Mapping persistence and change in psychological problems during the transition to adolescence: Adding, subtracting, shifting, and persisting

Background: Recent developmental models posited that general tendencies to exhibit psychological problems are relatively stable, but specific problems change frequently. We need comprehensive descriptions of persistence and change in psychological problems before advancing such theories, however.

Methods: Data from four annual assessments of 9806 children (ages 9–10 years at baseline) in the Adolescent Behavior Cognitive Development Study™ were used to quantify persistence and change in each of 10 parent-rated specific psychological problems.

Results: Novel pairwise analyses revealed that the persistence of psychological problems over 1–3 years was common, but behavior change in the sense that problem x₁ at baseline desisted and was replaced by a new problem y₂ at follow-up was uncommon. The only relatively common changes in behavior over time involved adding a new problem (i.e., x₁ at baseline followed by x₂ + y₂ at follow-up) or subtracting a problem (i.e., x₁ + y₁ at baseline followed by only y₂ at follow-up).

Conclusions: If confirmed across other measures and developmental epochs, these findings challenge a key postulate of current theories that the developmental course of psychological problems involves frequent replacement of one problem by another.