Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Is the Continuity of Externalizing Psychopathology the Same in Adolescents and Middle–Aged Adults? A Test of the Externalizing Spectrum’s Developmental Coherence

  • Published:
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Externalizing psychopathology (EXT) is a framework for understanding diagnostic comorbidity and etiology of antisocial and substance-use behaviors. EXT indicates continuity in adulthood but the structure of adolescent EXT is less clear. This report examines whether adolescent EXT is trait-like, as has been found with adults, or categorical. We use tests of measurement invariance to determine how diagnostic indicators of EXT differ in adolescents compared to adults. The EXT measures employed were DSM-IIIR diagnoses of adult antisocial behavior, conduct disorder, and alcohol, marijuana, and drug dependence. Latent trait, latent class, and hybrid models were fit to two separate data sets: 2,769 seventeen-year-old adolescents and 2,619 adults from the Minnesota Twin Family Study. The best model in both samples was a single-trait LT model. Parameters from the adolescent and adult models were equivalent for all disorders except alcohol dependence. It appears that EXT in adolescence can be accurately represented by a single-trait model, and the measurement properties of EXT are similar during these time periods with the exception of alcohol dependence.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1984). Psychopathology of childhood. Annual Review of Psychology, 35, 227–256.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Akaike, H. (1974). A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 19, 716–723.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association. (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anthony, J. C., Warner, L. A., & Kessler, R. C. (1994). Comparative epidemiology of dependence on tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, and inhalants: Basic findings from the National Comorbidity Survey. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmocology, 2, 244–268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, T., & Costello, E. (2002). Community studies on adolescent substance use, abuse, or dependence and psychiatric comorbidity. Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology, 70, 1224–1239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornovalova, M. A., Hicks, B. M., Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2010). Familial transmission and heritability of childhood disruptive disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 1066–1074.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, S. R., Katsanis, J., Iacono, W. G., & Mertz, J. K. (1999). Substance dependence and externalizing psychopathology in adolescent boys with small, average, or large P300 event-related potential amplitude. Psychophysiology, 36, 583–90.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cloninger, C. (1987). Neurogenetic adaptive mechanisms in alcoholism. Science, 236, 410–416.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dick, D. M. (2007). Identification of Genes Influencing a Spectrum of Externalizing Psychopathology. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 331–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Disney, E., Elkins, I., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. (1999). Effects of ADHD, conduct disorder, and gender on substance use and abuse in adolescence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 1515–1521.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elkins, I., King, S., McGue, M., & Iacono, W. (2006). Personality traits and the development of nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drug disorders: prospective links from adolescence to young adulthood. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 26–39.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Embretson, S., & Reise, S. (2000). Item response theory for psychologists. Mahwah: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farmer, R., Seeley, J., Kosty, D., & Lewinsohn, P. (2009). Refinements in the hierarchical structure of externalizing psychiatric disorders: Patterns of lifetime liability from mid-adolescence through early adulthood. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 699–710.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gelhorn, H., Hartman, C., Sakai, J., Mikulich-Gilbertson, S., Stallings, M., & Young, S. (2009). An item response theory analysis of DSM-IV conduct disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 48, 42–50.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grove, W. M. (1991). When is a diagnosis worth making? A comparison of two statistical prediction strategies. Psychological Reports, 68, 3–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grove, W. M., & Vrieze, S. I. (2010). On the substantive grounding and clinical utility of categories versus dimensions. In T. Millon, R. F. Krueger, & E. Simonsen (Eds.), Contemporary directions in psychopathology: Toward DSM-V and ICD-11. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heinen, T. (1996). Latent class and discrete latent trait models: Similarities and differences. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helzer, J. E., Kraemer, H. C., Krueger, R. F., Wittchen, H.-U., Sirovatka, P. J., & Regier, D. A. (2008). Dimensional approaches in diagnostic classification: refining the research agenda for DSM-V. Arlington: American Psychiatric Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hicks, B. M., Bernat, E. M., Malone, S. M., Iacono, W. G., Patrick, C. J., Krueger, R. F., et al. (2007b). Genes mediate the association between P3 amplitude and externalizing disorders. Psychophysiology, 44, 98–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hicks, B., Blonigen, D., Kramer, M., Krueger, R., Patrick, C., Iacono, W., et al. (2007a). Gender differences and developmental change in externalizing disorders from late adolescence to early adulthood: A longitudinal twin study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116, 433–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hicks, B., Krueger, R., Iacono, W., McGue, M., & Patrick, C. (2004). Family transmission and heritability of externalizing disorders: a twin-family study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 922–928.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Holdcraft, L. C., & Iacono, W. G. (2004). Cohort effects on gender differences in alcohol dependence. Addiction, 97, 1025–1036.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iacono, W. G., Carlson, S. R., et al. (2002). P3 event-related potential amplitude and the risk for disinhibitory disorders in adolescent boys. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 59, 750–757.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Iacono, W., & McGue, M. (2002). Minnesota Twin Family Study. Twin Research, 5, 482–487.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kendler, K., Davis, C., & Kessler, R. (1997). The familial aggregation of common psychiatric and substance use disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey: a family history study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 170, 541–548.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kendler, K., Prescott, C., Myers, J., & Neale, M. (2003). The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for common psychiatric and substance use disorders in men and women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 929–937.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, R. F., Hicks, B., Patrick, C., Carlson, S., Iacono, W., & McGue, M. (2002). Etiologic connections among substance dependence, antisocial behavior, and personality: modeling the externalizing spectrum. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 411–424.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, R. F., Markon, K. E., Patrick, C. J., Benning, S. D., & Kramer, M. D. (2007). Linking antisocial behavior, substance use, and personality: An integrative quantitative model of the adult externalizing spectrum. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116, 645–666.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, R. F., Markon, K. E., Patrick, C., & Iacono, W. (2005). Externalizing psychopathology in adulthood: a dimensional-spectrum conceptualization and its implications for DSM-V. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 537–550.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kuha, J. (2004). AIC and BIC: Comparisons of assumptions and performance. Sociological Methods Research, 33, 188–229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lahey, B., Rathouz, P., Van Hulle, C., Urbano, R., Krueger, R., Applegate, B., et al. (2008). Testing structural models of DSM-IV symptoms of common forms of child and adolescent psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 187–206.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lazarsfeld, P., & Henry, N. (1968). Latent structure analysis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leckman, J. F., Sholomskas, D., Thompson, W. D., Belanger, A., & Weissman, M. M. (1982). Best estimate of lifetime psychiatric diagnosis: A methodological study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39, 879–883.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lynskey, M., & Fergusson, D. (1995). Childhood conduct problems, attention deficit behaviors, and adolescent alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23, 281–302.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Markon, K. E., Chmielewski, M., & Miller, C. J. (2011). The reliability and validity of discrete and continuous measures of psychopathology: A quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 856–879.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markon, K., & Krueger, R. (2005). Categorical and continuous models of liability to externalizing disorders: a direct comparison in NESARC. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 1352–1359.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McArdle, J. J. (2009). Latent variable modeling of differences and changes with longitudinal data. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 577–605.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McGue, M., Iacono, W., Legrand, L., Malone, S., & Elkins, I. (2001). Origins and consequences of age at first drink. I. Associations with substance-use disorders, disinhibitory behavior and psychopathology, and P3 amplitude. Alcohol: Clinical Experimental Research, 25, 1156–1165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meehl, P. E. (2001). Comorbidity and taxometrics. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 8, 507–519.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meredith, W. (1993). Measurement invariance, factor analysis, and factorial invariance. Psychometrika, 58, 525–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moffitt, T. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100, 674–701.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Muthen, B. O. (2006). Should substance use disorders be considered as categorical or dimensional? Addiction, 101, 6–16.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Muthen, B. O., & Asparouhov, T. (2006). Item response mixture modeling: Application to tobacco dependence criteria. Addictive Behaviors, 31, 1050–1066.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Muthen, L. K. & Muthen, B. O. (1995–2010). Mplus user’s guide. Los Angeles, CA: Muthen & Muthen.

  • Muthen, B., & Shedden, K. (1999). Finite mixture modeling with mixture outcomes using the EM algorithm. Biometrics, 55, 463–469.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • National Institute of Health. (2010). Scientific Management Review Board. Report on Substance Use, Abuse, and Addiction Research at NIH. Bethesda: Author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nock, M. K., Kazdin, A. E., Hiripi, E., & Kessler, R. C. (2006). Prevalence, subtypes, and correlates of DSM-IV conduct disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Psychological Medicine, 36, 699–710.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Odgers, C. L., Moretti, M. M., Burnette, M. L., Chauhan, P., Waite, D., & Reppucci, N. D. (2007). A latent variable modeling approach to identifying subtypes of serious and violent female juvenile offenders. Aggressive Behavior, 33, 339–352.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, C. J., Bernat, E. M., Malone, S. M., Iacono, W. G., Krueger, R. F., & McGue, M. (2006). P300 amplitude as an indicator of externalizing in adolescent males. Psychophysiology, 43, 84–92.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Reich, W., & Welner, Z. (1988). Diagnostic interview for children and adolescents—Revised: DSM-III-R Version (DICA-R). St. Louis: Washington University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robins, L. M., Babor, T., & Cottler, L. B. (1987). Composite international diagnostic interview: Expanded substance abuse module. St. Louis: Authors.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robins, L. M., Wing, J., Wittchen, H. U., Helzer, J. E., Babor, T. F., Burke, J., et al. (1988). The Composite International Diagnostic Interview: An epidemiologic instrument suitable for use in conjunction with different diagnostic systems and in different cultures. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 1069–1077.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sanislow, C. A., Pine, D. S., Quinn, K. J., Kozak, M. J., Garvey, M. A., Heinssen, R. K., et al. (2010). Developing constructs for psychopathology research: Research Domain Criteria. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119, 631–639.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarz, G. (1978). Estimating the dimension of a model. Annals of Statistics, 6, 461–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slutske, W., Heath, A., Dinwiddie, S., Madden, P., Bucholz, K., Dunne, M., et al. (1998). Common genetic risk factors for conduct disorder and alcohol dependence. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107, 363–374.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W., Gibbon, M., & First, M. B. (1987). Structured clinical interview for DSM-III-R personality disorders (SCID-II). New York: New York State Psychiatric Institute, Biometrics Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Takane, Y., & de Leeuw, J. (1987). On the relationship between item response theory and factor analysis of discretized variables. Psychometrika, 52, 393–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, J., Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2000). Evidence for a genetic etiology of early-onset delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 634–643.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walton, K. E., Ormel, J., & Krueger, R. F. (2011). The dimensional nature of externalizing behaviors in adolescence: Evidence from a direct comparison of categorical, dimensional, and hybrid models. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 553–561.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Widaman, K. F., Ferrer, E., & Conger, R. D. (2010). Factorial invariance within longitudinal structural equation models: Measuring the same construct across time. Child Development Perspectives, 4, 10–18.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Windle, M., & Scheidt, D. (2004). Alcoholic subtypes: Are two sufficient? Addiction, 99, 1508–1519.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, Y. (2005). Can the strengths of AIC and BIC be shared? Biometrika, 92, 937–950.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, S., Stallings, M., Corley, R., Krauter, K., & Hewitt, J. (2000). Genetic and environmental influences on behavioral disinhibition. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 96, 684–695.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants R01DA05147, R01AA09367, and 5T32MH017069 (Vrieze) of the National Institutes of Health.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Scott I. Vrieze, Greg Perlman, Robert F. Krueger & William G. Iacono

Authors
  1. Scott I. Vrieze
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Greg Perlman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Robert F. Krueger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. William G. Iacono
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Scott I. Vrieze.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Vrieze, S.I., Perlman, G., Krueger, R.F. et al. Is the Continuity of Externalizing Psychopathology the Same in Adolescents and Middle–Aged Adults? A Test of the Externalizing Spectrum’s Developmental Coherence. J Abnorm Child Psychol 40, 459–470 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-011-9571-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-011-9571-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation