The University of New Orleans has received a 2-year $275,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate neurobiological underpinnings of antisocial behavior in incarcerated adolescent girls. Researchers will examine sex and stress hormones which may provide insight into why girls are at increasing risk for antisocial behavior.
National statistics show that crime levels in boys peaked during the mid-1990s and have plummeted since then. While crime rates are lower for girls, those rates show a steady upward trend. The study will examine incarcerated girls and compare them to a recently completed study of incarcerated boys in order to look at severe antisocial behavior (such as delinquency, crime, aggression and violence) in both sexes. Researchers will investigate sex and stress hormones as a mechanism for understanding antisocial behavior because, developmentally, these hormones rise at exactly the same point in time that girls’ antisocial behavior increases.
UNO psychology professor Birdie Shirtcliff is the principal investigator on the project. Fellow psychology professors Monica Marsee, Paul Frick and Carl Weems are co-investigators.
“A big challenge for the field is that, typically, girls are substantially less antisocial than boys, so all of our models for antisocial behavior are built on a model designed for boys,” Shirtcliff said. “The possibility that girls with equally severe antisocial behavior are different, or similar, is unexplored. The likelihood that girls are different is very high, considering the fact that they have such different rates of antisocial behavior, different ages of onset of crime and types of crime.”
According to Shirtcliff, the working model is that early life adversity may change sex and stress hormones and, in doing so, increases the likelihood for antisocial behavior. Researchers will try to illustrate that reducing early adversity will have a sustained impact on decreasing antisocial behavior in adolescents.