Wilson Helen W, Stover Carla Smith, Berkowitz Steven J
Yale University Child Study Center, New Haven, CT, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2009 Jul;50(7):769-79. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.01974.x. Epub 2008 Nov 5.
The connection between childhood violence exposure and antisocial behavior in adolescence has received much attention and has important implications for understanding and preventing criminal behavior. However, there are a limited number of well-designed prospective studies that can suggest a causal relationship, and little is known about the magnitude of the relationship.
This meta-analysis provides a quantitative comparison of 18 studies (N = 18,245) assessing the relationship between childhood (before age 12) violence exposure and adolescent antisocial behavior. An overall effect size (Cohen's d) was calculated for each study, an average for the 18 studies, and averages for subsets of analyses within studies.
Results indicated a small effect from prospective studies (d = .31) and a large effect from cross-sectional studies (d = .88). The effect for victimization (d = .61) was larger than for witnessing violence (d = .15).
Effect size varied across studies employing different methodologies, populations, and conceptualizations of violence exposure and antisocial behavior. These findings do not support a simple, direct link from early violence exposure to antisocial behavior but suggest that many factors influence this relationship.
童年期遭受暴力与青少年反社会行为之间的联系已受到广泛关注，对理解和预防犯罪行为具有重要意义。然而，能够表明因果关系的精心设计的前瞻性研究数量有限，且对这种关系的程度了解甚少。
这项荟萃分析对18项研究（N = 18,245）进行了定量比较，这些研究评估了童年期（12岁之前）遭受暴力与青少年反社会行为之间的关系。计算了每项研究的总体效应量（科恩d值）、18项研究的平均值以及研究内各分析子集的平均值。
结果表明，前瞻性研究的效应量较小（d = 0.31），横断面研究的效应量较大（d = 0.88）。受害的效应量（d = 0.61）大于目睹暴力的效应量（d = 0.15）。
采用不同方法、针对不同人群以及对暴力暴露和反社会行为进行不同概念化的研究，其效应量各不相同。这些发现并不支持从早期暴力暴露到反社会行为的简单直接联系，而是表明许多因素影响着这种关系。
