The Role of Individual and Contextual Factors in Positive Development for Youth With Externalizing Behaviors

Youth with behavior difficulties are at particular risk of comorbid internalizing symptoms (McElroy et al., 2018; Pesenti-Gritti et al., 2008) and poor academic functioning (Kremer et al., 2016). Individual and social environments can maintain and perpetuate externalizing behaviors in youth and influence their internalizing and academic difficulties. For example, the procedure in which youth process social information (Crick & Dodge, 1994) can determine whether youth engage in aggressive behavior. Adverse experiences, including exposure to violence (Fleckman et al., 2016; Gaylord-Harden et al., 2011; McGill et al., 2014), racial discrimination (Bottiani et al., 2020; Loyd et al., 2019), and bullying (Fergusson et al., 2014; Stefanek et al., 2017), can also perpetuate youths’ externalizing behaviors and result in internalizing and academic difficulties. Therefore, an ecological perspective is needed to comprehensively understand the maintenance and perpetuation of externalizing behaviors. An overarching goal of this study was to examine the extent to which individual (e.g., coping skills) and ecological systems (e.g., family factors) interact to promote positive development in youth with behavior problems (White & Renk, 2012). Additionally, we aimed to investigate the longitudinal changes of risk factors, including youths’ maladaptive social-information processing (SIP), to inform our understanding of the risk and protective social-cognitive processes of youth with externalizing problems (Goldweber et al., 2011), which in turn may minimize the likelihood of additional psychological and academic difficulties.
With these goals in mind, it is helpful to consider the broader developmental context of this work. Specifically, youth development is theorized to occur through frequent and extensive complex reciprocal interactions between an individual and their environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1995). Bronfenbrenner’s Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model proposes four interacting components that contribute to youth development, including: the bidirectional interactions between the developing youth and their immediate environment (Process); the active role that youth and their characteristics play in their environment (Person); the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem (Context); the events occurring during a specific day, the frequency of activities that occur within a youths’ environment over time, and the changing expectations at different ecological levels (Time).

This model can be utilized to examine the role of social environments in the reinforcement and maintenance of externalizing behaviors, which can lead to significant ramifications in the United States, including violence and crime. For example, socially disorganized neighborhoods can maintain aggression and violence through residential instability, poverty, ethnic-racial heterogeneity of community members, and family disruptions (Park & Burgess, 2019). Youth living in socially disorganized communities (context) may experience less parental supervision and monitoring because their caregivers need to work and may be more likely to police each other through aggression (process), and in turn, develop specific social-cognitive processes and behaviors (person) that may be adaptive to their specific environments (time). However, the bidirectional influences of youths’ externalizing behaviors within their ecological systems must also be considered to better understand the development of behavior difficulties. Evidence suggests that youth with externalizing problems are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, which can increase their exposure to adverse environments where they must use aggression as a form of protection (Anderson, 2019). According to the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST), aggression may be a coping response to youths’ environment and a behavior that youth deem as most adaptive within their context, which may be reinforced by individual and environmental risk factors and stereotypes imposed by society. To understand how externalizing difficulties are developed and maintained, the unique experiences of youth with elevated behavior problems must be investigated, as well as the extent that individual and environmental factors play a role in perpetuating negative outcomes within the PPCT framework.

This three-paper manuscript contributes to the literature as it explores the extent that individual and contextual processes interact within a PPCT framework that may potentially stifle or promote positive development in youth with elevated behavior problems. The dissertation builds on itself, such that each paper places an emphasis on an additional component of the PPCT framework (i.e., person, context, time) as they relate to the process of individual and environmental factors in youth with elevated externalizing symptoms. For example, the first paper examined sex differences (person) in coping as it related to the potential development of emotional and behavioral difficulties in youth exposed to different levels of violence and racial discrimination (process) in a sample of youth with behavior problems. The second paper explored the interaction between familial factors (context) and victimization experiences (process) in relation to internalizing and academic outcomes. Finally, the third paper examined the sex differences (person) in SIP trajectories and longitudinal associations between SIP and externalizing difficulties (time, process) during early adolescence. Understanding how this framework applies to youth with conduct problems can provide insight on how individual and contextual factors associate with adverse experiences and inform prevention and intervention efforts to promote positive development in youth. In the sections below, we briefly review each of the papers included in the three-paper dissertation.

Paper 1: Urban Adolescents’ Exposure to Violence and Racial Discrimination: Sex Differences in Coping and Mental Health
Paper 1 sought to explore sex differences in coping strategies that were both adaptive and maladaptive in adverse environments in a sample of urban and predominately Black male and female ninth graders. Therefore, we conducted multigroup analysis using cross-sectional data to examine sex as a possible effect modifier in the association between coping (i.e., self-reliance and ventilating feelings) and emotional and externalizing outcomes for youth with varying levels of exposure to violence and racial discrimination. There were no significant interactions for females, but there were several for males. Results indicate that ventilating feelings may be a potential risk factor for externalizing problems for males exposed to little to no community violence. Additionally, ventilating feelings may be a potential risk factor for emotional and externalizing symptoms for males with infrequent to frequent racial discrimination, whereas self-reliance may be a protective factor against racial discrimination and externalizing symptoms for males. Interventions should consider sex-specific coping responses to exposure to violence and racial discrimination for youth with elevated behavior problems. These findings can contribute to the literature, as they may provide insight on the adaptive and maladaptive role of individual factors, such as coping, for urban males and females at risk of exposure to violence and racial discrimination.

Paper 2: Urban Black Adolescents’ Victimization Experiences: The Moderating Role of Family Factors on Internalizing and Academic Outcomes
Paper 2 aimed to investigate the moderating role of supportive family factors (i.e., family academic involvement, racial socialization, and relations with parents) on the association between victimization experiences (i.e., exposure to seen violence, told violence, racial discrimination, and bullying) and internalizing and academic outcomes in urban Black ninth graders with elevated behavior problems. Using cross-sectional data, several two-way interactions were estimated to explore the extent that family factors and victimization experiences interacted and associated with anxiety, depression, academic engagement, and negative school attitudes. Results suggest that told violence exposure may potentially result in lower student- and teacher-reported depressive symptoms for youth with strong and weak parent relationships. Moreover, racial discrimination may be a potential risk factor for student-reported anxiety and depression, particularly for youth with high family academic involvement and strong parent relationships, and potentially increase youths’ teacher-reported anxiety when family academic involvement is low. Instead, culturally relevant processes, such as racial socialization, may potentially offset or buffer the negative influence of racial discrimination on student-reported anxiety. Finally, bullying may be a potential risk factor for negative school attitudes and lower academic engagement, especially for youth with strong parent relationships. Findings may provide insight on the family factors that may be particularly helpful for youth with elevated behavior difficulties, within the context of victimization.

Paper 3: Social-Information Processing across Early Adolescence in Youth with Externalizing Behaviors: Longitudinal and Reciprocal Links by Sex
Paper 3 explored two aims that focused on: 1) SIP trajectories (i.e., hostile attribution bias, outcome expectations, behavioral dysregulation, and affective dysregulation) by females and males across early adolescence; and 2) longitudinal associations between SIP and externalizing behaviors (aggression and conduct problems) across early adolescence. This paper focused on a sample of youth with aggressive behaviors between the ages of 11-14 using integrated data from eight randomized controlled trials of the Coping Power intervention. For the first aim, latent growth curve analysis was used to explore SIP trajectories. The second aim examined longitudinal associations between SIP mechanisms and externalizing behaviors (aggression and conduct problems) in females and males from ages 11-14 using cross-lagged panel analysis. This study may help identify the factors associated with risk and protective outcomes of youth with behavior problems to inform prevention and intervention efforts.

Implications
Considering the potential repercussions resulting from externalizing behaviors (e.g., crime, violence) and the role of individual and environmental factors in perpetuating and maintaining them, it is essential to understand how youth with conduct difficulties navigate their world and the complex factors that may result in adaptive or maladaptive outcomes. This three-paper dissertation seeks to provide additional insight on the individual and contextual processes, as represented in Bronfenbrenner’s PPCT framework, that may influence development in youth with elevated behavior difficulties. Findings suggest that youth with externalizing difficulties exposed to victimization may utilize individual skills, such as particular coping strategies, to navigate adverse environments and may benefit from specific contextual influences (e.g., parenting factors) that should be considered within their ecological systems. It is also necessary to understand the SIP changes that occur within a youth over time to acquire a more comprehensive narrative of the development of psychological difficulties in youth with elevated externalizing symptoms.
Together, these three studies have the potential to identify key prevention and intervention targets that can mitigate maladaptive functioning and promote positive development in youth. Child-and adolescent-focused interventions that target behavior problems should be tailored to account for the unique ways in which individual (e.g., SIP mechanisms, coping strategies) and contextual (e.g., victimization experiences, family factors) characteristics contribute to positive youth development in youth with aggressive behavior. Finally, mental health and school-based supports should strive to take a strength-based approach when serving youth with externalizing behaviors by reframing their maladaptive behavior as being functional within their ecological systems and identifying intervention targets at multiple ecological levels.