Abstract
Are internalizing and externalizing behavior problems interrelated via mutually reinforcing relationships (with each behavior leading to increases over time in levels of the other behavior) or mutually suppressing relationships (with each behavior leading to decreases over time in levels of the other behavior)? Past research on the directionality of these relationships has led to ambiguous results, particularly in adolescence. Furthermore, the extent to which prior results will generalize to adolescents with low levels of cognitive abilities remains unknown. This second limit is particularly important, given that these adolescents are known to present higher levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors than their peers with average-to-high levels of cognitive abilities, and that the mechanisms involved in the reciprocal relationships between these two types of behaviors may differ across both populations. This study examines the directionality of the longitudinal relationships between externalizing and internalizing behavior problems as rated by teachers across three measurement waves (corresponding to Grades 8–10) in matched samples of 138 adolescents (34.78 % girls) with low levels of cognitive abilities and 556 adolescents (44.88 % girls) with average-to-high levels of cognitive abilities. The results showed that the measurement structure was fully equivalent across time periods and groups of adolescents, revealing high levels of developmental stability in both types of problems, and moderately high levels of cross-sectional associations. Levels of both internalizing and externalizing behaviors were higher among adolescents with low levels of cognitive abilities relative to those with average-to-high levels of cognitive abilities. Finally, the predictive analyses revealed negative reciprocal longitudinal relationships (i.e., mutually suppressing relationships) between externalizing and internalizing problems, a result that was replicated within samples of adolescents with low, and average-to-high levels of cognitive ability.
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Acknowledgements
This article was partly prepared while the first author was a visiting scholar at the German Institute for International Educational Research.
Funding
Data collection for this project was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP140103874). Preparation of this article was supported by research grants from the Australian Research Council (DP140101559) awarded to the first, third, fifth and seventh authors, from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (430-2012-0091, 435-2014-0909) awarded to the first, third and fifth authors, and by fellowship grants from the Australian Research Council respectively awarded to the fourth (FT100100656) and sixth (DE140100080) authors.
Author’s Contributions
AJSM, AKA, and CM conceived the study together, realized the analyses, and wrote the article, with a slightly greater involvement on the part of AJSM and AKA during a visiting professor stay at the German Institute for International Educational Research; JC collected the data set and contributed to the interpretations and writing of the article; DT and RG provided expertise related to youth with low levels of cognitive abilities, helped to integrate this information to the article, and contributed to the interpretations and writing of the article; PDP provided statistical expertise to the paper by conducting the matching process, and hel** in the design and writing of the statistical sections. All authors read and approved the final version of article.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the university of Wollongong research ethics committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, as well as from their parents.
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Alexandre J. S. Morin and A. Katrin Arens contributed equally to this article and their order was determined at random: both should thus be considered first authors.
Appendix: Preliminary Measurement Models
Appendix: Preliminary Measurement Models
We estimated Confirmatory Factor Analytic (CFA) models underlying teachers’ ratings of internalizing and externalizing behaviors across both groups of adolescents and each of the three time waves. This multiple-group longitudinal CFA included a total of six factors (internalizing and externalizing behaviors×three time waves) in both groups of adolescents. These factors were specified as congeneric, with each indicator allowed to load on a single factor. The models also included a priori correlated uniquenesses between matching indicators utilized at the different time points to reflect the fact that the indicators’ unique variance emerges in part from shared sources of influences over time (Mitchison et al. 2015). A critical assumption of multiple group longitudinal models is that the measurement model underlying the constructs is invariant (i.e., equivalent) across groups and time (Millsap 2011). To verify this assumption, we tested the measurement invariance of the complete CFA model across groups and time points in the following sequence (Millsap 2011; Morin et al. 2011): (i) configural invariance (the same measurement model with the same number of factors defined by the same items), (ii) weak invariance (invariant loadings); (iii) strong invariance (invariant loadings and thresholds); (iv) strict invariance (invariant factor loadings, item thresholds, and uniquenesses). Model fit assessment followed the procedures described in the main manuscript.
The goodness-of-fit from these measurement models is reported in Table 3. These results show that the baseline model of configural invariance (Model 1) provides an acceptable level of fit to the data according to CFI and TLI ≥ .900 and an excellent fit to the data according to RMSEA ≤ .060. The results further show that adding measurement invariance constraints across groups and time on the factors loadings (Model 2), thresholds (Model 3), and uniquenesses (Model 4) never resulted in a decrease of fit greater than the recommended guidelines. Fit indices including a correction for parsimony (TLI, RMSEA) even systematically improved with these added constraints, thus supporting the strict measurement invariance of this model across groups and time waves. Parameters estimates from this strictly invariant CFA model are reported in Tables 4 and 5, together with estimates of composite reliability. Composite reliability was calculated using McDonald’s (1970) omega (ω = (Σ|λi|)²/([Σ|λi|]² + Σδii) where λi are the factor loadings and δii, the error variances), which is similar to alpha but takes into account the strength of association between items and constructs as well as item-specific measurement errors. Supporting the strength of the measurement model, all factor loadings and estimates of composite reliability were relatively high and satisfactory across groups and time points: (a) internalizing behaviors (λ = .610–.877; ω = .904–.937); (b) externalizing behaviors (λ = .660–.933; ω = .959–.974).
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Morin, A.J.S., Arens, A.K., Maïano, C. et al. Reciprocal Relationships between Teacher Ratings of Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors in Adolescents with Different Levels of Cognitive Abilities. J Youth Adolescence 46, 801–825 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0574-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0574-3