title: Response decision processes and externalizing behavior problems in adolescents.
abstract: Externalizing behavior problems of 124 adolescents were assessed across Grades 7-11. In Grade 9, participants were also assessed across social-cognitive domains after imagining themselves as the object of provocations portrayed in six videotaped vignettes. Participants responded to vignette-based questions representing multiple processes of the response decision step of social information processing. Phase 1 of our investigation supported a two-factor model of the response evaluation process of response decision (response valuation and outcome expectancy). Phase 2 showed significant relations between the set of these response decision processes, as well as response selection, measured in Grade 9 and (a) externalizing behavior in Grade 9 and (b) externalizing behavior in Grades 10-11, even after controlling externalizing behavior in Grades 7-8. These findings suggest that on-line behavioral judgments about aggression play a crucial role in the maintenance and growth of aggressive response tendencies in adolescence.
authors.affiliation: Duke University, Psychology Department, Durham, NC 27708, USA. rgf2@duke.edu
authors.forename: Reid Griffith
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Fontaine
authors.forename: Virginia Salzer
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Burks
authors.forename: Kenneth A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Dodge
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007207:Individuation; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010379:Peer Group; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012963:Sociometric Techniques