Externalizing and Antisocial Behavior Across the Lifespan

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, approaches to psychopathology have provided ambitious dimensional frameworks for facing the complexity of externalizing and antisocial behaviour (e.g., the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP), the DSM-S Alternative Model of Personality Disorders, Research Domain Criteria). Indeed, diagnostic-level research has unveiled a high co-occurrence of substance-related disorders, behavioural addictions (e.g., gambling, gaming), attention-deficit–hyperactivity disorder, antisocial behaviour, aggression, conduct disorder, impulse control disorder, and disinhibited personality disorders (e.g., psychopathy, narcissism, borderline). According to the HiTOP framework, the externalizing factor of psychopathology, directly flowing from the general factor of psychopathology (or p factor), aggregates coherent phenotypic and etiologic dispositions, shared neural correlates, temperamental antecedents, and outcomes among these disorders. While exciting developments in dimensional models of psychopathology have helped to build the foundation for a new way to approach externalizing and antisocial behaviour, there is still much work to be done.

This Special Issue is intended to showcase studies that add unique insights into externalizing and antisocial behaviour. Examples include, but are not limited to, studies that examine:

1. A wide variety of age groups (some of them understudied, such as young children or late life) to better understand the expression of externalizing and antisocial behaviour across the lifespan;
2. Gender and sex and cross-cultural variations in the expression of externalizing and antisocial behaviour;
3. Impact, challenges, and outcomes of externalizing and antisocial behaviour at different levels (e.g., society, forensic settings, organizations, romantic relationships, online interactions, etc.);
4. Comorbidity within the externalizing spectrum, especially considering disinhibited and antagonistic-antisocial expressions;
5. Heterogeneity in antisocial expressions (e.g., physical/non-physical, impulsive/premeditated, and relational aggression, fraud, bullying, etc.);
6. Traits and dimensions highly relevant to externalizing and antisocial behaviour (e.g., impatient urgency, low planful control, low dependability, alienation, boredom proneness, blame externalization, low honesty, rebelliousness, low empathy, and danger seeking);
7. Genetic, biological, and contextual factors that may influence or be indicators of antisocial and externalizing manifestations (e.g., brain dysfunction, developmental factors, exposure to aggression, peer influence, etc.);
8. Affective and cognitive mechanisms that may underlie externalizing and antisocial manifestations (e.g., hostility bias, emotion processing and regulation, executive functioning, etc.);
9. Risk and protective factors of externalizing and antisocial behaviour, with implications for prevention and intervention;
10. Efficacy of interventions targeting externalizing and antisocial behaviours.

Dr. Rita Pasion
Dr. Carlos Campos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• behavioral sciences
• assessment
• intervention
• development
• antisocial behaviour
• aggression
• impulsivity
• psychopathology
• personality