Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, 4201 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA, 92697-7085, USA,
J Youth Adolesc. 2014 Nov;43(11):1903-13. doi: 10.1007/s10964-013-0080-9. Epub 2013 Dec 14.
Although impulsivity is one of the strongest psychological predictors of crime, it is unclear how well impulsivity, measured at a specific moment in adolescence, predicts criminal behavior months or years into the future. The present study investigated how far into the future self-reports and parents' reports of a youth's impulsivity predicted whether he engaged in illegal behavior, whether one reporter's assessment was more predictive than the other's, and whether there is value in obtaining multiple reports. Data were obtained from a 6-year longitudinal study of adjudicated juvenile offenders (n = 701 mother-son dyads). Youth (m = 15.93 years old; sd = 1.14) and their mothers independently reported on adolescents' impulsivity at the initial assessment. We examined the prospective correlation of these measures with illegal behavior, assessed by official records of arrests and youths' self-reports of offending across the 72-month study period. Youths' and mothers' reports of the adolescents' impulsivity were weakly, but significantly, correlated with one another. Furthermore, mothers' ratings of their sons' impulsivity predicted arrest up to 6 years into the future, whereas youths' reports did not significantly predict arrest beyond 30 months. With respect to youths' self-reports of offending, mothers' ratings of impulsivity again predicted farther into the future (as late as 6 years later) than did youths' self-reports of impulsivity, which were not predictive beyond 4 years. However, across the first 4 years, youths' self-reports of impulsivity explained more variance in self-reported offending than did mothers' ratings. The results underscore the endurance of the predictive utility of an assessment of impulsivity and the importance (and accuracy) of parents' reports of developmental constructs, even when their children are adolescents.
虽然冲动是犯罪最强的心理预测因素之一，但目前尚不清楚青少年时期某个特定时刻测量的冲动程度，对未来几个月或几年的犯罪行为有多大的预测能力。本研究调查了青少年的冲动自我报告和父母报告在多远的未来可以预测他是否从事非法行为，一个报告者的评估是否比另一个更具预测性，以及获得多个报告是否有价值。数据来自一项对被判定为少年犯的纵向研究（n=701 对母子）。青少年（m=15.93 岁，sd=1.14）及其母亲在最初评估时分别报告了青少年的冲动。我们检查了这些措施与非法行为的前瞻性相关性，这些非法行为是通过官方逮捕记录和青少年在 72 个月研究期间的自我报告来评估的。青少年的冲动自我报告和母亲报告之间存在微弱但显著的相关性。此外，母亲对儿子冲动的评价可以预测未来 6 年的逮捕情况，而青少年的报告在 30 个月后没有显著预测逮捕情况。就青少年自我报告的犯罪行为而言，母亲对青少年冲动的评价再次预测了更远的未来（直到 6 年后），而青少年自我报告的冲动则在 4 年以后没有预测能力。然而，在前 4 年，青少年自我报告的冲动比母亲对冲动的评价更能解释自我报告的犯罪行为的变化。这些结果强调了冲动评估的预测效用的持久性，以及父母对发展结构的报告的重要性（和准确性），即使他们的孩子是青少年。
