What was the researchers question? Can childhood abuse cause antisocial personality disorder?
Cathy Widom (1989) decided to perform a prospective quasi-experimental design by first finding cases of childhood abuse, then looking for the effects of that abuse on adult behavior. How did the researchers answer the question? Wisdom identified 416 adults whose backgrounds included official records of childhood physical or sexual abuse before age eleven. Next, she selected a control group of 283 people who matched the abused group in age, gender, ethnicity, hospital of birth, schools attended, and area of residence. All study participants were interviewed and their school and police records were examined. What did the researchers find? Results found that compared to members of the control group, people in the abused group were more likely to have committed juvenile crimes, to have been arrested as adults, and to have committed violent crimes. The abused group showed a significantly higher rate of antisocial personality disorder than the control group. Failure to graduate from high sch
