• Corpus ID: 13828372

Family and individual characteristics of a community sample of adolescents who graffiti

@inproceedings{Martin2003FamilyAI,
  title={Family and individual characteristics of a community sample of adolescents who graffiti},
  author={Graham Martin and Angela S Richardson and Helen A. Bergen and Leigh Roeger and Steve Allison},
  year={2003}
}

• G. Martin, Angela S Richardson, +2 authors S. Allison
• Published 2003
• Psychology, Medicine

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the covariates of graffiti behaviour in adolescents and to determine the independence of graffiti behaviour from antisocial behaviour. Method: Two thousand, six hundred and three adolescents from a community sample completed the Youth Assessment Checklist, which measured perceived academic performance, family general functioning, parental care, overprotection and criticism, suicide thoughts and behaviours and a number of psychological factors (eg. depression), and behaviours (eg. antisocial behaviour and drug use). The differences between these variables for both boys and girls were examined in four group comparisons: (1) graffiti versus no graffiti; (2) low antisocial behaviour with graffiti versus low antisocial behaviour without graffiti; (3) serious antisocial behaviour with graffiti and serious antisocial behaviour without graffiti; (4) extreme antisocial behaviour with graffiti and serious antisocial behaviour without graffiti. Results: Significant differences for both girls and boys were found between the graffiti and nograffiti groups on all variables measured. For some variables, significant differences in both boys and girls were found between each of the antisocial behaviour (low, serious and extreme) with graffiti and antisocial behaviour (low, serious and extreme) without graffiti groups. Conclusion: Results suggest that adolescent who graffiti are likely to also experience a number of other family, parental, behavioural, and psychological problems. Clinicians may need to ask an adolescent about graffiti even if they present only with low levels of antisocial behaviour.