CHILD AND PARENT EFFECTS IN BOYS CONDUCT DISORDER - A REINTERPRETATION

The importance of parent and child influences on the development of conduct disorder (CD) in boys is evaluated. The research approaches reviewed include studies of interactions between unrelated mothers and children, reaction to punishment, autonomic reactivity, biochemical factors, and drug treatment and longitudinal studies of delinquency. Evidence from this research and from research on parental influences, reviewed in detail elsewhere, is interpreted as demonstrating the primacy of the child's own contribution to CD within a reciprocal parent-child interactive system, thus corroborating control systems theory (R.Q. Bell, 1977). Demonstrated parental influences are interpreted as actions that are elicited by or that exacerbate the child's tendencies and that may represent genetic continuities. The heuristic utility and consequences of this model are outlined. It is emphasized that child effects do not imply immutability of behavior.