thesis
Male and Female Pathways to Psychopathology: Findings from a Preventive Intervention Study
- Publication date
- 1 January 2006
- Publisher
- The objective of the present study was to extent the knowledge on the pathways to male and
female psychopathology from childhood into early adolescence. In Chapter 1, the background
of the Good Behavior Game (GBG) study was presented. The GBG study is a randomized
controlled intervention study that started in 1998 when 666 children from 13 elementary
schools in the metropolitan area of Rotterdam and Amsterdam were enrolled in the study at
age 6. The GBG intervention is a universal classroom-based intervention aimed at the
reduction of problem behavior and the promotion of prosocial behavior in elementary
schoolchildren. In Chapter 1, we explained how the nesting of this randomized controlled
preventive intervention allowed us to test the influence of hypothesized risk factors on the sexspecific
pathways to externalizing and internalizing psychopathology spanning the period from
middle childhood to early adolescence (from age 6 to 13 years). Using this method, we
investigated: (1) the influence of prenatal exposure to maternal smoking on the pathway to
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity symptoms in middle and late childhood, (2) the role of middle
childhood behavioral, emotional, and social problems in the development of relational
aggression from late childhood to early adolescence, (3) the influence of physical and
relational victimization experiences during middle childhood in the pathways to anxiety and
depression in early adolescence, and in addition, we examined (4) typologies of parenting
behaviors and their association with childhood psychopathology.