Social-Cognitive Mechanisms in Antisocial

Social-cognitive processes such as hostile-attribution biases and problem solving have been hypothesized to mediate chil-dren’s development of antisocial behavior, and substantial empirical support for this hypothesis has come from prospec-tive correlational studies (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006). These findings have compelled interventionists to improve young children’s social-cognitive processes in order to indi-rectly prevent adolescent delinquent behavior (e.g., Raver et al., 2011). Although several interventions have yielded promising effects, surprisingly few empirical studies have tested the underlying premise of this hypothesis, namely, that positive intervention effects are mediated by children’s social-cognitive processes. It is plausible that intervention effects are mediated through alternate mechanisms, such as placebo, aca-demic gains, or environmental scaffolding of opportunity. In the current study, our goal was to test the hypothesis that the Fast Track intervention’s positive effects on adolescent antisocial behavior are mediated by intervention effects on social-cognitive processes. Because a randomized controlled trial represents an experimental manipulation, this study also constitutes a methodologically rigorous test of the social-cognitive model of the development of antisocial behavior