Different patterns of behavioural and emotional difficulties through adolescence: The influence of prosocial skills
Abstract
The main purpose of the study was to examine the cluster composition of the analysis on the effect of gender and age of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in a large school-based sample of high school adolescents ranging from 14 to 18 years old (N = 1474). In order to do this, a K-means iterative cluster analysis was performed. A five-cluster solution turned out to be the most parsimonious in the differentiation of emotional and behavioural patterns. A five-cluster solution yielded the following patterns: “No difficulties and high prosocial scores” (n = 418; 28.36%), “high difficulties and low prosocial scores” (n = 239; 16.21%), “high on hyperactivity, low on the rest of the difficulties subscales, and high in prosocial capabilities” (n = 302; 20.49%), “high on emotional and peer problems, relatively low on conduct and hyperactivity, and high in prosocial capabilities” (n = 275; 18.66%), and finally “hyperactivity problems and average in the others difficulties subscales, and in prosocial capabilities” (n = 239; 16.21%). This cluster solution was replicated attending to the same gender and age groups. Nevertheless, differences in the distribution of the cluster composition suggest that difficulties differ by gender and age. The results allow for the conclusion that men reveal a greater number of problems of an externalizing nature whereas women indicate a greater degree of problems with internalizing difficulties and prosocial skills.
Downloads
References
Achenbach, T. M. (1966). The classification of children’s psychiatric symptoms: A factor-analytic study. Psychological Monographs, 80, 1-37.
Achenbach, T. M. (2009). The Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA): Development, findings, theory, and applications. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Research Centre for Children, Youth and Families.
Achenbach, T. M., & Rescorla, L. A. (2001). Manual for the ASEBA School-Age Forms & Profiles. University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, & Families: Burlington, VT.
Aebi, M., Giger, J., Plattner, B., Winkler Metzke, C., & Steinhausen, H.-C. (2014). Problem coping skills, psychosocial adversities and mental health problems in children and adolescents as predictors of criminal outcomes in young adulthood. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 23(5), 283-293.
Allen, J. P., Marsh, P., Mcfarland, C., Mcelhaney, K. B., Land, D. J., Jodl, K. M., & Peck, S. (2002). Attachment and autonomy as predictors of the development of social skills and delinquency during midadolescence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70(1), 55-66.
Armand, S., Keypour, M., Maracy, M. R., & Attari, A. (2012). Epidemiological study of youth mental health using Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal, 14(6), 371-375.
Barker, E. T., & Galambos, N. L. (2007). Body dissatisfaction, living away from parents, and poor social adjustment predict binge eating symptoms in young women making the transition to university. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 904-911.
Batanova, M., & Loukas, A. (2014). Unique and interactive effects of empathy, family, and school factors on early adolescents’ aggression. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(11), 1890-1902.
Berger, C., Batanova, M., & Duncan Cance, J. (2015). Aggressive and prosocial? Examining latent profiles of behavior, social status, machiavellianism, and empathy. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 1-15. DOI 10.1007/s10964-015-0298-9
Blakemore, S., & Frith, U. (2007). ¿Cómo aprende el cerebro? Barcelona: Ariel.
Bradshaw, P., & Tipping, S. (2010). Growing up in Scotland: Children's social, emotional and behavioural characteristics at entry to primary school. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.
Brimblecombe, N., Knapp, M., Murguia, S., Mbeah-Bankas, H., Crane, S., Harris, A., . . . King, D. (2015). The role of youth mental health services in the treatment of young people with serious mental illness: 2-year outcomes and economic implications. Early intervention psychiatry, 1. doi:10.1111/eip.12261
Caprara, G. V., Luengo Kanacri, B. P., Zuffiano, A., Gerbino, M., & Pastorelli, C. (2015). Why and How to Promote Adolescents' Prosocial Behaviors: Direct, Mediated and Moderated Effects of the CEPIDEA School-Based Program. Journal of Youth and Adolescence doi:10.1007/s10964-015-0293-1
Carlo, G., Mestre, M. V., McGinley, M. M., Tur-Porcar, A., Samper, P., & Opal, D. (2014). The protective role of prosocial behaviors on antisocial behaviors: the mediating effects of deviant peer affiliation. Journal of Adolescence, 37(4), 359-366. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.02.009
Costello, E. J., Copeland, W., & Angold, A. (2011). Trends in psychopathology across the adolescent years: What changes when children become adolescents, and when adolescents become adults? Journal Of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 52(10), 1015-1025. doi:doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02446.x
Chango, J., McElhaney, K., & Allen, J. P. (2009). Attachment organization and patterns of conflict resolution in friendships predicting adolescents’ depressive symptoms over time. Attachment & Human Development, 11(4), 331-346.
Di Riso, D., Salcuni, S., Chessa, D., Raudino, A., Lis, A., & Altoè, G. (2010). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Early evidence of its reliability and validity in a community sample of Italian children. Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 570-575.
Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Morris, A. S. (2013). Prosocial development. In P. Zelazo (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Eshel, N., Nelson, E. E., Blair, R. J., Pine, D. S., & Ernst, M. (2007). Neural substrates of choice selection in adults and adolescents: Development of the ventrolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulated cortices. Neuropsychologia, 45, 1270-1279.
Estévez Gutiérrez, A,. Herrero Fernández, D., Sarabia Gonzalvo, I., & Jáuregui Bilbao, P. (2014). El papel mediador de la regulación emocional entre el juego patológico, uso abusivo de Internet y videojuegos y la sintomatología disfuncional en jóvenes y adolescentes. Adicciones, 26, 282-290.
Essau, C. A., Olaya, B., Anastassiou-Hadjicharalambous, X., Pauli, G., Gilvarry, C., Bray, D., . . . Ollendick, T. H. (2012). Psychometric properties of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire from five European countries. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatry Research, 21(3), 232-245. doi:10.1002/mpr.1364
Fonseca-Pedrero, E., Paino, M., Lemos Giraldez, S., & Muñiz, J. (2011). Prevalencia de la sintomatología emocional y comportamental en adolescentes españooles a través del Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Revista de Psicopatología y Psicología Clínica, 16, 15-25.
Fonseca-Pedrero, E., Lemos-Giráldez, S., Paino-Pineiro, M., Villazón-García, U., & Muñiz, J. (2009). Validation of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief Form in adolescents. Schizophrenia Research, 111, 53-60. doi:doi:10.1016/j.schres.2009.03.006
Forns, M., Abad, J., & Kirchner, T. (2011). Internalizing and Externalizing Problems. In R. J. R. Levesque (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence (pp. 1464-1469). Springer: New York.
Galambos, N. L., & Krahn, H. J. (2008). Depression and anger trajectories during the transition to adulthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 70, 15-27.
Giannakopoulos, G., Tzavara, C., Dimitrakaki, C., Kolaitis, G., Rotsika, V., & Tountas, Y. (2009). The factor structure of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in Greek adolescents. Annals of General Psychiatry, 8, 20.
Giannotta, F., Ortega, E., & Stattin, H. (2012). An attachment parenting intervention to prevent adolescents’ problem behaviors: A pilot study in Italy. Child and Youth Care Forum. doi:10.1007/s10566-012-9189-3
Giordano, P., Manning, W., & Longmore, M. (2005). The Romantic Relationships of African American and White Adolescents. Sociological Quarterly, 46, 545-568.
Gogtay, N., Giedd, J. N., Lusk, L., Hayashi, K. M., Greenstein, D., Vaituzis, C., . . . Thompson, P. M. (2004). Dynamic Mapping of Human Cortical Development during Childhood Through Early Adulthood. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 101, 8174-8179.
Gómez, R. (2012). Correlated Trait–Correlated Method Minus One Analysis of the Convergent and Discriminant Validities of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Assessment, 21, 372-382. doi:10.1177/1073191112457588
Goñi, E., Esnaola, I., Rodríguez, A., & Camino, I. (2015). Personal self-concept and satisfaction with life in adolescence, youth and adulthood. Psicothema, 27, 52-58. http://doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2014.105
Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A Research Note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38(5), 581-586.
Halpern-Meekin, S. C., Manning, W. D., Giordano, P. C., & Longmore, M. A. (2013). Relationship Churning in Emerging Adulthood: On/Of Relationships and Sex with an Ex. Journal of Adolescent Research, 28(2), 166-188.
He, J. P., Burstein, M., Schmitz, A., & Merikangas, K. R. (2013). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): the Factor Structure and Scale Validation in U.S. Adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41(4), 583-595. doi:10.1007/s10802-012-9696-6
IBM Corp. Released. (2013). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows. Version 22.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.
Junttila, N., & Vauras, M. (2014). Latent profiles of parental self-efficacy and children's multisource-evaluated social competence. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(Pt 3), 397-414. doi:10.1111/bjep.12040
Kays, J. L., Hurley, R. A., & Taber, K. H. (2012). The dynamic brain: neuroplasticity and mental health. Journal of Neurosychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 24, 118-124.
Koskelainen, M., Sourander, A., & Vauras, M. (2001). Self-reported strengths and difficulties in a community sample of Finnish adolescents. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 10, 180-185.
Leff, S. S., Baker, C. N., Waasdorp, T. E., Vaughn, N. A., Bevans, K. B., Thomas, N. A., . . . Monopoli, W. J. (2014). Social cognitions, distress, and leadership self-efficacy: associations with aggression for high-risk minority youth. Developmental Psychopatholy, 26(3), 759-772. doi:10.1017/s0954579414000376
Lien, L., Green, K., Welander-Vatn, A., & Bjertness, E. (2009). Mental and somatic health complaints associated with school bullying between 10th and 12th grade students; results from cross sectional studies in Oslo, Norway. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 5(6), 1-8. doi:10.1186/1745-0179-5-6
Luengo Kanacri, B. P., Pastorelli, C., Eisenberg, N., Zuffiano, A., Castellani, V., & Caprara, G. V. (2014). Trajectories of prosocial behavior from adolescence to early adulthood: associations with personality change. Journal of Adolescence, 37(5), 701-713. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.03.013
Llorca Mestre, A., Mesurado, B., & Samper García, P. (2014). El rol mediador de la empatía, la conducta prosocial y la conducta agresiva en la depresión y la ansiedad. Ansiedad y estrés, 20, 247-258.
McElhaney, K. B., Immele, A., Smith, F. D., & Allen, J. P. (2006). Attachment organization as a moderator of the link between peer relationships and adolescent delinquency. Attachment & Human Development, 8, 33-46.
Mestre, M. V., Carlo, G., Samper, P., Tur-Porcar, A. M., & Mestre, A. L. (2015). Psychometric Evidence of a Multidimensional Measure of Prosocial Behaviors for Spanish Adolescents. Journal of Genetics Psychology, 176(4), 260-271. doi:10.1080/00221325.2015.1052726
Moscoso, A., Jovanovic, N., & Rojnic, M. (2015). Transition from adolescent to adult mental health services in Europe from the provider's perspective. Lancet Psychiatry, 2(9), 779 780. doi:doi: 10.1016/S2215 0366(15)00359 4.
Ogden, T. (2001). The prevention and management of behaviour difficulties in school. Research and practice. In J. Visser, H. Daniels, & T. Cole (Eds.), Emotional and behavioural difficulties in mainstream schools (pp. 75-89). Oxford: Elsevier Science.
Ortuño-Sierra, J., Fonseca-Pedrero, E., Paino, M., & Aritio-Solana, R. (2014). Prevalencia de síntomas emocionales y comportamentales en adolescentes españoles [Prevalence of emotional and behavioural symptoms in spanish adolescents]. Revista de Psiquiatría y Salud Mental, 7, 121-130.
Ortuño-Sierra, J., Fonseca-Pedrero, E., Paino, M., Sastre i Riba, S., & Muñiz, J. (2015a). Screening mental health problems during adolescence: Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Journal of Adolescence, 38, 49-56.
Ortuño-Sierra, J., Fonseca-Pedrero, J., Aritio-Solana, R., Moreno, A., Chocarro de Luis, E., Schumann, G., . . . and the IMAGEN consortium. (2015b). New Evidence of Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the SDQ Across Five European Nations. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. doi:DOI: 10.1007/s00787-015-0729-x
Pakaslahti, L., Karjalainen, A., & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, L. (2002). Relationships between adolescent prosocial problem-solving strategies, prosocial behaviour and social acceptance. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 26, 137-144.
Petrides, K. V., Frederickson, N., & Furnham, A. (2004). The role of trait emotional intelligence in academic performance and deviant behaviour at School. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 277-293.
Piehler, T. F. (2011). Peer Influence. In B. B. Brown & M. J. Prinstein (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Vol. 2). Oxford: Elsevier.
Polanczyk, G. V., Salum, G. A., Sugaya, L. S., Caye, A., & Rohde, L. A. (2015). Annual research review: A meta-analysis of the worldwide prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56(3), 345-365. doi:doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12381
Poulou, M. (2014). How are trait emotional intelligence and social skills related to emotional and behavioural difficulties in adolescents? Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 34(3), 354-366. doi:doi:10.1080/01443410.2013.785062
Riglin, L., Thapar, A., Shelton, K. H., Langley, K., Frederickson, N., & Rice, F. (2015). Profiling depression in childhood and adolescence: the role of conduct problems. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12465
Roisman, G. I., Masten, A. S., Coatsworth, J. D., & Tellegen, A. (2004). Salient and Emerging Developmental Tasks in the Transition to Adulthood. Child Development, 75, 123-133.
Rønning, J. A., Helge Handegaard, B. H., Sourander, A., & Mørch, W.-T. (2004). The Strengths and Difficulties Self-Report Questionnaire as a screening instrument in Norwegian community samples. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 13, 73-82. doi: 10.1007/s00787-004-0356-4
Ruchkin, V., Jones, S., Vermeiren, R., & Schwab-Stone, M. (2008). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: The Self-Report Version in American Urban and Suburban Youth. Psychological Assessment, 20(2), 175-182.
Salmera-Aro, K. (2011). Stages of Adolescence. In B. Bradford Brown & M. J. Prinstein (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Vol. 1, pp. 360-368). Oxford: Elsevier.
Scott, S., Briskman, J., Woolgar, M., Humayun, S., & O’Connor, T. G. (2011). Attachment in adolescence: Overlap with parenting and unique prediction of behavioral adjustment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52, 1052-1062.
Sonunga-Barke, E. J. S., Thompson, M., Stevenson, J., & Viney, D. (1997). Patterns of behaviour problems among pre-school children. Psychological Medicine, 27, 909-918.
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. (2006). SPSS Base 15.0 User's Guide. Chicago, IL: SPSS Inc.
Steinberg, L. (2013). The influence of neuroscience on US Supreme Court decisions about adolescents' criminal culpability. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14, 513-518. doi:doi:10.1038/nrn3509
Uggen, C., & Massoglia, M. (2003). Desistance from crime and deviance as a turning point in the life course. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 311-329). New York: Plenum.
Van Roy, B., Grøholt, B., Heyerdahl, S., & Clench-Aas, J. (2010). Understanding discrepancies in parent-child reporting of emotional and behavioural problem: Effects of relational and socio-demographic factors. BMC Psychiatry, 10(56). doi:doi:10.1186/1471-244X-10-56
van Widenfelt, B. M., Goedhart, A. W., Treffers, P. D., & Goodman, R. (2003). Dutch version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 12, 281-289.
Worthman, C. M. (2011). Hormones and Behavior. In B. B. Brown & M. J. Prinstein (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Vol. 1, pp. 177-192). Oxford: Elsevier.
Yao, S., Zhang, C., Zhu, X., Jing, X., McWhinnie, C. M., & Abela, J. R. Z. (2009). Measuring Adolescent Psychopathology: Psychometric Properties of the Self-Report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a Sample of Chinese Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45, 55-62.
The works published in this journal are subject to the following terms:
1. The Publications Service of the University of Murcia (the publisher) retains the property rights (copyright) of published works, and encourages and enables the reuse of the same under the license specified in paragraph 2.
© Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia, 2022
2. The works are published in the online edition of the journal under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-CompartirIgual 4.0 (legal text). You can copy, use, distribute, transmit and publicly display, provided that: i) you cite the author and the original source of publication (journal, editorial and URL of the work), ii) are not used for commercial purposes, iii ) mentions the existence and specifications of this license.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
3. Conditions of self-archiving. Is allowed and encouraged the authors to disseminate electronically pre-print versions (version before being evaluated and sent to the journal) and / or post-print (version reviewed and accepted for publication) of their works before publication, as it encourages its earliest circulation and diffusion and thus a possible increase in its citation and scope between the academic community. RoMEO Color: Green.
