Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
J Youth Adolesc. 2021 Jul;50(7):1293-1307. doi: 10.1007/s10964-021-01433-z. Epub 2021 Apr 15.
Dual systems theories of adolescent risk-taking propose that the socioemotional and self-regulation systems develop at different rates, resulting in a peak in sensation-seeking in adolescence at a time when self-regulation abilities are not yet fully mature. This "developmental imbalance" between bottom-up drives for reward and top-down control is proposed to create a period of vulnerability for high-risk behaviors such as delinquency, substance use, unprotected sex, and reckless driving. In this study, data from the Swiss longitudinal normative z-proso study (n = 1522, n = 784 male; aged 11, 13, 15, 17, and 20) were used to test whether the presence of a developmental imbalance between sensation-seeking and self-regulation is associated with trajectories of engagement in delinquency across early adolescence to adulthood. Using a latent class growth analysis of sensation-seeking, self-regulation, and delinquency, it was found that a model with 3 classes was optimal in the whole sample and male sub-sample, including one class characterized by a developmental imbalance and corresponding adolescent peak in delinquency. In females, there was no evidence for a class that could be described according to the trajectories hypothesized in dual systems theory. This study's results support the claim that a developmental imbalance may drive an adolescent increase in delinquency. However, this applies only to a small subgroup of individuals, particularly males.
青少年冒险的双重系统理论提出，社会情感和自我调节系统的发展速度不同，导致青少年在寻求刺激方面达到高峰，而此时自我调节能力尚未完全成熟。这种奖励的自下而上驱动力和自上而下控制之间的“发展不平衡”被认为是青少年时期易发生高风险行为（如犯罪、药物滥用、无保护性行为和鲁莽驾驶）的脆弱时期。在这项研究中，使用了瑞士纵向规范 z-proso 研究的数据（n=1522，n=784 名男性；年龄为 11、13、15、17 和 20 岁），以检验寻求刺激和自我调节之间是否存在发展不平衡，是否与青少年早期到成年期的犯罪参与轨迹有关。通过对寻求刺激、自我调节和犯罪的潜在类别增长分析，发现整个样本和男性子样本中，3 类模型是最优的，包括一类以发展不平衡和相应的青少年犯罪高峰为特征。在女性中，没有证据表明存在可以根据双重系统理论假设的轨迹来描述的类别。本研究的结果支持了这样一种说法，即发展不平衡可能会导致青少年犯罪的增加。然而，这只适用于一小部分人，特别是男性。
