A shared pathway of antisocial risk: A path model of parent and child effects

•There is substantial stability in antisocial traits in parents and children over time.•Child risk predicted parent risk to a greater degree at earlier stages of the life course.•Parental risk and child risk influenced each other to a similar degree at a later life stage.•Parents and children appear to have a shared pathway of antisocial risk.

PurposeThe current study explores the possibility that the antisocial traits and behaviors of parents and children have persistent, bidirectional effects on each other that contribute to a pathway of shared risk.MethodWe employ data from the Early Longitudinal Child Survey, Kindergarten (ECLS-K), a national, longitudinal study of children. Path analysis was used to test our hypothesis.ResultsThe results suggest that there is substantial stability in antisocial traits of parents and children over time. While only child risk was found to predict parent risk during early childhood, both parent risk and child risk influenced each other from late childhood to early adolescence.ConclusionsStability in the antisocial traits and behaviors of parents and their children is a function of both parent-driven and child-driven effects over time, with child and parenting effects being differentially relevant depending on the life stage examined.