hospital logs, and court records to examine the boys’ long-term outcomes.
Most of the boys who participated in the treatment recalled the program favorably. Similarly, most mentors believed that treatment had a positive impact on the boys’ lives. However, when McCord examined the objective data, she was shocked. “It was so surprising,” she said. “Everything was going in the wrong direction” (Zane, Welsh, & Zimmerman, 2017, p. 152).
McCord discovered that boys who received mentoring were more likely than controls to commit a felony, to develop substance use problems, or to manifest serious mental illness. Boys in the treatment group were also more likely than controls to have stress-related health problems, to report low job satisfaction, or to die at an earlier age. Indeed, 42% of boys who received mentoring experienced at least one of these “undesirable outcomes” compared to 32% of boys in the control group. The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study backfired; it increased the likelihood of behavior problems in children who received treatment. What went wrong?
McCord and colleagues discovered that boys who spent more unstructured time with other boys in the program were at greatest risk for having negative outcomes later in life. In particular, boys who attended summer camp once during the treatment program were only 1.3 times more likely than controls to develop conduct problems. In contrast, attending camp multiple times increased a boy’s likelihood of developing conduct problems 10-fold (Figure 1). The researchers concluded that boys talked about and reinforced each other’s delinquent behavior during camp. The more time they spent at camp, the greater their likelihood of antisocial behavior later in life (Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, 1999).
Discussion Questions
1 How does the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study illustrate the scientific principle of critical thinking?
2 Which of the four goals of psychological research did the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study try to achieve?
3 Was the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study’s design cross-sectional or longitudinal?
4 The researchers discovered that the effects of treatment on children’s outcomes depended on how many times they attended the summer camp. Boys who did not attend or attended the camp 1 time usually did not show undesirable outcomes, whereas boys who attended 2 or more times were at greater risk for undesirable outcomes. In this study, does “summer camp attendance” serve as a mediator or moderator variable?
5 What is the difference between random selection and random assignment? Which did the researchers use in the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study?
6 What were the independent and dependent variables in the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study?
7 What type of control group did the researchers use? What was one potential benefit of this type of control group?
8 What is attrition? How can it threaten the internal validity of a study? Was it a problem in the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study?
9 What is external validity? In what way is the external validity of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study limited?
10 What can the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study teach us about the causes of children’s disorders?
11 What can the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study teach us about the importance of psychological research, especially regarding the treatment of child and adolescent problems?
References
Dishion, T. J., McCord, J., & Poulin, F. (1999). When interventions harm. American Psychologist, 54, 755–764.
McCord, J. (2010). The Cambridge-Somerville study. In G. Sayre-McCord (Ed.), Crime and family (pp. 32–40). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Zane, S. N., Welsh, B. C., & Zimmerman, G. M. (2017). Examining the iatrogenic effects of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study. British Journal of Criminology, 56, 141–160.
This case study accompanies the textbook: Weis, R. (2021). Introduction to abnormal child and adolescent psychology (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Answers appear in the online instructor resources. Visit https://sagepub.com.
Descriptions of Images and Figures
Back to Figure
In the graph, x-axis shows the times attended summer camp as never, once, and twice plus, and y-axis shows the odds of an unfavourable outcome from 0 to 10 in increments of 2. The graph shows the following approximate data:
Never: 1
Once: 1.5
Twice plus: 10.
4 Assessing and Treating Children’s Problems
Case Study: Functional Analysis of Children’s Behavior
Functional analysis is an assessment method in which professionals identify the antecedents and consequences of children’s behavior problems. For each of these scenarios, explain how you might perform a functional analysis of behavior. Specifically, answer the following questions:
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How might you operationally define the behavior problem?
What might be an antecedent of the behavior? How might this antecedent elicit the behavior?
What might be a consequence of the behavior? How might this consequence reinforce the behavior and maintain it over time?
How might you intervene, either by altering the antecedent or consequence of the behavior?
1 You are a psychologist working in an elementary school. You have been asked by one of the teachers at the school to deal with a fifth-grade student who bullies other children. The teacher says the child’s behavior is getting worse and she is growing very frustrated with him.
2 You are a therapist assigned to work with an extremely shy 7-year-old girl. She refuses to go to school because she fears criticism from her teacher and classmates. She has no friends and only seems comfortable at home.
3 Your client is a 34-year-old woman with a disrespectful son. The boy never does what she says, deliberately defies her, throws tantrums, and ignores her commands. She reports considerable stress in her role as a mother. She loves her son but doesn’t enjoy spending time with him.
4 Your client is an 8-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder and below-average intellectual functioning. He attends a regular second-grade classroom with help from an aide. Several times each hour, the boy engages in stereotypies: rocking back and forth and flapping his arms. His stereotyped behaviors are disruptive and distract his classmates during lessons.
5 Your teenage client reports problems with depression that have lasted approximately 4 months. She feels sad and lethargic most of the time, has dropped out of her favorite activities like the school pep and jazz bands, has a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, and can’t concentrate on her schoolwork. She wants antidepressant medication and is furious when she finds out that you can’t prescribe it because you’re a psychologist and not a “real doctor.”
6 You are a family therapist. One of your clients is a couple who has been married for 6 years. They have two young children. The wife complains that her husband doesn’t listen to her or appreciate her. The husband complains that his wife is emotionally distant and frigid. They each say that the other one is argumentative. They are seeing you as a last-ditch effort before divorce.
This case study accompanies the textbook: Weis, R. (2021). Introduction to abnormal child and adolescent psychology (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Answers appear in the online instructor resources. Visit https://sagepub.com.