Contribution of Individual and Environmental Variables in Explaining Adolescents' Externalising Behaviours

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the presence of
externalising youth problems and to explore the contribution
of different personal and environmental factors to their
development. The study was conducted with 1101 pupils of
1st grades of secondary schools (with the average age 15.18
years) from central Croatia. The following instruments were
used: Self-report questionnaire of risk and delinquent
behaviours (Ajduković, Rajhvajn Bulat & Sušac, 2015), NEO-
-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992), Inventory of parent and peer
attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987), Parental
monitoring scale (Silverberg & Small, 1991), Perceived peer
pressure questionnaire and Relation to school questionnaire.
Results have shown that undesirable normative behaviours
are more frequent than both peer violence and
misdemeanours/delinquent acts, with the most frequent
being the consumption of alcohol. Extraversion and
agreeableness, as variables related to adolescent personality,
have the largest role in explaining the externalising problems
of high school students, while the most important
environmental variables are parental control, alienation from
mother, peer pressure on risky and socially acceptable
behaviours, and relation to school.