construct which encom-
passes not only delinquency and crime that imply
conviction or a possible prosecution, but also dis-
ruptive behavior of children, such as aggression, below
the age of criminal responsibility (Rutter et al. 1998).
The age of criminal responsibility varies from 7 years
of age in Ireland and Switzerland to 18 years of age in
Belgium, Romania, and Peru. In the United States,
several states do not have a specific age. Legal, clinical,
and developmental definitions of antisocial behavior
have different foci.
1. Definitions of Antisocial and Aggressi
e
Beha
ior
Legal definitions of criminal offences committed by
young people cover: (a) noncriminal but risky behavior
(e.g., truancy) which is beyond the control of author-
ities; (b) status offences where the age at which an act
was committed determines whether it is considered
damaging (e.g., gambling); (c) crimes to protect the
offender from being affected (e.g., possession of
drugs); and (d) crimes with a victim (e.g., robbery)
broadly defined (Rutter et al. 1998). The most common
crimes among young people are thefts.
Only some forms of delinquency involve aggression
which is a narrower construct than antisocial behavior.
A meta-analysis of factor analytic studies of antisocial
behavior (Frick et al. 1993) revealed four major
categories of antisocial behavior defined by two
dimensions (overt to covert behavior, and destructive
to less destructive) as follows: (a) aggression, such as
assault and cruelty (destructive and overt); (b) prop-
erty violations, such as stealing and vandalism (de-
structive and covert); (c) oppositional behavior, such
as angry and stubborn (nondestructive and overt); and
(d) status violations, such as substance use and truancy
(nondestructive and covert). Aggression and violence
are related but not synonymous concepts. Violence
usually refers to physical aggression in its extreme
forms.
Clinical definitions of antisocial behavior are
focussed on psychopathological patterns in indivi-
duals. Oppositional defiant disorder, which includes
temper tantrums and irritable behavior, becomes
clinically less problematic by age eight, but some
children, more often boys than girls, are unable to
outgrow these problems.
Conduct disorder is diagnosed on the basis of a
persistent pattern of behavior which violates the rights
of others or age-appropriate societal norms. To
individuals who must be at least 18 years of age, a third
diagnosis, antisocial personality disorder, can be
applied. These psychopathological patterns may in-
volve delinquent behavior, but the criteria of their
diagnosis are broader in terms of psychological dys-
function.
De
elopmental approaches to antisocial behavior
are focussed on its developmental antecedents, such as
hyperactive and aggressive behavior in childhood, and
maladjustment to school in early adolescence. The
younger the children are, the more their ‘antisocial’
behavior extends beyond acts that break the law.
Different delinquency-related acts may be indicators
of the same underlying construct such as low self-
control, or they may indicate developmental sequences
across different but correlated constructs.
Development of antisocial behavior is studied using
a longitudinal design which means repeated investi-
gations of the same individuals over a longer period of
time. The increasing number of longitudinal studies
indicates a high continuity of behavior problems from
childhood to adulthood. There is continuity between
disobedience and defiance of adults, aggression to-
wards peers, and hyperactivity at age three, and similar
or more serious behavior problems in later childhood.
Hyperactivity during the preschool years associated
with aggressive behavior has the most robust links to
later antisocial behavior.
Common definitions of aggression emphasize an
intent to harm another person (Coie and Dodge 1998).
References to the emotional component of aggression
are not typically made in these definitions. Anger, the
emotional component of aggression, and hostility, a
negative attitude, motivate a person for aggressive
acts, but aggressive behavior may also be displayed
instrumentally. Hostile aggressive responding is char-
acterized by intense autonomic arousal and strong
responses to perceived threat. In contrast, instru-
mental aggression is characterized by little autonomic
activation and an orientation toward what the ag-
549
Antisocial Beha
ior in Childhood and Adolescence
gressor sees as a reward or expected outcome of
behavior.
Each aggressive act has a mode of expression,
direction, and motive. An aggressive act may be
expressed physically, verbally, or non-verbally, and
targeted, in each case, more directly or indirectly. It
also varies in its harmfulness or intensity. The motive
of the aggressive act may be defensive (reactive) or
offensive (proactive). Among school children, proa
ctive aggression is often displayed in bullying beha-
vior, which means purposefully harmful actions re-
peatedly targeted at one and the same individual.
From four percent to 12 percent of children—boys
slightly more often than girls—can be designated as
bullies and as many as victims depending on the
method of identification, age of children, and culture.
Both bullying others and being victimized tend to
endure from one year to another, and they are related
to relatively stable personality patterns. Besides Bullies
and Victims, the participant roles include Assistants
who are more or less passive followers of the bully,
Reinforcers who provide Bullies with positive feed-
back, Defenders who take sides with the victim, and
Outsiders who tend to withdraw from bullying situa-
tions (Salmivalli 1998).
Self-defense and defense of others are often cul-
turally accepted, and many children limit their
aggressive behavior to defensive aggression. Longitu-
dinal findings show that ‘defense-limited’ aggression
in early adolescence predicts more successful social
adjustment in adulthood than ‘multiple’ aggression,
which also includes proactive aggression. Only mul-
tiple aggression predicts criminal offences at a later age
(Pulkkinen 1996). The distinction between hostile and
instrumental aggression is not parallel to defense-
limited and multiple aggression or to reactive and
proactive aggression. Although proactive aggression
often is instrumental, reactive (or defensive) aggres-
sion may be either instrumental or hostile.
2. De
elopment of Aggression and Antisocial
Beha
ior
2.1 De
elopment of Aggression
Anger expression cannot be differentiated from other
negative affects in newborns, but by four months of
age angry facial displays—the eyebrows lower and
draw together, the eyelids narrow and squint, and the
cheeks elevated—are present and they are directed to
the source of frustration (Stenberg and Campos 1990).
The most frequent elicitors of aggression in infancy
are physical discomfort and the need for attention.
Peer-directed aggression, seen in responding to peer
provocations with protest and aggressive retaliation,
can be found at the end of the first year of life. At this
age children become increasingly interested in their
own possessions and control over their own activities.
550
During the second year of life, oppositional beha-
vior and physical aggression increase. Most children
learn to inhibit physical aggression during preschool
age, but other children continue displaying it
(Tremblay et al. 1999). Verbal aggression sharply
increases between two and four years of age and then
stabilizes. It is a time of fast language development
which helps children to communicate their needs
symbolically. Delays in language development are
often related to aggressive behavior problems.
Between six to nine years of age, the rate of aggression
declines, but at the same time its form and function
change from the relatively instrumental nature of
aggression in the preschool period to increasingly
person-oriented and hostile (Coie and Dodge 1998).
Children become aware of hostile intents of other
people and they, particularly aggressive children,
perceive threats and derogations to their ego and self-
esteem which elicit aggression. Most longitudinal
studies show a decrease in the ratings of aggression,
that is, in the perceived frequency of aggressive acts as
children enter adolescence. Nevertheless, serious acts
of violence increase. Individual differences in aggress-
ive behavior become increasingly pronounced.
2.2 Indi
idual Differences in Aggression and
Antisocial Beha
ior
Individual differences in anger expression emerge early
in life. At the age of two years, consistency of anger
responses across time is already significant. Individual
differences in aggression remain rather stable during
childhood and adolescence. Correlations vary slightly
depending on the measures used, the length of interval,
and the age of children, but they are generally between
0.40 and 0.70. The stability is comparable for males
and females. Individual differences in responding to a
conflict lie both in the frequency of aggressive behavior
and in prosocial attempts to solve conflicts. The latter
are facilitated by language development. Language
may, however, provide children with verbal means of
aggression. Additional factors, such as the devel-
opment of self-regulation, perspective taking, empa-
thy, and social skills, are needed for the explanation of
individual differences in aggression (Coie and Dodge
1998).
Gender differences in aggression appear in pre-
school age, boys engaging in more forceful acts both
physically and verbally. This sex difference widens in
middle childhood and peaks at age 11 when gender
differences in aggressive strategies emerge: girls display
relational aggression (e.g., attempts to exclude peers
from group participation) more than boys, and boys
engage in fighting more than girls (Lagerspetz and
Bjo$ rkqvist 1994). Both fighting and relational ag-
gression may aim at structuring one’s social status in a
peer group, but by different means.

Antisocial and other externalizing behavior is more
common, and the offending career is longer among
males than among females. There have been, however,
changes in the ratio between male and female offenders
during the 1980s and 90s in several western countries.
Adolescent girls are increasingly involved in antisocial
behavior. In the United Kingdom, the sex ratio was
about 10:1 in the 1950s, and 4:1 in the 1990s. The peak
age of offending among girls has remained at around
age 14 or 15, but the peak age for male offenders has
risen in thirty years from 14 to 18 (Rutter et al. 1998).
The peak age of registered offences is related to police
and prosecution policy, and varies by offense. For
instance, peak age is later for violent crimes than for
thefts.
2.3 Continuity in Antisocial Beha
ior
A multiproblem pattern is a stronger predictor of
delinquency than a single problem behavior. For
instance, aggression in childhood and adolescence
predicts delinquency when associated with other prob-
lem behaviors, such as hyperactivity, lack of con-
centration, and low school motivation and achieve-
ment, and poor peer relations (Stattin and Magnusson
1995). Peer rejection in preadolescence, which indi-
cates social incompetence rather than social isolation,
predicts delinquency even independently of the level of
aggression. Continuity from early behavioral prob-
lems to delinquency and other externalizing behavior
is higher among males than among females, whereas
girls’ behavioral problems predict internalizing beha-
vior (depression and anxiety) more often than boys’
behavioral problems (Zoccolillo 1993).
Several studies show that a small group of chronic
offenders accounts for half of the offences of the whole
group. They tend to display the pattern of antisocial
behavior called ‘life-course-persistent.’ It is charac-
terized at an early age by lack of self-control, reflecting
an inability to modulate impulsive expression, difficult
temperament features, hyperactivity, attentional prob-
lems, emotional lability, behavioral impulsivity, ag-
gressiveness, cognitive, language and motor deficits,
reading difficulties, lower IQ, and deficits in neuro-
psychological functioning. Thirteen percent of the
boys in the study by Moffitt et al. (1996) met criteria
for early onset, but only half of them persisted into
adolescence. Therefore, several assessments are
needed for the identification of life-course-persistent
offenders.
An adolescence-limited pattern of offending is more
common than the life-course-persistent pattern. It
reflects the increasing prevalence of delinquent ac-
tivities during adolescence. Both overt (starting from
bullying) and covert (starting from shoplifting) path-
ways toward serious juvenile offending have been
discerned (Loeber et al. 1998). Compared to the life-
course-persistent pattern, the adolescence-limited
pattern is less strongly associated with difficult tem-
Antisocial Beha
ior in Childhood and Adolescence
perament, hyperactivity and other early behavioral
problems, neuropsychological deficits, and poor peer
relationships. Many problem behaviors are very com-
mon in adolescence. Self-reports show that half of
males and from 20 percent to 35 percent of females
have been involved in delinquency. Rutter et al. (1998)
conclude that antisocial behavior ‘operates on a
continuum as a dimensional feature that most people
show to a greater or lesser degree’ (p. 11).
3. Determinants of Antisocial Beha
ior
With the increase of empirical findings, theories of
crime which try to explain crime with a single set of
causal factors have been increasingly criticized. The
climate has changed also in regard to the possible role
of individual characteristics as determinants of anti-
social behavior. In the 1970s, theories emphasized
social causes of crime, and paid little attention to
individual factors. The situation is now different.
Empirical studies have revealed that determinants of
antisocial behavior are diverse ranging from genetic to
cultural factors.
Studies on genetic factors in antisocial behavior
have shown that the estimates for the genetic com-
ponent of hyperactivity are about 60 to 70 percent.
Antisocial behavior linked to hyperactivity, which is
generally associated with poor social functioning, is
strongly genetically influenced. In contrast, antisocial
behavior which is not associated with hyperactivity is
largely environmental in origin (Silberg et al. 1996).
The genetic component for violent crime is low
compared to the heritability of aggression (about 50
percent), but this difference may also be due to
differences in prevalence of these behaviors, and its
effects on statistical analyses.
There is no gene for antisocial behavior; it is
multifactorially determined. Genetic effects increase a
liability for antisocial behavior, but they operate
probabilistically, which means that the effects increase
the likelihood of antisocial behavior, if environmental
and experiential factors affect in the same direction.
This conclusion also concerns the XYY chromosomal
anomality.
The importance of experiential factors, particularly
early family socialization, in the development of
aggression has been shown in many studies (Coie and
Dodge 1998). Aggressive individuals generally hold
positive views about aggression and believe it is
normative. Child-rearing strategies are related to
subsequent aggression in the child, for instance,
insecure and disorganized attachment with the care-
giver, parental coldness and permissiveness, incon-
sistent parenting, and power-assertive discipline
(Hinde et al. 1993). Low monitoring is particularly
important to adolescent involvement with antisocial
behavior. Parenting affects children’s behavior in
interaction with their temperament resulting in differ-
551
Antisocial Beha
ior in Childhood and Adolescence
ences in self-control that are related to adult outcomes,
such as criminality (Pulkkinen 1998).
An adverse immediate environment which increases
a risk for antisocial behavior in interaction with
genetic factors includes parental criminality, family
discord, ineffective parenting such as poor supervision,
coercive parenting and harsh physical discipline,
abuse, neglect, and rejection, delinquent peer groups,
unsupervised after school activities, and youth un-
employment. These risk factors also increase the use of
alcohol and drugs, which is often related to crime, and
are very similar in different countries, although there
are also some differences (Farrington and Loeber
1999).
There are also several sociocultural factors which
may serve to raise the level of crime in the community,
such as income differentials, antisocial behavior in
neighborhood, the availability of guns, media viol-
ence, the quality of school and its norms, unem-
ployment rate, and involvement in a drug market.
Poverty is strongly related to aggression and possibly
operates through disruption of parenting. Violent
virtual reality is available for children of the present
generation via electronic games playing. TV programs
and video films are passive in nature, whereas elec-
tronic games involve the player’s active participation
and often violent winning strategies (Anderson and
Ford 1986). Some minority ethnic groups are over-
represented in crime statistics, but causal factors are
complex. Cultural traditions cause, however, vast
differences in crime rates between different countries.
In Asian countries, particularly in Japan, crime rates
are lower than in western countries.
4. Conclusions
Official statistics in developed countries show that
crime rates among young people have been rising since
the 1970s. The results of recent longitudinal studies
have increased our understanding of factors con-
tributing to the incidence of antisocial behavior. A
greater understanding of how causal mechanisms
operate is, however, needed for the development of
effective means of preventing crime. Since persistent
antisocial behavior starts from conduct problems in
early childhood, support for families and work with
parents and teachers to improve their management
skills are extremely important. An affectionate parent,
nonpunitive discipline, and consistent supervision are
protective factors against antisocial behavior. Parent
management training is a neglected area in western
educational systems. Socialization of children and
youth might also be supported by, for instance,
legislation against gun availability and sociopolitical
improvements of family conditions.
See also: Adolescent Development, Theories of; Adol-
escent Vulnerability and Psychological Interventions;
552
Aggression in Adulthood, Psychology of; Behavior
Therapy with Children; Children and the Law; Crime
and Delinquency, Prevention of; Developmental Psy-
chopathology: Child Psychology Aspects; Early Child-
hood: Socioemotional Risks; Personality and Crime;
Personality Theory and Psychopathology; Poverty
and Child Development; Social Competence: Child-
hood and Adolescence; Socialization in Adolescence;
Socialization in Infancy and Childhood; Violence and
Effects on Children
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Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Antitrust Policy
The term antitrust, which grew out of the US trust-
busting policies of the late nineteenth century, de-
veloped over the twentieth century to connote a broad
array of policies that affect competition. Whether
applied through US, European, or other national
competition laws, antitrust has come to represent
an important competition policy instrument that
underlies many countries’ public policies toward
business. As a set of instruments whose goal is to make
markets operate more competitively, antitrust often
comes into direct conflict with regulatory policies,
including forms of price and output controls, anti-
dumping laws, access limitations, and protectionist
industrial policies.
Because its primary normative goal has been seen by
most to be economic efficiency, it should not be
surprising that antitrust analysis relies heavily on the
economics of industrial organization. But, other social
sciences also contribute significantly to our under-
standing of antitrust. Analyses of the development of
antitrust policy are in part historical in nature, and
positive studies of the evolution of antitrust law
(including analyses of lobbying and bureaucracy)
often rely heavily on rational choice models of the
politics of antitrust enforcement.
The relevance of other disciplines notwithstanding,
there is widespread agreement about many of the
important antitrust tradeoffs. Indeed, courts in the
US have widely adopted economic analysis as the
theoretical foundation for evaluating antitrust con-
cerns. Interestingly, however, antitrust statutes in
the European Union also place heavy emphasis on
the role of economics. Indeed, a hypothetical conver-
sation with a lawyer or economist at a US compe-
tition authority (the Antitrust Division of the
Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Com-
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Antitrust Policy
mission) or the European Union (The Competi-
tion Directorate) would be indistinguishable at first
sight.
While this article provides a view of antitrust
primarily from the perspective of US policy, the review
that follows illustrates a theme that has worldwide
applicability. As our understanding of antitrust
economics has grown throughout the past century,
antitrust enforcement policies have also improved,
albeit sometimes with a significant lag. In this survey
the following are highlighted: (a) the early anti-big
business period in the US, in which the structure of
industry was paramount; (b) the period in which
performance as well as structure was given significant
weight, and there was a systematic attempt to balance
the efficiency gains from concentration with the
inefficiencies associated with possible anti-competitive
behavior; (c) the most recent period, which includes
the growth of high technology and network industries,
in which behavior theories have been given particular
emphasis.
1. The Antitrust Laws of the US
In the USA, as in most other countries, antitrust
policies are codified in law and enforced by the judicial
branch. Public cases may be brought under Federal
law by the Antitrust Division of the Department of
Justice, by the Federal Trade Commission, and\or by
each of the 50-state attorneys-general. (The state
attorneys-general may also bring cases under state
law.) Further, there is a broad range of possibilities for
private enforcement of the antitrust laws, which plays
a particularly significant role in the USA.
1.1 The Sherman Act
Antitrust first became effective in the US near the end
of the nineteenth century. Underlying the antitrust
movement was the significant consolidation of in-
dustry that followed the Civil War. Following the war,
large trusts emerged in industries such as railroads,
petroleum, sugar, steel, and cotton. Concerns about
the growth and abusive conduct of these combinations
generated support for legislation that would restrict
their power. The first antitrust law in the USA—the
Sherman Act—was promulgated in 1890. Section 1 of
the Act prohibits: ‘Every contract, combination in the
form of trust of otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint
of trade or commerce among the several States, or
with foreign nations.’
Section 2 of the Sherman Act states that it is illegal
for any person to ‘… monopolize, or attempt to
monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other
person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade
or commerce among the several States, or with foreign
nations ….’ These two sections of the Act contain the
553
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7