1. The work of Carroll Izard and his colleagues greatly influenced our thinking on this point. They have outlined some of the important developmental aspects of emotional knowledge and how a lack of this knowledge can lead to a disruption of normal social relationships. For example, “Deficits in the understanding of emotion expressions and emotion experience could contribute to developmental deficiencies in adaptive social behavior and to the emergence of behavior problems.” From C. Izard, D. Schultz, and B. P. Ackerman, “Emotion Knowledge, Social Competence, and Behavior Problems in Disadvantaged Children” (paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development, Washington, DC, April 1997), 4.
2. For an excellent discussion of how boys move from being emotionally reactive as infants to emotionally unexpressive by the time they are teenagers, see L. R. Brody, “Gender, Emotional Expression, and Parent-Child Boundaries,” in Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. R. D. Kavanaugh, B. Zimmerberg, and S. Fein (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996), 139–70. For example, she discusses a study that used adult raters who had been misinformed about the baby’s gender, and boys were still rated as more expressive of emotions. She writes, “There seems to be a developmental shift in which males become less facially expressive of emotions with age, whereas females become more so.… [This is because] the socialization of emotions by both parents and peers differs for boys and girls” (140).
3. These authors are concerned with how feelings of empathy develop. They distinguish between feelings of sympathy that usually lead to attempts to help or comfort a suffering person, and personal distress, where another’s distress upsets a person and causes him to try to avoid the distressing situation. They feel that whether a person feels sympathy or is distressed may be related to his ability to regulate emotional arousal. Their results provided evidence for that view: “Boys who tended to other’s distress by acting out tended to evidence more personal distress.… Boys who were less well-regulated … also tended to escape the crying infant by turning the speaker off.… Thus boys who appeared to be better regulated were more likely to comfort the infant than those who were less regulated” (1689). R. A. Fabes, N. Eisenberg, M. Karbon, D. Troyer, and G. Switzer, “The Relations of Children’s Emotion Regulation to Their Vicarious Emotional Responses and Comforting Behaviors,” Child Development 65 (1994): 1678–93.
4. One very interesting line of research on the effects of the environment on the brain regards how prolonged stress affects the hippocampus, a brain structure involved in both stress regulation as well as memory. In a review of research on the destructive and protective aspects of adrenal steroids in the central nervous system (CNS), McEwen and his colleagues (B. S. McEwen, J. Angulo, H. Cameron, H. M. Chao, D. Daniels, et al., “Paradoxical Effects of Adrenal Steroids on the Brain: Protection versus Degeneration,” Biological Psychiatry 31 [1992]: 177–99) note that the hippocampus, unlike some other brain structures, is very vulnerable to stress-related adrenal steroid damage, containing the highest number of corticosteroid binding sites in the brain. One effect of this damage is to minimize the ability of the hippocampus to regulate the response to stress through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In rats with hippocampal damage, there is a tendency for the HPA axis to hypersecrete steroids during moderate stress and a less efficient shutdown of the HPA axis in the aftermath of stress (R. Sapolsky, L. Krey, and B. S. McEwen, “The Neuroendocrinology of Stress and Aging: The Glucocorticoid Cascade Hypothesis,” Endocrinology Review 7 [1986]: 284–301). Memory dysfunction is a classic neuropsychological manifestation of hippocampal damage, with research finding both visual-spatial and verbal memory deficits (see A. Diamond, “Rate of Maturation of the Hippocampus and the Developmental Progression of Children’s Performance on the Delayed Non-Matching to Sample and Visual Paired Comparison Tasks,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 608 [1990]: 394–426; and R. P. Kesner, B. L. Bolland, and M. Dakis, “Memory for Spatial Locations, Motor Responses, and Objects: Triple Dissociation among the Hippocampus, Caudate Nucleus, and Extrastriate Visual Cortex,” Experimental Brain Research 93 [1993]: 462–70). A real-life example of this was shown in an important study that linked post-traumatic stress disorder, hippocampal damage, and memory dysfunction in a sample of combat veterans (J. D. Bremmer, P. Randall, T. M. Scott, R. A. Bronen, J. P. Seibyl, et al., “MRI-Based Measurement of Hippocampal Volume in Patients with Combat-Related Post-traumatic Stress Disorder,” American Journal of Psychiatry 152 [1995]: 973–81).
5. There is quite a bit of research literature on this subject, much of it inspired by the seminal work by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin in The Psychology of Sex Differences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974). Two more current general sources are: D. Blum, Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women (New York: Viking, 1997) and E. E. Maccoby, The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming Together (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). References concerning specific sex differences are found in the notes for chapter 2.
6. This is taken from J. Shibley, E. F. Hyde, and S. J. Lamon, “Gender Differences in Mathematics Performance: A Metaanalysis,” Psychological Bulletin 107 (1990): 139–55.
7. This is from R. E. Tremblay, B. Schaal, B. Boulerice, L. Arseneault, R. Soussignan, and D. Perusse, “Male Physical Aggression, Social Dominance and Testosterone Levels at Puberty: A Developmental Perspective,” in Biosocial Bases of Violence, ed. A. Raine, P. A. Brennan, D. P. Farrington, and A. S. Mednick (New York: Plenum Press, 1997), 271–91, 274. See also J. Archer, “The Influence of Testosterone on Human Aggression,” British Journal of Psychology 82 (1991): 1–28. Archer writes, “Although it has been established in a wide range of vertebrate groups that testosterone facilitates aggression, there is little or no conclusive evidence for primates” (3). And further, “Experimental studies of mice and pigeons have also shown that the animal’s previous experience of fights can override manipulations of its testosterone levels. Thus even in birds and rodents, social experience has to be taken into account when considering the influence of testosterone on aggression” (2). Finally, “We can conclude therefore that most of the limited evidence regarding a possible influence of prenatal androgens on aggression in humans is negative” (5).
8. These were eighteen highly aggressive prepubertal males who were admitted to the children’s unit of Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Center for violent or unmanageable behavior. All had longer than six-month histories of ongoing highly aggressive and oppositional behaviors. Most had used weapons to attack family members or peers, and a number had made attempts to seriously injure infant siblings. Rather than finding differences in serum testosterone (none of the children had values outside the normal range or had levels different from those of matched control children), the authors note that most of the children had a previous history of abuse and neglect. The authors write: “As far as hormonal influences are concerned it is possible to view the elevated mean testosterone levels that previously have been reported in aggressive adolescents and adults as effects rather than causes of aggressive behavior” (1221) and “The findings suggest simply that great caution be used in drawing inferences about causality (or biological determination) from adult studies that link testosterone to aggressive human behavior” (1222). J. N. Constantino, D. Grosz, P. Saenger, D. W. Chandler, R. Nandi, and F. J. Earls, “Testosterone and Aggression in Children,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 32 (1993): 1217–22.
9. There are many books and articles on cultural influences on aggressive behavior. Those that most influenced our thinking are J. L. Briggs, Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970); D. P. Fry, “Intercommunity Differences in Aggression among Zapotec Children,” Child Development 59 (1988): 1008–19; R. K. Denton, “Surrendered Men: Peaceable Enclaves in the Post Enlightenment West,” in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence, ed. L. E. Sponsel and T. Gregor (London: Lynne Rienner, 1994), 69–108; C. A. Robarchek, “Ghosts and Witches: The Psychocultural Dynamics of Semoi Peacefulness,” in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence, ed. L. E. Sponsel and T. Gregor (London: Lynne Rienner, 1994), 183–96; and C. M. Turnbull, “The Politics of Non-Aggression,” in Learning Non-Aggression: The Experience of Non-Literate Societies, ed. A. Monagu (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 161–221.
10. There are some numerous publications based on this study. Two that influence our thinking are J. H. Pleck, F. L. Sonenstein, L. C. Ku, and L. C. Burbridge, Individual, Family, and Community Factors Modifying Male Adolescents’ Risk Behavior “Trajectory” (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 1996); J. H. Pleck, F. L. Sonenstein, and L. C. Ku, “Masculinity Ideology: Its Impact on Adolescent Males’ Heterosexual Relationships,” Journal of Social Issues 49 (1993): 11–29. For other publications, go to the Urban Institute Web site: http://www.urban.org/.
11. This is discussed in M. E. Lamb, R. D. Ketterlinus, and M. P. Fracasso, “Parent Child Relationships,” in Developmental Psychology: An Advanced Textbook, 3d ed., ed. M. H. Bornstein and M. E. Lamb (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1992), 465–518. For example, parents (especially fathers) describe their sons with terms like sturdy, handsome, and strong, and their daughters with terms like dainty, pretty, and fragile (492).
12. These issues are discussed in S. Denham, D. Zoller, and E. A. Couchoud, “Socialization of Preschoolers’ Emotion Understanding,” Developmental Psychology 30 (1994): 928–36; J. Dunn, J. R. Brown, and M. Maguire, “The Development of Children’s Moral Sensibility: Individual Differences and Emotion Understanding,” Developmental Psychology 31 (1995): 649–59; and J. Dunn, J. R. Brown, and L. Beardsall, “Family Talk about Feeling States and Children’s Later Understanding of Others’ Emotions,” Developmental Psychology 27 (1991): 448–55. A recent meta-analysis, that is, a statistical analysis of the results of a large group of studies as if they were all from one study, reveals two interesting findings: that mothers talked more and used more supportive speech with daughters than with sons. In addition, mothers’ talk with sons was more direct and informational in content than it was with daughters. C. Leaper, J. Anderson, and P. Sanders, “Moderators of Gender Effects of Parents’ Talk with Their Children: A Meta-Analysis,” Developmental Psychology 43 (1998): 3–27.
13. This is from C. A. Cervantes and M. A. Callanan, “Labels And Explanations in Mother-Child Emotion Talk: Age and Gender Differentiation,” Developmental Psychology 34 (1998): 88–98. In this study, eighty-four children ages two, three, and four were studied along with their mothers in a joint storytelling session. They had a dollhouse and some plastic people and were told to play out a story that had four features: parents going away and leaving a child with another caregiver, father falling down and getting hurt, dog getting lost, and parents coming back. The researchers were interested in how many emotional words mothers and children used and whether these were labels (“He is sad”) or explanations (“He is sad because he lost his dog”). Previous work has shown a direct connection between the frequency of parent-child emotional conversation and later understanding of emotions. Also, previous work has shown that mothers use emotional labeling more with girls and explanation more with boys. This has been interpreted to mean that boys are more socialized to problem-solve about emotions or to have control over emotions (“The boy is sad because he lost his dog; let’s go find it”). In contrast, in emphasizing direct references to emotional states with girls, mothers might be encouraging girls to focus on the emotional states themselves and orienting them toward an interpersonal approach involving emotional sensitivity. Consistent with previous work, mothers used more emotional explanations with boys across all age groups. Here is a nice example:
Mother (M) and three-year-old son (S)
M: How do you feel about them [the parents] going away?
S: Um, he’s afraid.
M: He’s afraid? What makes him afraid?
S: He’s not afraid.
M: He’s not afraid? Does he know that Sam will take good care of him [while his parents are gone]?
S: [nods]
Notice how she avoids the discussion of fear and his feeling of it. She explains it away for him. These results about the quality of the mother’s talk could not be explained by child talkativeness, general language competence, or the child’s use of emotional language.
14. The heart of this story is told in a few lines in chapter 4 (verses 2–16) of the Book of Genesis, ending with “Then Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and settled in the land of Nod to the east of Eden.” Oxford Study Edition of the New English Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). A detailed discussion of this story can be found in E. Weisel, “Cain and Abel: The First Genocide,” in Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends (New York: Random House, 1976), 37–68.
1. See K. L. Alexander and D. R. Entwisle, “Achievement in the First 2 Years of School: Patterns and Processes,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 53, 2 (1988), serial, 218.
2. Diane Halpern gives a cogent discussion of this in “Sex Differences in Intelligence: Implications for Education,” American Psychologist 52 (1997): 1091–1102. She reviews the literature and although she finds a few differences between boys and girls on aspects of intelligence, rather than discuss these as part of the nature-nurture debate, she adopts a psychobiosocial model wherein the inextricable links between the biological bases of intelligence and environmental events are emphasized. From the article: “A predisposition to learn some behaviors and concepts more easily than others is determined by prior learning experiences, the neurochemical processes that allow learning to occur (release of neurotransmitters) and change in response to learning [such as] changes in areas of the brain that are active during performance of a task” (1092).
3. These findings are discussed in J. Huttenlocher, W. Haight, A. Bryk, M. Seltzer, et al., “Early Vocabulary Growth: Relation to Language Input and Gender,” Developmental Psychology 27 (1991): 236–48; and S. E. Shaywitz, B. A. Shaywitz, J. M. Fletcher, and M. D. Escobar, “Prevalence of Reading Disability in Boys and Girls: Results of the Connecticut Longitudinal Study,” Journal of the American Medical Association 264 (1990): 998–1002.
4. Gender differences in activity level are reviewed in G. A. Kohnstamm, “Temperament in Childhood: Cross-cultural and Sex Differences,” in Temperament in Childhood, ed. G. A. Kohnstamm, J. E. Bates, and M. K. Rothbart (New York: Wiley, 1989), 483–508; and E. E. Maccoby, The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming Together (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998).
5. There has been a recent debate about whether boys really have a higher prevalence of ADHD than girls, especially for the primarily inattentive (i.e., non-hyperactive) type of ADHD. But when the prevalence statistics include only the impulsive-hyperactive type of ADHD, boys are shown to have a higher prevalence. This is discussed in a recent review: E. A. Acia and K. C. Connors, “Gender Differences in ADHD?” Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 19 (1998): 77–83; and a recent epidemiological study in Tennessee: M. L. Wolraich, J. N. Hannah, T. Y. Pinnock, A. Baumgaertel, and J. Bown, “Comparison of Diagnostic Criteria for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in a County-Wide Sample,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 35 (1996): 319–24.
6. This is discussed in J. Kagan and N. Snidman, “Infant Predictors of Inhibited and Uninhibited Profiles,” Psychological Science 2 (1991): 40–44.
7. See J. M. Safer, W. Zito, and L. Fine, “Increased Methylphenidate Usage for Attention Deficit Disorder in the 1990’s,” Pediatrics 98 (1996): 1084–88.
8. The “official” diagnostic criteria for ADHD can be found in American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994. See also N. Hallowell and J. Ratey, Driven to Distraction (New York: Pantheon, 1994).
1. In chapter 11 of The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex (London: Fourth Estate, 1994), Warren Farrell writes about his view that “the system protects women,” citing these justice department statistics and adding that in North Carolina convictions of second-degree murder result in an extra 12.6 years of prison sentence for men and that sentences are longer even when crime and offense history are equated.
2. This is taken from Table E of J. Austin, B. Krisberg, R. DeComo, S. Rudenstine, and D. Del Rosario, “Juveniles Taken into Custody: Fiscal Year 1993” (Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). This table shows that boys are detained by the courts at higher rates than girls for all offenses. For drug offenses, 37 percent of boys are detained compared with 26 percent of girls. This ratio of a 1.5 times higher detention rate for boys holds for all crimes (22 percent males, 15 percent females). Interestingly, these gender differences are of the same magnitude as the detention differences between white and non-white delinquency cases (17 percent for whites, 26 percent for non-whites).
3. These data are taken from the U.S. Office for Education, Office for Civil Rights, Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report, as discussed in J. Gregory, “Three Strikes and They’re Out: African-American Boys and American Schools’ Responses to Misbehavior,” International Journal of Adolescence and Youth 7 (1997): 25–34.
4. Perhaps the most outspoken critic of spanking is Murray Strauss, who has written extensively on its harmful effects. His 1994 book, Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families (New York: Lexington Books), lists problems caused by spanking and other forms of corporal punishment: increased risk of depression and suicide, criminality, substance abuse, and engaging in masochistic sex practices as adults. In the book Strauss reports on the findings of the National Family Violence Surveys of 1975 and 1985, from which these statistics were taken. In another article, M. A. Strauss, D. B. Sugerman, and J. Giles-Sims, “Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Antisocial Behavior of Children,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 151 (1997): 761–67, Strauss describes the decrease in the prevalence of corporal punishment since the 1950s but claims that even today its practice is commonplace. The findings from the survey of residents of Ontario, Canada, were reported in H. L. MacMillan, et al., “Prevalence of Child Physical and Sexual Abuse in the Community,” Journal of the American Medical Association 278 (1997): 131–35.
5. This is taken from sociologist Phillip Davis’s report summarizing more than three hundred hours of firsthand observations he and his graduate students made of “naturally occurring threats” happening mostly in shopping malls between 1989 and 1991. P. W. Davis, “Threats of Corporal Punishment as Verbal Aggression: A Naturalistic Study,” Child Abuse and Neglect 20 (1996): 289–304.
6. This is taken from P. K. Trickett and L. Kuczynski, “Children’s Misbehaviors and Parental Discipline Strategies in Abusive and Nonabusive Families,” Developmental Psychology 22 (1986): 115–23.
7. This was written to the “Ask Beth” column and published in the Boston Globe on September 12, 1997 (D15). The columnist responded with excellent advice to this mother, including warning about both the futility and harmful effects of yelling at her sons.
8. This is from G. H. Elder, J. K. Liker, and C. E. Cross, “Parent-child Behavior in the Great Depression: Life Course and Inter-generational Influences,” Life-Span Development and Behavior 6 (1984): 109–58.
9. The work of Grazyna Kochanska and Martin Hoffman has greatly influenced our thinking about conscience development, including the role of different memory processes. This is discussed in M. L. Hoffman, “Discipline and Internalization,” Developmental Psychology 30 (1994): 26–28; also, G. Kochanska, “Toward a Synthesis of Parental Socialization and Child Temperament in the Development of Conscience,” Child Development 64 (1993): 325–47.
10. From A. P. Goldstein, Delinquents on Delinquency (Champaign, IL: Research Press, 1990), 38.
11. This is from Z. Strassberg, K. A. Dodge, G. S. Petit, and J. E. Bates, “Spanking in the Home and Children’s Subsequent Aggression Toward Kindergarten Peers,” Development and Psychopathology 6 (1994): 445–61.
1. There is a growing body of literature that discusses the boys who feel the most extreme effects of the culture of cruelty: those who are systematically bullied or rejected. Although rejection or bullying at any age can lead to behavioral problems such as aggression or sadness, by seventh or eighth grade, high levels of loneliness become a salient feature for submissive boys who are rejected by their peers. In part, it is the fear of ending up like these boys that makes all boys this age feel vulnerable. See D. Olweus, Aggression in the Schools: Bullies and Whipping Boys (New York: Wiley, 1978); D. S. J. Hawker and M. J. Bolton, “Peer Victimisation and Psychosocial Adjustment: Findings with a British Sample” (paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development, Washington, DC, April 3, 1997); and J. T. Parkhurst and S. R. Asher, “Peer Rejection in Middle School: Subgroup Differences in Behavior Loneliness and Interpersonal Concerns,” Developmental Psychology 28 (1992): 231–41.
2. Aspects of this are discussed in T. Alferi, D. N. Ruble, and E. T. Higgins, “Gender Stereotypes during Adolescence: Developmental Changes and the Transition to Junior High School,” Developmental Psychology 32 (1996): 1129–37. These authors note that even though their increased cognitive maturation should allow them greater flexibility in their thinking about gender, adolescent boys become more rigid about gender roles in part because there is increased pressure to be sexually attractive. The initial transition into the very new realm of junior high requires quite a bit of adaptation, and as a result there is increased flexibility in thinking about gender roles. But entrance into junior high also includes a concomitant exposure to older adolescents who have begun to date. This makes gender more salient, and rigidity about gender roles increases into high school.
3. This is taken from D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 15.
4. For more information on growing up gay we recommend E. Bass and K. Kaufman, Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth and Their Allies (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), and E. Marcus, Is It a Choice? Answers to 300 of the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Gays and Lesbians (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993).
5. The full reference is M. Signorile, Queer in America: Sex, Media, and the Closets of Power (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1993). He discusses his gang experiences in chapter 2 of that book.
6. This is from an article by N. R. Kleinfield titled “Friends, from Boys to Men,” New York Times, June 3, 1997, B1.
1. This article by Patricia Cohen appeared on July 11, 1998, on pages A1 and A15 of the New York Times.
2. The October 1996 meeting was the Conference on Father Involvement sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Family and Child Well-Being Network, held in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 10 and 11.
3. The conference paper was: G. J. Duncan, M. Hill, J. Yeung, “Fathers’ Activities and Child Attainments” (paper presented at the NICHD Family and Child Well-Being Network’s Conference on Father Involvement, Bethesda, MD, October 10–11, 1996). For more on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, see M. Hill, The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (Newbury Park, CA: Russell Sage, 1992).
4. The full citation is: K. M. Harris, F. F. Furstenberg Jr., and J. K. Kramer, “Paternal Involvement with Adolescents in Intact Families: The Influence of Fathers over the Life Course,” Demography 35 (1998): 201–16.
5. This is the continuation of the Patterns of Child Rearing study begun in the 1950s by Robert Sears and Eleanor Maccoby. The current study was published as R. Koestner, C. Franz, and J. Weinberger, “The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A 26-Year Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709–17.
6. See K. M. Harris and S. P. Morgan, “Fathers, Sons and Daughters: Differential Paternal Involvement in Parenting,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1990): 531–44; and K. M. Harris, F. F Furstenberg Jr., and J. K. Kramer, “Paternal Involvement with Adolescents in Intact Families: The Influence of Fathers over the Life Course,” Demography 35 (1998): 201–16.
7. This information on changes in the level of father involvement in child care is taken from an excellent review of father involvement research: J. H. Pleck, “Paternal Involvement: Levels, Sources, and Consequences,” in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. M. E. Lamb (New York: Wiley, 1997), 68–103. Two other good general sources on research on fathers can be found in the volume edited by Michael Lamb in which the Pleck article appears and in R. D. Parke, Fatherhood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
8. The full citation is: T. DeLong and C. C. DeLong, “Managers as Fathers: Hope on the Homefront,” Human Resource Management 32 (1992): 178. This piece and related work is also discussed in J. A. Levine and T. L. Pittinsky, Working Fathers: New Strategies for Balancing Work and Family (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997), especially chapter 6.
9. This material is a summary of pages 122–28 of E. Erikson, Identity Youth and Crisis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968).
10. This is from R. Larson and M. Richards, Divergent Realities: The Emotional Lives of Mothers, Fathers, and Adolescents (New York: Basic Books, 1994).
11. This is from J. Youniss and J. Smollar, Adolescent Relations with Mothers, Fathers and Friends (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
1. There is a voluminous literature in psychology on characteristics and consequences of mother-child attachment. Many studies have shown that disordered attachment, such as an insecure or disorganized mother-child bond, contributes to later problems in the child, such as disruptive behavior in school, depression/anxiety, and poorer cognitive functioning. Some recent articles on this topic are: K. Lyons-Ruth, M. A. Easterbroks, and C. D. Cibelli, “Infant Attachment Strategies, Infant Mental Lag, and Maternal Depressive Symptoms: Predictors of Internalizing and Externalizing Problems at Age 7,” Developmental Psychology 33 (1997): 681–92; and E. A. Carslon, “A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Attachment Disorganization/Disorientation,” Child Development 69 (1998): 1107–28.
2. Scientists have known for more than forty years that laboratory animals that were stroked and handled for even fifteen minutes a day during the newborn period ended up being smarter and better able to handle stress. More recently it has been shown (see D. Liu et al., “Maternal Care, Hippocampal Glucocorticoid Receptors and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Responses to Stress,” Science 277 [1997]: 1659–62) that mother rats who naturally engage in more licking and grooming of their pups have offspring that when they are adults show healthier stress responses than the adult offspring of mother rats who lick and groom less. In a commentary on the Liu et al. article, Robert Sapolsky (R. M. Sapolsky, “The Importance of a Well-groomed Child,” Science 277 [1998]: 1620–21) suggests that the findings are directly relevant to humans: “Although specific licking and grooming do not tend to humans the broader point emphasizing the importance of early experience does” (1620–21).
1. According to “The Emergence of Youth Suicide: An Epidemiologic Analysis and Public Health Perspective” by M. Rosenberg, J. Smith, L. Davidson, and J. Cohn (Annual Review of Public Health 8 [1987]: 420), the suicide rate for adolescents (ages fifteen to twenty-four) has gone up from under 4 percent in 1950 to nearly 15 percent in 1986 (see also R. F. Diekstra and N. Garnefski, “On the Nature, Magnitude and Causality of Suicidal Behaviors: An International Perspective,” Suicide and Life Threatening Behaviors 25 [1995]: 36–57). Between 1979 and 1991, suicide rates for young people ages fifteen to nineteen rose nearly 34.5 percent, but for younger children (ages ten to fourteen) during this same period, suicide rates climbed 75 percent (in C. W. Sells and R. W. Blum, “Morbidity and Mortality among U.S. Adolescents: An Overview of Data and Trends,” American Journal of Public Health 86 [1996]: 513–19). The recent trend for the suicide rate among fifteen-to nineteen-year-old males has nearly tripled, going from 6 per 100,000 in 1965 to 17.8 per 100,000 in 1992 (see D. Shaffer, M. Gould, P. Fisher, et al., “Psychiatric Diagnosis in Child and Adolescent Suicide,” Archives of General Psychiatry 53 [1996]: 339–48).
2. This is taken from B. Birmaher et al., “Childhood and Adolescent Depression: A Review of the Past 10 Years. Part I,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 35 (1996): 1427–39. These authors discuss the epidemiology of both dysthmic disorder (DD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). At a given point in time, studies have found that the number of children with MDD ranges between 0.4 percent and 2.5 percent; and between 0.4 percent and 8.3 percent in adolescents. The figures for DD are similar: 0.6 percent to 1.7 percent in children and 1.6 percent to 8.0 percent in adolescents. The lifetime prevalence for MDD among teenagers (number of teens reporting whether they have ever had MDD whether or not they currently have it) has been estimated to be between 15 percent and 20 percent.
3. These figures are taken from National Center for Health Statistics, “Deaths for 72 Selected Causes, by 5 Year Age Groups, Race and Sex: United States 1979–1995, Trend B,” Table 291A (1997).
4. Gary Remafedi, Death by Denial: Studies of Suicide in Gay and Lesbian Teenagers (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1997).
5. See H. Z. Reinherz et al., “Early Psychosocial Risks for Adolescent Suicidal Ideation and Attempts,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adult Psychiatry 34 (1995): 599–611.
1. This is taken from J. A. Webb, P. E. Baer, and R. S. McKelvey, “Development of a Risk Profile for Intentions to Use Alcohol among Fifth and Sixth Graders,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 34 (1995): 772–78. They report in their study of 136 fifth-and sixth-grade students in Houston, Texas, that 89 percent of the fifth graders say they have no intention of drinking beer while they are in junior high. That number dropped slightly for sixth graders.
2. These statistics are taken from L. B. Johnston, J. Bachman, and P. O’Malley, Monitoring the Future: National High School Drug Use Survey (Washington, DC: National Institute on Drug Abuse. Data for 1976–1995 were available at the time of this writing).
3. This is reported in M. D. Slater, D. Rouner, K. Murphy, F. Beauvais, J. Van Leuven, et al., “Male Adolescents Reactions to TV Beer Advertisements: The Effect of Sports Content and Programming Context,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 57 (1996): 425–33.
4. Ethanol’s effects on the brain are reviewed in R. O. Pihl and J. B. Peterson, “Alcoholism: The Role of Different Motivational Systems,” Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 20 (1995): 372–96.
5. The full citation is G. Canada, Reaching up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 72.
6. This is taken form an article titled “A Way of Life at College and One Drunken Death,” by William Glaberson, published in the New York Times, Midwest edition, page A17, on November 3, 1997.
7. See the discussion in L. P. Ellickson, K. A. McGuigan, V. Adams, R. M. Bell, and R. D. Hays, “Teenagers and Alcohol Misuse in the United States: By Any Definition It’s a Big Problem,” Addiction 91 (1996): 1489–1503.
8. This information comes from several sources: On drunk driving, binge drinking, and fighting, see L. P. Ellickson, K. A. McGuigan, V. Adams, R. M. Bell, and R. D. Hays, “Teenagers and Alcohol Misuse in the United States: By Any Definition It’s a Big Problem,” Addiction 91 (1996): 1489–1503. For alcohol arrests, see H. N. Synder, “Juvenile Arrests for Driving Under the Influence, 1995,” OJJDP Fact Sheet 67, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1997. For sexual behavior, see L. L. Langer and J. G. Tubman, “Risky Sexual Behavior among Substance-Abusing Adolescents: Psychosocial and Contextual Factors,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 67 (1997): 315–22. For special risks associated with beginning drinking at a young age, see E. Gruber, R. J. DiClemente, M. M. Anderson, and M. Lodico, “Early Drinking Onset and Its Association with Alcohol Use and Problem Behavior in Late Adolescence,” Preventive Medicine: An International Journal Devoted to Practice and Theory 25 (1996): 293–300.
9. The primary sources for this section are J. C. Froehlich, “Opiod Peptides,” Alcohol Health and Research World 21 (1997): 132–35; and R. O. Pihl and J. B. Peterson, “Alcoholism: The Role of Different Motivational Systems,” Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 20 (1995): 372–96.
1. This is from pages 145–47 of B. Lefkowitz, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
1. These data are taken from reports from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention: H. N. Synder and M. Sickmund, “Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A Focus on Violence,” Pittsburgh, PA, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 1995; H. N. Synder, “Juvenile Arrests: 1996,” OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin, Washington, DC, U.S. Department of Justice, November 1997. For example, the data from 1996 showed that of the 2,900 arrests of juveniles for murder or nonnegligent manslaughter, 93 percent were male. Eighty-five percent of the 1996 juvenile arrests for violent crimes—murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—were male.
2. Alan Cowell, “Now, Teenagers Turn to Crime,” New York Times, March 25, 1998, E1.
3. This is from a letter published in USA Today on March 27, 1998, 12A.
4. The primary source of this information comes from John Archer, The Behavioral Biology of Aggression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
5. The full citation is B. Schaal, R. E. Tremblay, R. Soussignan, and E. J. Susman, “Male Testosterone Linked to High Social Dominance but Low Physical Aggression in Early Adolescence,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 34 (1996): 1322–30.
6. Michael Holley, column in the Boston Globe, November 26, 1998, E1.
7. Dodge has published extensively in this area. Two primary sources for us were: K. A. Dodge, G. S. Pettit, C. L. McClaskey, and M. M. Brown, “Social Competence in Children,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, serial 213, 51, no. 2 (1986); and K. A. Dodge and D. R. Somberg, “Hostile Attributional Bias among Aggressive Boys Are Exacerbated under Conditions of Threat to Self,” Child Development 58 (1987): 213–24.
8. Three sources used for this section on drinking and male violence are K. A. Miczek, E. M. Weerts, and J. F. DeBold, “Alcohol Aggression and Violence: Biobehavioral Determinants,” in Alcohol and Interpersonal Violence: Fostering Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. S. E. Martin (NIAAA Research Monograph 24), Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1993, 83–119; R. O. Pihl and J. B. Peterson, “Alcohol, Serotonin, and Aggression,” Special Issue: Alcohol, Aggression, and Injury, Alcohol Health and Research World 17 (1993): 113–16; and C. R. Cloninger, S. Sigvardsson, T. R. Przybeck, and D. M. Svrakic, “Personality Antecedents of Alcoholism in a National Area Probability Sample,” European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 245 (1995): 239–44.
9. A review of the research literature on this topic can be found in T. E. Moffitt, “The Neuropsychology of Juvenile Delinquency: A Critical Review of Research and Theory,” in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 12, ed. M. Tonry and N. Morris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).