Personality, delinquency, and substance use in adolescence

The adolescent population continues to show problematic engagement with negative behaviors, in particular delinquency and substance use (Stein & Graham, 2001). Emerging new models of psychopathology provide different perspectives on the etiology and course of these dysfunctional behavioral patterns. In the current study, we will be examining delinquency and substance use in a community sample and correlate these dimensional constructs assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – Adolescent – Restructured Form. In the following sections, the prevalence and current research on these problematic behaviors will be reviewed followed by a presentation of the emerging models of psychopathology on which the MMPI-A-RF is based