Teenage boys fighting, bullying and self-defense, violence, blurred background

Adolscent boys’ fighting is related to several poor adult outcomes

A new research article by Lars Roar Frøyland and Tilmann Von Soest finds that adolescent boys’ fighting is associated with several poor adult outcomes.

Lars Roar Frøyland and Tilmann Von Soest, from the Norwegian Social Research-institute NOVA, has recently published the article: “Adolescent boys’ physical fighting and adult life outcomes: Examining the interplay with intelligence”. The research article examines how physical fighting among adolescent boys is related to adult life success in several domains, and how intelligence influences these associations.

The study found that adolescent boys’ fighting was associated with poor adult outcomes in the domains of employment, education and criminal behavior. Detailed analyses on the interplay of physical fighting and intelligence showed that some parts of the associations between adolescent boys’ fighting and several unfortunate adult outcomes could be ascribed to lower intelligence among the fighters.

The researchers also found that intelligence moderated the relationship between physical fighting and adult education. Fighting was not related to educational achievement among boys with high intelligence, whereas boys with lower intelligence experienced negative effects of adolescent fighting. The analyses show the importance of considering adolescent boys’ physical fighting as a potential risk factor for future social marginalization.

The study used data from more than a thousand boys that participated in the population-based longitudinal Young in Norway Study, that followed adolescents from 1992 to 2015, by combining self-reports at four time points with comprehensive information from registers.

Source: Frøyland, L.R. & von Soest.,T.: Adolescent boys’ physical fighting and adult life outcomes: Examining the interplay with intelligence. Aggressive Behavior. DOI: 10.1002/ab.21871 (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)