FAMILY, PERSONALITY, AND ADOLESCENT PROBLEM BEHAVIORS

This paper reviews several related literatures on family and personal correlates of adolescent problem behaviors with the intention of providing an integrative framework to guide future research. The review has three major purposes: (a) to differentiate among categories of problem behavior, (b) to provide a more comprehensive and integrative representation of family influences than previous research has, and (c) to consider the interactive effects of context (family) and individual (personality) variables. The model postulates the existence of two negative family types, psychological over-control and behavioral undercontrol, that place adolescents at risk for internalized and externalized problems, respectively. Family stress is considered to have an indirect effect on problem behaviors by way of its exacerbating influence on the negative family types. Individual differences in adolescent personality are conceptualized to moderate the relationship between family environment and problem behaviors. Implications of the model for future research are discussed.