The association of pubertal maturation with internalizing and externalizing symptoms was examined with a sample of 867 African-American 10 – 12-year-old children. Children reported their pubertal development status and timing using a self-report questionnaire, and symptoms were assessed through diagnostic interviews with the children and their primary caregivers. Pubertal status and timing were significantly associated with children's reports of the internalizing symptoms of social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and major depression and with the externalizing symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit disorder, and conduct disorder. Pubertal development also was associated with caregivers’ reports of children's externalizing symptoms. The pubertal transition was associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in both boys and girls.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Alsaker, F. D. (1996). Annotation: The impact of puberty. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatr. 37: 249–258.
Andersson, T., and Magnusson, D. (1990). Biological maturation in adolescence and the development of drinking habits and alcohol abuse among young males: A prospective longitudinal study. J. Youth Adolesc. 19: 33–41.
Angold, A., Costello, E. J., and Worthman, C. W. (1998). Puberty and depression: The role of age, pubertal status, and pubertal timing. Psychol. Med. 28: 51–61.
Brooks-Gunn, J., and Warren, M. (1989). Biological and social contributions to negative affect in young adolescent girls. Child Dev. 60: 40–55.
Caspi, A., and Moffitt, T. E. (1991). Individual differences are accentuated during periods of social change: The sample case of girls at puberty. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 61: 157–168.
Connolly, S. D., Paikoff, R. L., and Buchanan, C. M. (1996). Puberty: The interplay of biological and psychosocial processes in adolescence. In Adams, G. R., Montemayor, R., and Gullotta, T. P. (eds.), Psychosocial Development During Adolescence. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 259–299.
Cutrona, C. E., Russell, D. W., Hessling, R. M., Brown, P. A., and Murry, V. (2000). Direct and moderating effects of community context on the psychological well-being of African American women. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 79: 1088–1101.
Deardorff, J., Gonzales, N. A., and Christopher, F. S. (2005). Early puberty and adolescent pregnancy: The influence of alcohol use. Pediatrics 11: 1451–1456.
Dick, D. M., Rose, R. J., Kaprio, J., and Viken, R. J. (2000). Pubertal timing and substance use: Associations between and within families across late adolescence. Dev. Psychol. 36: 180–189.
Dick, D. M., Rose, R. J., Pulkennen, L., and Kaprio, J. (2001). Measuring puberty and understanding its impact: A longitudinal study of adolescent twins. J. Youth Adolesc. 30: 385–399.
Dorn, L. D., Susman, E. J., and Ponirakis, A. (2003). Pubertal timing and adolescent adjustment and behavior: Conclusions vary by rater. J. Youth Adolesc. 32: 157–167.
Duncan, P., Ritter, P., Dornbusch, S., Gross, R., and Carlsmith, J. (1985). The effect of pubertal timing on body image, school behavior, and deviance. J. Youth Adolesc. 14: 227–236.
Eichorn, D. (1975). Asynchonization in adolescent development. In Dragastin,.S. E. and Elder, G. H., Jr. (eds.), Adolescence in the life cycle: Psychological change and the social context. Halsted, New York.
Felson, R. B., and Haynie, D. L. (2002). Pubertal development, social factors, and delinquency among adolescent boys. Criminology 40: 967–988.
Ge, X., Conger, R. D., and Elder, G. H., Jr. (1996). Coming of age too early: Pubertal influences on girls’ vulnerability to psychological distress. Child Dev. 67: 3386–3400.
Ge, X., Conger, R. D., and Elder, G. H., Jr. (2001a). Pubertal transition, stressful life events, and emergence of gender differences in adolescent depressive symptoms. Dev. Psychol. 37: 404–417.
Ge, X., Conger, R. D., and Elder, G. H.,.Jr.. (2001b). The relationship between pubertal transition and psychological distress among adolescent boys. J. Res. Adolesc. 11: 49–70.
Ge, X., Brody, G. H., Conger, R. D., Simons, R. L., and Murry, V. M. (2002). Contextual amplification of the effects of pubertal transition on African-American children's deviant peer affiliation and externalized behavioral problems. Dev. Psychol. 38: 42–54.
Ge, X., Kim, I. J., Brody, G. H., Conger, R. D., Simons, R. L., Gibbons, F. X., et al. (2003). It's about timing and change: Pubertal transition effects on symptoms of major depression among African American youths. Dev. Psychol. 39: 430–439.
Graber, J. A., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Warren, M. P. (1995). The antecedents of menarcheal age: Heredity, family environment, and stressful life events. Child Dev. 66: 346–359.
Graber, J. A., Petersen, A., and Brooks-Gunn, J. (1996). Pubertal processes: Methods, measures, and models. In Graber, J. A., Brooks-Gunn J., and Petersen, A. (eds.), Transitions through Adolescence: Interpersonal Domains and Context. Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 23–53.
Graber, J. A., Lewinsohn, P. M., Seeley, J., and Brooks-Gunn, J. (1997). Is psychopathology associated with the timing of pubertal development? J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. 36: 1768–1776.
Graber, J. A., Seeley, J. R., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Lewinsohn, P. M. (2004). Is pubertal timing associated with psychopathology in young adulthood? J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. 43: 718–726.
Haynie, D. (2001). Contexts of risk? Explaining the link between girls’ pubertal development and their delinquency involvement. Soc. Forces 82: 355–397.
Hayward, C., and Sanborn, K. (2002). Puberty and the emergence of gender difference in psychopathology. J. Adolesc. Health 30: 49–58.
Jones, M. C. (1965). Psychological correlates of somatic development. Child Dev. 36: 899–911.
Jones, M. C., and Bayley, N. (1950). Physical maturing among boys as related to behavior. J. Educ. Psychol. 41: 129–148.
Jones, M. C., and Bayley, N. (1971). Physical maturing among boys as related to behavior. In Jones, M. C., Bayley, N., MacFarlane, J. W., and Honzik, M. P. (eds.), The Course of Human Development. Xeroz College Publishing, Waltham, MA, pp. 252–257.
Jones, M. C., and Mussen, P. H. (1957). Self-conceptions, motivations, and interpersonal attitudes of early- and late-maturing girls. Child Dev. 29: 491–501.
Lanza, S. T., and Collins, L. M. (2002). Pubertal timing and the onset of substance use in females during early adolescence. Prev. Sci. 3: 69–82.
Magnusson, D. (1988). Individual Development from an Interactional Perspective. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Belsky, J. and Silva, P. A. (1992). Childhood experience and the onset of menarche: A test of a sociobiological model. Child Dev. 63: 47–58.
Nadeem, E., and Graham, S. (2005). Early puberty, peer victimization, and internalizing symptoms in ethnic minority adolescents. J. Early Adolesc. 25: 197–222.
Obeidallah, D., Brennen, R. T., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Earls, F. (2004). Links between pubertal timing and neighborhood contexts: Implication for girls’ violent behavior. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. 43: 1460–1468.
Peskin, H. (1967). Pubertal onset and ego functioning. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 72: 1–15.
Petersen, A. C., and Taylor, B. (1980). The biological approach to adolescence. In Adelson,.J. (ed.), Handbook of Adolescent Psychology. Wiley, New York, pp. 117–155.
Petersen, A. C., Crockett, L., Richards, M., and Boxer, A. (1988). A self-report measure of pubertal status: Reliability, validity, and initial norms. J. Youth Adolesc. 17: 117–133.
Rose, R. J., Dick, D. M., Viken, R. J., Pulkinnen, L., and Kaprio, J. (2001) Drinking or astaining at age 14? A genetic epidemiological study. Alcohol: Clin. Exp.. Res. 30: 385–399.
Rowe, R., Maughan, B., Worthman, C. M., Costello, E. J. and Angold, A. (2004). Testosterone, antisocial behavior, and social domainace among boys: Pubertal development and biosocial interaction. Biol. Psychol. 55: 546–552.
Shaffer, D., Fisher, P., Piacentini, J., Conners, C. K., Schwab-Stone, M., Cohen, P., Davies, M., and Reigier, D. (1993). The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Revised Version (DISC-R). I. Preparation, field testing, inter-rater reliability and acceptability. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. 32: 643–650.
Steinberg, L. (1987). Impact of puberty on family relations: Effects of pubertal status and pubertal timing. Dev. Psychol. 23: 451–460.
Susman, E. J. (1997). Modeling developmental complexity in adolescence: Hormones and behavior in context. J. Res. Adolesc. 7: 283–306.
Susman, E. J., Dorn, L. D., and Chrousos, G. P. (1991). Negative affect and hormone levels in young adolescents: Concurrent and predictive perspectives. J. Youth Adolesc. 20: 167–190.
Tschann, J. M., Adler, N., Irwin, C. E., Jr., Millstein, S. G., Turner, R. A., and Kegeles, S. (1994). Initiation of substance use in early adolescence: The role of pubertal timing and emotional distress. Health Psychol. 13: 326–333.
Wichstrom, L. (2001). The impact of pubertal timing on adolescents’ alcohol use. J. Res. Adolesc. 11: 131–150.
Wiesner, M., and Ittel, A. (2002). Relations of pubertal timing and depressive symptoms to substance use in early adolescence. J. Early Adolesc. 22: 5–23.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (MH48165, MH62669) and the Center for Disease Control (029136-02). Additional funding for this project was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station (Project #3320). Writing of this manuscript was also supported by the California Agriculture Experiment Station (CA-D*-HCD-6092-H).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Xiaojia Ge is Professor at the University of California, Davis. He received his PhD in sociology from the Iowa State University. He is interested in the influences of biological changes and social transitions on emotional and behavioral development in children and adolescents.
Gene H. Brody is a Regents’ Professor at the University of Georgia. He received his PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Arizona. His major research interests are contextual influences on cognitive and psychosocial development, particularly those factors that protect at-risk children and adolescents from negative outcomes.
Rand. D. Conger is Professor at the University of California, Davis. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of Washington in Seattle. He is interested in the influences of family economic stress on emotional and behavioral adjustment of family members. He is currently conducting a large-scale study on Mexican American families in California.
Dr. Ronald L. Simons is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia. He received his PhD in sociology from Florida State University. Much of his research has focused upon the manner in which family and community processes combine to influence child development. He has also been concerned with the effect of discrimination and racial socialization upon child adjustment.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ge, X., Brody, G.H., Conger, R.D. et al. Pubertal Maturation and African American Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms. J Youth Adolescence 35, 528–537 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-006-9046-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-006-9046-5