Life-styles in personality development

European Journal of Personality, Vol. 6,139-155 (1992)

Life-styles in personality development

LEA PULKKINEN University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

Abstract

The concept of life-style was introduced as an integrative concept for the individual’s personality characteristics, life attitudes, and everyday activities. Antisocial ( A L ) and socially adaptable ( S A L ) life-styles were unalysed based on the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal data. The original sample consisted of 196 boys and 173 girls aged 8 years; 87 per cent of them were followed up to the age of 26. Male life-styles de$ned at age 26 by illicit behaviour and career orientation were compared and their developmental prerequisites at ages 8 and 14 were examined. The results showed that (1) dispositional, cognitive, and behavioural approaches to personality could be linked for the analysis of individual life-styles; (2) individuals with A L compared with S A L were higher in neuroticism, more pessimistic, and more often problem drinkers and consumers of popular culture; (3) adult life-styles were predictable on the basis of coping behaviour in childhood; ( 4 ) upbringing was related to adult life-styles; and (5 ) adult life-styles were rooted in distinctive patterns of adjustment in childhood and adolescence.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of style of life can be found in Adler’s theory of personality as early as in the late 1920’s (Adler, 192911969; see Ewen, 1988, pp. 137-140). According to Adler, each individual has a somewhat unique style of life. It develops in childhood as a reaction to parents’ behaviour, birth order, and feelings of inferiority. It reflects life goals and ways to strive for them. For instance, a neglected child may choose the goal of revenge and become hostile and dominating.

Adler suggests that a person’s life-style can be inferred from three sources: character traits, physical movements, and early recollections. Character traits manifest them- selves in the way of striving for superiority. Physical movements contain postures, eye contact, and other expressive movements, and they may express, for instance, dependency or dominance. Recollections of infancy and childhood are, however, the best sources for the identification of an individual’s style of life. For instance,

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lea Pulkkinen, Department of Psychology, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35,40351 Jyvaskyla, Finland.

0890-2070/92/020139-17fi13.50 0 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 29 January 1992 Accepted 3 March 1992

140 L. Pulkkinen

individuals who are jealous or distrustful may have specific recollections which reveal the person’s view of life.

In recent psychological literature, the concept of life-style has been used in many ways to explain, for instance, leisure behaviour (Bernard, 1987), health behaviour (Golding and Cornish, 1987), or vocational choice (Watkins, 1984). Correspondingly, life-style has been operationalized by different variables. I have understood life-style as a subjective sub-system of the way of life (Pulkkinen, 1990a). Way of life refers to a system of activities characteristic of people or a group of people, such as a family living under certain life conditions. Therefore, it is related to material and non-material conditions, social relations, and individual needs. An individual’s life- style is intertwined with objective life conditions. However, it can be studied separa- tely. It is characteristic of an individual’s life-style that it is rather permanent and unconscious. If the life conditions change and require changes in behaviour, then one’s life-style becomes more conscious.

Life-style is defined here as an organized whole of an individual’s personality characteristics, life attitudes, and everyday activities. This definition is clearly related to Adler’s three sources of information about a person’s life-style: character traits, early recollections, and physical movements. It is not, however, limited to Adler’s theoretical constructs. Life-style, as it is understood here, has several roots and it is modified by current experiences. A life-style is, to some extent, unique, although some common features may exist in individuals’ life-styles. It can be analysed from different points of view which are needed for the conceptualization of an individual’s life-style as an integrative construct. It is suggested here that three components are descriptive of a particular life-style.

First, personality characteristics, which manifest inter-individual differences in, for instance, mental endowments, temperament, and personality traits. Personality characteristics are modified by life experiences. However, recent reviews (Brody, 1988; Plomin and Rende, 1991) have shown that genetic influences are important in creating inter-individual differences in personality. In the framework of the present three-component model, it is assumed that personality characteristics form a dispositional basis for inter-individual differences in life-styles.

Second, everyday activities, which show the ways that an individual performs life tasks of work, health, leisure time, etc. In the course of life, an individual acquires various skills, interests, and behavioural strategies through modelling and education. Thus, socio-cultural influences transmitted through the socialization process (in a family, peer group, or school) modify inter-individual differences in everyday activities.

Third, life attitudes covering an individual’s view of life and other thoughts which guide behaviour in relevant situations. As proposed by Cantor (1 990), these thoughts may contain an individual’s interpretations of life tasks, schematas, self-concept, and cognitive strategies. Cantor states that a cognitive approach to personality could complement the description of the doing side of personality by focusing on how underlying dispositions are cognitively expressed and maintained in social interaction. Buss (1991, p. 469) remarks that ‘an emerging trend within the field of personality psychology has been the proposal and exploration of tactics and strategies as units of analysis’. Different researchers have given these units different labels, such as personal projects (Little, 1983, 1989), life tasks (Cantor and Kihlstrom, 1985, 1987), and personal strivings (Emmons, 1989).

Life-styles 141

All these three components contribute to the life-style characteristic of an individual. Each life-style is unique, but it is assumed that they can be grouped together based on common features in the three components.

In this article, the three-component model is applied to aggression-related behaviour. It has been generally argued that aggression is a personality trait. For instance, Huesmann and Eron (1989, pp. 95-96) state that aggression ‘has demonstrated the hallmarks of a deeply ingrained personality trait’. Buss (1991), however, maintains that individual differences in the agreeable-aggressive dimension appear to stem from environmental, not genetic, differences. The stability of aggression over time suggests ‘that developmental calibration probably occurs early in life’ (Buss, 1991, p. 476). Anyway, there seems to be a developmental continuity from early aggressive behaviour to later delinquency, especially in males (e.g. Farrington, 1991; Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz and Walder, 1984; Loeber, 1982; Magnusson, 1988; Pulkkinen, 1983,1987). It has also been revealed that antisocial behaviour is highly concentrated, both in a British and a Finnish sample (Farrington, 1988; Pulkkinen, 1988). A small number of people accounted for half of all criminal convictions (5.5 per cent of males in England; 4.1 per cent of males and 1.2 per cent of females in Finland).

The first problem was whether adult antisocial behaviour could be understood as a life-style distinguishable from other life-styles. Based on findings by Eysenck and Eysenck (1975) and the longitudinal researchers cited above, it could be expected that individuals with an antisocial life-style (AL) would differ from individuals with a socially adaptable life-style (SAL) in higher extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and aggression.

In the framework of the three-component model, it was expected that, besides differences in personality characteristics, AL and SAL would differ in life attitudes and everyday activities. Caprara and Pastorelli (1989) introduced the concept of Emotional Susceptibility, derived from the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (Buss, 196 l), reflecting a tendency to experience feelings of discomfort, helplessness, inade- quacy, and vulnerability. It has been shown that it is the primary determinant of irritability, i.e. the tendency to react impulsively, controversially, or rudely to the slightest provocation or disagreement.

Characteristics typical of Emotional Susceptibility were expected to be higher in AL than in SAL. It was expected that AL and SAL individuals would differ in leisure activities and health behaviour. The longitudinal studies cited above have shown that, in the course of life, aggression is accompanied by delinquency and other behaviours, for instance, alcohol abuse, indicating weak control of behaviour. Previous analyses of the Jyvaskyla longitudinal data have revealed that early aggressiveness predicts problems with health because of many injuries (Pulkkinen, 1990b), and that adolescent aggressive boys are relatively more oriented to peers and enter- tainment than to parents and studies (Pulkkinen, 1982). It was expected that AL males would have more problems with health and would be more oriented to popular culture than SAL males.

The second problem concerned developmental prerequisites of adult life-styles. The hypothesis was that there was continuity from coping styles in childhood to life-styles in adulthood, i.e. that adult life-styles have their roots in child and adolescent behaviour along the lines presented above. It was also assumed that child-rearing practices could explain this continuity. According to Reid and Patterson (1989), the development from aggressive behavioural style to antisocial behaviour is substan-

142 L. Pulkkinen

tially influenced by parental practices. Particularly, irritable, ineffective, and poor parental monitoring are the determinants of the early development and maintenance of antisocial behaviour.

METHOD

Subjects and procedure

Adult life-styles and their predictability on the basis of social behaviour in childhood and adolescence were analysed within the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study. The original sample consisted of 196 boys and 173 girls aged 8 years. Only male data were analysed for the present article.

The principal methods of data collection at the ages of 8 and 14, when 189 boys (96 per cent of the sample) were reached for a follow-up, were peer nominations and teacher ratings. Ratings (33 at the age of 8; 9 at the age of 14) concerned different styles of coping with conflict situations (Pulkkinen, 1987). The theoretical framework was a model of impulse control (Pitkanen, 1969; Pulkkinen, 1982). A smaller sample of subjects (77 boys; 39 per cent of the original sample) and one parent of each boy were interviewed at the age of 14. A group of 68 men (35 per cent of the original sample) was also interviewed at the age of 20 (Pulkkinen, 1982).

In the last follow-up study at the age of 26, both a mailed questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were used for data collection. The questionnaire was filled in by 166 men (85 per cent of the sample) and 150 men (77 per cent) were interviewed. The questionnaire and interview covered main life tasks of young adults: viz. education, departure from home, work, marriage, parenthood, health, leisure activities, substance use, and orientation toward the future. In addition, standardized Finnish versions (Haapasalo, 1990) of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975) and the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking scale ( S S S , 5th version; Zuckerman, 1979) were presented to the subjects. Personality inventories were filled in by 143 men (73 per cent of the sample). Criminal records were investi- gated for the whole sample.

Identification of life-styles

For the identification of AL and SAL, two variables were chosen: illicit behaviour and career lines.

Illicit behaviour was operationalized by the subject’s appearance either in a governmental register, which includes information about offences-the sentence for which has been imprisonment--or in the local, more informal register held by the police, which includes information about arrests for petty offences. Two groups of subjects were distinguished: (1) no arrests, for no registrations in either a local police register or a governmental register; and (2) one or more arrests.

Career lines were classified into three categories based on available data: (1) educational career-the criterion being that at least two-thirds of the past 7 years had been used for education; (2) stable working career-the subject had worked in hisher own field uninterruptedly for at least half of the 7-year follow-up period; and (3) unstable working career-education was limited; jobs had varied and had mostly

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not corresponded to one’s own field, for instance, subsidized employment work; and unemployment covered even more than one-third of the 7-year follow-up period.

The subjects were cross-tabulated as presented in Table 1. In the whole sample, 93 men (47 per cent) had been arrested at least once by the age of 26. More than one-third of them (34) also had an unstable working career. They were called ‘Anti- social’ (cf. AL). Another group consisted of 30 men who had embarked on an educational career and who had never been arrested. They were called ‘Educated’ (cf. SAL).

Table 1. The groups to be compared; males at age 26

Illicit behaviour Career line N No arrests One or more arrests

Educational career 44

Stable working career 74

Unstable working career 53

Not known 25

Educated N = 3 0 68%

41 55%

14 32%

33 45%

19 Antisocial 36% N = 3 4

64% 13 12 52% 48%

Total 196 103 93 Percentage 100 53 41

The Antisocial group and the Educated group were taken in order to compare their life-styles. This was done because the variables which define them show adaptability to the society from two perspectives. In addition, they are deeply ingrained in people’s lives. By definition, a life-style is rather permanent. The choice of career lines shows consistency over time (Jencks, Crouse and Mueser, 1983; Pulkki- nen, 1989). It is based on intellectual capacities, working skills and manners such as persistence, and cognitive processes including values of education transmitted from home through upbringing. Correspondingly, several studies show, as reviewed by Loeber (1982), that the earlier antisocial behaviour starts, the higher the probability that it will continue into chronic criminality. According to Le Blanc (1990), subjects who begin illicit activities before age 9 show the greatest frequency of offending later on. For most delinquents illicit activities progress from minor crimes to more serious ones.

Measures

The Educated and Antisocial groups were compared at the age of 26 to reveal possible differences in their life-styles regarding life attitudes and everyday activities as well as personality characteristics. To analyse the predictability of life-styles, the groups were also compared in terms of the data regarding the subjects’ behavioural styles at the ages of 8 and 14.

144 L. Pulkkinen

At the age of 26, the life attitude variables were as follows. Optimism Toward the Future was operationalized by a single self-rating on ‘optimism vs. pessimism’ using a 4-point scale. Likewise, Dipuse or Unrealistic Wishes were operationalized by the question ‘Do you dream about a win in a lottery or starting your life on a new basis?’ Satisfaction with Human Relationships was measured on a 4-point scale. Satisfaction with Livelihood was a sum score of four questions concerning satisfaction with accommodation, occupation, work, and financial conditions (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.68). The person’s Trust in their Own Powers was also a sum score (Cron- bach’s alpha = 0.63) of self-ratings on three items (‘How much does your future depend on yourself?’, ‘How important for your future are (a) human relationships and (b) your own spirit of enterprise?’). Fear of Failures (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.72) was a sum score of six items (e.g. ‘How much are you afraid of financial difficulties, problems in human relationships, illnesses?’). Self-percepts of Control over Life and Development were based on five items formulated according to Brandtstadter (1984): ‘I believe that I can influence my development’; ‘I have a strong will’; ‘I am able to make my goals come true’; ‘I believe that things will turn out fine’; and ‘My abilities and efforts are significant to my success’ (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.67). Likewise, Blaming Others for Failure was based on two items: ‘Other people have made it difficult for me to achieve my goals’, and ‘I am angry with others for the difficulties that they have caused’ (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.68).

Everyday activities were measured by leisure activities, health behaviour, and life events reflecting personal instability. For Leisure Activities, the frequency of attendance at concerts of classical music, art exhibitions, and the theatre during the last 6 months, the frequency of listening to popular music and the number of TV series that the person followed were registered.

For Health Behaviour, the groups were compared in terms of the following health variables (see Pulkkinen, 1990b): the subjects’ estimation of their present health status, the regular use of medicine, the number of surgical operations, signs of being unwell (that is, the sum score for dysthonic symptoms and psychosomatic diseases), the occurrence of various illnesses at present or earlier, the number of accidents, the seriousness of injuries, and feelings of stress. Second, the groups were compared in terms of problem-drinking, defined according to criteria suggested by McCord (1984) based on the CAGE questionnaire (Mayfield, McLeod and Hall, 1974). For subjects who were not interviewed, only data on arrests for drunken behaviour were used for coding problem-drinking. Two variables for life events were composed.

Age-related Normative Life Events consisted of performing one’s military service, move from home, entry into and exit from vocational school or college, and entry into work, marriage, and parenthood (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.65). Non-normative Life Events were a sum score of the frequency of events reflecting personal instability, for instance, change of lodgings, change of district of residence, change of workplace, or end of cohabitation or marriage (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.52).

Personality characteristics were operationalized by (1) the Extraversion, Neurotic- ism, Psychoticism, and Lie scales of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire; (2) the Thrill and Adventure Seeking, Experience Seeking, Disinhibition, and Boredom Susceptibility scales of the Zukerman Sensation Seeking Scale; and (3) an Aggression scale. The latter consisted of ten direct questions presented in the context of an interview (‘Are you impatient?’; ‘Do you swear?’; ‘Do you think of revenge?’;‘Do you get sulky with somebody?’; ‘Do you threaten other people?’; ‘Do you hit another

Life-styles 145

person?’; ‘Do you argue with people?’; ‘Do you break things?’; ‘Are you brusque?’; and ‘Do you pick a quarrel with somebody?’). The answers were given on 3-point scales (Never, Sometimes, Often). The Cronbach’s alpha of the Aggression scale was 0.63).

At the age of 8, the groups were compared in terms of the sum scores of peer nominations on aggressive, constructive, submissive, and anxious Styles of Coping with Conflicts (Pulkkinen, 1987) and in terms of teacher ratings on School Success, Lack of Concentration, and Prognosis. The latter consisted of two items: ‘Which pupils, according to the teacher, will certainly find their way later on in life?’, and ‘Which pupils is the teacher concerned about because of onset of antisocial symptoms?’

At the age of 14, the groups were compared in terms of peer nominations on eight variables (Social Activity, Passivity, Strong Self-control (reliable), Weak Self- control (lack of concentration), Aggressive, Constructive, Submissive, and Anxious Behaviour; see Pulkkinen, 1987), Grade Point Average, and teacher ratings on Delin- quent Behaviour. The latter variable consisted of truancy, drinking, smoking, and contacts with the police. Upbringing was measured by five scales drawn from the interviews of children and their parents (cf. Pulkkinen, 1990b): Supportive Upbring- ing, Oppressive Upbringing, Mother’s Concerned Control, Father-Child Relation- ship, and Indifference.

Analysis of data

The means of the Antisocial group and the Educated group were compared for each variable listed above to study the expected differences between their life-styles as well as their predictability. In addition, Pearson’s product moment correlations were calculated for the whole male sample between variables describing adult life- styles and their predictors at the ages of 8 and 14. The correlation coefficients revealed the size of a linear dependence between these variables over years.

A variable-oriented approach is a standard approach to the study of continuity in longitudinal studies, and in this study it meant a comparison of group means on each variable. However, as stated by Magnusson and Bergman (1988), this approach may ignore the existence of non-linearity and interactions among operating factors. Therefore, they recommended the use of a person-oriented approach as a complementary approach. This approach refers to the categorization of subjects on the basis of interacting variables (cf. Hinde and Dennis, 1986). It was expected that the Antisocial group compared with the Educated group would be characterized by different patterns of adjustment behaviour in childhood. To increase the reliability of a pattern approach, this question was analysed by replicating the clusters obtained by Magnusson and Bergman (1988) and Magnusson (1992) in their Swedish longitudinal study.

The variables and their sources for the present analysis were as follows: Aggressive- ness (peer nominations and teacher ratings at age 8); Restlessness (the Restlessness scale of a personality inventory by Cattell and Coan, 1959; standardized for Finland by Ylinentalo, 1965, and teacher ratings on ‘disobedience’ at age 8); Poor Concen- tration (peer nominations and teacher ratings at age 14); Poor Interest in School Attendance (teacher ratings on ‘interest in school work’ and ‘truancy’ at age 14); Low School Achievements (grade point average at age 14); and Poor Peer Relations

146 L. Pulkkinen

(teacher ratings on ‘popularity’ and ‘leadership behaviour’ at age 14). All variables were recorded on a semi-absolute scale ranging from 3 (a pronounced characteristic) to 0 (no characteristic at all). In the recoding of the variables, cut-off points with skewed distributions (point 3 was given approximately to 7 per cent of boys and point 0 to 40 per cent of the subjects) were used. Rationales for this procedure can be found in the article by Bergman and Magnusson (1987).

RESULTS

Differences between the life-styles

As can be seen in Table 2, life attitudes and experiences were more positive for the Educated group than for the Antisocial group. The Educated subjects expressed more optimistic attitudes toward the future, more trust in their own powers, more satisfaction with life (especially with livelihood; no differences in satisfaction with human relationships), and self-percepts of a higher control over their life and development than the Antisocial subjects. The latter were more afraid of failures. Further- more, they blamed others for their failure, and they had diffuse or unrealistic wishes for the future.

In leisure activities, the Educated were more oriented to a high culture and literature than the Antisocials, who were more interested in a popular culture. Moreover, the health of the Educated group was better in terms of subjective estimations. They also had a smaller number of accidents (excluding traffic accidents, which did not differentiate between the groups) and surgical operations. The Antisocials, on the other hand, were more often injured. The consequences of the injuries affected their present life more seriously than the life of the Educated. Sixty-two per cent of the Antisocials were problem-drinkers compared with 7 per cent of the Educated. Acci- dents were often related to alcohol abuse.

The Antisocial group and the Educated group also differed in their life-styles in that the first group had experienced non-normative life events more frequently than the latter group. The frequency of non-normative life events concerned personal instability (moves, divorce, etc.). Age-related normative life events, such as entry into family roles, did not differentiate between the two groups.

As regards personality traits, the Antisocials had higher scores on the Neuroticism and Disinhibition scales. There was also a trend that the Antisocials had higher scores on the Extraversion scale. The Psychoticism scale did not differentiate between the groups, nor did the other scales of the S S S . The scores for Aggression were slightly higher for the Antisocials than for the Educated.

Predictability of life-styles

The second question was whether the life-styles of the Educated and Antisocial subjects were predictable from variables measured at earlier ages. As can be seen in Table 3, from the age 8 onwards the Educated subjects had behaved in a more constructive and submissive way than the Antisocial boys, who had been more aggressive and had poorer concentration. There were also differences in school success. It is interesting that the groups differed in two teacher-rating variables on prognosis at the age of 8. Obviously, the patterns of these boys’ behaviour were

Life-styles 147

Table 2. life-styles; z-values and t-tests

The Educated and Antisocial groups compared at age 26 in different aspects of

Educated Antisocial t-test

Variables (and methods) at age 26 M SD M SD P df

Life attitudes and experiences Optimism toward the future (Q) 0.36 Trust own powers (Q) 0.52 Satisfaction with livelihood (Q) 0.13 Control over life and development (Q) 0.47 Fear of failures (Q) -0.36 Blaming others for failures (Q) -0.24 Diffuse or unrealistic wishes (Q) -0.45

Leisure activities Interested in literature, art and the

theatre (Q) 0.63 Interested in classical music (Q) 0.40 Interested in pop music (Q) -0.31 Watches TV series (Q) -0.46

Health behaviour Health estimation (I) 0.37 Accidents (work, sport, violence) (I) -0.23 Seriousness of injuries (I) -0.27 Surgical operations (I) -0.25 Problem-drinking (I + R) -0.43 Non-normative life events (Q) -0.19

Personality inventories Neuroticism (EPQ) Extraversion (EPQ) P-scale (EPQ) Disinhibition (SSS) Aggression (I)

-0.33 -0.13

0.15 -0.12 -0.20

0.96 -0.36 0.95 -0.23 0.73 -0.74 0.89 -0.04 0.89 0.53 0.96 0.61 0.99 0.35

1.13 -0.26 1.07 -0.17 0.97 0.33 0.64 0.23

0.59 -0.31 0.81 0.45 0.82 0.47 0.49 0.37 0.73 0.91

0.72 0.71

0.92 0.51 1.01 0.39 1.02 0.62 1.16 0.55 0.72 0.23

1.11 0.94 1.17 0.74 0.86 1.03 1.02

0.87 1.07 0.70 1.07

1.20 1.34 1.23 1.48 0.95

1.29

1.05 0.89 1.03 0.94 0.86

0.010 0.003 0.009 0.022 0.000 0.002 0.003

0.001 0.045 0.005 0.003

0.015 0.033 0.015 0.047 0.000 0.005

0.005 0.064 0.119 0.034 0.054

58 58 58 58 58 58 58

58 58 58 58

50 50 50 50 62

58

46 46 46 46 50

~ ~~~ ~

Note; Q = Mailed questionnaire; I = interview; R = criminal registers; EPQ = Eysenck Personality Ques- tionnaire; SSS = Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale.

rather different at an early age. At the age of 14, the Educated boys continued to be more successful at school and to exhibit more control of behaviour than the Antisocials, who were socially more active and aggressive and exhibited more delinquent behaviour.

Also interview data on upbringing of a smaller sample differentiated between the groups in a consistent way. Characteristic of the Educated was a supportive upbringing, which means that the parents trust the child, know his leisure-time company, encourage school attendance, consider the child’s opinion, hold daily conversations with the child, and implement reasonable restrictions and sanctions. The father-son relationship was more active for the Educated than for the Antisocials, and the mother was more concerned about the boy’s activities (e.g. homework, curfew times, the content of leisure activities).

The oppressive upbringing of the Antisocials comprised, for instance, inconsistency in child rearing, physical abuse, and unjust restrictions and sanctions. Indifference

148 L. Pulkkinen

Table 3. and child-rearing practices in childhood and adolescence; z-values and t-tests

Variables (and methods) at

The Educated and Antisocial groups compared in terms of social characteristics

Educated Antisocial 2-test

ages 8 and 14 M SD M SD P df Age 8 Constructiveness (PN) Submissiveness (PN) School success (TR) Certain to find his way later on in

Aggressiveness (PN) Lack of concentration (TR) Teacher concerned because of onset

life (TR)

of antisocial symptoms (TR)

Age 14 Constructiveness (PN) Strong control of behaviour (PN) School success (GPA) Offensive aggression (PN) Social activity (PN) Weak control of behaviour (PN) Delinquent behaviour (TR)

Upbringing (I) Supportive upbringing Father-son relationship (active) Mother’s concerned control Oppressive upbringing Indifference

Father’s occuDational status (0)

0.47 0.38 0.63

0.70 -0.39 -0.46

-0.41

0.40 0.25 0.89

-0.44 -0.44 -0.42 -0.64

0.55 0.65 0.33

-0.27 -0.62

0.31

1.19 -0.30 1.09 -0.48 1.10 -0.19

0.77 -0.35 0.76 0.52 0.75 0.51

0.33 0.54

1.03 -0.31 1.07 -0.44 1.08 -0.82 0.43 0.33 0.59 0.34 0.68 0.38 0.52 0.77

0.39 -1.03 0.72 -0.47 0.93 -0.64 0.59 0.76 0.84 0.56 1.20 -0.42

0.73 0.65 0.82

1.07 1.14 1.17

1.43

0.57 0.54 0.73 1.17 1.15 1.13 1.09

1.03 0.90 0.98 1 .oo 1.12 1.11

0.004 62 0.000 62 0.001 62

0.000 62 0.000 62 0.000 62

0.001 62

0.002 58 0.003 58 0.000 58 0.002 58 0.001 58 0.001 58 0.000 58

0.001 20 0.004 20 0.043 20 0.008 20 0.010 20

0.023 58 . .I Note: PN = Peer nomination; TR = teacher rating; GPA = grade point average; I = interview at age 14; Q =mailed questionnaire at age 26.

included, for instance, the following aspects of family life: the parents were indifferent to or accepted the child’s use of alcohol, the parents were indifferent to the child’s success at school, and the family members did not share in common activities.

The socio-economic status of the family did not differentiate strongly between the two groups, although there was a trend that the Educated boys came from families with a higher status. This was due to the father’s occupation, which was more highly valued in our society for the Educated than for the Antisocials. There were no differences in the mother’s occupational status. Finally, the groups did not differ in the family structure, whether intact or not.

Linear dependence between the variables

Correlation coefficients between variables for adult life-styles and predictors revealed (see Table 4) that behavioural characteristics at the age of 8 were associated with various aspects of adult male life-styles in a consistent way. Submissive and constructive behaviour, success at school, and the teacher’s positive prognosis correlated positively with indicators of the life-style of the Educated and negatively with those

Life-styles 149

of the Antisocials. Reverse correlations were found for aggressive behaviour, lack of concentration and the teacher’s negative prognosis. The correlations were lower for behavioural characteristics at the age of 14, but success at school correlated with adult outcomes more highly than at the age of 8. Correlations for upbringing showed that oppressive upbringing or a lack of supportive upbringing was especially related to health behaviour and neuroticism. The same was found for adolescent delinquent behaviour.

Three variables for life attitudes (Trust in their Own Powers, Satisfaction with Livelihood, and Control over Life and Development) did not correlate with any predictor in spite of significant differences between the Antisocial and Educated groups in these variables. As regards personality traits, no significant correlations were found for Disinhibition. The Aggression scale correlated with aggression at age 14 (r=0.19; p=O.O23) and the Extraversion scale with aggression at age 8 (Y = 0.22; p = 0.008) and also at age 14 (Y = 0.33; p < 0.001).

Life-styles in a person-oriented approach

The analysis of the predictability of life-styles has been presented above in a variable- oriented framework. In spite of a significant difference in the means of the Educated and Antisocial groups in aggression at the age of 8, the distributions of individual scores were highly overlapping between the groups. Only some of the children who had high scores in aggression became antisocial. Since it was possible that the predictive power of aggression depended on how it was combined with other aspects of behaviour, a person-oriented approach was employed as a complementary approach.

The patterns of adjustment were analysed by using a clustering technique based on squared Euclidean distances (WARD; SPSS-x package) with six variables. Seven clusters were obtained (see Table 5). They replicated the clusters obtained by Magnus- son (1 992), except for Magnusson’s third cluster Underachievement which did not appear in the Finnish sample. In the latter, the variable Low School Achievement was used instead of underachievement. The clusters were identified as follows (the numbers in brackets refer to the corresponding cluster in the Swedish sample; cf. Magnusson, 1992): (1) No Problems [l]; (2) Poor Peer Relations [2]; (3) Restlessness and Moderate Aggressiveness [4]; (4) Poor Interest in School [5]; (5) Poor Concen- tration and Aggressiveness [7]; (6 ) Mild Multi-problems [6]; and (7) Severe, Multi- dimensional Problems [8].

About half of the Educated boys-more cases than expected-belonged to the No Problems cluster (see Table 6) . None of them had been a severely multi-problem boy, but 17 per cent had been restless and aggressive. The Antisocials were more evenly distributed over the clusters, although there were more cases than expected in the Severe, Multi-dimensional Problems and Poor Interest in School clusters, and fewer cases than expected in the No Problem cluster. The last column, ‘Criminal’, consisted of men who appeared in the governmental register with unconditional or suspended prison sentences. One-third of them (three times more than expected) had been severely multi-problem boys and 22 per cent had problems in concentration and aggressiveness. Poor interest in school attendance without the multi-problem pattern predicted antisocial behaviour, but not more severe criminal behaviour.

It is noteworthy that aggressiveness appeared as a problem in four clusters in

Tabl

e 4.

Adu

lt ou

tcom

es p

redi

cted

by d

ata

from

chi

ldho

od a

nd a

dole

scen

ce; p

rodu

ct m

omen

t cor

rela

tions

Age

26

Pred

icto

rs

Opt

imis

m

Fear

of

Bla

min

g In

tere

sted

In

tere

sted

H

ealth

Se

rious

- Pr

oble

m-

Non

- N

euro

t-

failu

res

othe

rs

in c

lass

ical

in

pop

es

timat

ion

ness

dr

inki

ng

norm

ativ

e ic

ism

m

usic

m

usic

of

inju

ries

life e

vent

s

Age

8

Con

stru

ctiv

enes

s Su

bmis

sive

ness

C

erta

in to

find

his

way

late

r on

Scho

ol su

cces

s A

ggre

ssiv

enes

s La

ck o

f con

cent

ratio

n Te

ache

r con

cern

ed b

ecau

se o

f an

tisoc

ial s

ympt

oms

(N=

143

-196

)t

in li

fe

Age

14

(N =

135-

1 86

)t

Scho

ol su

cces

s A

ggre

ssiv

enes

s W

eak

cont

rol

Del

inqu

ent

Upbringing

Supp

ortiv

e Fa

ther

-son

rel

atio

nshi

p O

mre

ssiv

e

(N =

59-7

7)t

20**

-1

7*

- 18

* -

20**

19

* -

21**

16

* -

19*

__

-

-

22**

17

* -

18*

20**

-2

3**

24**

19

* -

21 **

-

19*

-

-

19*

-30*

**

-

15*

- 19

*

-

-27*

28

* 29

* -

-

-37*

* -

-

-

- 17

*

-

-

20*

-

27**

*

-21*

-

-

30**

*

-28*

-

32**

-

-

19**

23

**

14*

21**

16*

20**

16*

22**

32

***

24**

-41*

**

-

-31*

* -

-

23*

-32*

**

-27*

**

- 34

**

-33*

**

26**

* -

-

-33*

**

-

-

24**

-29*

* -

32**

-

A

Not

e: *

**p

< 0.

001;

**

pi 0

.01;

*p <

0.05

. t N

dep

ende

d on

the

met

hod

at ag

e 26;

the

low

est N

was

for n

euro

ticis

m a

nd th

e hi

ghes

t N fo

r pro

blem

-drin

king

.

Life-styles 15 1

Table 5. Grouping of boys based on data collected at the ages of 8 and 14

Cluster means* Aggressive- Poor con- Poor school Low school Poor peer

Cluster N ness Restlessness centration interest achieve- relations ment

- 1 51 2 29 3 21 1.4 2.3 -

4 24 - 1.4 2.2 2.0 1.4 5 26 1.0

6 17 1.9 1.9 1.5 1.9 1.6 7 20 1.8 1.2 2.2 2.2 1.5 2.4

- - - - -

- - - - 1.6 - - - -

- -

- - - -

-

*A dash means that the cluster mean of a variable is less than 1.0 on the 4-point scale coded 0, 1, 2, 3.

Table 6. adjustment (%)

Distribution of the Educated and Antisocial groups over the clusters for social

Age 8-14 Males at age 26

Clusters N % Educated Antisocial Criminal (N=30) (N=34) (N=20)

1. No problems 51 27 45 12 I 1 2. Poor peer relations 29 15 24 0 6 3. Restlessness and moderate

aggressiveness 21 11 17 9 6 4. Poor interest in school 24 13 4 28 11 5. Poor concentration and

aggressiveness 26 14 7 12 22 6. Mild multi-problems 17 9 3 15 11 7. Severe, multi-dimensional problems 20 11 0 24 33

Total 196 100 100 100 100 LR 18.65 27.81 12.21 P = 0.005 0.000 0.057

Note: ‘Criminal’ refers to subjects who appeared in the governmental register.

both samples and that it had a different predictive value depending on the pattern of behaviour that it was included in. The larger the number of adjustment problems that occurred in childhood and adolescence, the higher was the probability of the Antisocial life-style in adulthood. When aggressiveness was combined with restlessness only, it did not predict antisocial or criminal behaviour. It was confirmed that boys in the Restlessness and Moderate Aggressiveness cluster had good school reports at the age of 14. The start of school may be boring for intelligent boys if school work is not challenging enough. However, problem behaviour is not necessarily accentuated when the child has the intellectual capacity to cope with the demands at school.

152 L. Pulkkinen

DISCUSSION

The results showed that (1 ) dispositional, cognitive, and behavioural approaches to personality could be linked for the analysis of individuals’ life-styles; (2) individuals with an antisocial life-style were higher in neuroticism, more pessimistic toward the future, and more often problem-drinkers and consumers of popular culture than individuals with a socially adaptable life-style; (3) adult life-styles were predictable on the basis of coping behaviour in childhood; (4) upbringing was related to adult life-styles; and (5) adult life-styles were rooted in distinctive patterns of adjustment in childhood and adolescence.

From childhood onwards, men with the socially adaptable life-style had been characterized by stronger self-control and more passive behaviour than men with the antisocial life-style. According to the impulse control model (Pulkkinen, 1982), self-control is one of the two orthogonal dimensions (the other is social activity vs. passivity), which define children’s coping patterns. The antisocial and socially adaptable life-styles differed both in self-control and social activity. Weak self-control correlated negatively with school success and a lack of supportive upbringing. The more versatile problems that the boy had at school, the more probable was the antisocial life-style in adulthood.

In this study, the life-styles were analysed within the framework of a three-component model which differentiates dispositional, behavioural, and cognitive approaches to life-styles. Personality traits have been recently conceptualized in terms of the so-called Big Five (Digman, 1990): (I) Extraversion/Introversion; (11) Friendliness/ Hostility; (111) Conscientiousness (Will); (IV) NeuroticisdEmotional Stability; and (V) Intellect. According to John, Angleitner and Ostendorf (1988), these five dimensions are often related at the broadest level to Power, Love, Work, Affect, and Intellect, and although these dimensions should not be considered final, they form ‘a heuristically useful framework’ (p. 17 1).

If all kinds of data were considered, one could conclude that men with the antisocial life-style tended to differ from men with the socially adaptable life-style in all of the Big Five factors. The Antisocials were higher in Neuroticism, Extraversion and Hostility, and lower in Conscientiousness (more arrests and an unstable working career) and Intellect (lower school success and culture orientation) than the Educated. The findings confirm one of the possible explanations for the prominence of the five factors as presented by Buss (1991, p. 471): ‘the five factors may summarize the most important dimensions of the social landscape to which humans have had to adapt’. For the description of the actual life-styles of the Antisocials and the Educated, the most relevant personality trait was neuroticism. Higher Neuroticism scores of the Antisocials compared with the Educated were accompanied by higher Emotional Susceptibility scores indicated by life attitudes and a weaker self-control indicated by particular health and leisure behaviours.

Although life-styles are unique, there are common features in the individuals’ life-styles. An individual’s personality traits find expression and feedback within certain limits and standards in a certain culture. Subcultural models influence both behaviour and values. Successes or failures in goal-oriented behaviour are defined by certain expectations, and a feedback on them affects interpretations of life tasks, the choice of cognitive strategies to guide behaviour, and the formation of self- schemata.

Life-styles 153

In the present testing of the three-component model, adult life-styles were defined with career lines and illicit behaviour. Although these categories were relevant to men, they might not be relevant to women. Data analysis was limited to men because evidence in the literature shows a higher continuity from aggression to antisocial behaviour for men than for women. Female career development is also more easily influenced by current life tasks, such as child birth, than male career development (Pulkkinen, 1989). More conceptual analysis and empirical research are needed for the analysis of the systemic nature of life-styles for both sexes.

In addition, the concept of personality development requires a specification; what aspects of personality are expected or observed to change in time. It is suggested here that changes in personality as a function of time depend on the process involved. In order to understand changes in life-styles, the three components have to be considered.

Dispositional aspects of personality, such as personality characteristics, tend to be rather stable over time. In contrast, everyday activities are modified by socio- cultural factors in the course of time. Continuity in them can be conceptualized in terms of a cumulative and interactional continuity, as Caspi et al. (1990) have suggested. Life attitudes are also tied to the cumulation of socio-cultural and situational influences, but they are less predictable over time than the other components. Life-styles may show continuity from time to time if the cumulation of experiences is not interrupted by a cognitive restructuring of life tasks, schemata, or strategies. Restructuring of thoughts is possible for a human being.

Still something is lacking. A human personality is more than personality characteristics, activities, and thoughts, or life-styles. Gordon Allport said that personality ‘is what lies behind specific acts and within the individual’ (Allport, 1937, p. 48). Therefore, we need other concepts and means of study to disclose changes in the concealed side of personality.

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