Is the Development of Family Functioning Dependent on Trajectories of Antisocial Behavior? A TRAILS Study

Where previous studies have found consistent links between family factors and antisocial behavior, it is important to examine this relationship from a developmental perspective and account for heterogeneous antisocial development. In the present study, our goal was twofold: (1) identify and examine trajectories of self-reported antisocial behavior, and (2) compare the intercepts and slopes of family functioning of adolescents with different trajectories of antisocial behavior. We used a large national representative sample of 2230 Dutch boys and girls who we followed from approximately 10 to 22 years. We applied Latent class growth modeling to identify antisocial trajectories for boys and girls separately, across which the intercepts and slopes of family functioning were compared. We found four antisocial trajectories for boys and three antisocial trajectories for girls, which mostly corresponded with the trajectories found in previous literature. Further, we found that family functioning did not differ as a function of membership to a particular trajectory of antisocial behavior, neither on baseline measures nor on changes of family functioning across adolescence. Within this specific sample of adolescents, these results suggest that family functioning, as perceived by parents, remain stable regardless of antisocial behavior. Future research, in addition to using general family functioning measures, should also examine day-to-day family interactions, preferably also accounting for the perspective of the adolescent.