ABSTRACT
Moral disengagement (MD) has been consistently associated with antisocial behavior (ASB) in prior research. Limited research tested the directionality of the bivariate relationship, and most studies focused only on the direction of MD predicting ASB, even though ASB could also influence MD based on the literature on attribution and behavioral influence on attitude. Moreover, the few studies testing reciprocal associations rarely controlled for stable individual differences and did not explicitly examine the age effect to allow for a clear developmental inference. We analyzed age-based self-report antisocial behavior and moral disengagement data across ages 16-23 from 1,349 juvenile offenders (86.43% male; 20.31% White, 41.29% Black, 33.65% Hispanic) in the Pathways to Desistance Project using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Controlling for stable individual differences in MD and ASB and their associations along with the autoregressive effects, there was a reciprocal relationship between MD and ASB from ages 16 to 18. However, from ages 19 to 21, only ASB significantly predicted MD in the following year. There was no significant cross-lagged effect from ages 21 to 23. Our findings highlight the dynamic relationship between MD and ASB from ages 16 to 23. Youth between 16 and 18 years old may be more pliable to change with treatment/intervention due to the two-way traffic of cognition and behavior, but we also caution against treatment efforts with a heavy focus on proactive criminal thinking involving moral disengagement to reduce offending behavior beyond age 18. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
ABSTRACT
Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCL) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder in children. Presently there is no effective treatment and the disorder is lethal. NCL occur in a variety of non-human species including sheep, which are recognised as valuable large animal models for NCL. This experiment investigated the progressive postural, behavioural and liveweight changes in NCL-affected lambs, to establish practical, non-invasive biomarkers of disease progression for future preclinical trials in a CLN6 Merino sheep model. A flock of eight lambs at pasture was studied, with the observer blind to the disorder status. Three genotypes were compared: homozygous affected NCL; n = 4), clinically normal heterozygous (Carrier; n = 2) and homozygous normal (non-carrier control (Normal); n = 2). Direct observation during daylight and continuous accelerometer measurements over 72 h were used to quantify lamb posture and behaviour in 11 sessions between 26-60 weeks of age, conducted at 3-5 week intervals. There was a Genotype (G) × Age (A) interaction (P = 0.001) for liveweight of the lambs in the experiment, with NCL, Carrier and Normal lambs gaining 11.8, 16.5 and 23.4 kg, respectively, between 26 and 60 weeks of age. G×A interactions were also found for walking behaviour (means for NCL, Carrier and Normal genotype groups at 26 and 60 weeks, were 1.7 and 7.9%, 3.3 and 3.1%, and 2.5 and 1.9% of observations, P = 0.008) and a composite variable of key behaviours identified in the principal components analysis (P < 0.001), with mean values for NCL lambs increasing three-fold compared to non-affected lambs as age increased. Similarly, NCL lambs became less responsive to visual and auditory stimuli as they aged. Mean responsiveness scores (out of 3) to visual stimuli for the NCL, Carrier and Normal genotypes at 26 and 60 weeks of age were 2.7 and 1.4, 2.8 and 2.9, and 3.0 and 3.0, respectively (G × A, P < 0.001). Changes in response to auditory stimuli were similar to visual stimuli. NCL lambs took more (P = 0.015) steps per 24 h than Carrier and Normal genotype lambs, but there was no G × A interaction. At 26 and 60 weeks of age respectively, NCL lambs took 2724 and 4121 steps per 24 h, compared to Carrier (1708 and 3105 steps) and Normal genotype lambs (2109 and 3506 steps). NCL lambs also performed less (P = 0.018) grazing behaviour than Carrier and Normal genotype lambs (66.5, 72.3 and 72.5% of observations for NCL, Carrier and Normal lambs, respectively). A number of behavioural changes identified in the experiment could form the basis for a protocol for monitoring and evaluation of disease progression.
