Antisocial behaviours in adolescence: the importance of personal history, present development and future perspective

Abstract

Our work offers a refl ection on antisocial behaviours in adolescence that seeks to review and synthesize relevant and prominent perspectives on the subject, focusing on those that come from a developmental point of view. Such a framework implies, thus, a description and explanation of the antisocial phenomenon in its history, development and possible outcomes, more specifi cally, its etiology, risk and protective factors, developmental trajectories, manifestations, desistance and persistence mechanisms, and degrees of severity. Therefore, the importance of answering specifi c questions concerning the time at which antisocial manifestations fi rst occur, the origins of such manifestations and the pathways followed before and after is highlighted. In fact, since antisocial acts may take place at different moments in the lifespan, our purpose was to identify the peculiarities of the phenomenon in adolescence, with particular focus on aspects that undergo considerable development at this stage and may play an important role in risk behaviours, namely, future time perspective, self-control, delay of gratifi cation, psychosocial competence and interpersonal relations. The general conclusion of our review shows that several questions remain to be answered, particularly in the Portuguese context. Hence, we present a project of investigation seeking to address some of those issues.